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November 24, 2007 

Suicide bomb kills 9 Afghans, Italian soldier
By Samar Zwak Sat Nov 24, 4:55 AM ET
KABUL (Reuters) - A suicide bomb on the outskirts of the Afghan capital Kabul on Saturday killed nine civilians, four of them children, and an Italian soldier, the Italian army said.

The hardline Islamist Taliban have killed at least 200 civilians in more than 140 suicide attacks so far this year in their campaign to oust the pro-Western Afghan government and eject the more than 50,000 foreign troops from the country.

The bomber targeted Italian troops at a bridge construction project in the Paghman district, just outside the city.

The Afghan government "strongly condemns this brutal attack which is against humanity, Islam and the stability of Afghanistan," the Afghan Interior Ministry said in a statement.

Four Italian soldiers were wounded in the attack and one of them died on his way to hospital, the Italian army said.

The Italians were working on a bridge and many people had gathered around to watch, a senior police official said.

"My brother was covered with blood and I saw a huge cloud of smoke rising and when I put my hand to my head and I realized I was also wounded," said Hanifa, a small girl, as she was carried to an ambulance.

Italian soldiers cordoned off the scene.

Italy has nearly 2,400 soldiers in Afghanistan as part of ISAF, most of them in the west of the country. But Italy also has troops in Kabul involved in reconstruction and development projects meant to win Afghan 'hearts and minds'.

Afghanistan has witnessed steadily escalating violence since the Taliban relaunched their insurgency two years ago. Since then, more than 7,000 people have been killed.
(Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi; Writing by Jon Hemming; Editing by John Chalmers)
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Afghan security forces recapture district
(AFP) 24 November 2007 via Khaleej Times
HERAT, Afghanistan - Afghan forces and foreign troops recaptured a district Saturday that had been taken by Taleban militants twice in the past month, officials said, accusing police of abandoning the area in fear.

Afghan police and army teamed up with soldiers from NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to take back remote Gulistan district in the western province of Farah around noon, provincial governor Mohaiyudin Baluch told AFP.

‘There was no fighting. The Taleban did not resist and left the area,’ he said.

The rebels first took Gulistan on October 29, killing seven civilians and a policeman. Afghan and ISAF forces drove them out 10 days later.

The insurgents however moved back in Friday with no resistance.

A defence ministry official said that authorities had left 250 police in the district after reclaiming it earlier this month.

However the official, speaking under cover of anonymity, said that ‘as soon as the ISAF contingent and ANA (Afghan National Army) forces left the area, the police force also left the district in fear.

‘The Taleban came and claimed control.’

The extremist Taleban movement were in government between 1996 and 2001 and are trying to take back power.

They claim to ‘capture’ remote districts from time to time but are easily ejected by Afghan forces backed by the superior ISAF, which has about 40,000 soldiers in this country.

Musa Qala, a district in Helmand province that neighbours Farah, has however been in rebel hands for months.

A report released Wednesday by a European think-thank, The Senlis Council, claimed that insurgents controlled vast areas of Afghanistan.

This was dismissed as baseless by the chief ISAF spokesman, Brigadier General Carlos Branco.

‘They control not more than a handful of districts, even less,’  he told AFP Friday, adding these were ‘very small pockets without territorial continuity.’

The police are regarded as the weakest of the security forces in Afghanistan but are in some of the most vulnerable areas. They are also the most often attacked, with about 700 killed this year.
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Afghanistan: China's Winning Bid For Copper Rights Includes Power Plant, Railroad
By Ron Synovitz
November 24, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- Afghanistan has awarded a state-owned company in China with the right to develop a large copper field to the south of Kabul, following two years of bidding.

China Metallurgical Group agreed to invest billions of dollars in the project and related infrastructure development -- including the construction of a coal-fired electrical power plant and what would be Afghanistan's first freight railway.

By the estimates of some geologists, deposits at Afghanistan's Aynak copper field in Logar Province make it the world's largest undeveloped copper field.

The deal gives China Metallurgical Group the right to extract high-quality copper from the area south of Kabul.

Developing Infrastructure

But the Aynak copper field has neither the electrical power nor access to the transportation links needed to fully develop the area as a copper mine.

Afghan Mining Minister Ibrahim Adel says the Chinese company has agreed to invest nearly $3 billion in order to set up mining operations and overcome the lack of basic infrastructure.

"With this mining project at the Aynak copper field, we will have about $2.8 billion of direct investment," Adel said. "About $500 million will be invested in building an electrical power plant. And a large amount of money also will be invested in building a railroad. This is one of the biggest foreign investment projects in the history of Afghanistan."

Khozman Ulumi, a spokesman for the Afghan Mining Ministry, told RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan that preliminary plans call for a railroad link from Tajikistan to the copper field and on to Pakistan.

Ulumi said the coal-fired power plant to be built near the copper field would produce more than enough electricity to run the mine. He says excess electricity would be routed to Kabul, where most residents now have electricity for only a few hours per day -- if at all.

"They are working to generate up to 400 megawatts of electricty from coal. When this project is completed, God willing, some 5,000 people will be working at the power plant adjacent to the copper mine," Ulumi said.

Another 5,000 people -- mostly Afghan workers led by a few Chinese experts -- are expected to be employed in the mining operations and as construction workers on the railroad.

Ulumi said the Chinese firm expects to start full mining operations in about six years, after work on the power plant and railroad are completed.

Winning Bid

The Chinese offer beat out bids by four other firms that were considered finalists. They include Strikeforce -- part of Russia's Basic Element Group, the London-based Kazakhmys Consortium, Hunter Dickinson of Canada, and the U.S. copper-mining firm Phelps Dodge.

China Metallurgical Group's bid surprised many analysts in Kabul who expected the tender to be awarded for less than $2 billion.

But Adel said the latest estimates suggest there are at least 13 million tons of copper waiting to be mined from the Aynak field. He said that with further exploration, those estimates could rise to 20 million tons before full-scale mining operations begin. And at current prices, he said the value of copper at Aynak would be about $30 billion.

But industry experts say the venture could be risky for the Chinese company. They say the same obstacles that prevented Anyak from being developed during the last 30 years also could prevent China Metallurgical Group from meeting its production goals there.

Years of war in Afghanistan have ensured that the deposit has remained largely untouched since Soviet geologists surveyed the field in 1979.

And although the mine is in a relatively secure part of Afghanistan, the railroad and electric power lines would be difficult to defend around the clock from guerrilla attacks by Taliban militants.

That makes the Aynak deal a litmus test for other possible foreign investors -- not just of about how Afghanistan deals with international investors, but also about the security that the Afghan central government can provide for high-profile foreign investment projects.
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Afghan madrassas face tough times
Computers gather dust as government project to modernize Islamic education hits snags
Nov 24, 2007 04:30 AM Mitch Potter Toronto Star
KABUL–One Afghan madrassa has computers but no electricity, another has occasional electricity but no computers. Between them, there is one generator for solving the problem – but not a drop of fuel or money to buy more.

Welcome to the harsh reality of the fledgling Afghan government's project to modernize Islamic education across the nation, a work-in-progress intended to staunch the flow of impressionable young minds to madrassas in Pakistan, where many fear a process of Talibanization awaits.

On paper at least, President Hamid Karzai's education ministry planners speak highly of the transformation of Islamic learning throughout Afghanistan.

Over the past year, they say, each of the country's 34 provinces has seen the establishment of at least one Darl al-Aloum – de facto mega-madrassas, where as many as 6,000 Afghan students pore over a curriculum that marries Islamic tradition with contemporary studies, all under the watchful eye of government inspectors.

"The old curriculum was 500 years old, consisting of purely Islamic studies taught by mullahs with no knowledge of the modern world," said Daiul Haq Abid, head of the government's Islamic Education project.

"The new curriculum is based on the concept of 40 per cent religious instruction, 40 per cent maths and sciences, plus 20 per cent English and computer studies.

The dream is to create madrassas that graduate students who are connected to the modern world, rather than isolated from it.

Pivotal to the project, which involves $70 million of investment for infrastructure alone, is a tripling of the paltry salaries for instructors, with the pay grade now topping out at 15,000 afghanis, or $300, a month.

But even at Kabul's flagship mega-madrassa, Darl al-Aloum Arabi, those paper plans have yet to be lifted out of the box, according to principal Abdul Salaam Abid.

"I know when I speak to the media I am supposed to be enthusiastic about all of this. That is what you want to hear, isn't it?" Abid, 36, told the Toronto Star in an interview this week.

"Sorry, I cannot do that. The truth is we have been waiting eight months for the salary increase and it has not arrived. We received 10 computers, but we were only able to turn them on to see that they functioned before the electricity supply died.

"We have a generator but no fuel or funds to buy fuel, so the computers just gather dust."

Abid reaches across his desk for the new curriculum, crafted after a fact-finding mission to Jordan last winter involving more than 40 Afghan educators, with the support of UNESCO and USAID, the foreign donation branch of the American government.

He has yet to receive any textbooks to support it, so his 750 students still consume the tried-and-true diet of old – a purely Islamic syllabus based on what Abid describes as "good Islamic personalities" of the past.

In conversation with Abid and other Islamic scholars in the Afghan capital, it is clear the problem is not strictly a question of resources.

It also involves deep suspicion of the Karzai government – and by extension, the international community.

If they are peripherally worried about the danger of Afghan students drifting across the border to become radicalized in Pakistan, they are far more concerned about the overall demonization of the word madrassa.

"The old curriculum emphasizes peace, love and proper behaviour – on both sides of the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan," said Abid.

"We resent this violent image that has been painted. If there are a very small number of schools that are being used for political purposes in Pakistan, it has nothing to do with Islam. It is too easy to point fingers this way."

Such sensitivities are no surprise to Western diplomats stationed in the capital, who note that the Karzai government is continually buffeted by accusations it is working in cahoots with foreign donors to dilute the deep-seated cultural conservatism that binds the country's disparate mix of ethnic Pashtun, Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara populations, 99 per cent of which is Muslim.

A case in point arose this week when the government was prompted by opposition anger to issue a warning to Tolo Television station after the independent outlet broadcast a concert by the Colombian pop starlet Shakira.

Although the station took the extreme measure of "pixillating," or blurring, Shakira's plunging neckline, the televised grinding of hips was no match for the outraged grinding of axes that followed.

"You can understand the fears of Afghans because they already lived through the Soviet occupation, which tried to impose a wave of social engineering," a Western diplomat told the Star.

"So it is easy for them to see the foreign effort today as representing a new wave of social engineering, especially when it involves messing with the madrassas – and particularly when Karzai's critics are pouring out the propaganda, painting him as a patsy for Western cultural influence."

Government officials acknowledge the challenge, but insist that madrassa reform is a critical element of the project to stabilize Afghanistan.

"It is true we still have huge challenges in our madrassas: a lack of books, a lack of facilities, a lack of quality instructors, a lack of overall management," said Abid, the education ministry overseer.

"But we are making progress and the best evidence of that is that the Taliban is jealous of what we are doing. To them, everyone involved in a government-sponsored madrassa is a non-Muslim and in the past year they have attacked us viciously, killing 35 instructors and injuring another 34 in various attacks across Afghanistan.

"That is a terrible toll. But it means we are having an impact. Every student we maintain in our system is a student removed from the reach of the Taliban."

Sayed Noorullah Murad, Afghanistan's deputy minister of religious affairs, said the fledgling madrassa reform project is unlikely to have a major impact until it reaches beyond the provincial capitals and begins to have an impact on the hundreds of smaller religious schools that dot the rural landscape.

"The level of illiteracy in many rural areas of Afghanistan means the population is blind. And the level of education for the rural mullahs is such that even they don't know how to explain true Islam," said Murad.

"The result is that we have the blind teaching the blind. Yet, at the same time, we have a population where a significant number of poor families prefer their children receive a religious education.

"So that is the scale of what we are up against, and the answer lies in not only a better quality curriculum, but more importantly, better quality instructors.

"Frankly, it is going to take years. We need to proceed very carefully, because the rural communities are nothing if not traditional – and traditional communities resist change."
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Afghanistan in need of another 25,000 police, more training and weapons
Pravda - Nov 23 2:31 PM
Afghanistan needs another 25,000 police, plus more training and weapons, to prevent terrorists from using it as a base to prepare attacks.
 
"Police are the key to this war," Brig. Gen. Robert Livingston said during a teleconference from Kabul.

"We need police just like we have police at home - that a bad buy can't walk around the neighborhood without bumping into a policeman or without somebody telling a policeman something's going on that's wrong," he said.

Livingston's comments came the same day Taliban militants beheaded seven policemen after overrunning their checkpoints in southern Afghanistan. Six other police officers were missing after the Taliban attacked checkpoints in Arghandab district, said one police officer.

Some of Afghanistan's 57,000 police officers are well-trained and have modern weapons, but there is still more mentoring and training to do, said Livingston, commander of 7,000 military men and women in the Combined Joint Task Force Phoenix.

Livingston said the Afghanistan National Army stands at 55,000 and should reach its goal of 70,000 by the end of next year. Afghan soldiers are fighting beside coalition forces - taking the lead in many operations around the country - and some units will be independent by spring, he said.

"We still have a long ways to go, but we see an amazing transformation that is accelerating," he said.
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NATO soldier dies in vehicle accident in S Afghanistan 
www.chinaview.cn  2007-11-24 15:23:38
KABUL, Nov. 24 (Xinhua) -- A soldier from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) died Saturday morning from injuries sustained in a vehicle-rollover Friday night in southern Afghan province of Wardak, said an ISAF statement on Saturday.

The soldier was medically evacuated to an ISAF treatment facility in Khost province where he died, the statement said.

"Our respectful condolences go to the family, friends and colleagues of this brave soldier who lost his life while supporting ISAF's mission," said Brig. Gen. Carlos Branco, the ISAF spokesman.

The incident is under investigation, said the statement.

In accordance with ISAF policy, the name and nationality of the deceased is being withheld pending notification of next-of-kin.

The Taliban, removed from power by the U.S. invasion in late 2001, has waged insurgency against Afghan administration and the international troops deployed in the country.

Rising militancy-related violent incidents have killed over 5,800 people so far this year in the war-torn Afghanistan.
Editor: Wang Hongjiang 
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Corruption, bribes and trafficking: a cancer that is engulfing Afghanistan
Anthony Loyd in Kabul From The Times (UK) November 24, 2007
The general made an elementary mistake. Told by his superiors that his new posting as chief of police in a drug-rich northern province would cost him “one hundred and fifty thousand”, he assumed the bribe to be in Afghan currency.

He paid the money to a go-between at a rendezvous in Kabul’s Najib Zarab carpet market. For two days he was lorded in the office of General Azzam, then Chief of Staff to the Interior Minister, helping himself to chocolate and biscuits. “I must have eaten a pound of the stuff,” he recalled.

But on the third day he received a different welcome. “Get this mother****** out of my office,” Azzam screamed, said the general. Hustled outside, he quickly discovered his error. He should have paid $150,000 (£73,000) rather than a paltry 150,000 Afghanis for the bung.

Now living in disgruntled internal exile in northern Afghanistan, his verdict on his former employers is succinct.

“Everyone in the Ministry of Interior is corrupt,” he told The Times. “They wouldn’t sleep with their wives without wanting a backhander first.”

He never, though, expressed surprise. Governmental corruption in Afghanistan has become endemic and bribes to secure police and administrative positions along provincial drug routes is an established procedure.

“The British public would be up in arms if they knew that the district appointments in the south for which British soldiers are dying are there just to protect drug routes,” said one analyst. Western and Afghan officials are also alarmed at how narco-kleptocracy has extended its grip around President Karzai, a figure regarded by some as increasingly isolated by a cadre of corrupt officials.

“The people around him tell him of a cuckoo land,” said Shukria Barakzai, a Pashtun MP who is both a friend and critic of Karzai. “He circles within a small mafia ring who are supporting the destruction of the system. At the beginning there were only 10 to 15 of them but since then they have spread like a cancer in Afghanistan.”

The Ministry of Interior, key to establishing security in the country, remains the worst offender. Disaffected police officers have named, to The Times, General Azzam, recently appointed Chief of Operations after his stint as Chief of Staff, and his deputy General Reshad as the prime recipients of bribes.

The lawmen say they categorise Afghanistan’s 34 provinces as A, B or C states. ‘A’ denotes those with the highest potential profits for drug-running; ‘C’ states are the least remunerative. The bribes to buy a position in an A-grade province can be vast, up to $300,000. The rewards are even bigger. One border police commander in eastern Afghanistan was estimated by counter-narcotic officials to take home $400,000 a month from heroin smuggling.

This summer a border police vehicle was stopped outside Kabul and found to have 123.5kg of heroin, with a value of nearly $300,000, bagged in the back. The five men inside, an officer, three policemen and a secretary, were under the command of Haji Zahir, formerly Border Police commander of Nangarhar province. Haji Zahir was questioned and removed from his post. He was never charged.

Even the lowlier posts in provinces free of poppy traffic have a price. “To buy a position as a detective in any province you pay $10,000,” explained one police colonel, now on indefinite leave because he refused to pay a bribe. “Then you pay your superior a cut of the money you make through bribes or trafficking.”

One former governor told The Times that every judge in his province had been corrupt. He claimed there were cases of the police handing detainees to the Taleban, or helping to transport Taleban commanders from one province to another.

“The Government has essentially collapsed,” he said. “It has lost its meaning in the provinces, it has lost the security situation and lost its grip on civil servants. Corruption is playing havoc with the country.”

The international community has played its own part in contributing to the crisis. One analyst in Kabul said: “It’s not Afghan culture. It’s a culture of impunity. We created it. We came in in 2001 with cases of cash and made certain people untouchables.”

The dozens of drug-funded villas — “narcotechture” in expat parlance — that have sprung up around foreign embassies in Kabul’s Sherpur district are a testament to the untouchable status of former warlords.

Corruption among police and local authorities is worst in southern Afghanistan, where drug profits are highest. Despite his repeated public denials, President Karzai’s half-brother Wali, head of Kandahar’s provincial council, continues to be accused by senior government sources, as well as foreign analysts and officials, as having a key role in orchestrating the movement of heroin from Kandahar eastward through Helmand and out across the Iranian border.

Britain has been keen for Kabul to begin arresting top drug smugglers in its ranks. Yet diplomats fear the country’s judicial system is so weak that the men would quickly be released or escape. Meanwhile, America has been lacklustre in lobbying for high-level arrests, fearing such detentions would further destabilise matters.

The Afghan Government fears that if corrupt officials in the south were replaced by staunch law enforcers, the huge profits from heroin trafficking would end up with the Taleban.

Kabul has, though, made efforts. A new agency, the directorate of local government (IDLG), was supposed to give the President rather than the Ministry of Interior more say over the appointment of provincial governors, a system notorious for its corrupt procedures. However, many of the IDLG staff were simply transferred from the Interior Ministry, tainting its potential from the start. Afghan anti-corruption agencies similarly lack cohesion and clout. Izzatullah Wasifi, director of Afghanistan’s GIAAC anti-corrution force, said he had been unable to brief President Karzai even once during the past 11 months.

His own force is already under suspicion from rival anti-corruption players in the offices of the Attorney-General and the Ministry of Finance, who in turn face allegations of embezzlement and bribery. Wasifi did time in an American penitentiary 20 years ago for dealing heroin. “You expect my guys to be clean working for $200 a month versus the millions in drug bribes?” he asked. “I don’t see any serious measures being taken to solve the problem.”
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Afghan teacher describes the risks
Albany second-grade class learns what it's like to grow up in a culture of insurgents and terror
By Lisa Fernandez Contra Costa Times November 23, 2007
The words she chose weren't the typical way to begin a second-grade presentation.

"I come from a country where there are wars and blood," Fatema, a 36-year-old educator from Afghanistan, told the rapt 7-year-olds last week. "The Taliban are people who believe girls shouldn't go to school."

Girls shouldn't go to school?

The children, who sat cross-legged on a rug in an Albany classroom, couldn't believe what they were hearing. The second-graders fired questions at Fatema: Why doesn't the Taliban want girls to be educated? How much money would it take to get girls back in school? Do children have playgrounds in Afghanistan?

What Fatema didn't tell the children about was her campaign to educate girls in Afghanistan and even her tour of the United States to highlight the problems that endanger her and her family. The resurgent Taliban -- the fundamentalist Muslim group that once ruled Afghanistan with an iron fist -- have left threatening letters on her husband's car.

Her hair covered in a simple chador, or loose veil, as is Muslim tradition, Fatema tried her best to educate a class full of American children about what it's like to be a child in Afghanistan and study in a tent with no books to read.

"You are so lucky," she told Kerry Dunigan's class at Marin Elementary School, just one of her stops of mostly private gatherings in the Bay Area on her first visit to the United States.

Fatema, who asked that only her first name be used because of the Taliban threats, also visited schools and homes in Hayward and San Francisco.

She had hoped to meet with Afghan leaders in Fremont, which a large population of Afghan emigres now calls home, but scheduling difficulties made that impossible, said Humaira Ghilzai of San Francisco, president of Afghan Friends Network, which organized and paid for Fatema's Bay Area trip. Afghan Friends Network has a membership and donor base of about 700 people, Ghilzai said, including "Kite Runner" author Khaled Hosseini of San Jose.

"We wanted her here to have her share what it's like to be an educator," said Ghilzai, who was born in Afghanistan and moved to the Bay Area in 1979 after the Russian invasion. "And to have her story told first-person. We hardly ever get that kind of opportunity."

Fatema, who also didn't want the name of her province or other identifying factors broadcast in the media, said the Taliban leave "Night Letters" on her husband's car threatening to kill her or kidnap her six children because she is considered a leading educator in her country. She used to run secret underground girls schools when the Taliban were officially in power before 2001. And in the past two years, she said, the secret and abusive factions of the Taliban are again strong -- and growing. The Afghan constitution allows for boys and girls to study but, in reality, the Taliban make equal education increasingly difficult and dangerous, she said.

Fatema told only her immediate family that she was flying to New York -- her first time on a plane -- for a world gathering Nov. 8 at UNESCO -- the education branch of the United Nations. She told the rest of the townspeople that she was at a "teacher workshop in Kabul." She said she spoke for about 10 minutes at UNESCO's unprecedented international gathering called "Educators Under Attack," convened for an Afghan teacher who was killed in September 2006.

She gave them a personal account of how her 9-year-old daughter studies in a tent, with only a blanket and no heater, in the winter. She told them of the colleagues who have been killed and the students injured by the Taliban. The UNESCO gathering also invited educators from Colombia, Iraq, Myanmar, Nepal and Thailand.

But Afghanistan leads the pack in atrocities, according to the UNESCO report. In 2006, militants killed 85 students and teachers and destroyed 187 schools in Afghanistan. In the same year, Human Rights Watch documented 190 bombings, arsons and shootings on teachers and students in Afghanistan, up from 91 in 2005.

It's also the small differences for Fatema between classrooms in Afghanistan and classrooms in the Bay Area that define the vast gaps in educational systems.

While touring Marin Elementary, Fatema marveled at what many here take for granted: the colorful murals on the walls -- and even the walls themselves, which many schools don't even have. Schools simply mean hundreds of children sitting outside trying to learn without books or computers.

Fatema also said the children in Afghanistan don't start school until they're 7, and then they're dropped off in a classroom of 70 students, with no preschool or kindergarten preparation. Many of the children are poorly behaved and certainly can't read. She was impressed with Ghilzai's 5-year-old, Sofia, who attends school in San Francisco and can already print her letters and sound out words.

"I'm just so impressed at how she is so young and can already think and use her mind," Fatema said. "When I think about how far away we are, using computers and the Internet, we're at least a century away from where you are in this country."
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Afghan bottled-water market tapped by foreign and domestic firms
Andrew Mayeda and Mike Blanchfield , CanWest News Service Thursday, November 22, 2007
KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan -- Each time a Canadian soldier brushes his teeth, he is under strict orders: don't use the tap water.

Instead, soldiers tramp outside in their flip-flops to a pallet stacked with bottles of water, which they use to wet their toothbrushes and rinse their mouths.

NATO authorities are so worried about contamination from the local water supply that the food-services contractor must ensure it can provide roughly six one-litre bottles a day to every person on base.

With more than 10,000 soldiers and support staff at Kandahar Airfield, the multinational base that serves as home to most of Canada's 2,500 troops in Afghanistan, that works out to nearly 22 million bottles of water a year. It offers entrepreneurs a profitable opportunity and is a niche that several Afghan companies have exploited.

The trend is not confined to military bases. Elsewhere in Afghanistan, foreign government officials and aid workers also tend to drink nothing but bottled water, resulting in a business modestly worth more than $100 million.

It is no wonder that, in the six years since the fall of the Taliban, the bottled-water market has grown from virtually nothing into a thriving business, making plastic water bottles a nearly ubiquitous sight in the more developed parts of the country.

The industry's emergence exemplifies the unexpected opportunities the war has created for foreign and domestic entrepreneurs, while underscoring the inability of the Afghan government to build the infrastructure to provide even the most basic public services.

While Afghanistan actually has more than enough water resources to supply its people, the United Nations Development Program indicates less than one in four Afghans has access to safe drinking water. The situation is particularly dire in rural areas, where access drops to 18 per cent of the population.

Water deposits are especially rich around the country's central Hindu Kush mountain range and river systems to the north, said David Banks, a British hydrogeology consultant who has studied Afghanistan's water supply.

"The water resources, particularly the groundwater resources, of Afghanistan are huge," said Banks.

But decades of war, mismanagement and neglect have left the country without the infrastructure necessary to harness those resources.

Industry insiders say the flood of bottled water into the country began in 2001, after the defeat of the Taliban by U.S.-led forces.

"The locals drink the local water. They're not the bottled-water drinkers," said Cecil Galloway, operations director of Afghan Beverage Industries (ABI), an Afghan-owned company that opened a bottling plant in Kabul last year. The company produces a water brand called Cristal.

"You've got your expat community, which drinks bottled water. You've got your Afghans who have grown up outside of Afghanistan and have now come back -- they will drink bottled water. Your more affluent local Afghans -- it's because of the status -- they will start leaning toward bottled water."

At first, foreign suppliers, mostly from neighbouring Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates, dominated the market. The biggest player initially was Nestle Pakistan, a subsidiary of the Swiss food and beverage giant Nestle. The company did not reply to an interview request.

But this year the government imposed a hefty 40 per cent tariff on bottled-water importers in an effort to encourage domestic producers.

Development agencies believe nurturing local industry is crucial to breaking the country's dependency on foreign aid. An NGO based in Ottawa, Peace Dividend Trust, has launched a project that encourages international agencies and companies to "buy Afghan first."

By linking international buyers with Afghan companies, the organization has facilitated about $46 million US in contracts with domestic businesses since September 2006, said Shirine Pont, Peace Dividend's country director in Afghanistan. The organization has also convinced the U.S. military and NATO to revise their procurement policies to emphasize buying local.

The strategy has had some success in the bottled-water industry. Last year, ABI became the first Afghan company to win a contract to supply bottled water with the U.S. military.

"The playing field is very level now," said Galloway. "Now we can talk about competitive pricing. Before, we were just blown out of the water. We couldn't compare."

At its new $26-million US plant on the outskirts of Kabul, ABI can churn out 13,000 half-litre bottles per hour.

The company gets its water from three wells on premises, drilled about 160 metres deep.

The plant boasts state-of-the-art German equipment that automates the entire bottling process, from blow molding of preformed plastic bottles to rinsing, filling, labeling and packaging.

In a glass-encased quality-control lab, workers in white lab coats test everything from the torque on the caps to microbacteria levels.

Galloway, a former PepsiCo manager with experience in other developing countries, was brought in by the company's Afghan owners to oversee the plant. In addition to about 15 foreign workers, the company employs about 170 Afghan workers.

The company, now believed to have the largest market share in the industry, is adding a production line that will nearly triple capacity, said Galloway.

ABI has also rolled out a line of cola, orange and lemon-lime soft drinks, and plans to expand into milk and juices.

Still, domestic bottlers face a host of obstacles. Just maintaining the sanitary environment needed to produce high-quality bottled water is an enormous challenge, said James Frasche, chief operating officer of Afghan Natural Beverages, which says it is the only company in Afghanistan that bottles spring water. The company produces a brand called Tabiyat.

Afghanistan groundwater is contaminated with high levels of E. coli and other bacteria, as well as industrial and military chemicals. Meanwhile, its air has one of the highest concentrations of fecal matter anywhere on Earth.

"Right now it's in your hair, on your clothes and in the food you eat, and there's nothing you can do about it," says Frasche.

On top of that, companies have to deal with an unstable electricity supply, tortuous supply chains, a shortage of qualified personnel, and the always-looming security threat.

Penetrating the military procurement market can also be a time-consuming, tricky affair. At Kandahar Airfield, for example, Supreme Foodservice, the Swiss firm hired by NATO as its prime food-services contractor, handles procurement of bottled water.

To become NATO suppliers, bottled-water companies must ensure their products meet U.S. and European food-safety standards.

"These contracts are won by what I would call international logistical platforms," said Pont. "They have long-standing contracts with other international companies ... Getting them to change their procurement behaviour is really difficult."

The Afghan Ministry of Health, meanwhile, simply doesn't have the expertise or resources to test products against international quality standards, say industry insiders.

As a result, the market has been flooded with counterfeit or poor-quality brands that undercut legitimate producers on price.

"There's no book of rules in Afghanistan. You make your rules up as you go along.

Because what works in the western world doesn't work in this market," said Galloway.
Ottawa Citizen
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Pilot project inspired by one officer's dedication
GRAEME SMITH From Friday's Globe and Mail November 23, 2007 at 3:44 AM EST
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — Corporal Barry Pitcher, an RCMP police trainer, was patrolling in Arghandab district north of Kandahar city about four months ago, when he met a young police officer with four bullet holes in his chest.

It was a shocking encounter for the corporal from St. John's who spent most of the year mentoring Afghan National Police officers. The ANP officer emerged from the hut that served as his post, still capable of walking despite the wounds in his torso. His only treatment had consisted of a crude remedy applied by his comrades: tampons, stuffed into each of the bullet holes.

"He couldn't afford medical care, he was turned away from the hospital, and he was at his post," Cpl. Pitcher said. "I mean, that level of dedication. We found him, he was coughing up blood.

"We did get him treated, but it just, to me, it was the turning point. I said, this has got to stop. Something has to be done."

The corporal's suggestion became a pilot project that started yesterday, as a group of 15 police officers began a two-day training course in emergency first aid at a Canadian base in Kandahar city.

Medics and police trainers showed them how to handle explosions, burns, gunshots and amputations.

They learned how to make tourniquets, stanch blood flow and triage their comrades in case they encounter many casualties.

Such situations are all too common for the police, Cpl. Pitcher said. About 650 ANP officers were killed in Afghanistan last year.

They never receive more than a cursory introduction to medical procedures in their initial training, he said, so the Canadians are hoping to supplement their skills.

"They're getting wounded and maimed and killed, and there's nothing there for them to be able to fix themselves," he said.

The injured officer who inspired the new program eventually recovered from his wounds, Cpl. Pitcher added.

"It was an interesting story, because his family and his land were inside Taliban lines, so he couldn't get back, they couldn't get food to him, so he was left to seven of his comrades to look after him," he said.

"They did the best they could, but I mean, when you're shot four times and you have to stay at your post? Only in Afghanistan, right?"
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Supporting vulnerable Afghans in Balochistan's refugee villages
Source: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
SURKHAB, Pakistan, November 22 (UNHCR) – "Fazal now responds to our voices with his facial expressions; a smile when he likes something and a frown if he dislikes something," said Badrjamal excitedly about her five-year-old son to a visiting UNHCR team in Surkhab refugee village.

While other boys his age may be scaling trees or writing their first words, Fazal Muhammad has to struggle just to make his face twitch. He is suffering from hydrocephalus, an inborn neurological disorder that causes accumulation of excessive water in the brain. If not diagnosed early, it results in the abnormal enlargement of the head and irregular brain functions.

Fazal's case was brought to UNHCR's attention by an official of the basic health unit of Surkhab refugee village in south-western Pakistan's Balochistan province. He immediately came under the agency's extremely vulnerable individuals project, which seeks to improve their access to basic services like health care, education and skills development.

"Fazal's condition was critical when we first visited him," said Ruby Rehman, UNHCR's community services assistant in provincial capital, Quetta. "His head was abnormally large and heavy, which made his care [feeding, cleaning] difficult for his mother."

Lying on a small bedstead in a dark mud-built room, Fazal was trying to recognize the strange faces of other refugee children who had gathered at his house during the visit of the UNHCR team. Every corner of the house, with no furniture and thin floor matting, spoke of the family's poverty. The refugee family could not afford expensive treatment for Fazal; doctors said the lack of such care aggravated his condition.

UNHCR's community services unit immediately referred his case to one of the best neurosurgeons at the Combined Military Hospital in Quetta in May. According to Fazal's medical reports, his brain had been severely damaged.

In June, he underwent surgery. UNHCR provided some 40,000 rupees (US$664) to cover all expenses, including the transportation costs for his family from the refugee village to the city.

"He was getting older and heavier and it was difficult for me to carry him for cleaning and washing," said Badrjamal. "Without support from UNHCR, we would not have been able to bear the expenses of the surgery because we hardly meet our daily needs."

Fazal can now move his hands and head, but he cannot sit without any support. The surgery would help prevent further enlargement of his head, however, it will not help him live like a normal child. At present, it is only the lower part of his brain that helps his heart and lungs work.

"We have done our best to help the child, but for further improvement, advanced medical tests and modernized medical treatment are required, which are neither available in Pakistan nor affordable," noted Rehman.

The family's suffering does not end here. They are facing criticism from the community. "They say we were begging on the streets of Quetta to collect money for our child's treatment," said Badrjamal with wet eyes and a heavy heart. "This hurts me, we did not even know how UNHCR came to know about our child. It was like a divine help that arrived somewhere from the heavens, god's reply to my silent prayers."

In a close-knit and conservative society like the Afghans', external help is often viewed with suspicion. Waseela, a teenaged girl in Surkhab refugee village, is also receiving support to treat her schizophrenia through a special budget allocated through UNHCR's partner, the American Refugee Committee.

Waseela's family lives in an isolated corner of the village completely cut off from the community. Even then, they face constant criticism for accepting "outside" help.

To discuss such challenges and devise culturally-sensitive strategies, UNHCR's community services unit held a roundtable discussion earlier this year. It identified four groups of extremely vulnerable Afghans in Balochistan who need attention – the physically and mentally disabled, the mentally ill, the chronically ill and women at risk – and sought to enhance their access to basic services like health, education, shelter, water, sanitation and skills development activities.
By Duniya Aslam Khan in Surkhab, Pakistan
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173rd Airborne unit honors two soldiers killed in Afghanistan
By Les Neuhaus, Stars and Stripes Mideast edition, Saturday, November 24, 2007
BERMEL, Afghanistan — Soldiers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade said a heartfelt goodbye as two of their own were honored in a moving ceremony in eastern Afghanistan on Friday, a day after Thanksgiving.

On Nov. 12, Capt. David A. Boris, 30, and Sgt. Adrian E. Hike, 26, were traveling in a convoy on a resupply mission to Combat Outpost Malekshay, a remote U.S. base less than three miles from the Pakistani border, when their vehicle hit and detonated a roadside bomb.

At the ceremony, commanders and fellow soldiers grieved openly for the first combat losses to come to their unit, the “Anvil” Troop of the 1st Squadron, 91st Cavalry Regiment. The troop is attached to the 173rd’s 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment.

“Capt. Boris loved his men and he would not have had it any other way but to have died with them,” said Capt. Joey Hutto, a special operations soldier. “From his death, we are reminded of the danger of our mission.”

Spc. Jason Daniels, 23, and from Cincinnati, said of Hike, “Before we got here, he told all of us that we were going to be all right.”

The deaths are the first for the squadron, but bring to 26 the number of soldiers the 173rd has lost in Afghanistan since deploying in May. That matches the combined total of the unit’s previous two deployments — in Iraq in 2003-04, when the brigade lost nine troops, and in Afghanistan during 2005-06 when it lost 17.

“It was just an ordinary, regular patrol,” said Staff Sgt. Jesse Reyes, 24, from Manteca, Calif., who was traveling in the lead Humvee that day.

Another soldier in the Schweinfurt, Germany-based Troop A, Staff Sgt. James Pollard, said Boris was the type of leader a soldier respected.

“He would be right up front there with you,” he said. “He got to know our wives, he got to know our children.”

Reyes chimed in: “Out of an 80-man troop, he knew all of our names and all of our children’s names.”

Pollard said, “Every time we had a troop function at my house, my son would always want to go and play with Hike.”

Boris is survived by his wife of eight years, Jaime.

On the morning of the bombing, Reyes had breakfast with Hike, whom he described as always ready to go out on patrol. He said Hike was in an upbeat mood that morning, adding that it was rare for anything to get Hike down.

Hike, a graduate of Sac Community High School in Sac, Iowa, had just been promoted to sergeant. He received a Purple Heart for combat in Iraq. He is survived by his parents and four brothers.

According to an NBC-affiliate television station in Cedar Rapids, Hike’s family issued a statement, saying, in part, “It was not like him to back down from any challenges, but instead, he did what he had to do and always gave one hundred percent.”

Lt. Col. Michael Fenzel, commander of the 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, told Stars and Stripes, “It feels like we lost more members of our family. Now we have to move on together — that is the only way we can move past this.”

Also at Friday’s memorial ceremony were Col. Charles A. Preysler, commander of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, Col. Martin Schweitzer, commander of the 82nd Airborne’s 4th Brigade, and Brig. Gen. Joseph Votel, deputy commanding general for U.S. operations in Afghanistan.

So far 2007 has been the deadliest year on record for U.S. troops since the 2001 invasion, according to the Department of Defense.
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To rebuild a nation
A large part of Afghanistan’s future is in the hands of people like Kent MacRae
The Journal Pioneer Nov 23 7:58 PM
SUMMERSIDE — There were times when Kent MacRae likely felt like a fish out of water during a six-month mission in Afghanistan.

MacRae, a fisheries officer who works with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Summerside, served under the wing of the Canadian Armed Forces.

He was helping repair the war-torn country’s patchwork system of irrigation canals.

“The dependence on irrigation and water, the harshness of the countryside and the poverty, really stood out,” said MacRae.

“The canals serve a multitude of purposes, one of which is sewage (disposal),” he said.

Not surprisingly, the canals were devoid of significant aquatic life, except for large freshwater crabs.

“You really miss the ocean,” said MacRae, from the safety of his office on Industrial Crescent.

“All those rivers flow into the desert.”

MacRae volunteered to work with the Civil-Military Co-operation detachment, building up contacts with non-governmental organizations and with communities, all in a bid to give impoverished Afghanis a chance at a better life.

“In some cases we improved schools or started some new ones,” he said.

“One of the bigger accomplishments our unit had was introducing small business people to each other through trade shows.”

Fixing irrigation systems provided much-needed work and money in a part of the world where both are in scarce supply.

Much of the countryside’s infrastructure was neglected during the long years of Soviet occupation, followed by the harsh rule of the Taliban and then the stubborn insurgency which followed the country’s liberation.

MacRae, based with Canadian military personnel in Kandahar, started his incredible journey last February when he left CFB Gagetown for Afghanistan.

His pre-deployment training began in May of 2006.

“In fact, the commitment on my family’s part and my employer’s part was quite a bit longer than the six months I spent there,” he said.

At times MacRae found himself in the line of fire, even though he wasn’t a soldier.

MacRae faced serious threats from improvised explosive devices and other weapons.

“You can’t live in fear, you just accept it.

“I was on the receiving end of rockets, RPGs and small arms fire,” he said matter-of-factly.

How close did the insurgents get?

“Not very,” he said.

“When there was small arms fire I was in an LAV, so I was well protected. And the rockets were inaccurate enough that they weren’t that close,” said MacRae.

Still, it was unnerving.

“The element of risk is always there. It’s part of your daily routine.”
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Opposition says military too optimistic
Canadian Forces accused of maintaining 'culture of secrecy' after Commons address
GLORIA GALLOWAY - From Friday's Globe and Mail November 23, 2007
OTTAWA — The Canadian military was accused by opposition MPs yesterday of providing a deceptively rosy picture of the situation in Afghanistan and maintaining a "culture of secrecy" about Taliban gains.
The allegations came after Brigadier-General Peter Atkinson, the Director General of Operations, Strategic Joint Staff for the Canadian Forces, appeared before the Commons defence committee to provide an update on the Afghan operation.

"The success of last month's operations increased the stability and security throughout the Zhari and Panjwai areas, resulting in good progression of the government of Canada governance and development objectives," he told the committee.

Brig.-Gen. Atkinson talked about the increasing effectiveness of the Afghan police, the opening of roads, and the enhanced safety of Canadian troops and their Afghan allies. He also pointed to signs of progress like a trade show in Kandahar city that showcased the work of local artisans and the construction of a causeway that is creating jobs and confidence.

And he wrapped up by talking about the boost to the mission from the delivery of two large C-17 heavy-lift aircraft. "This has been a huge enabler," he said, "and has taken some of the stress off our [Hercules] fleet in a big way."

The message got a frosty reception from the committee. "He's trying to convince the committee, through rose-coloured glasses, that everything is going well. But things aren't going all that well," charged Bloc MP Claude Bachand, who labelled the briefing a "waste of time."

Mr. Bachand pointed to a report this week of the Senlis Council, an international policy think tank with an officer working in Afghanistan, that told a much different story.

Reading from the Senlis report, Mr. Bachand said the increasing hold that the Taliban is exercising over the southern provinces where the Canadian troops are stationed has pushed the security situation to "crisis" proportions.

"The Taliban has proven itself to be a truly resurgent force," said the Senlis report. "Its ability to establish a presence throughout the country is now proven beyond doubt; research undertaken by Senlis Afghanistan indicates that 54 per cent of Afghanistan's landmass hosts a permanent Taliban presence, primarily in southern Afghanistan, and is subject to frequent hostile activity by the insurgency.

"The insurgency now controls vast swaths of unchallenged territory including rural areas, some district centres, and important road arteries."

Mr. Bachand said a comparison of the Senlis analysis with the update provided by Brig.-Gen. Atkinson left him "very disappointed."

"We're seeing the C-17 that went into Afghanistan. Well, what a surprise. Do you think we thought that it wouldn't go there?" asked Mr. Bachand. "And it shows one thing, Mr. Chairman, that the culture of secrecy at DND is continuing."

Dawn Black, the NDP defence critic, said she shared Mr. Bachand's concerns. "You have indicated to us today that security has increased in the south region and evidence that we are getting from other sources would indicate exactly the opposite," she told Brig.-Gen. Atkinson.

And Liberal defence critic Denis Coderre said he too would prefer a more candid account from the military.

"I believe the time has come to call a spade a spade. There is a situation in Afghanistan, there is a situation under NATO - a lack of cohesion," said Mr. Coderre, who organized his own trip to the war zone earlier this year.

"They have to come clean and tell us what's going on," he said. "We can handle the truth."
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'There is reason for optimism,' NATO chief says
GRAEME SMITH - From Friday's Globe and Mail November 23, 2007
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — A panel on the future of Canada's mission in Afghanistan will hear today from NATO's chief, who says he intends to deliver a message that the situation isn't all "gloom and doom."

Development work in the districts around Kandahar serves as an example of continued progress despite the rising violence, said Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Secretary-General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, arguing against those who warn of looming disaster for the international effort.

The optimistic theme of the Secretary-General's visit to the south was echoed earlier in the day at a press conference with President Hamid Karzai in Kabul, and the NATO chief described the publicity campaign as an attempt to brighten the picture of Afghanistan as countries such as Canada debate their role in the country.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper recently appointed a panel led by former Liberal cabinet minister John Manley to write a report on the mission, before Canada decides whether to extend its commitment of troops past February of 2009.

"I'll speak to the Manley panel tomorrow morning in Kabul," Mr. de Hoop Scheffer said, during a tour of Canada's provincial reconstruction team headquarters in Kandahar city. "Usually you see those discussions in an atmosphere of gloom and doom. And in other words, here I'll push back a bit."

The NATO leader spoke one day after the release of a report by the Senlis Council, an international think tank, which described the potential for a collapse of the Afghan government in the coming years if the Canadian and Dutch withdraw and the Taliban capture major cities.

Although the President was scornful of the report yesterday, Mr. Karzai has previously invoked similarly nightmarish scenarios when discussing the possible effects of troop pullouts, saying the country might descend into civil war.

Few others have raised such harrowing possibilities, but a broad consensus emerged this year that security is getting worse. Violent incidents increased almost 25 per cent in the first half of 2007, according to a paper by the UN Department of Safety and Security, and twice as much of the country's landmass represents a high risk for visits by humanitarian aid workers as compared with last year.

Thousands more people have died this year, marking a new peak in the escalating conflict. Rather than disagree with the grim statistics, Mr. de Hoop Scheffer pointed to the aid projects that continued despite the carnage.

"If you look at the facts, look at the development, realize what many districts were like in this province a year ago, and what kind of development you see now, the conclusion is definitely justified that you see an increase in the standard of living of Afghan people living here, and you see a lot of reconstruction and development going on," he said. "In other words, there is reason for optimism in Afghanistan."

He repeated variations of the same statement without elaboration and declined to talk about details, telling journalists they should request NATO briefings on development in the south.

In fact, NATO's briefing material gives an ambivalent view of progress in southern Afghanistan. The Afghan Country Stability Picture, a database of all known aid projects compiled by NATO, shows total funding for completed and continuing projects in southern Afghanistan as of August totalled $1.56-billion, but the majority of that work was concentrated into about a quarter of the southern districts.

The south remains highly dangerous for aid workers, and the NATO database reveals how those conditions have encouraged a clustering of development efforts around the major cities. The only multimillion-dollar energy projects completed so far have been located inside urban zones; agricultural and rural PRT projects have reached only six of 16 districts in Kandahar; and across the entire south the status of a majority of the planned agriculture and rural projects is marked as "unknown."

Mr. de Hoop Scheffer's view of Kandahar city was limited to a swoop over the streets in a Chinook helicopter; far below him, extra police were patrolling in the wake of a brazen Taliban attack on police headquarters in the city centre earlier this week, which had resulted in a gun battle.

Further down the highway from the military airport where the NATO leader landed, on the same afternoon he was speaking, Taliban insurgents kidnapped the director of customs for the Spin Boldak district, the main gateway to Pakistan. His bodyguard was killed and two others injured in the attack, police said.
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Regional head of Ghazni NSP freed
GHAZNI CITY, Nov 22 (Pajhwok Afghan News): On the intervention of the elders of the district, Taliban released Dr. Abdul Aleem, regional head of National Solidarity Programme in Zana Khan, district of southern Ghazni province on Thursday.

Allah Dad Halimi, the district chief told Pajhwok Afghan News that the kidnapped doctor was released by the intervention of a jirga of the local elders.

Abdul Aleem was kidnapped by Taliban fighters the other day from his clinic.

Haji Usman Ghani, a member of the provincial council from Zana Khan district also confirmed the release of the doctor and urged Taliban fighters not to pose danger for the people who were serving the ailing humanity in the area.

"Doctor Abdul Aleem has been serving the poor people of the area", he added

Taliban fighters however have so far issued no statement about the release of the kidnapped doctor.
Shabir Ahmad Haidar/aj
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46 diehards in Kunar join mainstream
ASADABAD, Nov 22 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Around 46 former anti-government elements on Thursday decided to shun differences and join the government through National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) in eastern Kunar province.

Haji Muhammad Gul, head of the local NRC office told Pajhwok Afghan News those joined the government were formerly belonged to Taliban movement and Hezb-e-Islami party.

Those who joined the government would soon visit NRC head office in the capital Kabul; he said adding that NRC also pays 1500 afghanis as TA/DA to each newcomer."

The Kunar office was able to encourage 430 dissidents to join the government and say good-bye to opposition, he said lauding the cooperation of the local elders and religious clerics for mediation.

Speaking on behalf of those who joined the government today, Maulavi Hazrat Hakim told this news agency, "we joined the government after cognizing the reality our land needs reconstruction not violence."

He also promised to persuade other opponents to accept the government offer for reconciliation.
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Lashkargah drainage system project launched
LASHKARGAH, Nov 22 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The drainage system in Lashkargah, capital city of southern Helmand province would be improved and cemented with the financial help of UN Habitat.

Saleh Mohammad, the head of UN Habitat in Helmand province told Pajhwok Afghan News on Thursday that work on three drains have already been started.

He said that the project would cost $150,000 and would be completed in three months.

Haji Ghulam Mahiuddin, the mayor of Lashkargah remarked that the project would be detrimental for the cleanliness of the city and added that another organization would reconstruct the city roads that have been damaged recently.

Haji Samad Ali, a resident told this news agency that since the inception of the city no care had been taken about its cleanliness and this project would greatly benefit the residents.
Abdus Samad Rohani
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Rocket attacks on airports, no casualties reported
KUNDUZ CITY, HERAT CITY, Nov 22 (Pajhwok Afghan News): At least 11 rocket shells were fired on airports of northern Konduz and western Herat provinces last night, causing no casualties to the local and foreign security forces, officials said on Thursday.

A press statement released from Kunduz Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) base today said six rockets landed in the nearby area of the airport at around 10 pm last night. The rockets caused no casualties, the statement added; local security forces had begun the investigation to identify the perpetrators and site from where the attacks were carried out.

The statement calls on the locals to cooperate with the security officials to find the assailants. Locals reported having heard light arms fire besides the rocket attacks.

Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, said they triggered the five rockets on Kunduz airport when some military aircraft were landing.

The attack caused fire in the terminal, he claimed, it was the tenth time they attacked the airport in Kunduz though security officials confirm only a few.

By the same token, five rockets were fired on the foreign forces base in Herat airport, Rahmatullah Safi commander of the fourth border police brigade, told this news agency that the rockets landed in a deserted area nearby the airport.

The attacks caused no casualties and losses, he added.

However Mullah Hikmatullah, claiming to be a Taliban spokesman in the area, said they inflicted casualties to the foreign forces.

It was the eighth time that Herat airport came under rocket attack this year.
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