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October 18, 2007 

9 troops wounded in Afghanistan
Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan - Taliban used heavy machine guns and rocket propelled grenades to ambush a U.S.-led coalition patrol in southern Afghanistan that wounded nine troops, a coalition statement said Thursday.

The insurgents attacked the patrol near Kandahar city Wednesday, the statement said.

"The coalition forces repelled the attempted ambush using small arms fire to counterattack the enemy," it said.

None of the wounds sustained by coalition troops were serious, the statement said. There were no report of insurgent casualties.

In the east, a roadside bomb on a police vehicle close to the border with Pakistan killed an officer and wounded three others in Khost province, said Sher Ahmad Kochi, a police officer.

Taliban attacks against police have increased this year, with over 600 killed in militant attacks. More than 5,200 people have died this year as a result of fighting, according to an Associated Press count based on official figures, the deadliest year since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
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Afghan arms shipment came from Iran: NATO general
By Jon Hemming
KABUL (Reuters) - A shipment of hi-tech roadside bombs intercepted in Afghanistan originated in Iran, the commander of NATO-led troops said on Thursday, adding it was hard to believe Tehran's military did not know about the arms.

General Dan McNeill said the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) had scored tactical successes against Taliban rebels in the last year, but more needed to be done to bring security, development and good governance to Afghanistan.

Weapons from neighboring countries only exacerbated the problems of achieving those goals, the U.S. general added.

ISAF, McNeill said, "intercepted a weapons convoy on September 5 in the western part of this country. This weapons convoy clearly geographically originated from Iran. This convoy contained a number of advanced technology improvised explosive devices.

"It is difficult for me to conceive that this convoy could have originated in Iran and come to Afghanistan without at least the knowledge of the Iranian military," McNeill told a news conference.

U.S. leaders have accused Iran of supplying weapons to Taliban insurgents, but Afghan President Hamid Karzai has refrained from repeating the charge and insists Iran and Afghanistan enjoy warm neighborly relations.

Tehran strongly denies the charge.

But while there is little love lost between Shi'ite Iran and the hardline Sunni Taliban, Tehran has an interest in undermining U.S. and Western forces inside its eastern neighbor, security analysts say.

"BUYING TIME"
McNeill said his forces had made tangible progress against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan, where the rebels are strongest.

"This time several weeks ago last year there was much fear and anxiety about the imminent collapse of Kandahar province," he said. "That's not the case this year. Kandahar is a lot more secure a province than it was last year."

In response though, the Taliban have increased the number of suicide and roadside bomb attacks across the country.

McNeill said military efforts were hampered by a lack of good governance.

Frustration with the slow pace of development and widespread corruption are credited with boosting Taliban support and spreading their influence northwards and closer to the capital -- areas considered safe a little more than a year ago.

"We have worked very hard in the dimension of enabling governance and we probably have not had as much success in helping the Afghan people as any of us would have liked," said McNeill.

He added that the success of counter-insurgency efforts depended on the strengthening the Afghan army and police.

"We are simply buying space and time for the development of the Afghan security forces," he said.

Poppy cultivation also aided Taliban rebels, McNeill said, estimating profits from Afghanistan's record-breaking opium crop provided between 20 to 40 percent of insurgent funds.

Western diplomats and military leaders concede there is no purely military solution to defeat the Taliban, who were ejected from power by U.S.-led and Afghan forces in late 2001.

The Afghan government has been trying to coax moderate Taliban leaders to give up the fight and enter the political arena. Karzai has even offered to hold face-to-face talks with Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar if necessary.

The problem, McNeill said, was that the Taliban is a fractured force with many local factions and commands.

"One group of Taliban say they want to come back in and be part of a process, but here are the conditions. Another one is saying there are no conditions and we're not going to talk," he said.

"Who is the Taliban in this case? I see it as a splintered and fractured organization that only exists under a general framework ... If you negotiate with extremists or insurgents, you should do so from a position of strength."
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Afghan prison 'hunger strike' in 10th day, lips sewn
Thu Oct 18, 2:30 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - About 80 inmates in Afghanistan's main jail have forced scores more into pretending to be on a hunger strike that started 10 days ago, even sewing closed the lips of 40, the prisons chief said.

The strike at Kabul's Pul-i-Charki prison started three days after 15 convicts were executed on October 7 on various criminal charges.

Officials said then that inmates were protesting against a flawed judicial process.

But prison chief Abdul Salam Asmat told AFP the point of the strike was unclear and a commission from the government, parliament, United Nations and International Committee of the Red Cross had been set up to hear their demands.

He also cast doubt on whether all the prisoners were refusing food, as they claimed, and said most of them were being forced into the action in one four-floor block of the jail on the outskirts of the capital.

"In two floors 240 prisoners are apparently on a hunger strike," he told AFP. "The 80 leaders have forced 40 inmates to sew up lips and have forced 140 to join them in their strike," he said.

"They are not on a total, real hunger strike," he said. "They had stored some food stuff before. And also since two floors receive food they share and pretend they are on strike."

Asmat had said earlier most of the striking prisoners were linked with the extremist Taliban and Al-Qaeda groups that are behind an anti-government insurgency launched six years ago.
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Afghan city takes action to save ancient minarets
By Sayed Salahuddin
HERAT, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A group of mediaeval minarets in the Afghan city of Herat could be saved thanks to the closure of a busy road threatening their foundations.

The minarets, standing at more than 100 feet, are all that remain of what was once a brilliantly decorated complex for Islamic learning and devotion on the Silk Road on the outskirts of the western Afghan city.

Just over a century ago, more than a dozen minarets stood in Herat, part of a madrasa-mosque complex built in the 15th century.

Most of the camel-colored mud-brick towers, which were once sheathed in sparkling blue, green, white and black mosaic tiles, have toppled during decades of war and neglect.

Experts had hoped the end of Taliban rule in 2001 and the advent of a new government would save the remaining towers.

However, the city's new-found wealth in the post-Taliban era has served only to heighten concerns about the towers' stability.

Heavy trucks and cars rumble along a road that runs through the middle of the remaining minarets, shaking the ground and threatening their foundations.

Recently authorities banned trucks from using the road, and on Thursday the head of Herat's information and culture department said the next step was to build a new road.

"Herat was due to have been included in the list of World's Cultural Heritage by UNESCO," Nimatullah Sarwari told Reuters.

"They (UNESCO) had a set of preconditions; preserving the old city and the closure of the road that runs through the minarets. We have prevented big vehicles from using the road and soon we will close the road totally by building a new one."

Once a bastion of culture and literature, Herat has prospered compared to other parts of Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban, due largely to trade links with Turkmenistan and Iran.

New buildings of glass and concrete are sprouting up, overlooking the old city and challenging the minarets' command of the skyline for the first time in six centuries.

The old city of Herat is already on the tentative list for inclusion on UNESCO's register of World Heritage sites.
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Merkel is aloof as German public wavers on troops in Afghanistan
By Judy Dempsey Thursday, October 18, 2007 International Herald Tribune
BERLIN: When Karl-Theodor Freiherr zu Guttenberg, a legislator in Germany's Parliament, travels around his district deep in conservative Bavaria, he usually talks about local issues and then valiantly attempts to raise international topics.

But over the past few months, this young foreign policy expert for the Christian Social Union, the sister party of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, has noticed a change. His constituents want to know what German troops are doing in Afghanistan.

"A lot of the time, they start the discussion," said Guttenberg, 35. "This is something new. They want to know why we are there, what we are doing there and why we should stay."

It should be Merkel's job to explain why Germany has 3,300 troops based in Afghanistan. But she rarely does. She has not given a single speech devoted to Afghanistan to the Bundestag, or Parliament. She missed an ideal chance last Friday during a parliamentary debate over renewing the mandates for the German troops based there. But she left the explanation to her not terribly persuasive defense minister, Franz-Josef Jung. And since taking office nearly two years ago, Merkel has traveled neither to Kabul nor to the comparatively peaceful north where most of the German troops are based. Now, under pressure from the opposition, she has finally announced travel plans. But so far, no date has been set.

What is baffling is that her attitude is out of line with the rest of her foreign policy agenda.

As soon as she took office in late 2005, Merkel moved Germany away from the anti-American rhetoric pursued by her Social Democrat predecessor, Gerhard Schröder, re-establishing a more balanced relationship between Berlin and Washington as well as between Berlin and NATO.

She also set out to recalibrate a relationship with Russia that had become so one-sided under Schröder that he once called President Vladimir Putin an "impeccable democrat" even as the press was being muzzled and the rule of law weakened. Merkel has gone out of her way to meet nongovernmental organizations and human rights activists when she visits Moscow. And she has not shrunk from telling Putin directly what she thinks of his policies.

But, forever the pragmatist, Merkel knows she can only go so far. During talks with Putin on Monday in Wiesbaden, there was a noticeable shift. Little was said about human rights, at least publicly. Instead, the two leaders matter-of-factly praised the very close economic ties between their countries. With bilateral trade soaring - over the past nine months, compared to the same period a year ago, trade has increased 35 percent - it appears that candor about human rights does not deter business.

Then there is China. Merkel took a lot of criticism from German industry - and from the Foreign Ministry - when she decided to meet the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet, in the Chancellery. The Chinese reacted by canceling several meetings, a mild rebuke that Merkel and the German public can live with.

But Afghanistan seems to be Merkel's big blind spot, and indeed a potentially dangerous one.

A poll published Wednesday by the Allensbach Institute, an independent research organization, would rattle any German general instructed to send his soldiers to an international peacekeeping mission. Since 2002, public support for the Afghan mission has fallen to 34 percent from 51 percent. Over the past two years, those who support German involvement in international peacekeeping missions has fallen to 34 percent from 46 percent while those against it increased to 50 percent from 34 percent.

These are dangerous trends for conservative foreign policy advisers like Guttenberg. His big concern is that if Merkel does not take the lead on Afghanistan, it could become an issue in federal elections in 2009.

This is what happened in 2002. Schröder, while probably sincerely believing that the looming U.S. invasion of Iraq was wrong, deliberately made his opposition an election issue to win support. In the end, his campaign had little to do with domestic issues but much to do with German pacifism and anti-Americanism. To be fair, Schröder, who defied his own party and supported the NATO bombing of Kosovo in 1999, defended the Afghan mission very vocally. Perhaps that explains why public support used to be much stronger.

Despite the benefit of this hindsight, with few exceptions Merkel's conservative bloc is unwilling to go out to the public and explain why Afghanistan matters.

Volker Perthes, director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, blames Merkel.

"Merkel has been consistent, balanced and pragmatic in her foreign policy over Russia, the U.S., China and Europe," he said. "But when it comes to Afghanistan, it's a different matter. I would like her to be more outspoken as to why we are there. Here is a lack of leadership."

Foreign policy experts who advise Merkel's Christian Democrats say they cannot understand why the government has not devised a better strategy. "I really believe the public would buy the necessity of Afghanistan if it was explained," said Karl-Heinz Kamp, director of the security and trans-Atlantic program at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, based in Wesseling, Germany, which is affiliated to the Christian Democrats. "It is a major fault of the government and Merkel. But at least she now intends to visit Afghanistan."

As she remains aloof from the issue, Germany's NATO allies are increasingly critical of her stance. Britain, Canada and the Netherlands, which provide most of the troops to fend off the insurgency by Taliban and Al Qaeda forces in the south of Afghanistan, need more political and military support from the other NATO capitals. So far, Merkel has promised more officers for training the Afghan Army and police, but they will keep well away from the dangerous south. Even at that, Berlin's record on training the Afghan police has been considered almost a failure. If Merkel does not start taking the lead over Afghanistan, her record as an astute manager of foreign policy could unravel.
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Overhaul of Afghan police is new priority
By David Rohde Thursday, October 18, 2007 The New York Times via  International Herald Tribune
American military officials are carrying out a sweeping $2.5 billion overhaul of Afghanistan's police force that will include retraining the country's entire 72,000-member force and embedding 2,350 American and European advisers in police stations across the country.

The new effort is a vast expansion of the current American program and is the third significant attempt to bolster the country's feeble police force since the American-led invasion in 2001.

Improving the police force is a key to defeating the Taliban and salvaging the credibility of the central government, which is widely viewed as corrupt, according to Western officials.

Major General Robert Cone took over the Afghan effort in July after revamping the training of American troops bound for Iraq and Afghanistan. "I want in every district in this country the same kind of full-court press," the general said in a recent interview in Kabul. "I want to break the corruption."

Some current and former American and Afghan officials warn that corruption, drug trafficking and rising lawlessness pose graver threats to the government than even the Taliban.

Without a serious Afghan-led drive to end the corruption, they say, any effort to improve the police force may well fail — and many hundreds of millions of dollars will have been wasted. But that is something President Hamid Karzai has so far largely failed to carry out.

One example they point to is Karzai's January appointment of Izatullah Wasifi, an Afghan-American convicted of selling heroin in Las Vegas 20 years ago, as the head of the government's new anticorruption body. In news interviews Wasifi, whose father supported Karzai against the Taliban, has called the conviction a youthful mistake.

Also, a widespread public perception exists that Karzai's brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, is involved in drug trafficking. So much so that Western officials say they have long urged Karzai to have his brother leave the country, though they acknowledge that there is no definitive proof of wrongdoing.

Rooting out the corruption in the force is a gargantuan task. After leaving police training to Germany for the first two years after the fall of the Taliban, the United States has steadily increased what it spends on the task.

In 2005, the military took over from the State Department and spent more than $2 billion on equipment and increased pay for the police. Now, entire police units will be pulled out of districts, trained as a group for eight weeks and then sent back in a top-to-bottom effort to eliminate corruption.

Police corruption has contributed to Afghanistan's becoming the world's largest producer of opium, according to United Nations officials. Last year, after another bumper crop, it produced 93 percent of the world's supply.

The international effort to train a new police force, meanwhile, has been beset by infighting, inconsistency and a slow pace. For the first two and a half years after the fall of the Taliban, no systematic police-training program existed outside of the capital, Kabul, according to American and Afghan officials.

The United States focused on training a new multiethnic army and paid little attention to the need for a capable police force. Germany pledged to train a new force but sent only 40 police advisers to Kabul.

In 2004, the State Department hired a private contractor to train the Afghan police. Afghan officials complained that the training program was only two weeks long. The State Department said there was an urgent need to train large numbers of police.

In April 2005, the Pentagon took over the training. At first, it dispatched 300 advisers to the provinces, a small fraction of the 2,350 it now says are needed.

Some Afghan and American officials have complained that the Defense Department is trying to militarize the police and use the officers to fight the Taliban.

Military officials say that lightly armed Afghan police officers need strengthening. Across the country, the military can drive the Taliban out of areas, but the police cannot hold those gains.

The scope of the challenge that American officials face was on display during a recent military operation in Paktia Province. In a village outside the city of Gardez, Afghan police officers monitored by American trainers searched mud-brick houses for weapons.

As they moved from compound to compound, one eager young Afghan policeman searched diligently. Another was caught trying to steal a pair of binoculars by an American adviser.

"Hey," said Major Craig Blando, plucking the binoculars from the young officer's chest. "These are theirs."

In January, Cone ordered 800 American soldiers to shift from training the Afghan Army to training the country's beleaguered police. Blando, a native of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, leads a team of eight American police trainers based in the town of Zurmat.

As in other areas, the police were far below staffing levels, with only 24 officers patrolling an entire district, the Afghan equivalent of an American county. Plans exist to post 108 policemen in the district, Blando said.

He and other trainers said progress was possible and Afghan recruits quickly "catch on" when closely supervised; but, they said, far more trainers are needed.

"It's a good mission," said Lieutenant Steven Amandola, a 26-year-old army reservist and police officer in New York. "But it's going to take time."

Evidence of high-level corruption, though, was commonplace. During a meeting between the top American and Afghan security officials in southeastern Afghanistan last month, American officials said a survey had found only 1,200 officers at work in an area where Afghan commanders claimed 3,300 officers were serving. Collecting the salaries of nonexistent "ghost officers" has been a long-running practice of senior Afghan police commanders.

Cone said progress was being made. Long-awaited changes are already under way, including an increase in the pay of the Afghan police, the depositing of paychecks directly into officers' bank accounts and the reduction in the size of the force's bloated senior officer corps.

After months of wavering, Karzai named a new attorney general and allowed the removal of 11 of 14 senior police commanders that international officials said were involved in drug trafficking or corruption.

Ronald Neumann, the former United States ambassador to Afghanistan, said bold action, not more half-measures, was needed from both Afghan and Western officials. Decades of war and insecurity have warped the country's culture, he said. Unsure about the future, many Afghans believe they must look out for their families first and take what they can.

"You have a corruption of the entire culture of Afghanistan by 25 years of war," Neumann said. "It needs reform, but it has to be societal as well as juridical, and that takes time."
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Regional trade conference underway in Afghanistan
Wed Oct 17, 2007 9:26am BST By Sayed Salahuddin
HERAT, Afghanistan, Oct 17 (Reuters) - A regional conference on trade among nations in the Economic Cooperation Organisation (ECO) began on Wednesday in Afghanistan, the first such major gathering to be held for decades in the war-torn country.

Iran, Turkey and Pakistan are the founding members of the organisation, which was set up in 1985 and now includes seven other regional nations, Afghanistan among them.

In addition to investment, transit facilitation and trade, officials from the group are also expected to discuss exploration and export of gas and oil, said an Afghan official.

ECO member Turkmenistan for years has been keen to export its gas to Pakistan and beyond through Afghanistan, but the multi-billion dollar project has been held up due to insecurity in the country.

Afghanistan has been facing a resurgent Taliban-led insurgency.

Lying on the old Silk Road, Afghanistan serves as a bridge between some ECO member countries and has rich copper and iron reserves and some precious stones.

It is also a consumer market for products of some of the regional countries and its annual trade with them reaches to some $4 billion since the Taliban's ouster in 2001, according to Afghan government estimates.

Since the Taliban's overthrow, the country has not seen any major foreign and local investment, largely due to lack of infrastructure, rampant corruption and the increased insurgency in the past two years.

As part of a move to encourage local traders, the Afghan government recently abolished taxes on exports of goods from the country.

The four-day trade conference is being held in the western city of Herat, regarded as one of the safest areas of the country, which has largely prospered since the removal of the Taliban government.

Security was tight across the city on Wednesday. President Hamid Karzai, who has escaped a series of assassination attempts by suspected Taliban members, is expected to address the conference, Afghan officials said.

In addition to Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, the ECO also includes Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
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No ordinary trip: Visiting Afghanistan
By Cassie Biggs Associated Press via CNN
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- I'm at least 40 minutes into my flight -- glass of white wine in one hand, book in the other -- when it suddenly dawns on me that this is no ordinary vacation: I'm going to Afghanistan.

Like many people, my image of Afghanistan has been shaped by what I read and see in the media. Women in blue burqas, fields of opium poppies, fierce-looking turbaned men, and tanks churning through dust.

That may well be true, but what I found on a weeklong trip was a surprisingly green country with incredibly welcoming people. Often peeping from beneath those enveloping burqas I saw strappy high-heeled sandals and crimson-colored toenails.

I climbed the ruins of 12th century citadels, sacked by Genghis Khan, sat in sunlight beneath a canopy of apricot and apple trees in the Panjshir Valley drinking cardamom tea, and explored the empty niches of 5th century Buddhas famously blown up by the Taliban in Bamiyan.

With suicide attacks in the capital, kidnappings of foreigners and a resurgence of the extremist Taliban in the south, Afghanistan doesn't get many tourists. Most Western countries advise against all but necessary travel to Afghanistan, while some countries have outright banned it. The U.S. Department of State warns of "an ongoing threat to kidnap and assassinate U.S. citizens ... throughout the country."

Still, a few travel agencies, many run by former backpackers, will arrange trips there.

For me, it had become a tradition to do something unusual on my birthday. I have chased hammerhead sharks in Baja, Mexico, explored the jungle lairs of Indonesia's former separatist guerillas and hung out with street kids in China. This year it was Afghanistan.

After e-mails with friends who lived there, security agencies and by chance, the son of a former Afghan diplomat, I had a loose itinerary: Kabul, Bamiyan, and the Panjshir Valley.

Due to concerns about kidnappings, and lack of a tourism infrastructure, independent travel is not easy or recommended, especially for a single Western woman.

So I had two choices -- either a foreign-run travel agency in Afghanistan, spending upward of $1,000 a day, or I could hire a driver for a third of the cost.

A friend recommended her driver, Shahabudin Sultani, a soft-spoken Bamiyan native dressed impeccably in a traditional cream Afghan tunic and trousers. And so at 6:30 a.m., we loaded bottles of water and bags of almonds and apricots into a minivan for the journey.

Although it's only 150 miles from Kabul, the drive to Bamiyan takes over 10 hours along a dirt path that winds high up into the snowcapped Koh-i-Baba mountains before dipping down into a verdant valley. A faster route -- from the south -- is not recommended as it passes through some risky regions.

Dotted along the red craggy cliffs are dozens of fortress-like mud and brick houses with high walls pockmarked by rocket and bullet holes, ubiquitous reminders of war.

Children run along the path switching at donkeys loaded up with bails of wheat or herding goats past rusting Soviet tanks and abandoned mortar guns, some of which have been used as makeshift dams or bridges.

War has been a constant in Afghanistan, as regional powers battled for control of the territory often described as the cockpit of Asia, and the Bamiyan Buddhas were silent witness to much of it.

The two statues, at 174 feet and 125 feet, were hewn out of the red cliffs when Bamiyan, on the fabled Silk Road that linked Rome to China, was a thriving center of Buddhism and culture.

They survived the violent introduction of Islam in the 7th century, although Islamic leaders ordered that their golden-gilded faces and hands be sliced off. They escaped the murderous rage of Genghis Khan who lost his favorite grandson at the battle for Bamiyan's Red City in 1221, and razed the entire valley in revenge.

During the decade-long resistance against the Soviets, the honeycomb network of 2,000 caves that surround the statues housed thousands of war refugees.

Then came the Taliban, which initially promised to preserve the Buddhas, then blew them up in 2001 to an international outcry.

I stayed at the Roof of Bamiyan hotel in a yurt -- small round huts made of mud and straw and covered inside with Afghan carpets.

The next morning, my birthday, as I watched the sun cast a honey hue across the patchwork valley of green and beige fields, it was not difficult to imagine how the Buddha's gold and jewel encrusted face would have shimmered as it caught the light.

After a breakfast of warm flaky Afghan bread, scrambled eggs and scented black tea, I headed to the village for a better look.

Although Bamiyan is one of the safest places in Afghanistan, I was careful to wrap up, covering my arms and legs and twisting a scarf around my head. I picked my way down the hill and through the dusty pathways of the village, drawing few stares and the occasional smile.

The towering niches, although empty, are more impressive close up. It's still possible to see the outline of the statues, and some parts remain, as if in bas relief, although most is in rubble.

UNESCO and Afghan archaeologists have spent years collecting and cataloguing fragments of the statues and stabilizing the cliff side.

For $3 -- plus a negotiable "tax" -- it's possible to explore the caves. I'm escorted by an earnest young Afghan archaeological student to the smaller statue, Buddha's wife.

As we approach a locked wooden door in the base of the cliff, my guide begs off, saying he wants to attend a party, and leaves me with a set of heavy keys, a yellow hard hat and a warning that "some parts are still unstable."

I inch my way up a narrow, dark and crumbling staircase that branches out on several levels into empty caves, some of which bear a hint of the elaborate paintings and frescoes that once decorated the now-musty interior.

The walls crumble beneath my touch. I step gingerly on the decaying floor, acutely aware that mobile phone reception is sketchy here and shouts for help would be futile. When at last I reach the top, I sit for a while in a Buddha-shaped cave where the devout once came to pray, looking out over green fields of wheat and potatoes to the snowy mountains of the Hindu Kush.

Most people leave after seeing the Buddhas, but there are other sites worth seeing, including the lakes of Band-i-Amir, five pools of sapphire blue set amid desert canyons, and the ruins of the Red City and the City of Screams, which were built in the 12th century and razed by Genghis Khan a century later.

The Red City, or Shahr-i-Zohak, sprawls out over three levels atop a red cliff mountain at the entrance to the Bamiyan valley. Sultani, my driver, used to play there as a boy, and practically skips his way to the top following our mandatory military guide, as I scramble up the path behind, clinging to parts of the citadel's fortifications and keeping an eye out for red-painted rocks, an indication of land mines.

Both Shahr-i-Zohak and Shahr-i-Gholghola, the City of Screams, were heavily mined during decades of war, although most have been cleared.

For my last adventure in Bamiyan, we head to Dragon's Valley, a mountain ridge in a valley of undulating anonymous gray sand dunes. Legend has it that a dragon terrorized locals, demanding each day a young girl and the occasional camel to eat. Until that is, Islam's dragon slayer Hazrat Ali split the beast in two with his sword leaving a fissure 3 feet wide at some points, and sparking a mass conversion to Islam.

The ribbed mountain does look like a dragon's scaly back. Inside the chasm you can hear the dragon's mournful rumbling -- bubbling spring water streaming like tears from the dragon's eyes.

Over the next few days I pack in a day trip to the Panjshir Valley, visiting the marble and stone tomb of Ahmad Shah Masood, a resistance hero who was assassinated by al-Qaeda a few days before the attacks of September 11, 2001. The tomb is perched high on a hill with a commanding view of the valley he defended from Soviet troops.

I'm picked up early the next day by Great Game Travel company for a daylong tour of Kabul, the capital, that jumps between the 5th century city wall to 16th century Babur Gardens to the buzzing Kabul market. Here fighting cocks are sold for $100 each, and women in sky-blue burqas teeter on high heels as they jostle to buy tea and spices.

Standing on a hill looking over the city, our guide Ghulam Sakhi Danishjo points out the Kabul stadium where the Taliban once carried out public executions.

What happens there now? "Oh," said Sakhi, "now, they just play soccer."
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Afghan security forces nab Taliban commander 
By IANS Wednesday October 17, 03:23 PM
Kabul, Oct 17 (Xinhua) Afghan security forces have nabbed a Taliban commander in the eastern Afghan province of Paktia, media reported Wednesday.

'Acting on intelligence information, the security forces fighting terrorists captured Taliban commander Mohammad Khan alias Nasrat from Paktia's provincial capital Gerdez,' the Arman-e-Millie newspaper quoted provincial administration's spokesman Deen Mohammad Darwish as saying.

Darwish, according to the newspaper, described Nasrat as a regional commander of Taliban, adding that he had organised several terrorist activities in Paktia and neighbouring provinces.

There was no comment from the insurgents.

The Taliban, who was removed from power by the US invasion in late 2001, has waged a war against the Afghan administration and the international troops currently being deployed in the war-torn country.
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Don't cave in to the Taliban
By Amin Saikal Thursday, October 18, 2007 The International Herald Tribune
As recently as Aug. 7, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan declared the Taliban a "defeated" and "spent" terrorist force, and vowed publicly, together with President George W. Bush, to finish off the militia. But barely seven weeks later, Karzai has publicly pleaded with the reclusive Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, and a notoriously murderous warlord leader, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, to meet with him for peace talks.

Referring to them as "Esteemed Mullah, sir" and "Esteemed Hekmatyar, sir," he promised them government positions to bring them on board. The Taliban has shunned his offer and called for withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan as a precondition for such talks - a precondition that Karzai cannot embrace given the dependence of his government on these forces for its survival.

What could have led Karzai and his international backers, especially the United States, to walk down such a defeatist and dangerous path, which not only sends all the wrong signals to the Taliban and their supporters, as well as the people of Afghanistan, but also makes a mockery of the so-called war on terror?

The idea of engaging the Taliban in reconciliation processes is not new. Karzai and the former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and now the U.S. representative to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, had floated it as early 2003. In the following year, the two, sharing the Taliban's ethnic Pashtun background, offered amnesty to what they called "moderate Taliban" and invited them to join the political process. Although only a few Taliban figures took up the offer, it alarmed many non-Pashtun Afghans, who had suffered extensively under the Taliban's highly discriminatory, medieval-like rule between 1996 and 2001. This obliged Karzai and many of his Pashtun advisers to go slow on the idea.

Karzai's latest desperate call for peace comes against the backdrop of a worsening political and security situation in Afghanistan, especially in the provinces along the border with Pakistan, and increased domestic pressure on a number of NATO governments to curtail what seems to be an endless military involvement in Afghanistan.

Despite all the claims of victory by NATO, the Taliban has managed to become far more effective in widening its networks of support and in building its operational and propaganda capacity.

In this, the Taliban is assisted by the inability of Karzai to govern effectively, and by the failure of the U.S. and its allies to make much of a difference in the lives of a great majority of the Afghans, who still live in abject poverty. This has generated a political and security vacuum that the Taliban and its supporters have successfully exploited to tie down the resources of the Karzai government and foreign forces through a low grade insurgency.

Karzai and many of his allies, especially the U.S., have now come to feel more heat than they anticipated. Since the U.S. and its allies are not in a position to escalate sharply their troop deployment in Afghanistan, given America's preoccupation with Iraq and the deference of Washington's allies to domestic constraints, Karzai has found it expedient to make another bid for "peace" to take the sting out of the Taliban's insurgency. But he has plainly done so with the support of Bush and Khalilzad, whom he recently met in New York, for Karzai is not in a position to make major policy decisions of this sort without Washington's approval.

If the Karzai government enters a coalition with the Taliban, it will not only amount to the defeat of what the United States and its allies have been promising in support of building a secure, stable and democratic Afghanistan, but also runs the risk of igniting a savage ethnic conflict in the country.

Afghanistan is a very heterogeneous state, truly a nation of minorities. While the Pashtuns form the largest ethnic cluster, with extensive cross-border ties with Pakistan, the majority of the Afghan population is made up of non-Pashtun ethnic groups, which have cross-border ties with other neighbors of Afghanistan: Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

In the event of a Taliban entry to the government, the non-Pashtun groups would most likely seek to re-arm to fight the change. They would receive help from Afghanistan's northern and western neighbors, as well as Russia and India, which would view a Pashtun-led government that included core Taliban figures as seriously detrimental to their interests. The outcome could be another round of bloody ethnic conflict, with foreign forces caught helplessly between various warring factions.

No one should underestimate the wider regional implications of such a scenario.

Amin Saikal is a professor of political science and director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Australian National University.
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INTERVIEW-West won't win Afghan war says ex-UN envoy Ashdown
Wed Oct 17, 2007 12:43pm EDT By Darren Ennis
BRUSSELS, Oct 17 (Reuters) - International forces are unlikely to win their battle against the Taliban in Afghanistan, risking a regional conflict that could match the magnitude of previous world wars, a former top U.N. envoy said on Wednesday. Lord Paddy Ashdown -- former United Nations high representative and European Union special representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina -- said failure by the NATO-led force would have far wider repercussions than any losses in Iraq.

He called for the appointment of a high-level coordinator to lead the foreign mission in Afghanistan.

"I think we are losing in Afghanistan now, we have lost I think and success is now unlikely," he told Reuters in an interview.

"I believe losing in Afghanistan is worse than losing in Iraq. It will mean that Pakistan will fall and it will have serious implications internally for the security of our own countries and will instigate a wider Shiite, Sunni regional war on a grand scale."

"Some people refer to the First and Second World Wars as European civil wars and I think a similar regional civil war could be initiated by this (failure) to match this magnitude," Ashdown added.

The number of Taliban suicide attacks in Afghanistan -- more than 100 so far this year -- is set to top last year's record of 123, the United Nations says, and most victims are civilians.

The Taliban have increased the number of suicide attacks after suffering heavy casualties in conventional clashes with foreign forces and the Afghan army, security analysts say.

HIGH-LEVEL COORDINATOR
While Western forces, alongside the Afghan army, have claimed victories against Taliban rebels in the south, many remote areas and some towns remain under rebel control and insurgent attacks have also spread north to regions previously considered safe.

Frustration with the government over the slow pace of development, official corruption and the lack of law and order have all played into rebel hands.

Ashdown, a former British Liberal Party leader, said there was a "desperate need for somebody to coordinate the international efforts" and called for the appointment of someone to lead the foreign mission in Afghanistan.

"Unless somebody has the power genuinely to coordinate and unify the international approach, we will lose and I think that is happening," he said.

"It's not about who does the job, but what is the job and if the international community has the will to put together a post which has the authority, including the Americans, then they must do it now if they are to stand any chance."

But Ashdown, who now heads the Brussels-based EU-Russia Centre think tank, had been tipped in some circles for such a role, but ruled himself out of the job.

"I never talk about approaches, but what I will say is that I have had many high-level jobs and I am not looking for any big jobs at the moment. I am happy doing what I am doing with Russia," he said.
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Foreign fighters seen on the rise in Afghanistan
October 18, 2007 The Washington Times
By Sharon Behn - Foreign fighters are entering Afghanistan from Pakistan in greater numbers than at any time since the Taliban was ousted in 2001, Afghanistan's defense minister said yesterday.

The minister also complained that some coalition members — notably Italy, Germany and Japan — have made only half-hearted efforts in rebuilding Afghanistan's security institutions.

"There are more foreign fighters in Afghanistan now than ever before," Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak told editors and reporters at The Washington Times.

He said the militants had been flooding in over the past two to three months, since Pakistan began an offensive in pro-Taliban tribal areas in the mountainous border region straddling the two countries.

Asked whether Pakistan — which has suffered numerous soldiers killed and wounded in the region in recent weeks — could do more to halt the infiltration, the minister said, "They can definitely do more."

While the Afghan army is improving its ability to counter the threat, principally through U.S. assistance, Gen. Wardak said the effectiveness of the national police and court system was weak, as were efforts to disarm and reintegrate members of the former Afghan military.

"The United States took the lead on creating the Afghan national army, which has been a success. The Italians took the justice system, [but] they have not dedicated any resources to it, so still that is a problem. A lot of the time, people are sent to the courts and then they are released, perhaps through corruption," he said.

"On the police reform, the Germans were supposed to be leading; they have not dedicated much effort and resources," said Gen. Wardak. "And in the [disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of former Afghan forces] the Japanese did a 50-50 job."

Gen. Wardak said the international community was now moving away from the concept of giving different donor nations the responsibility for rebuilding specific sectors of the country.

"The lead nation should be Afghanistan," said Said Tayeb Jawad, Afghanistan's ambassador in Washington, who together with a contingent of Afghan and U.S. military officers accompanied Gen. Wardak to The Times.

The defense minister also acknowledged differences within the coalition over how best to fight the record cultivation of poppies, which has transformed Afghanistan into the world's largest producer of opium.

U.S. officials have been quoted arguing in favor of aerial spraying to eradicate the poppies, which are a lucrative source of income for insurgents, warlords and ordinary farmers.

But Gen. Wardak, who was trained by U.S. forces in the 1970s, said his government is agreed that aerial spraying would simply drive many farmers into the arms of the Taliban.

"It would actually turn the population totally against us and give the enemy a good weapon," he said.

Gen. Wardak was in Washington to seek increased help in training and equipping the Afghan army. He met with Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday, and is expected to talk to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, members of Congress and possibly Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The defense minister said his government had been surprised by the success of "the enemy" in accumulating supplies, support and finance over the past two years.

Foreign fighters are coming mainly from Pakistan, but there are others of Arab origin, and some from Central Asia, Russia and Chechnya, he said.

Terrorists are "operating in much smaller groups and a much wider geographic area. They are relying heavily on [improvised explosive devices] and suicide bombings, which in some cases, has stretched our capabilities to its limits," said Gen. Wardak.

He said the majority of Afghan people are fed up with war, and just want peace and stability — something the government is still not able to provide, he said. The solution, the general emphasized, is to beef up the Afghan forces.

"We think that the quicker we stand on our own feet, we will be a lesser burden on our friends and allies. This is our country, and we have died for it for thousands of years. Throughout history, our only pride was that we defended our country," he said.

The general rejected the idea that U.S. troops are seen as an occupying force, saying his people have supported Operation Enduring Freedom wholeheartedly.

He said when European allies expressed concern about outstaying their welcome, he told them that if that were the case, "I would not sit at the same table with you."
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Can Bhutto's Return Boost Pakistani, Afghan Security?
By Abubakar Siddique
October 18, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- Defying threats from Taliban militants, former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has returned home after eight years of exile, vowing to help push Pakistan in a democratic direction -- and win the war on terrorism.

Bhutto, a two-time government leader, was greeted by hundreds of thousands of supporters in the southern port city of Karachi today, after a deal with President Pervez Musharraf that cleared the way for her homecoming.

During a stopover in Dubai on October 17, Bhutto vowed her return would be a breakthrough for democracy, saying it would help close a sad chapter that began when she was sacked as prime minister in 1996. But how will her return affect the counterterrorism effort in Pakistan, which is regarded by officials in neighboring Afghanistan and Washington as a central front against the Tailban and international terrorism?

Bhutto's liberal-leaning Pakistan People's Party, which opposes religious extremism, is considered a bulwark against Islamist forces threatening the government, which is battling Taliban militants who control large swaths of Pakistan’s lawless western borderlands with Afghanistan.

That’s where Osama bin Laden, the Al-Qaeda leader, is thought to be hiding out. And Bhutto has recently hinted at willingness -- if she were voted into power in January's national elections -- to allow the United States to track down the Saudi-born terrorist.

Pakistan's War
 
''If, in a short-sighted way, people think that this is not Pakistan's war, and that this is America's war, then we will end up with 'warlordism,' “ she said in the days before her return. “We will end up with disintegration, with fragmentation, with ethnic cleansing, with refugees. I hope not, I do not want to point [to] a nightmare scenario. But at some point, we have to learn the lessons of history."

From her exile in London, Bhutto supported a controversial raid in July on Islamic militants holed up in Islamabad's Red Mosque complex, a battle that left hundreds dead.

In Dubai this week, Bhutto again reaffirmed her pledge to confront extremism in Pakistan. The ongoing violence in the western tribal areas has seen hundreds of militants, civilians, and soldiers killed in a recent spate of fighting. The spread of violence and its underlying extremism appear to be the main challenge confronting President Musharraf, as well as Pakistan's 160 million people.

Officials in neighboring Afghanistan have stridently warned of the danger to their country from cross-border activities aimed at destabilizing the young government in Kabul. A recent U.S. intelligence estimate stressed the danger of allowing Pakistan to remain a safe haven for international terrorists like Al-Qaeda.

Pakistani author and regional expert Zahid Hussain told Radio Free Afghanistan that Bhutto's return and her reported deal to forge a post-election alliance with Musharraf is likely to broaden the support base for the president. Hussain said it is also likely to boost Musharraf's military efforts to eradicate the growing threat from Islamic extremism in Pakistan.

"So far, her position on certain issues is very, very clear -- particularly on Afghanistan and India,” Hussain said. “She wants to normalize relations with India and she supports this [ongoing] peace process with India and also wants to cooperate with the Afghan government. So from the outset, this [Bhutto's return] will have a positive effect on the region."

Military's Role

Hussain predicts that much depends on the military agreeing to surrender some of the initiative in political affairs, which they have dominated through much of Pakistan's six-decade existence. "The army cannot take a back seat, but it will not be [so] high-profile,” he said. “It will like to certainly see Musharraf stay as a civilian president. The parliament will be much stronger, and the prime minister will have much greater powers than [the prime minister] has at this point."

The fate of such a political arrangement could hinge on two cases that are currently before Pakistan's increasingly assertive Supreme Court. That court is expected to rule soon on the legitimacy of the October 6 landslide vote -- boycotted by many lawmakers -- that handed General Musharraf a new term.

The other court challenge seeks to overturn the amnesty that paved the way for Bhutto's return by guaranteeing that she would not have to face long-standing corruption charges.

Bhutto divided her eight years of exile between London and Dubai, but months of negotiations recently culminated in a presidential amnesty that pardoned her and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, in the face of pending allegations of corruption and mismanagement.
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Coalition forces 'are fighting a lost cause against the Taliban'
By MATTHEW HICKLEY  Dailymail.co.uk 17th October 2007
Coalition forces in Afghanistan face defeat because they lack a coherent plan or sufficient troop numbers while the Nato alliance is increasingly fractured, a scathing report claims.

British, American and other allied forces are 'fighting a lost cause' because they cannot stop the Taliban and Al Qaeda using neighbouring Pakistan as a safe haven, supply base and recruiting ground, experts warn.

Commanders on the ground are crippled by a lack of troops and helicopters, forcing them to rely on air strikes which are causing more and more civilian casualties and destroying support among ordinary Afghans and around the world.

The damning assessment is contained in a report published by the highly-respected defence think-tank Chatham House.

It will bolster mounting concerns over the Government's handling of the war in Afghanistan, where some 7,000 British personnel are locked in the fiercest military campaign the UK has fought since the Second World War.

The Chatham House study accuses the allies of failing to draw up a 'coherent strategy' combining counter-insurgency operations against the Taliban, counter-terrorism against Al Qaeda and reconstruction efforts to improve the poverty-stricken lives of ordinary Afghans.

From the very start in 2001 the allied goals were confused and divided, it claims, with America favouring a quick invasion to topple the Taliban while European countries wanted more concentration on rebuilding and security.

As a result it was never clear how the modest numbers of troops involved were supposed to rebuild Afghanistan, and the international community 'effectively embarked upon a mission without a strategy'.
Although the Taliban was toppled in the capital Kabul six years ago, the allies have failed to build on that success.

The report, written by Chatham House fellow Timo Noetzel and Sibylle Scheipers of Oxford University, claims Nato forces are now left trying to defeat the Taliban in combat while carrying out reconstruction, counter-narcotics operations and training Afghan police and Army all at the same time.

Several Nato allies refuse even to let their troops take part in combat. The fundamental principle of Nato solidarity is 'on the line', the report warns, and Nato looks 'increasingly fragile'.

The study also accuses the West of failing to tackle tribal warlords and their links to Afghanistan's massive heroin trade, as well as the Afghan government's 'evident linkages' to the illegal trade.

In the Commons yesterday Defence Secretary Des Browne claimed Afghanistan remained 'a noble cause'.

He told MPs the allies had made 'significant progress' since 2001 but Afghanistan remained 'fragile' and its problems would require 'decades of hard work'.

Mr Browne echoed the report's concerns over Nato, saying that some European allies were 'frankly quite disappointing' in their contribution in Afghanistan.

• They have endured one of the most dangerous tours of duty of any British Army unit since the Second World War and nine of their number never left Afghanistan alive.

But yesterday the soldiers of the Royal Anglian Regiment returned to their base in England after six months fighting the Taliban.

In a revealing insight into the ongoing Afghanistan nightmare, they told welcoming relatives that the fighting on their recent tour was the worst it had been since the war began six years ago.

Two soldiers from the regiment's 1st Battalion have been spoken of as possible Victoria Cross recipients. One of the pair, Lance Corporal Oliver Ruecker, 21, was among those reunited with family at Pirbright in Surrey yesterday.

The other prospective VC, Captain David Hicks, 26, died after refusing morphine for fatal shrapnel wounds.

At the homecoming parade was actor Ross Kemp, who had been filming in Afghanistan with the regiment, nicknamed 'the Vikings'. "I got to know some of the lads really well," he said. "I'm incredibly proud of them."
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World Bank rejects doomsday predictions about Afghanistan, describes it as`a success story'
By ANI Thursday October 18, 05:56 PM
Ottawa, Oct.18 (ANI): Rejecting all doomsday predictions about the future of Afghanistan, given its constant state of internecine strife, the World Bank has described Kabul's march towards development as a major "success story"

Alistair McKechnie, the World Bank official responsible for development and financial initiatives in Afghanistan, was quoted by Canada's Globe and Mail as saying that notwithstanding the continuing problems with security, corruption and the drug trade, economic and social conditions in Afghanistan have improved dramatically since the fall of the Taliban in October 2001.

"This is a success story. Afghanistan has defied predictions and has achieved a lot in a short period of time," McKechnie, the country director for Afghanistan, was quoted as saying in Canada on the sidelines of meetings with officials in Ottawa and a speech in Toronto.

He pointed to a series of positive indicators, including double-digit economic growth, an expanding road network, a surge in school attendance - particularly by girls - and a drop in infant mortality from 165 per 1,000 live births to 135 in 41/2 years.

He said it was easy to project a negative view of Afghanistan if one focuses on the south and east of the country, where the insurgency is strongest. But, he added that what needed to be highlighted was that in two-thirds of the country, there is no insurgency and conditions are improving more quickly.

According to the paper, some of the credit goes to the World Bank, which has committed 1.5-billion dollars to Afghanistan and set up the Afghanistan Reconstruction Fund, which has so far gathered 2.4-billion dollars in pledges from two dozen countries.

This year`s single top donor to the fund is Canada, with 211-million dollars. Britain is second, with 145-million dollars.

The Canadian money goes to a variety of projects and uses and is a major source of funding for the daily operations of the Afghan Government, which still does not generate enough tax revenues to fund these activities on its own.

McKechnie, however, conceded that much remains to be done in reducing corruption in the police and improving the functioning of the justice system. Another challenge before the Kabul administration is to reduce the influence of the poppy trade.

Afghanistan is estimated to furnish 93 per cent of the world`s illegal opium supply, used in the manufacture of heroin, and opium production accounts for one-third of economic activity.

Even in this context, McKechnie was quoted by the paper as saying that the picture was not as bad as it seems, with only four per cent of the country`s total arable land being cultivated with poppies and more provinces becoming poppy free.

He said that the best way to battle opium trade was to encourage alternative cash crops such as grapes and appeal to the religious values of Afghans. (ANI)
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Pakistan plans all-out war on militants
By Syed Saleem Shahzad  Asia Times Online, Hong Kong
An all-out battle for control of Pakistan's restive North and South Waziristan is about to commence between the Pakistani military and the Taliban and al-Qaeda adherents who have made these tribal areas their own.

According to a top Pakistani security official who spoke to Asia Times Online on condition of anonymity, the goal this time is to pacify the Waziristans once and for all. All previous military operations - usually spurred by intelligence provided by the Western coalition - have had limited objectives, aimed at specific bases or sanctuaries or blocking the cross-border movement of guerrillas. Now the military is going for broke to break the back of the Taliban and a-Qaeda in Pakistan and reclaim the entire area.

The fighting that erupted two weeks ago, and that has continued with bombing raids against guerrilla bases in North Waziristan - turning thousands of families into refugees and killing more people than any India-Pakistan war in the past 60 years - is but a precursor of the bloodiest battle that is coming.

Lining up against the Pakistani Army will be the Shura (council) of Mujahideen comprising senior al-Qaeda and Taliban commanders, local clerics, and leaders of the fighting clans Wazir and Mehsud (known as the Pakistani Taliban). The shura has long been calling the shots in the Waziristans, imposing sharia law and turning the area into a strategic command and control hub of global Muslim resistance movements, including those operating in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"All previous operations had a different perspective," the security official told ATol. "In the past Pakistan commenced an operation when the Western coalition informed Pakistan about any particular hide-out or a sanctuary, or Pakistan traced any armed infiltration from or into Pakistan.

"However, the present battle aims to pacify Waziristan once and for all. The Pakistani Army has sent a clear message to the militants that Pakistan would deploy its forces in the towns of Mir Ali, Miranshah, Dand-i-Darpa Kheil, Shawal, Razmak, Magaroti, Kalosha, Angor Ada. The Pakistani Army is aiming to establish permanent bases which would be manned by thousands of military and paramilitary troops."

According to the security official, an ultimatum had been delivered to the militants recently during a temporary ceasefire. The army would set a deadline and give safe passage into Afghanistan to all al-Qaeda members and Taliban commanders who had gathered in Waziristan to launch a large-scale post-Ramadan operation in Afghanistan. They, along with wanted tribal warrior leaders, would all leave Pakistan, and never return.

After their departure, under the direct command and surveillance of newly appointed Vice Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani (who will replace President-elect Pervez Musharraf as Chief of Army Staff), fresh troops and paramilitary forces would be sent in to establish bases at all strategic points and disarm the local tribes. The Durand Line (the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan), would be fenced and border controls would be tightened.

The militants rejected the ultimatum.

What's at stake
A qualified estimate by intelligence officials is that Pakistani military pacification of the Waziristans would slash the capability of the Afghan resistance by 85% as well as deliver a serious setback to the Iraqi resistance.

The militants have little option but to stand and fight, rather than slip across the border or melt into the local population. Aside from the sanctuary and succor afforded them in the Waziristans, most of the fighters there are either Waziris, or from other parts of Pakistan, or foreigners. They would be unable to support themselves in Afghanistan, especially as most of the non-Waziris do not speak Pashtu - a fact that also prevents them from disappearing into the Waziristan populace.

Their presence in the Waziristans also has a direct bearing on their funding: money can be transferred through bank and non-bank channels, including the informal fund transfer system known as "hawala".

Western intelligence that has been shared with Pakistan has determined that the two Waziristans alone provide the life blood - a steady stream of fighters, supplies and funds - for the resistance in all of southeast Afghanistan, including the provinces of Ghazni, Kunar, Gardez, Paktia and Paktika, as well as for attacks on Kabul. In addition, the Waziristans supply trainers to guerrillas in the Taliban heartland of Zabul, Helmand, Kandahar and Uruzgan provinces.

According to intelligence sources, during Ramadan, the Taliban's entire top command, including Moulvi Abdul Kabeer, Jalaluddin Haqqani, Sirajuddin Haqqani, Nasiruddin Haqqani, and Mullah Mansoor Dadullah were in North Waziristan to launch a post-Ramadan offensive in southeast Afghanistan. The Pakistani military engaged the militants well in advance to block their offensive plan, but the same militant command is believed to still be in North Waziristan.

In addition, the town of Shawal hosts the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan’s command. The Uzbeks are trying to reorganize themselves to stage an armed revolt against the government of Uzbekistan.

There is also a Kurd presence in the area, which has a direct bearing on the US's Iraqi occupation. A small number of fresh Kurd recruits come through Iran into Waziristan, get few months' training, and then return to Iran before infiltrating Iraq to fuel insurgency in Iraqi Kurdistan against this important US ally.

"If the planned battle is successful and Waziristan is pacified, the global Islamic resistance would be back where it was in 2003, when it had fighters but no centralized command or bases to carry out organized operations, said a Pakistani security official. "As a result, the guerrilla operations were sporadic and largely ineffective."

The safety of Taliban and al-Qaeda assets in Waziristan is a matter of life and death and, therefore, the militants have devised a forward strategy to target the Pakistani cities of Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad, hoping to break the will of the Pakistani armed forces. The Pakistani military, meanwhile, is trying to break the will of the militants with ongoing bombing raids.

Underscoring the seriousness with which the military is planning for the coming battle, it is reported that Shi'ite soldiers from northern Pakistan are being sent to the Waziristans. In the past, the Pakistani Army has been plagued by desertions of Pashtun and Sunni troops who refuse to fight fellow Pashtuns or Sunnis.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Pakistan Bureau Chief, Asia Times Online. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com 
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"Difficult, But Not Impossible" - Khalilzad
National Journal Group - 10/16/2007
"We have to constantly measure our policies by whether they weaken the extremists and strengthen the moderates, and do so in such a way that doesn't have counterproductive effects. " — Zalmay Khalilzad
When the history of the post-9/11 period is written, few witnesses will have more firsthand knowledge than Zalmay Khalilzad. As a member of the National Security Council staff, he was in the White House on Sept. 11, 2001, and he had a direct role in formulating the U.S. response. Khalilzad subsequently served as ambassador to Afghanistan and Iraq, and he is now the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. As an Afghan who immigrated to the United States as a high school student, Khalilzad is also the highest-ranking Muslim in the Bush administration.

In a recent interview with National Journal's James Kitfield, Khalilzad discussed democracy in Iraq, the Bush administration and more. Edited excerpts follow.

Q: You've had a ringside seat to one of the most tumultuous periods for U.S. foreign affairs in generations. Is it true that you think the problems in the Middle East have the potential to ignite a global conflict?
Khalilzad: I do think that, geopolitically, the future of the broader Middle East is the defining challenge of our time, in the same way that managing the balance of power in Europe and subsequently the Cold War were geopolitically the defining challenges of the 19th and 20th centuries. The broader Middle East as a region is just not normal. There are too many problems that keep it from functioning well. At the same time, Islamic civilization as a whole is going through a crisis. There's a struggle between moderates and extremists, and an argument over modernity versus tradition, that ultimately will define what it means to be Muslim.
Q: Do you believe that the crisis in the Middle East has the potential to draw regional and world powers into conflict with one another?

Khalilzad: Yes, that's why I regard this as the defining issue of our time. That doesn't mean that the solution to these problems is always, or even primarily, going to be military. Military force is important in terms of fighting terrorists. We have to go after them, because they are coming after us. But not only do we have to contain extremists, we also have to empower moderates and encourage the normalization of this region. That means addressing the problems that make the region so dysfunctional, whether by finding settlements to ongoing regional conflicts; or encouraging an evolutionary transformation of authoritarian governments in the region; or consolidating new democratic orders in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon. All of that will take a long time to accomplish, which is why we need to understand the full dimensions of the challenge we are facing, and develop a comprehensive strategy to confront it.
Q: With the Bush administration perceived in much of the world as overly unilateral and militaristic, how can the United States successfully lead such collective action, or win the "war of ideas" at a time when the Muslim world is awash in anti-Americanism?

Khalilzad: I think there are really two issues there. One concerns the U.S. standing in the Islamic world. In that regard, the difficulties that we've had in Iraq have had a negative impact on our standing. No question. The second issue, however, concerns the choice of whether people want to be ruled by Islamic extremists, or else within the rule of law in societies where they have access to the media and a say in who governs them. When it comes to that war of ideas, I don't think we're losing at all.
Q: So despite the unpopularity of the messenger, the message is still compelling?

Khalilzad: What I learned from my experiences on the front lines of that struggle is that people everywhere are essentially the same in their desire for those freedoms. They know these are the ideas and values that made the great countries what they are. That's why I often talked to the Afghans and Iraqis about the difficulties that America itself had in the beginning. We have come a long way as a country, and the reason is because we remained committed to these ideas of liberty and freedom. That message is still compelling.
The challenge for us, and the rest of the world, is to figure out how best to help people who share these moderate views in their fight against the extremists, without making them appear [to be] instruments of the U.S. government. That can be a tough balancing act. We have to constantly measure our policies by whether they weaken the extremists and strengthen the moderates, and do so in such a way that doesn't have counterproductive effects.

Q: Despite all the difficulties in bringing democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq, and the empowerment of extremists in some local elections, you still don't doubt the administration's "democratization" agenda?

Khalilzad: No, I still believe that is the ultimate solution to the region's problems. But sometimes when people hear U.S. officials talk about democratization, they think we mean America should attack and replace authoritarian governments with ones we'd rather see in power. That's not at all what we mean. The circumstances in Afghanistan and Iraq were unique, but this is not something that you can bring about by military means alone.
Take the transformation of the former Soviet Union. While the military was a component in containing communism and making sure it didn't expand, there were also political, ideological, economic, and informational components to that Cold War campaign and the grand coalition between the United States, Europe, and Asia that saw it through. Of course, the issues are very different in the transformation of the Middle East, but I think we need a similar grand strategy and coalition approach. The ultimate goal has to be the normalization of this region, and democratization remains the key element in getting there.

Q: How do you respond to experts who argue that the broader Middle East region may not be ready for democracy?

Khalilzad: I would say two things about that argument. First, you do need a certain set of circumstances for democracy to take root and become effective; there is no question about that. It's not just about elections. You need democratic institutions, the rule of law, and the instruments of civil society. And some of the countries in this region do start at a low level in terms of their preparation in that regard. Yet, when I hear that argument, I don't conclude that the region will never achieve a democratic transformation.
Remember, we've heard similar arguments about other regions at other times in history. When Britain was discussing leaving India in the time of decolonization, the talk in London was all about how India would never become democratic. It was supposedly not in their blood. The same argument was made about Germany, and Japan, and about Asia in general. When you look at the Islamic world, I think you also have to look at the experience of Turkey, which despite its problems has been a great democratic success story.

Q: The Bush administration likes to cite the example of South Korea, but do you believe you've laid the groundwork with the American public for a similar long-term commitment of military forces to Afghanistan and Iraq -- say, 50 years?

Khalilzad: Well, you could go to the other extreme and argue that this democratic transformation in the Middle East will happen easily and quickly, but that would be a mistake given where we are. This is a long-term enterprise. The truth is, really big things don't happen easily or quickly, and this transformation we are talking about is a huge thing! If you read [Alexis] de Tocqueville on democracy in America, he rightfully pointed out that democracies tend to be impatient. But during the very long years of the Cold War, we also showed that we can be patient. If Americans have confidence in what we are doing, and they see that we are making progress toward that goal, then I think we can be patient as a people. That's why we in the administration need to be realistic in describing to the American people the time an enterprise like this takes. Perhaps at times we have not been very good at explaining the complexity and time involved, and people thus got an impression that things would happen at a much faster pace than was realistic.
Q: For all the tactical successes of the surge in U.S. forces in Iraq, little progress had been made on the strategic goal of political reconciliation. Why do you think that's so?

Khalilzad: In my view, the Iraqis' lack of progress on the political track is due to several factors. First, the different ethnic and religious communities have very different perspectives, and the distance between those perspectives has not yet closed appreciably. Despite the fact that they are politically dominant, for instance, the Shiites of Iraq feel very insecure. Partly because the Shiites are not yet willing to share power, the Sunnis see this as a life-and-death struggle. Therefore, they have not yet been able to come up with an agreement on how to share power.
A second problem is that the issues the Iraqis are dealing with are very complex and difficult. We're talking about how to share trillions of dollars in oil revenue; how to organize themselves in terms of power-sharing between the central government and the regions; how they delineate borders in a country where Saddam purposely drew provincial borders as a way to pit the different communities against each other. A related problem is one of individual personalities. I've dealt personally with many Iraqi leaders, and as a result of their backgrounds and their experiences living under Saddam or in exile, many of them have come to view the world in very conspiratorial terms. They see conspiracies everywhere, and that makes compromise among them hard.

Q: At times doesn't it seem that some of Iraq's neighbors really are conspiring against the central government?

Khalilzad: Iraq's neighborhood is certainly another important factor in the present political stalemate. This is not a neighborhood that encourages internal reconciliation. If Iraq were an island, I think we would have seen much more progress on political reconciliation by now, even given all the difficulties. So the regional context of the Iraq problem is very important. That's why I've worked hard at the United Nations to "internationalize" the problem, and to get the United Nations itself more involved in pushing for an internal and regional reconciliation. The United Nations actually has certain advantages in that regard. So with continued American and international pressure through the United Nations, I still think political progress can be made in Iraq. That's vital, because without that political progress the security gains we've realized with the surge will be put at risk.
Q: When the Senate recently voted overwhelmingly in support of Senator Joseph Biden's plan to promote a form of federalism in Iraq that devolves power from the central government to Iraq's provinces, why did the administration so quickly label the plan "partition" and object to the idea?

Khalilzad: The U.S. Embassy wrote of a perception inside Iraq that the Senate was pushing for partition of Iraq, so I was glad Senator Biden [D-Del.] and Leslie Gelb [a president emeritus and board senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations] wrote a follow-on article making clear that they were talking about federalism, and not partition. Certainly, there's nothing wrong with federalism. We ourselves have a federal system. But in Iraq it's not only what we do that is vital, but also how it is perceived. When I worked with Iraqis on their constitution, we purposely allowed for the option of such a federal arrangement if that is the direction the Iraqis decide to go.
I still think we have to be very careful, however, that this is not perceived in Iraq as an American grand design to divide the country.

Q: Given the escalating war of words and provocations between the United States and Iran over Tehran's meddling in Iraq, how can you possibly reach the regional reconciliation that you say is critical?

Khalilzad: The issue is only about Iraq on the surface. Iran wants the Shiites to succeed in Iraq and so do we, because we want a democracy in Iraq and the Shiites are the largest voting bloc. We just want a democracy that also respects the rights of minorities.
The real problem is that the Iranians also want the United States to fail in Iraq, because they believe our success there will lead to problems for them. First, they worry that we might one day move against them from Iraq. Second, if we were to succeed in Iraq, Tehran worries that [Iraq] will one day play the regional balancing role against Iran that it used to play, and thus they would not be able to dominate geopolitically. For both of those reasons, Iran does not want a long-term American presence in Iraq.

Q: Yet absent such a presence, doesn't Iran make many of its neighbors nervous?

Khalilzad: In fact, this broader Iranian agenda in the region does make the Saudis and other Sunni countries nervous about Iranian domination. That's another complicating factor, because those Sunni countries will support Sunnis inside Iraq to counter the Iranians. The fact that Iran and the United States have a hostile relationship is another significant factor impacting not only Iraq, but the entire region. All of those factors explain why we need robust regional diplomacy to solve these problems.
Q: But if Iran remains determined to play the role of spoiler in Iraq, won't the country remain unstable?

Khalilzad: Well, it will certainly be more difficult to stabilize Iraq than it would be if Iran weren't playing this negative role. But difficult does not mean impossible. Over the course of the last year, we have begun inflicting costs on Iran by targeting its assets and networks inside Iraq. At the same time, I would not exclude talking with Iran and trying to reach some sort of understanding with them, much as we engaged with them earlier on the issue of Afghanistan. So our policy is a combination of openness toward engagement with the Iranians if that is useful, but at the same time hitting the Iranian networks that are causing problems inside Iraq. Hopefully, that will eventually lead to a regular, institutionalized dialogue between regional players that has both the United States and Iran in the room. Without such regional cooperation, it will certainly be far more difficult to stabilize Iraq.
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WFP welcomes fresh contributions from donors
KABUL, Oct 16 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The United Nations World Food Programme in Afghanistan welcomed the recently-confirmed contributions from donors totaling over $35 million, which will help support vulnerable Afghans across the country.

A press release issued here on Tuesday said the governments of Canada, Finland, Germany, Italy, Lithunania and the United States had committed funds to WFP in the past month to support a range of initiatives.  The Canadian pledge of $25 million is a multi-year contribution.

"The donations will go a long way to support the poorest people in Afghanistan, who continue to find it difficult to manage after decades of war, drought and poverty," said Rick Corsino, WFP Afghanistan Country Director.

"While the Islamic world has just celebrated the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, unfortunately, millions of Afghans will still spend today - World Food Day hungry," he said.

"This day serves as an unfortunate reminder that hunger and malnutrition remain the number one cause of death and disease worldwide."

The Canadian government has pledged an additional $25 million as part of a multi-year package. This will be used for food-for-work and food-for-education projects, mainly in the south of the country.  

The United States has provided a further $4.8 million in-kind contribution of vegetable oil.  Nearly 3,000 tonnes of oil will be used to support communities engaged in a variety of recovery activities, including food for work and food for training.

The government of Italy has donated $2.7 million which will be used to procure approximately 4,000 tonnes of wheat to support WFP activities in Herat province, particularly in Shindand and Farsi districts.    
The German contribution of $1..4 million will support school feeding projects in northern Afghanistan, which boost school enrollment, particularly among girls. "The German government understands that WFP's school feeding initiatives help break the cycle of hunger, and in turn encourage learning," said Corsino.

The Finnish donation of over $700,000 will help ensure higher elevation areas cut off during winter receive enough food prior to the first snows.

Lithuanian funding of US$ 275,000 will help build fourteen primary schools in five districts in Ghor. This follows a highly successful pilot phase where the Lithuanian government supported WFP's efforts at low cost school construction in the province, which also saw regular food for work, food for education and positioning of food prior to winter.
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New bridge inaugurated in Badakhshan
KABUL, Oct 16 (Pajhwok Afghan News): A 25-metre long bridge, connecting the remote Badakhshan province with the rest of the country, was constructed and opened for traffic with the assistance of the provincial reconstruction team in the province.

The metal bridge was recently opened in Teshkan district after two months of construction work. The new bridge is a vital part of highway 302, the only major road connecting Badakhshan with the rest of Afghanistan, says an ISAF press release.

Once a dilapidated structure nicknamed the "scary bridge", the new bridge will now ensure safe passage for all Afghans travelling to and from Badakhshan during the critical winter months.

The original 30-metres-high bridge, dating to the Soviet occupation, crosses the Kokcha River and was in such a bad state that crossing it became a danger. ISAF patrols operating in Teshkan identified the state of the bridge.

The new bridge is now crucial to the construction of the new tarmac road on Highway 302 that will connect Faizabad with neighbouring Taloqan and Kunduz. Construction work has already begun and will be completed in 2009.

The Teshkan Bridge project is a perfect example how provincial authorities and ISAF cooperate effectively for the benefit of the Afghan population.

"We should take the new solid bridge as a symbol - a symbol for cooperation and peace," said Colonel Sahm, commander of the regional provincial reconstruction team Faizabad.
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Reinstate moratorium on death penalty: EU
NEW YORK, Oct 16 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Opposing death penalty for convicts, the European Union urged Afghanistan to reinstate the moratorium on death penalty and finally abolish it.

Participating in the special Security Council discussion on Afghanistan, Poland ambassador Joao Salgueiro said the European Union was opposed to death penalty in all cases.

Speaking on behalf of the European Union, Salgueiro said: We urge the government of Afghanistan to reinstate the moratorium on the death penalty with a view to abolishing it.

Several other European countries, who got an opportunity to speak during the discussion, spoke in the same voice.

Our opposition to the death penalty, with no exception, is very well-known and is not softened at all by the fact that Italian nationals were among the victims of the crimes of which one of the executed had been convicted, said the Italian ambassador, Marcello Spatafora.

A moratorium is particularly important in those cases where further progress is still needed in the reform of law enforcement agencies and the judicial sector, he said.

The French Ambassador Jean-Maurice also urged the Afghan government of Afghanistan to observe a moratorium on capital punishment.
Lalit K. Jha
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Koenigs to leave Afghanistan by year end
NEW YORK, Oct 16 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Tom Koenigs, the Special Representative of UN Secretary-General to Afghanistan, would leave the post at the end of the year.

Talking to reporters outside the UN Security Council, Koenigs said he had written to the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, a few weeks back that he wanted to leave the post at the end of the year. Koenigs, said at the age of 64, he wanted to go back home.

When asked about the reasons for leaving such an important UN post, he said: I have been asked by many people also in Afghanistan, why? The reason is very simple. I will tell you a story on that. The Afghans always ask me when we are friendly together - what is the most beautiful country? I say always which is true - Afghanistan is a very very beautiful country. And if they insist what is the most beautiful country, I have to say home.

Koenigs, from Germany, was appointed to this post by the then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in December 2005.  He had replaced Jean Arnault of France.
Lalit K. Jha
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Four perish in road accidents
JALALABAD, Oct 16 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Four people were killed and 39 more wounded in road accidents in Nangarhar and Parwan provinces, officials said.

Col. Abdul Ghafoor, spokesman for the police headquarters in Jalalabad, capital of the eastern Nangarhar province, told Pajhwok Afghan News two persons were killed and 28 injured in three separate accidents in the province.

He said all the three accidents happened on road between Faram Hada and Surkhrod district. The dead also included a 12-year-old student who was crushed to death by a speeding Corolla car in Moi Mubarak area.

In the second accident, a driver was killed and five passengers wounded in a head-on collision between two cars. Another 23 people, including women and children, were injured in yet another accident when two passenger vans collided in the same area, said the spokesman.

Separately, two children were killed and 11 more people wounded in an accident on Kabul-Parwan highway on Tuesday.

Traffic police chief in Parwan Col. Khwaja Sayed Mehrabuddin Parwani told Pajhwok three women, who were seriously injured, were rushed to the Emergency Hospital in Kabul.

He said the accident happened when a Kabul-bound taxi cab collided with a Corolla car from the opposite direction near the provincial capital of Charikar.
Mueed Hashmi/Farid Tanha
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