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November 25, 2007 

Afghan air strikes kill 80: officials
Sun Nov 25, 7:07 PM ET
KHOST, Afghanistan (AFP) - Around 80 Taliban were killed in a series of air raids by international military forces near eastern Afghanistan's border with Pakistan, officials said Sunday.

About 65 of the rebels were killed in a single air assault late Saturday in eastern Paktia province on a "large group of Taliban," said Din Mohammad Darvish, a spokesman for the local administration.

Four others were killed in a second assault targeting a vehicle carrying rebels in the same region of the province, Patan district, and four in a nearby area, he said.

Another three were killed in an air strike near Gardez, the capital of the restive province, he said. "Altogether 76 Taliban were killed in separate air strikes by coalition forces," Darvish told AFP.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and separate US-led coalition could only immediately confirm the last incident, which they said was targeted at three militants spotted planting a bomb near Gardez.

The Afghan defence ministry announced earlier that four other rebels were killed in a different part of Paktia, Zurmat, also on Saturday. Seven were seized, it said in a statement.

Casualty tolls in battles between insurgents and Afghan security forces and their international allies are often difficult to establish, with officials regularly issuing different numbers that cannot be verified.

Separately, two policemen were killed Sunday in a roadside bomb blast in the country's south, a police commander said.

The south sees much of a Taliban-led insurgency that makes heavy use of such bombings.

The policemen were killed when a remotely detonated bomb struck their vehicle in Spin Boldak, a town on the border with Pakistan in the southern province of Kandahar, district police chief Abdul Raziq told AFP.

The Taliban, toppled from government six years ago, are the main militant group behind a spiralling insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives.

Afghan and Western officials say the rebels and their allies in Al-Qaeda have sanctuaries in the tribally administered areas of Pakistan on the border with Afghanistan.
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In Afghanistan, cell phones are helping people stay connected
Kelly Cryderman, CanWest News Service Sunday, November 25, 2007 via Times Colonist (Canada)
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- In a country where roads are often impassable, travel is fraught with danger, and recent history recalls many Afghans taking the long road to Pakistan just to make a call, the mobile phone is king.

Afghanistan's cellphone networks may be new and terribly unreliable, but they're spreading like wildfire across the country, aiding everyone from female entrepreneurs, to criminal gangs operating in the desert, to regular Afghans who previously couldn't call their relatives.

"It is due to this public call office that I am supporting my family," said Kandahar City resident Qudratullah, 24, who operates a tiny kiosk called a PCO where the many Afghans who can't afford cellphones can pay to make calls.

"I want to be a teacher or a businessman," said Qudratullah, who is able to pay for classes that would put him in Grade 10 in Canada and who, like many Afghans, has only one name.

Across the courtyard from Qudratullah's wooden shack is foodstuff shopkeeper Mohammed Anwer Zarif, who said just a few years ago he had to travel to Kabul, Herat or Pakistan to place his product orders.

Now, he can just call his suppliers when he needs a new shipment. "Then quickly they send the stuff," Zarif said.

The telecommunications industry was close to non-existent before the Taliban were overthrown in 2001. But there's room for tremendous growth now: Few land lines exist in Afghanistan, and just four million of its 32 million inhabitants are mobile subscribers.

"It's right at the heart of our investment promotion," said Omar Zakhilwal, president and CEO of the Afghanistan Investment Support Agency, which licenses and promotes businesses across the country.
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Afghan madrassas face tough times
Computers gather dust as government project to modernize Islamic education hits snags
Mitch Potter Toronto Star November 24, 2007
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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U.S. Notes Limited Progress in Afghan War
Strategic Goals Unmet, White House Concludes
By Karen DeYoung Washington Post Sunday, November 25, 2007; A01
A White House assessment of the war in Afghanistan has concluded that wide-ranging strategic goals that the Bush administration set for 2007 have not been met, even as U.S. and NATO forces have scored significant combat successes against resurgent Taliban fighters, according to U.S. officials.

The evaluation this month by the National Security Council followed an in-depth review in late 2006 that laid out a series of projected improvements for this year, including progress in security, governance and the economy. But the latest assessment concluded that only "the kinetic piece" -- individual battles against Taliban fighters -- has shown substantial progress, while improvements in the other areas continue to lag, a senior administration official said.

This judgment reflects sharp differences between U.S. military and intelligence officials on where the Afghan war is headed. Intelligence analysts acknowledge the battlefield victories, but they highlight the Taliban's unchallenged expansion into new territory, an increase in opium poppy cultivation and the weakness of the government of President Hamid Karzai as signs that the war effort is deteriorating.

The contrasting views echo repeated internal disagreements over the Iraq war: While the military finds success in a virtually unbroken line of tactical achievements, intelligence officials worry about a looming strategic failure.

"There is a key debate going on now between the military -- especially commanders on the ground -- and the intelligence community and some in the State Department about how we are doing," said one Afghanistan expert who has consulted with the National Security Council as it continues to "comb through conflicting reports" about the conflict.

Over the past year, all combat encounters against the Taliban have ended with "a very decisive defeat" for the extremists, Brig. Gen. Robert E. Livingston Jr., commander of the U.S. task force training the Afghan army, told reporters this month. The growing number of suicide bombings against civilians underscores the Taliban's growing desperation, according to Livingston and other U.S. commanders.

But one senior intelligence official, who like others interviewed was not authorized to discuss Afghanistan on the record, said such gains are fleeting. "One can point to a lot of indicators that are positive . . . where we go out there and achieve our objectives and kill bad guys," the official said. But the extremists, he added, seem to have little trouble finding replacements.

Although growing numbers of foreigners -- primarily Pakistanis -- are joining the Taliban ranks, several officials said the primary source of new recruits remains disaffected Afghans fearful of opposing the Taliban and increasingly disillusioned with their own government.

Overall, "there doesn't seem to be a lot of progress being made. . . . I would think that from [the Taliban] standpoint, things are looking decent," the intelligence official said.

Senior White House officials privately express pessimism about Afghanistan. There is anxiety over the current upheaval in neighboring Pakistan, where both the Taliban and al-Qaeda maintain headquarters, logistical support and training camps along the Afghan border. But "in all honesty, I think it is too early to tell right now" whether political turmoil will undermine what U.S. officials already consider lackluster counterinsurgency efforts by Pakistani forces, the senior administration official said.

At the moment, several officials said, their concern is focused far more on the domestic situation in Afghanistan, where increasing numbers are losing faith in Karzai's government in Kabul. According to a survey released last month by the Asia Foundation, 79 percent of Afghans felt that the government does not care what they think, while 69 percent felt that it is not acceptable to publicly criticize the government.

Although 42 percent remained optimistic that things are moving in the right direction -- slightly lower than in a similar survey in 2006 -- most of those who thought otherwise cited insecurity as the biggest problem, followed by poor governance and the economy. Just a year ago, security was cited as the biggest reason for optimism.

U.S. troops number more than 25,000 and make up the largest contingent of the 41,000-member NATO force in Afghanistan. NATO officers say they have eliminated Taliban leaders and fighters in higher numbers than in any previous year. But such claims of success reflect "a very tactical outlook in a game that is strategic," said a former U.S. senior commander in Afghanistan who shares many of the intelligence community's concerns. "I have a lot of respect for [Taliban] strategy," he said. "These guys are not cowardly by any stretch of the imagination."

While U.S. and other NATO forces have maintained a firm hold on major cities, they have been unable to retain territory in the vast rural areas where 75 percent of Afghanistan's population lives, several sources said. Ground hard-won in combat has been abandoned and reoccupied by Taliban forces, which establish dominance over local governmental bodies.

There is widespread agreement among administration officials that the Taliban has suffered heavy losses this year. But the U.S. military has also suffered losses, with deaths already past the 100 mark, compared with 87 over all of last year -- making this the deadliest year for U.S. forces in Afghanistan since the war began. Afghan civilian deaths also reached an all-time high of 5,700 this year, according to an Associated Press tally.

The strategy is "clear, hold and build," said Seth Jones, an Afghanistan expert at the Rand Corp. "You clear the Taliban out, then you hold it for a period of time. You keep forces there, including Afghan forces, then you begin to build, then expand and go into neighboring districts. The problem has been that when you move troops into neighboring districts, you don't have enough to hold what you just cleared."

Although the competence of the Afghan army is improving by all accounts, U.S. military officials acknowledge that the goal of turning captured territory over to Afghan forces has been hampered by training delays and insufficient numbers.

In last year's Operation Medusa, Jones said, Canadian combat troops fought hard for control of the Panjwai district, south of Kandahar. "Four weeks ago," he said, "the levels of Taliban in Panjwai . . . were back up to pre-Operation Medusa."

Experts said the Taliban's control has extended beyond the group's traditional southern territory, with extremists making substantial inroads this year into the western provinces of Farah, Herat and others along the Iranian border even as they regularly challenge eastern-based U.S. forces.

"We're seeing definite expanded strongholds," said a U.S. official who declined to be identified by agency. "That's not going to stop in 2008. . . . If anything, it's gaining momentum."

Northern Afghanistan, ethnically separate from the Pashtun-dominated Taliban, is still considered relatively peaceful, although officials regard a Nov. 6 suicide bombing in northern Baghlan province that killed more than 8o people -- most of them children -- as an ominous sign. Though U.S. intelligence officials initially questioned the Taliban's denial of responsibility, they now believe the bomb was the work of Hezb-e-Islami, a Taliban ally, even as suspicion has grown in Afghanistan that most of the deaths were caused by Afghan police officers responding to the explosion.

The former senior U.S. commander said suicide attacks are a "hugely effective tactic" that has been imported from Iraq to Afghanistan, terrorizing the population and convincing Afghans that the coalition cannot protect them. "The idea that [suicide bombs] are a sign of desperation, that's ludicrous," he said.

In Washington, Afghanistan policy has often seemed to be on the back burner since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Republican presidential candidates rarely discuss it, while Democrats generally bring it up to criticize the administration, saying officials are paying too much attention to Iraq at the expense of a "forgotten" war.

President Bush seldom mentions Afghanistan. In White House remarks last month asking Congress for an additional $200 billion for both wars, he noted that "our troops, NATO allies and Afghan forces are making gains against the Taliban," then offered an extensive recounting of progress in Iraq.

To the extent that the administration has publicly described problems in Afghanistan, it has focused on the reluctance of NATO members to send more troops and the restrictions placed by some on the missions they can undertake. "In Afghanistan, a handful of allies are paying the price and bearing the burdens" for the rest of the 26-nation group, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said at a NATO meeting last month. "The failure to meet commitments puts the Afghan mission -- and with it, the credibility of NATO -- at real risk."

Gates has acknowledged that U.S. Marine commanders have appealed to him to speed their departure from Iraq for deployment in Afghanistan to address more pressing challenges there. The Special Operations Command has also been lobbying for a more active role along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

Several experts believe that the United States can no longer afford to leave the Pakistani military to clean up its side of the border. "Unless we resolve the safe-haven issue, this is not going to succeed," said Henry A. Crumpton, a CIA veteran who led the agency's successful 2001 Afghanistan campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. "It's getting worse."

But others said the problem is not Pakistan or a lack of military or financial resources in Afghanistan. It is the absence, they say, of a strategic plan that melds the U.S. military effort with a comprehensive blueprint for development and governance throughout the country.

"There are plenty of dollars and a hell of a lot more troops there, by a factor of two, from when I was there," the former commander said. The question, he said, is "who owns the overarching campaign for Afghanistan, and what is it?"
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Armed Forces face 'failure' in Afghanistan
By Sean Rayment and Jasper Copping The Telegraph (UK) November 25, 2007
British troops are facing "operational failure" in Afghanistan due to years of chronic Government under-funding, according to former heads of the armed forces.

The lives of hundreds of soldiers could be lost unless the Government starts to fund the military properly, they argue.

General Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank, who served as the Chief of the Defence Staff in 2001, said: "Operational and tactical failure in Afghanistan is now not impossible to believe."

Their warning follows one of the most damaging weeks for the Government since Gordon Brown took over from Tony Blair in June.

The Prime Minister and his Defence Secretary were accused of failing the services in one of the most extraordinary political events of recent times when five lords attacked the Government's defence-spending policy.

Gen Lord Guthrie, who launched a blistering attack on Gordon Brown during the defence debate in the House of Lords last week, told The Sunday Telegraph: "The Prime Minister could be presiding over damaging one of the really great institutions of our state.

"It [the military] is about to break if he is not careful. By this I mean no one will want to join the Armed Forces and the operational consequence of this is a failure in Afghanistan. It could well mean that the Taliban actually win a battle and kill a lot of our soldiers. Operational and tactical failure is now impossible to believe."

Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, who served as the Chief of the Defence Staff at the start of the Iraq war, echoed his fears, saying that the persistent under-funding was "bound to have operational consequences".

The former head of the Royal Navy, Admiral Sir Jock Slater, also warned that the military could fail in Afghanistan if it was not properly supported.

Liam Fox, the shadow secretary of state for defence, who has just returned from visiting troops in Afghanistan, said: "There is no doubt that frontline shortages, particularly in battlefield helicopters, will put us at a significant disadvantage despite the heroic efforts of our forces. Responsibility for this has to lie with the Government."

Defence sources claim that relations between the Government and the military are at an all-time low with both sides being deeply mistrustful of each other.

Although Des Browne, the Secretary of State for Defence, said he welcomed the debate, he was said to be at first stunned then furious that he was given no prior warning of the intensity and the personal nature of the attacks.

Mr Brown, who returns from the Commonwealth leaders' summit in Uganda tomorrow, attempted unsuccessfully to quell the growing dispute by insisting that he had nothing but praise for the Armed Forces and pledged to match their professionalism "with the resources they need".

The Lords debate followed revelations in last week's Sunday Telegraph that a report written for the head of the Army said that British troops felt "devalued, angry and suffering from Iraq fatigue".

General Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the Army, also admitted in the report that the military covenant was "out of kilter" and that more needed to be done to improve standards of pay, accommodation and medical care.

"Troops are having to deploy without having had the equipment and training to properly prepare," said Admiral Boyce yesterday. "You have people leaving because of low morale and no Army infantry battalion is fully manned. That is bound to have operational consequences. The unintended consequence of all this could be some kind of operational failure."

Sir Jock added: "We have poor support, poor training and an equipment programme looking shaky. If you don't fund properly, the initial result is that people begin to complain and then people begin to lose. You only have to look at Afghanistan and Iraq to see that if troops are not properly supported … then one day things will go extremely, badly wrong, militarily."

Admiral Sir Henry Leach, who served as head of the Royal Navy in the Falklands War, said: "Our people in Afghanistan have to be absolutely impeccably equipped. The consequence otherwise will be an endless campaign with a steady rate of casualties."

A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence, said: "Recruitment remains robust and we are taking action. The recently announced Command Paper is tackling a number of areas for our brave personnel."
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EC concerned over violence against Afghan women
KABUL, Nov. 24 (Xinhua) -- The European Commission (EC) Saturday expressed concern over violence against women in Afghanistan.

"In Afghanistan the situation is serious with hundreds of recorded cases of severe beatings and forced marriages," the EC said in a statement issued here.

"Almost one hundred Afghan women every year burn themselves to death in a tragic statement against a system of violence, misery and humiliation," said the statement.

The European Union, according to the statement, has been funding a comprehensive program of 2.7 million euros (3.98 million U.S. dollars) to address and prevent family based violence in Afghanistan during the years 2006-2007.

"Violence against women is a worldwide phenomenon, not at all peculiar to Afghanistan," the statement said. "One European woman in five experiences violence by her male partner at some point in her life."

Globally, women aged between 15 and 44 are more likely to be maimed or die as a result of male violence, than through cancer, malaria, road accidents or war combined, it added.
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Brother says Balach to be buried in Afghanistan
By Saleem Shahid Dawn (Pakistan) November 24, 2007 issue
QUETTA, Nov 23: Nawabzada Mir Gazeen Marri said on Friday that the body of his younger brother Mir Balach Marri was in the custody of his colleague and it would be temporally buried in Afghanistan.

Gazeen Marri, who lives in Dubai, told the BBC that a close colleague of Balach had informed him about his death and he considered the information reliable.

“The body of my brother would be buried at a place which is out of enemy’s reach,” Mr. Gazeen said. He said he would have liked Balach to have been buried in Pakistan, but it was not possible at present because Balochistan was in a state of war.

Nawabzada Gazeen rejected reports that Mir Balach had been killed in an attack by Nato forces or in a clash with Brahmdagh Bugti. He said that these rumours were being spread by the government to mislead the people.

He said that the death of Balach would be a temporary setback for the resistance, which would become more effective in future.

“Balach Marri was not a robber or a criminal but he was fighting for the cause of the Baloch people and the rights of his province. His death would prove a wake-up call for many other people,” Gazeen said.

APP adds: Balochistan Frontier Corps Inspector General Major General Salim Nawaz denied that any operation was in progress in Balochistan and said that Balach Marri might have been killed in inter-factional feuds.

He said in a statement that the incident had taken place inside Afghanistan, adding that time and again reports had confirmed the presence of both Balach and Brahmdagh in that country.
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Quetta tense after killing of Baloch leader
QUETTA, Nov 23 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Quetta is tense after the mysterious killing of Baloch nationalist leader Nawabzada Mir Balach Khan Marri.
Security officials told Pajhwok Afghan News that more than 3,700 additional paramilitary and police personnel have been deployed, 138 pickets jointly manned by the Frontier Constabulary and police have been set up for maintaining law and order situation in and around Quetta city.

"70 mobile teams are deputed to patrol in Quetta and suburbs round the clock," they added.

Nawabzada Mir Balach Khan Marri along with his body guards was killed the other day somewhere on the Pak-Afghan border area but no-one was prepared on Thursday to say anything about the place where he died.

His elder brother Nawabzada Mir Gazeen Marri has said that Mir Balach may have been temporally buried at a secret place. He also did not name the place where his brother had been killed.

Tough, spokesman for the banned Baloch Liberation Army Beebrag Baloch, who had informed the media about the death of Balach, claimed that he had been killed in the Marri area but official sources denied any military operation Marri-Bugti areas.

Earlier reports also suggested that the Baloch nationalist leader might have been killed by the operation of NATO forces in Gramsir district of Afghanistan but the government of Afghanistan too has so far issued no statement in this regard.
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Ex-commanders warn of dire consequences if ignored
Abdul Matin Sarfaraz
TALUQAN, Nov 22 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Some 200 former Mujahideen commanders from the northeastern four provinces, in a meeting in Takhar province Thursday warned the government of dire consequences if they were not awarded their due place and rights.

A former commander Maulavi Sirajuddin who now heads provincial council of Baghlan province while addressing the meeting said that they had been asking for the due rights and place for the former Mujahideen in the present set up.

He warned that if their demands were not met then the responsibility of any untoward incident would rest on the shoulders of the government.

Syed Ikramuddin, a former Mujahideen commander of Jamiat Islami in Takhar province told Pajhwok Afghan News that Mujahideen were being expelled from the government and the security situation had been deteriorating in the country.

He said that today's meeting also demanded the government to chalk out a joint strategy with us for the insecurity in the country.

He also asked for proper posts in government institutions for former Mujahideen.

"Today's meeting has also decided the formation of a council with the name of Peoples council (Da Khalko Shora) which in its monthly session would discuss the current affairs of the country," he added.

The meeting was attended by the former commanders of various Islamic parties including those of Burhanuddin Rabani, Abdur Rab Rasool Sayaf and Gen. Abdur Rashid Dustham.
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