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October 19, 2007 

No evidence Iran arming Taliban: Afghan foreign minister
HERAT, Afghanistan (AFP) - Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta said Friday there was no evidence that Iran was supplying weapons to Taliban militants waging a violent insurgency.

Spanta's comments came after the top US commander in Afghanistan, General Dan McNeill, said Thursday a convoy of explosives intercepted last month had arrived from Iran and probably with the knowledge of the Iranian military.

"Our government has no evidence to show Iran is giving weapons to the Taliban and we have never stated this," Spanta told reporters after meeting with his Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki in the western city of Herat.

US and British officials have alleged for months that weapons from Iran are going to the Taliban rebels fighting Kabul and its international allies, the main one being Washington with which Tehran has a strained relationship.

Iran has denied the allegations and Afghanistan has also said it has no proof.

Asked about McNeill's statement, Mottaki said: "These are claims that they make. For us the motives behind these claims are clear."

He did not elaborate but suggested there were contacts, which he did not make clear, between "terrorist groups in Afghanistan" and "political circles and European capitals."

Iran was fully behind the reconstruction of post-Taliban Afghanistan, both ministers said.

McNeill, the head of the 40,000-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, was referring Thursday to a convoy from Iran which was stopped on September 5 in western Afghanistan.

It contained "a number of advanced technology improvised explosive devices," he said.

"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 Iran military," he said.

The Afghan and Iranian ministers met with their Pakistani counterpart Khurshid Kasuri in Herat ahead of a conference Saturday of foreign ministers from 10 regional countries in the Economic Cooperation Organisation (ECO).

ECO incorporates Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
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Mullen: US action in Iran last resort
By LOLITA C. BALDOR Associated Press Fri Oct 19, 6:26 AM ET
WASHINGTON - While military action against Iran is a last resort, the U.S. has the resources to attack if needed despite the strains of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the top U.S. military officer said.

Navy Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday the focus now is on diplomacy to stem Iran's nuclear ambitions and its support for insurgents in Iraq.

But, he told reporters, "there is more than enough reserve to respond (militarily) if that, in fact, is what the national leadership wanted to do."

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons could set of an arms race in the Middle East. "The risk of an accident or a miscalculation or of those weapons or materials falling into the hands of terrorists seem to me to be substantially increased," he said.

Appearing together before reporters for the first time since Mullen became chairman on Oct. 1, they expressed concern about Iran and Turkey — hot spots commanding attention even as the military focuses on the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Both leaders warned of serious repercussions if Congress were to pass a nonbinding resolution labeling as genocide the killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians in the final years of the Ottoman Empire, around World War I.

"I don't think the Turks are bluffing. I think it is that meaningful to them," Gates said. "I think there is a very real risk of perhaps not shutting us down" in terms of access to Turkish airspace for resupplying U.S. troops in Iraq, but of at least restricting it.

"I will say again it has potential to do real harm to our troops in Iraq and would strain — perhaps beyond repair — our relationship with a key ally in a vital region and in the wider war on terror," the Pentagon chief said.

At the same time, Gates said the U.S. and the Iraqis are "prepared to do the appropriate thing" in acting against the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, that has conducted raids into Turkey from northern Iraq.

The Turks have expressed frustration about the lack of action by the U.S. against the group. Gates attributed that largely to a lack of specific intelligence.

The Turkish parliament this week authorized the government to send troops across the border to go after the Kurdish rebels, despite repeated pleas from Washington to focus on diplomatic efforts.

Gates also said he believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin is serious about trying to play a constructive role in resolving the crisis over Iran's nuclear program.

"President Putin takes Iran seriously as a security concern for Russia, and I think they are prepared to take some actions as befits that," Gates said.

Mullen said the U.S. military is working hard to stem the flow from Iran into Afghanistan of high-tech materials for roadside bombs. The military has said that parts from the armor-piercing bombs, which have killed hundreds of troops in Iraq, are now getting into Afghanistan.

Mullen said he is not aware of any high-level Iranian government connection to the weapons in Afghanistan, although officials have said that is a concern in Iraq.

At a separate Pentagon news conference, Afghanistan's defense chief, Abdul Rahim Wardak, told reporters that his government recently obtained evidence that Iranian weapons are entering his country.

He said he raised the matter with Iranian officials last month and they denied any involvement.

Also Thursday, Gates said the private security guards in Iraq — such as those who killed a number of Iraqi citizens — may be hurting the U.S. military's effort to stabilize the country.

The military and the contractors, he said, have conflicting missions. While the contractors are trying to keep alive those people being guarded, the military is striving to improve relations with the Iraqis and solidify the government.

"There have been instances where, to put it mildly, the Iraqis have been offended and not treated properly" by the private guards, Gates said. "So those kinds of activities work at cross-purposes to our larger mission in Iraq."

Gates said he plans to confer with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about tighter controls over the contractors.
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Afghanistan skeptical Iran arming Taliban
WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 (UPI) -- Afghan Defense Minister Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak said evidence of Iranian cooperation in arming Taliban insurgents with advanced weapons is inconclusive.

Wardak was in Washington lobbying for more significant international assistance in the reconstruction effort in Afghanistan.

He persistently denied that Iran armed the Taliban in Afghanistan with armor-piercing explosives and other sophisticated weapons after meeting with Iranian officials last month.

Voice of America quoted Wardak as saying: “There are weapons and maybe some financial support and others. But to be completely clear about it I think it will take a little bit of time to come up with the right conclusion.”

U.S. officials aren’t so convinced, VOA noted. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the Taliban were “clearing getting support from elsewhere outside of Afghanistan” and suggested Iranian officials were involved.

U.S. Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Voice of America that the issue should be handled diplomatically but stated, “I’m not one to take options off the table and wouldn’t do that.”
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Pakistani FM leaves for Afghanistan to attend ECO meeting 
October 19, 2007 People's Daily
Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid M. Kasuri left here Friday for Afghanistan to attend the 17th meeting of the Council of Ministers of Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO).

The ECO meeting will be held in Herat on Saturday, Oct. 20.

The meeting will review progress achieved so far on major ECO projects including the ECO Trade Agreement, the ECO Trade and Development Bank, the Transit Transport Framework Agreement and the feasibility study on interconnection of power systems of member states, according to a press statement by the Pakistani foreign ministry.

The ECO Trade Agreement, ECOTA, which is expected to enter into force shortly, will lead to establishment of a Free Trade Area in the region by the year 2015.

As ECO's coordinating country for ECOTA, Pakistan will seek early operationalization of the agreement. Likewise the Trade and Development Bank has made progress and will commence operations by the end of 2007.

The meeting will focus on establishment of an ECO-wide power grid.

Some ECO member states including Pakistan are deficient in electricity, while certain proximate states including Iran, Tajikistan and the Kyrgyz Republic generate surplus power.

The ECO meeting will provide a useful opportunity to consolidate Pakistan's active role in the ECO, the statement said.

Pakistan has expressed the hope in the statement that Kasuri's visit to Afghanistan will provide an opportunity for bilateral meetings between counterparts and to discuss matters of bilateral and regional interest.
Source: Xinhua
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New generation Taliban rivalling chief: US-led coalition
KABUL (AFP) - An Al-Qaeda-linked commander directing a brutal wave of violence in Afghanistan, Siraj Haqqani, is trying to rival Mullah Mohammad Omar for the Taliban leadership, the US-led coalition said Friday.

Haqqani represents a "younger, more aggressive generation of Taliban senior leadership" and has extended his influence from his base in the east to central provinces near Kabul and into the volatile south, it said in a statement.

The coalition, leading the US "war on terror" in Afghanistan, has issued a 200,000-dollar reward for the arrest of Haqqani as part of a Most Wanted campaign, which will see posters of about 12 wanted militants put up in the east in the coming weeks.

Haqqani, son of well-known Soviet resistance commander Jalaluddin Haqqani -- said to be close to Mullah Omar, is one of the most influential insurgent commanders in the east, the statement said.

"His reach now certainly exceeds that of his father and Siraj is working to rival Mullah Omar for the Taliban leadership," said Major Chris Belcher, coalition spokesman.

"Siraj is part of a younger, more aggressive generation of Taliban senior leadership that is pushing aside the formerly respected elders," added Lieutenant Colonel Dave Anders, coalition director of operations.

"Kidnappings, assassinations, beheading women, indiscriminate killings and suicide bombers -- Siraj is the one dictating the new parameters of brutality associated with Taliban senior leadership," he said.

The coalition said the militant's close connections with Al-Qaeda have enabled him collect financial support from Middle Eastern countries and to recruit foreign fighters, including from Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Chechnya and Turkey.

The US-led force said it has been carrying out operations to disrupt the Haqqani network, including patrols to clear villages that have led to the detention of more than 30 Haqqani fighters.

The Pakistan military helped capture insurgents in the border region. A stash of weapons has also been confiscated, including five 1,000-pound bombs and two 500-pound bombs, it said. Back to Top
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Al-Qaida links cited in Bhutto bomb
By ASHRAF KHAN, Associated Press Writer Fri Oct 19, 5:18 AM ET
KARACHI, Pakistan - A top provincial security official said Friday that the suicide attack on Benazir Bhutto bore the hallmarks of an al-Qaida-linked, pro-Taliban warlord based near the Afghan border.

President Gen. Pervez Musharraf labeled the attack part of a "conspiracy against democracy," reaching out to the former prime minister with whom he is trying to forge a pro-U.S., anti-militant alliance.

The "signature at the blast site and the modus operandi" suggested the involvement of militants linked to warlord Baitullah Mehsud and al-Qaida, said Ghulam Muhammad Mohtarem, the head security official in the province where Mehsud is based.

"We were already fearing a strike from Mehsud and his local affiliates and this were conveyed to the (Bhutto's Pakistan's) People's Party but they got carried away by political exigencies instead of taking our concern seriously," Mohtarem said.

There was no claim of responsibility for the bombing of Bhutto's convoy, which killed up to 136 people as she triumphantly paraded through her hometown of Karachi Thursday.

On the eve of her return from eight years in self-imposed exile, a provincial government official had cited intelligence reports that three suicide bombers linked to Mehsud were in Karachi. The local government had also warned Bhutto could be targeted by Taliban or al-Qaida.

Local media reports this month quoted Mehsud — probably the most prominent leader of Islamic militants destabilizing its northwestern border regions near Afghanistan — as vowing to meet Bhutto's return to Pakistan with suicide attacks.

It remained unclear if the attack would stiffen Bhutto and Musharraf's resolve to fight militancy together or strain the already bad relations between Bhutto and the ruling party supporting Musharraf.

Bhutto's husband said on Dawn News television that he suspected "elements sitting within the government," who would lose out if Bhutto returned to power, were involved in the bombing.

He didn't elaborate, though Bhutto has accused conservatives in the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Q party and the security services of secretly supporting religious extremists. Bhutto has made enemies of Islamic militants by taking a pro-U.S. line and negotiating a possible alliance with Musharraf, who is detested by militants for his alliance with the Bush administration.

Musharraf and Bhutto have been longtime rivals despite their shared liberal values, but his camp said he was "deeply shocked" by the midnight explosions, which went off near the armored truck carrying Bhutto, tearing victims apart and throwing a fireball into the night sky.

Officials at six hospitals in Karachi reported 136 dead and around 250 wounded, making it one of the deadliest bombings in Pakistan's history. Karachi police chief Azhar Farooqi said that 113 people died, including 20 policemen, and that 300 people were wounded. It was not immediately possible to reconcile the death tolls.

The attack shattered the windows of the truck but police said Bhutto was unhurt and was hurried to her house. An Associated Press photo showed a dazed-looking Bhutto being helped away from the scene.

The general "condemned this attack in the strongest possible words. He said this was a conspiracy against democracy," the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan said.

Musharraf appealed for calm, promised an exhaustive investigation and stiff punishment for those responsible, APP reported.

Presidential spokesman Rashid Qureshi said he doubted the attack would deflect Bhutto from her move toward an alliance with Musharraf, who seized power in a coup and has been under growing pressure to return Pakistan to a more democratic system.

"If someone thinks that by spreading this kind of terror they will stop the political process in Pakistan, I don't think that's correct, I don't think that will happen," Qureshi told The AP.

Musharraf won re-election to the presidency in a vote by lawmakers this month that is being challenged in the Supreme Court. If he is confirmed for a new five-year presidential term, Musharraf has promised to quit the military and restore civilian rule.

Musharraf believes that "all political forces need to combine to face this (militant) threat which is basically the major, major issue that faces Pakistan," Qureshi said.

Leaders of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party were meeting at her Karachi residence Friday, and Bhutto was expected to hold a news conference afterward.

Police were collecting forensic evidence — picking up pieces of flesh and discarded shoes — from the site of the bombing. The truck was hoisted away using a crane. One side of the truck, including a big portrait of the former premier was splattered with blood and riddled with shrapnel holes.

Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said 18 police died in the attack, and two police vehicles on the left side of Bhutto's truck had borne the brunt of the blast.

He said authorities had done everything possible to protect the huge gathering, but noted that electronic jammers fitted to the police escort vehicles were ineffective against a manually detonated bomb.

In Karachi, which lies in the far south of Pakistan but has been buffeted by militant attacks in recent years, schools were closed and traffic was thin, with residents wary of venturing into the streets.

Unrest broke in two districts but did not appear serious. Hundreds of Bhutto supporters hurled stones at vehicles and shops during a funeral procession for two victims, forcing police to cordon off the area. Elsewhere, Bhutto supporters ordered shops to close and burned tires in the road.

Bhutto had paved her route back to Pakistan through negotiations with Musharraf that yielded an amnesty covering the corruption charges that made Bhutto leave Pakistan.

Authorities had warned Bhutto that extremists sympathetic to the Taliban and al-Qaida could target her in Karachi and urged her in vain to use a helicopter to reduce the risk.

"I am not scared. I am thinking of my mission," she had told reporters on the plane from Dubai.

On arrival, she told AP Television News she was fighting for democracy and to help this nuclear-armed country of 160 million people defeat the extremism that gave it the reputation as a hotbed of international terrorism.

"That's not the real image of Pakistan," she said.

Leaving the airport, Bhutto refused to use the bulletproof glass cubicle that had been built atop the truck taking her toward the tomb of Pakistan's founding father, Mohammed Ali Jinnah. An AP photographer who saw the cubicle of the wrecked truck Friday said it appeared to have shrapnel holes from the bombing.

Her procession had been creeping toward the center of Karachi for 10 hours, as supporters thronged her truck, when a small explosion erupted near the front of the vehicle.

That was quickly followed by a larger blast, destroying two escorting police vans.

The former premier had just gone to a downstairs compartment in the truck for a rest when the blast occurred, said Christina Lamb, Bhutto's biographer.

"So she wasn't on top in the open like rest of us, so that just saved her," Lamb told Sky News.

The United States, the United Nations and the European Union condemned the attack.

"Extremists will not be allowed to stop Pakistanis from selecting their representatives through an open and democratic process," said Gordon Johndroe, President Bush's foreign affairs spokesman.
___
Associated Press writers Matthew Pennington and Paisley Dodds in Karachi and Sadaqat Jan and Zarar Khan in Islamabad contributed to this report.
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Fallout From Karachi Bombing Felt In Afghanistan
By Ron Synovitz
October 19, 2007 (RFE/RL) – October 19, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- Between Karachi and Kabul stand the vast deserts and mountains of Balochistan. But news of the double blast that killed more than 130 people in the Pakistani port city -- an attack aimed at former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto -- was heard loud and clear 1,000 kilometers away in the Afghan capital.


With the governments in both Islamabad and Kabul battling the resurgent Taliban movement on both sides of their border -- and Al Qaeda using their frontier regions as a safe haven -- dramatic events like the bloody suicide attack on October 18 invariably have an impact on Afghanistan.

Likewise, the spiraling of events in Afghanistan has a spillover effect in Pakistan.

In Kabul, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, himself a constant target of Islamist militants, condemned the attack. “This proves, once again, that Afghanistan and Pakistan and our international friends must focus the strongest attention in the war against terrorism," Karzai said.

In recent months, the Taliban, with significant support from militants in tribal areas across the border in Pakistan, has been intensifying its insurgency in southern and eastern Afghanistan. The result has been a rising number of suicide bombings and guerilla attacks, with casualties among civilians, Afghan government forces and NATO troops rising as the Taliban bids to reassert its Islamist agenda over the territory and to topple the U.S.-backed government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Intensifying Battle

Pakistan, meanwhile, has been waging its own military campaign in tribal regions such as North and South Waziristan and along other border areas of the North West Frontier Province and Balochistan. For tribal and cultural reasons, those areas have significant links to the Taliban. It is also there that Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden is thought to be hiding.

“It's a global conflict, of course, but it is also a regional conflict,” Barnett Rubin, an Afghanistan expert at New York University, said shortly after news of the attack against Bhutto in Karachi, which came just hours after she had returned to the country after eight years of self-imposed exile. “And within that region, Afghanistan and Pakistan are increasingly functioning as a single, highly-closely linked political system.”

The blasts targeted Bhutto's motorcade just as the former prime minister, greeted by hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic supporters, was launching her political comeback with pledges to end military rule and fight extremism. Bhutto herself was not hurt, but members of her Pakistan People's Party reportedly were killed.

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, the country's army chief who seized power in a bloddless coup eight years ago, condemned the attack as a "conspiracy against democracy." Musharraf had helped pave the way for Bhutto’s return by agreeing to an amnesty for her on corruption charges and a reported power-sharing deal following elections due in January.

Islamist militants in Pakistan, who share not just an ideology but also arms and supplies with their Taliban brethren across the Afghan border, had threatened to kill the Bhutto on her return.

Bhutto, in an interview with the French magazine "Paris-Match" just hours after the attack, blamed members of the former military regime of Pakistani General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq. She said those forces “stand behind extremism and fanaticism” and that Islamabad must “purge these elements that are still present" in Pakistan's security services.

Zia overthrew Bhutto's father, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1977 and had him hanged two years later. General Zia himself died in a plane crash in 1988.

Pakistani Information Minister Tariq Azim Khan denied any involvement by government security or intelligence officials. Instead, Pakistan's government has blamed the attack on Islamic militants.

Of course, it’s no secret that elements of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, has long played a role in supporting Islamic fundamentalists, including the Taliban, as part of their foreign policy agenda. That support is alleged to be continuing as the Taliban intensify their campaign in Afghanistan.

To others, however, such links have become more complicated. Briton Michael Griffon, author of “Reaping the Whirlwind: The Taliban Movement in Afghanistan,” says the Islamic movement has undergone key changes in recent years.

“It's not a centrally commanded Taliban with [Mullah] Mohammad Omar at the top,” Griffin told RFE/RL. “It is not even, as it was before, kind of universally supplied by agents or elements within the ISI or Pakistan military. Some bits are better supplied than other bits. Some bits have more backup from Pakistan than other bits. I think probably the southern insurrection based upon Quetta gets better support [from Pakistan] than the one that's fighting Americans in the eastern mountains, the Spingar Mountains."

Rubin says what emerges is a less controlled, more chaotic movement where the destabilization in Afghanistan is now starting to blow back across the border into Pakistan.

“What is happening now as it shows is that the situation in Afghanistan is now fundamentally undermining the political transition in Pakistan,” Rubin said during a New York conference called “Shadow Conflict: Afghanistan and Pakistan” just hours after the attack. “It is delegitimazing and destabilizing the central government in Pakistan. That means in Pakistan we now have a government which, while it has a lot more resources and capabilities than the Afghan government, nonetheless is very unstable at the moment. A political transition that has just been attacked very decisively, we don’t know what the result of that will be, nuclear weapons and the headquarters of Al-Qaeda are in Pakistan.”

No Love Lost

Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, a foremost authority on the issue, told RFE/RL that he agrees that elements of the security forces were either negligent or could have been involved. Rashid says Pakistan's army has “no lost love” for Bhutto, particularly after she made a series of recent controversial comments.

"A number of things that [Bhutto] has said have annoyed [Pakistan's] army considerably,” Rashid said. “She has made comments about allowing Dr. A.Q. Khan to be investigated by the [International Atomic Energy Agency]. And she has talked about American troops being allowed to become active in Waziristan. These are issues which probably the army feels today she has no right to be talking about or interfering in."

Bhutto, whose return reportedly was facilitated by the United States, had billed her political comeback as a step toward restoring Pakistani democracy and strengthening its fight against homegrown Islamic extremism.

Both moves, if successful, were seen by many as an obvious boost to the political and security efforts to achieve peace and democracy in Afghanistan. But if it hasn’t dashed those aspirations, the bombing has at least shown them to be overly optimistic, if not mere Western wish fulfillment, says British author Griffin.

In Griffin's opinion, Musharraf has already taken, by Pakistani standards, bold moves to accommodate U.S. anti-terrorism policies. He said he wonders how any future democratically elected government headed by Bhutto would be able to persuade the Pakistani military, parts of which have always been reluctant to tackle the militants, to take even stronger steps against the Taliban and other militants, particularly as Musharraf has pledged to leave his post as army chief while serving another term as president.

“I don't see how the military, trying its hardest, if you like, under Musharraf to impose its will in Waziristan, is going to do any better under Bhutto," Griffin said.

For now, Rashid says the attack’s immediate impact could be a delay in January’s parliamentary polls, allowing Islamists to retain the influence they have in politics -- and behind the scenes in the military and elsewhere.
(Contributors to this story include RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan in Kabul and RFE/RL correspondent Nikola Krastev in New York)
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Iranian deputy FM urges promotion of trade with Afghanistan
Kabul, Oct 19, IRNA
Visiting Iranian deputy foreign minister called for expansion of bilateral trade with Afghanistan here on Thursday

In a meeting with Afghan and Iranian businessmen, the Iranian official Alireza Sheikh-Attar referred to common cultural, religious and historical grounds of the Iranian and Afghan nations.

He said Iran was the first country which launched reconstruction projects in Afghanistan, adding that some 250 million dollars have already been spent by Iran in this field and the assigned figure for the current year is 50 million dollars.

He also remarked that by completion of the railway network, connection between this neighboring country and southern Iranian ports as well as European countries will be established.

Sheikh-Attar said Iran is ready to provide technical and management services to Afghanistan to help it with production of various commodities. He put the official figure of two-way trade at 450 million dollars a year.

The Iranian official who arrived here on Thursday is scheduled to visit Herat on Friday.
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Afghanistan seeks more help as violence soars
By Kristin Roberts Thu Oct 18, 6:45 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Afghanistan's defense minister asked on Thursday for more money and equipment to fight soaring Taliban violence as America's Pentagon chief criticized NATO allies for failing to deliver promised aid.

Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak said suicide bombings were up 50 percent from a year ago and that the Afghan army needed more troops and equipment.

"We have achieved a great deal with limited manpower and old weapons and equipment," Wardak said after meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates at the Pentagon. "Imagine what we could do with better equipment and additional help."

Despite six years of war in Afghanistan, the Taliban regained strength in 2006 and has ramped up attacks on U.S., Afghan and NATO forces this year. NATO forces also have begun to intercept convoys of bomb technology coming into Afghanistan from Iran, according to NATO and U.S. military officials.

Wardak called the past two years "the most difficult and challenging since 2001." The Taliban government was overthrown that year by Afghan and U.S.-led forces.

"The enemy has stepped up his activities, operating in smaller units over a wider geographic area, with heavy reliance on IED (improvised explosive devices) and suicide bombing," he said.

That rising violence comes as NATO commanders say they still face shortages in troops, trainers, helicopters and other equipment needed to fight the war.

The United States, which boosted its troop and equipment commitment to Afghanistan to fill some of those gaps this year, has complained repeatedly about its European allies' unwillingness or inability to meet stated commitments.

NATO defense ministers will meet next week in the Netherlands, and Gates is expected to press his counterparts again to fulfill promises made last year.

"One of the problems that we encounter is that, while we have 40 countries cooperating in Afghanistan to help Afghanistan, both in terms of security and in terms of development, not all of those countries have delivered on the commitments that they made," Gates said on Thursday.

"I expect this subject to be the centerpiece of those discussions, of people meeting the commitments that they've made," he said.

A U.S. military official said attack levels had climbed every year since 2003 in four major categories -- small arms fire, rocket-propelled grenades, suicide bombings and improvised explosive devices.

The number of suicide bombings in Afghanistan this year has already exceeded the 130 suicide attacks recorded in all of 2006, the official said.
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Security remains elusive in Afghanistan, says UK think tank
London, Oct.19 (ANI): A British foreign policy think-tank says that international forces have failed to bring satisfactory security to Afghanistan.

The Chatham House report says that they lack a coherent strategy.

According to the BBC, the report says that NATO and US forces need a strategy which integrates the fight against Taleban insurgents with reconstruction efforts.

It also highlights Pakistan as a significant arms source and recruitment base for the insurgents.

The report says that as long as Pakistan remains a safe haven for the Taleban and al-Qaeda, international forces will not be able to control Afghanistan.

The report's revelations have surfaced even as a foreign news agency quoted Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak as saying in Washington that suicide bombings in Afghanistan were up 50 percent from a year ago and that the Afghan army needed more troops and equipment.

"We have achieved a great deal with limited manpower and old weapons and equipment. Imagine what we could do with better equipment and additional help," Wardak said after meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates at the Pentagon.

Despite six years of war in Afghanistan, the Taliban regained strength in 2006 and has ramped up attacks on U.S., Afghan and NATO forces this year. NATO forces also have begun to intercept convoys of bomb technology coming into Afghanistan from Iran, according to NATO and U.S. military officials.

Wardak called the past two years "the most difficult and challenging since 2001." The Taliban government was overthrown that year by Afghan and U.S.-led forces.

That rising violence comes as NATO commanders say they still face shortages in troops, trainers, helicopters and other equipment needed to fight the war.
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US, Britain urge Japan on Afghan mission
By KOZO MIZOGUCHI, Associated Press Writer Thu Oct 18, 6:37 PM ET
TOKYO - The United States and Britain Thursday urged Japan to renew a mission to refuel coalition ships in the Indian Ocean as fierce opposition in parliament dimmed prospects of securing an extension before the deployment expires next month.

Japanese officials have acknowledged that a bill to extend the mission is unlikely to gain approval by Japan's divided parliament, or Diet, before the Nov. 1 deadline — and that a gap in Japan's activities is inevitable.

"We would hope that the mission can be continuously undertaken," U.S. Ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer told reporters Thursday after meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown also called on Japan to renew the mission during a phone call with his Japanese counterpart, Yasuo Fukuda, according to a Foreign Ministry statement.

"I told him that I will do my utmost," Fukuda later told reporters.

Japan's parliament is in gridlock over a new anti-terrorism bill that would extend the refueling mission in the Indian Ocean for a year. Tokyo dispatched it ships to the region in 2001 under an old bill that has been extended three times but runs out on Nov. 1.

A new law submitted Wednesday by the ruling coalition limits the scope of Japan's activities in the region, in hopes of mollifying a resurgent opposition here that argues the mission involves Tokyo too deeply in military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The bill would limit Japanese ships to refueling and supplying water to ships on anti-terrorism patrols, but does not allow them to refuel vessels involved in military operations, such as attacks.

But opposition bloc has refused to cooperate, threatening to reject the bill in parliament's upper house, which the bloc controls.

The ruling coalition, which holds the lower chamber, can ultimately overrule an upper house rejection. Parliamentary proceedings are expected to spill into November, however.
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Opium funding up to 40 percent of Afghan unrest: US general
Thu Oct 18, 11:38 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - The top US general in Afghanistan said Thursday he estimated that Afghanistan's rampant opium poppy cultivation was funding up to 40 percent of the Taliban-led insurgency.

General Dan McNeill, head of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), added he had been told by an international expert that this figure was likely low and could reach up to 60 percent.

"It is my best subjective estimate that the insurgency enjoys fiscal resources from the cultivation of poppy probably to the level of 20 to 40 percent of its total fiscal resources," the general told journalists.

The cultivation of opium -- 93 percent of whose world supply comes from Afghanistan, according to the United Nations -- is undermining everything the government and its international allies were trying to do, he said.

Despite internationally backed efforts to cut the drugs trade, Afghanistan's opium production grew by 34 percent this year, according to a UN survey.

There has been pressure on ISAF to be more involved in eradication.

McNeill said this was not the mandate of the 40,000-strong force from 38 nations. "ISAF is neither manned, trained or equipped to be an eradication force but there are other ways ... that we might be able to help," he said.

ISAF officials have already said the force is ready to help by providing training to Afghan security forces, and sharing information and logistics.

Besides funding insurgents, poppy cultivation is corrupting the government and distracting locals from the work under way to rebuild the war-shattered nation, McNeill said.

"People are distracted from the value of the reconstruction because of poppy cultivation and the money inherent within," he said.

In its last year in power in 2001 the extremist Taliban government slashed the production of opium -- the main ingredient of heroin -- to 185 tonnes a year.

It is now estimated at 8,200 tonnes a year, much of it going to Europe, with production the highest in the south where the Taliban's insurgency is the fiercest.
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Claims of US Koran abuse are 'untrue:' Karzai office
Thu Oct 18, 10:03 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Two separate probes have rebutted allegations that US soldiers burnt a copy of the Koran on a raid in Afghanistan last week, Afghan President Hamid Karzai's office said.

The US military had already rejected claims by villagers in the eastern province of Kunar that its soldiers burnt a copy of the Muslim holy book on October 13, but said after locals protested that it would investigate.

"Two investigations carried out separately by the US military and the Afghan government found that the claims that Koran was abused was not true," Karzai's spokesman Homayun Hamidzada told AFP.

"This propaganda was part of the enemies' campaign to undermine the presence of foreign forces in the country," he said.

Insurgents fighting a campaign to topple Karzai's US-backed government, which is supported by more than 50,000 foreign troops based here, regularly try to stir up anti-US sentiment to gain support.

Afghanistan is a deeply devout country and allegations of abuse of Islam have in the past touched off protests that have turned deadly.

Hundreds of angry villagers demonstrated for hours on Saturday after the allegations about the Korean, burnt pages of which were shown to reporters. They later met with US soldiers and demanded an apology.

Samples of the damaged book were sent to Kabul for analysis and Karzai said Tuesday he would take "suitable action" should the claims be proven. Iran, for its part, called for worldwide protests.

The extremist Taliban movement launched its insurgency soon after being driven from government in late 2001 by a US-led coalition. Other groups are also said to be involved in the nearly daily violence in Afghanistan.
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More international trainers needed for Afghan army: US military
Fri Oct 19, 5:55 AM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The Afghan army needs three times the number of international military training teams as are currently working with it to accelerate its development, a senior US military official said.

Major General Robert Cone, head of the combined security transition command in Afghanistan, said the additional trainers were needed as the Afghan National Army grows from 50,000 to 70,000 troops.

"The greatest shortfall that we face right now, both in terms of increasing the size of the training base and in taking units into combat and employing them, are trainers," he said.

He said 22 training teams are currently working with the army, and another 20 have been promised by NATO countries. But he said 60 more teams were needed.

Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak told reporters the army also needed "air mobility, more firepower, and more combat enablers and force multipliers" to begin taking over from the NATO force.

Wardak met earlier with US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who is expected to lobby for more contributions from NATO countries next week at a meeting of alliance defense ministers in the Netherlands.

The training teams generally consist of about 16 members, who mentor Afghan officers. Cone said the emphasis of the training will be shifting to battalion and brigade size formations.

"The army is extremely motivated and performs very well at the individual and small-unit level," Cone said.

"However, we see a need for improvement in the ANA's ability to operate effectively at the battalion and brigade level, where they will take the lead," he said.

"This is why we are shifting our focus to concentrate more on the collective level of training. We are now at the point where we are focusing less on personal mentoring and more on collective mentoring of large units."
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Canadians help oversee massive weapons stockpile in Afghanistan
Matthew Fisher CanWest News Service Friday, October 19, 2007
KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan -- It is not talked about much by the troops or by the media, but Canada cannot fight the Taliban without large stocks of deadly artillery and tank shells and tens of thousands of bullets for 25-millimetre cannons, sniper and assault rifles and pistols.

Warrant Officer Martin Marceau and a small cadre of technicians spend their days and nights in a sprawling ammo dump at the Kandahar Airfield preparing pallets of munitions for shipment by air and by road to the Royal 22nd Regiment battle group, which is mostly deployed in the Taliban heartland, not far to the west of Kandahar City.

As you might expect, the ammo dump, officially known as the Multinational Ammunition Depot, is one of the most secure areas at the Kandahar Airfield, which is home to about 13,000 NATO troops and civilians.

"If all we have here went up at once it would be a really big show, that's for sure, but that just isn't an issue. It's safe," said Master Cpl. Sebastien Janvier, who keeps close track of all the firepower and the mountains of paper its movement and its use generate.

"We get urgent requests for ammo almost every day. Sometimes we have to move the ammo out so fast that we deal with the paperwork afterwards."

Maj. Roger Lupien, who oversees everything from toilet paper to weapons that leave the airfield for Canadian troops in the field, said great care was taken to follow every shell and bullet and to have munitions that were not being used or that were faulty, returned to be examined in Kandahar or in Canada.

"It is rigidly controlled," he said. "We know exactly what is inside each truck that leaves here and exactly what the consumption rate is."

Kandahar's state-of-the-art ammunition depot is an unusual hybrid. In a deal struck under Paul Martin's Liberal government as NATO's big Afghan push began in 2005, Canada saved $1.7 million by sharing costs of the compound equally with the British and Dutch armies. While each country has an equal share in the facility and takes care of its own ordnance, the command rotates between a British and a Canadian officer every six months.

Except for German-made tank shells for Canada's Leopard I and Leopard II tanks, almost all of the ammunition in the Canadian storage areas was made at home. As extremely hazardous cargo, weapons were flown here on military aircraft where passengers were banned.

The dump isn't actually a dump at all, but a series of magazines set far apart from each other and each protected by sandbags. For safety reasons, each shed was designed in such a way that if there was an accident the blast would push the explosives up, rather than out.

One of the problems in the extreme heat of the Afghan summer has been keeping each building sufficiently cool so that weapons do not become unstable. An unexpected difficulty has been flash floods that occur sometimes during the winter. To keep the weapons dry they have been stored several feet off the ground and a network of culverts has been built outside to divert water.

Another major security concern was that "we can't mix the weapons much," said Marceau, who spent 10 years as a gunner before entering this arcane, secretive world by passing an onerous three-day examination that required him to build his own ammo dump.

"NATO has specific rules. Canada's are sometimes more strict. We try to exceed them where possible. For a field operation, this is a good one."
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German Officials Call for Rethink of EU Afghanistan Policy
Deutsche Welle - Oct 18 10:51 PM
Germany's defense minister has called on the EU to strengthen its police training efforts in Afghanistan. The head of the army association went further in his critique, saying EU's Afghan plan had "failed pathetically."

German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung said the EU plan to send 195 trainers to the conflict-riven region should be reconsidered since the number is likely not high enough. He named the US as a model the EU could follow.

"They go at the situation in a completely different dimension," he told the daily Die Welt.

The head of the German Federal Armed Forces Association, Bernhard Gertz, also called for more training personnel to be sent to the region, accusing the EU and the German government of having "failed pathetically" in its Afghanistan policy.

He told the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung daily that if a country is to be rebuilt with a self-supporting security apparatus, 40 police training personnel from Germany is not near enough. He said in order to train enough police for all of Afghanistan regions, some 5,000 trainers would be needed from the EU instead of the promised 165.

Gertz also had harsh words for western efforts to create a new Afghan army. He said at best 16,000 soldiers are available to the Karsai government when it needed at least 70,000.

Deployment: Five years
Defense Minister Jung said he believed German troops could be deployed in Afghanistan for at least five more years.

"I'm not saying that we will have achieved everything in five years, but this time span could be a guideline," he told Die Welt.

Last week, Germany's lower house of parliament overwhelmingly approved extending the army's mission in Afghanistan, despite growing public misgivings. The vote allows for up to 3,500 soldiers to operate in the country as part of the NATO International Security Assistance Force for another year.

But he again resisted NATO calls for German soldiers to be deployed in the southern part of the country to train Afghan security forces. German peacekeepers are currently stationed in the relatively quiet north.

But on Wednesday night, Bundeswehr soldiers were the target of a rocket attack about 30 kilometers southwest of Feisabad. It was the third attack this month. Three rockets exploded near the soldiers, but no one was hurt.

Taliban negotiations
The defense minister also told the paper he was against calls to negotiate with Taliban rebels because previous attempts to do so had failed.

"As long as the Taliban have not clearly sworn off violence, I believe negotiations may not be conducted," he said.

He said British troops had had negative experiences in past attempts at talks with the Taliban in the volative south of the country, which had led to more violence.

"You cannot negotiate with those who conducted a reign of terror and today are doing everything to bring about this utterly blind vision of a fundamentalist world."
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Russian Millionaire Farmer Briefly Held in Afghanistan
MOSCOW (RIA Novosti) - Russian businessman German Sterligov was released after two-day detention by security forces in Afghanistan where he was buying rams for his farm.

"Local special service officers arrested me two days ago," Sterligov said on Wednesday. "Although we were held at gunpoint with automatic rifles, we were treated cordially, and politely," he said, adding that "Russians are generally treated well here."

Sterligov was one of the first Russian millionaires in the early 1990s. Prior to opting for reclusive lifestyle in the country, he had several businesses. He previously intended to run for the presidential elections in Russia, but was denied registration.
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No simple phone surveys in war-torn Afghanistan
Locally hired interviewers conduct poll inside homes, with women asking women questions and men asking men
ALAN FREEMAN October 19, 2007 Globe and Mail, Canada
OTTAWA -- Opinion research may be old hat in Canada, but it's not quite so simple in a country with virtually no telephones, where fewer than half the people are literate and where most women wear burkas.

That was the challenge facing Environics Research when it decided to conduct the first Canadian-sponsored survey of Afghan public opinion this year, co-sponsored by The Globe and Mail, the CBC and La Presse, as well as two think tanks linked to the University of Toronto.

Other surveys had been done by the BBC, the Asia Foundation and the United Nations, but none had been done from a Canadian perspective, according to Keith Neuman, group vice-president at Environics.

So Environics turned to the Afghanistan Centre for Social and Opinion Research, a Kabul-based subsidiary of D3 Systems Inc., a U.S. firm, with extensive experience in polling. A telephone survey was out of the question so the survey, conducted last month, was done face-to-face by interviewers who asked the questions to respondents in their homes across Afghanistan. "It's the way surveys were done 40 or 50 years ago," Mr. Neuman said.

The response rate for the survey was an astounding 85 per cent. In a telephone survey in Canada, where people frequently are not available or refuse to answer, the response rate is usually 15 to 20 per cent.

Mr. Neuman said that questions were asked in Dari or Pashto by locally hired interviewers. To deal with the separation of gender that is pervasive in Afghanistan, men asked men questions and women asked women.

And as in Canada, pollsters discovered a gender divide in Afghanistan.

"Women tended to be more positive about things getting better and a little more positive about the foreign and Canadian presences. Men tend to be more aware of the facts on the ground than the women but the women tend to be more negative about the Taliban."

Mr. Neuman said the survey was conducted in as non-threatening a manner as possible and people responded accordingly, with little sign that those surveyed felt intimidated.

"It is Afghans asking other Afghans about the current state of affairs in Afghanistan," he said.

"They are not representing the military, the government or any insurgent group, so there is no reason for respondents to lie to them.

"People are not giving a party line," he added, noting that sensitive issues like abortion or the right to contraception were not raised in the survey.

Polling took place in all of Afghanistan's 34 provinces with a representative sample of 1,578 Afghans.

The margin of sampling error is 2.7 per cent for the national sample and 5.9 per cent for the Kandahar sample, according to Environics.
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How to holiday in Afghanistan
Boutique hotels, dinner for £1. What are you waiting for, asks Lonely Planet Afghanistan author Paul Clammer
The Times (UK) October 19, 2007 Paul Clammer
For almost 30 years, Afghanistan has existed mainly as a virtual travel destination. It had been at the forefront of the hippy trail in the 60s and 70s that in many ways served as a harbinger for modern adventure travel, but since the country began its bloody turmoil with the Soviet invasion, any traveller dreaming of Kabul had to satisfy themselves by curling into a chair with a copy of "A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush".

However, foreigners have still been visiting Afghanistan for many years, as aid workers, journalists and other professionals, a trickle that turned into a flood with the Taliban's ouster at the close of 2001. And despite the risks, there are now a handful of travel companies offering secure (if restricted) itineraries to the country.

But why would anyone want to go to Afghanistan in the first place? The popular media image is of a flat and dusty brown sort of a place. The truth couldn't be farther from this picture. Afghanistan is dominated by the spine of the Hindu Kush mountains, crossing the border from Pakistan's iconic Khyber Pass (still the classic route into Afghanistan) and continuing to the elevated capital Kabul, and only tailing away into the plains near Iran.

The peaks are white in winter, and in summer their valleys are braided silver with fast rivers and green from fields huddled along their banks. In the north, the deserts bloom with the spring rains, brightly studding the plains with swathes of tulips and gentians.

But the key question is, to put it brutally, will I make it back in one piece? And, aren't there a lot of suicide bombers? Southern Afghanistan is a war zone, but the rest of the country exists in a constantly swirling pool of calm and instability. Some areas have been consistently quiet since 2001 and are likely to remain so. These happily include two places that will be high on the list of tourist attractions for any future visitor: the Bamiyan valley, where the giant Buddha statues once stood, and the Wakhan Corridor, the mountainous tongue of land sticking out of the far northeast, where local communities are already trying to promote trekking with the local yak-herding nomads.

Kabul (whose airport is now served by a handful of international airlines) is the real barometer of how safe it is to visit the country, and a key example of why anyone prepared to travel to Afghanistan should be keeping a close eye on the news. On my most recent visit in July the city was calm, in a sunny mood even. Afghan friends would suggest going for an early evening walk to the fresh juice stands in Shahr-e Nau Park, and were feeling optimistic. Since then, a number of suicide bombs have jangled nerves and succeeded in emptying the streets again.

To the outsider, Kabul seems the most modern of Afghan cities. The air trills with the sound of mobile phones, and there is a surprising variety of amenities to anyone who manages to get there. The creaking Intercontinental Hotel that welcomed journalists under Russian, mujaheddin and Taliban regimes is undergoing a major refit, although you'll have to wait a while yet for the bikini-clad swimmers shown in its 1970s promotional material to return. The hotel has struggling to catch up with other offerings - first the private guesthouse boom spurred by the influx of foreigners five years ago, and then the subsequent hotel construction boom.

Nowadays, the swish boutique-style Kabul Serena Hotel is the destination of choice, or the old colonial decor of the Gandamack Lodge. Run by John Simpson's favoured cameraman (and the first person to film an interview with Osama Bin Laden), it's a slice of the Home Counties right down to the English pub in the basement.

Make the most of the comfy beds in Kabul, as they're often lacking beyond the capital. Hotels tend to be creaky, and on long road trips it isn't unusual to end up in a teahouse at the end of a day, where for the price of dinner (less than a pound) you also get a corner of the communal dining room to curl up in for the night. Most Afghans travel with their own blanket and over-sized scarf for exactly this reason.

The scarves also come into their own when travelling. Afghan roads must surely be the dustiest on the planet, so wrapping yourself up for protection is essential. Women will need their scarf to cover their heads anyway, although going the whole hog and trying to wear a burqa is a big cultural no-no. Some male visitors like to dress up in shalwar kameez, the baggy shirt and pyjama trousers favoured by most Afghans. Wanting to blend in is often cited as the reason, but a secret desire to feel like they're playing the "Great Game" is often just as important a motivation.

Dinner on the road tends to be greasy meat and rice, a shared plate eaten with the hands and washed down with gallons of green tea. It can get pretty monotonous, which is why the summer or autumn remain the best times to travel to take advantage of Afghanistan's bounteous produce. Afghan fruit is truly exceptional, from fat pomegranates from Kandahar to juicy figs, peaches and apples. The north is famous for its melons, which Marco Polo declared to the best in the world.

Afghanistan is bursting with potential as a future tourist destination. Its mountains could rival Nepal as a trekking destination, while Silk Road cities like Herat with their brightly tiled mosques are the match of more celebrated rivals like Samarkand or Isfahan. The jewelled lakes of Band-e Amir are itching to have feet dipped in them. Nomads lead their camel caravans past the broken remains of tanks. The promise is there, and Afghans and travellers alike are just waiting for the right moment to finally return.

Need to know

Advice from the Foreign Office for travel to Afghanistan varies according to the region, but the organisation strongly advises against all travel to the provinces of Balkh (Northern Afghanistan); Ghazni, Kapisa, Khost, Kunar, Laghman, Logar, Nangarhar, Nuristan, Paktika, Panjsher and Paktya (Eastern Afghanistan); Helmand, Kandahar, Nimroz, Uruzgan, and Zabul (Southern Afghanistan); and Farah (Western Afghanistan). There is also specific advice for Kabul, and general safety advice for Britons thinking of visiting.
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Afghanistan Faced with Severe Housing Shortage
Anuj Chopra | 18 Oct 2007 World Politics Review worldpoliticsreview.com
KABUL, Afghanistan -- It's a daily ritual for 8-year-old Bismillah. Every morning, five grimy plastic cans slung over his tiny shoulder, he descends a rugged hillside, negotiating the steep pitches of scree and gravel with goat-like agility.

At the bottom of the hill, he waits under the broiling sun in a long queue leading up to a spigot. But wait he must or his family will be left without drinking water for the day.

Bismillah lives with his handicapped father, mother and four sisters in a mud-and-wood house in a cramped settlement clinging to a shale-brown hill overlooking Kabul. With no direct water supply, dwellers of these rudimentary housing settlements -- all illegally built -- must lug their water from the bottom of the hill.

"Life is hard," says, Suraiya begum, Bismillah's mother, her face hidden behind the lavender fabric of her burqa. "We wouldn't live here if we had a better choice."

Six years after the invasion, ask ordinary Afghans the biggest challenge they face, and their answer isn't likely to be the Taliban. It is, in fact, to find a roof over their heads.

Kabul is in particular need, because of the destruction of nearly 70,000 houses in almost thirty years of war. And a steady inflow of returnees has further exacerbated the problem. With a population of 800,000 before the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, Kabul is now home to over four million, many of them refugees that have returned home since the fall of the Taliban. It is estimated that as much as half of Kabul's population lives in squatter settlements.

The city is sinking under the weight of its own citizens. Kabul 's most urgent urban planning issues are linked to its rapid population growth.

The situation is the same in other larger cities as well -- like Jalalabad, Mazar-e-Sharif and Kandahar. According to U.N. estimates, from 2000 to 2015 the national population is expected to increase by 14 million to a total of about 37 million; more than half of this growth will be in urban areas.

So far, foreign firms have invested $4.5 billion in rebuilding Afghanistan, but very little of it has gone into housing construction, according to Omar Zakhilwal, the director of the Afghanistan Investment support Agency (AISA) in Kabul.

In fact, an acute shortage of affordable housing is forcing people to recklessly building mud houses on the slippery slopes of denuded hills around Kabul. And overcrowding has put a lot of pressure on the already-frail civic infrastructure of the city.

The U.N. says Afghanistan is the world's sixth least developed country. Only 13 percent of Afghans have access to safe water, 12 percent to adequate sanitation, and just 6 percent to electricity. Life expectancy is 44 years (compared to 59 years for low-income countries worldwide).

For Suraiya Begum's family, life in this overcrowded settlement is unforgiving. When it rains, her porous roof leaks and a flood of muddy excrement flows down the slopes, filling up sewers and cesspits already choked with garbage. Mounds of trash collect in heaps in the alleyways leading up to her house. The open sewers are besieged by flies and disease.

Sanitation facilities are scarce. There is a dearth of potable water. (Piped city water reaches only 18 percent of people in Kabul.) Daily power cuts last from dawn until dusk in the winter -- longer in the summer.

Afghanistan's Ministry of Urban development, with World Bank assistance, is now in the process of upgrading formal and informal settlements in Kabul city. This $28.2 million project, which will take at least a few years to implement, will help improve infrastructure and provide basic services like drinking water, sanitation, surface water drainage, concrete roads and street lighting.

"Given a vast majority lives in these settlements, the solution is to upgrade, not demolish these homes and make more people homeless," says Yousaf Pashtun, the Afghan minister of urban development, who is an architect and town planner by training.

But despite the government's efforts, Kabul is facing a chronic shortage of housing for the poor. The per capita income in this post-Taliban nation, according to the World Bank, has increased from $180 in 2002 to $300 in 2006. The figure is expected to reach $500 soon. Still, buying a house or an apartment remains a distant dream for most of Kabul's citizens.

A two-bedroom apartment in Kabul can cost $200 to $400 a month, compared to $7 for a three-bedroom home in 1978. In the neighborhoods of Wazir Akbar Khan and Shahr-e-now, private housing rents have reached $7,000. That makes it impossible for the poor to pay for housing in Kabul, and dramatically widens the class of impoverished Afghans.

Last year, the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief expressed concern that Afghanistan's housing prices are spiraling out of control and making a difficult situation worse for the Afghan poor.

"I didn't think we would face so many problems when we came back to Kabul," says Sangar Khan, a 24-year-old Afghan who returned to the country from Pakistan, where he had fled during the Taliban's reign. "We keep hearing so much money is being given to the reconstruction of Afghanistan, but getting a [home] is the biggest challenge. Renting a house is just not affordable any more."

Khan lives in a squatter shack in another informal settlement that isn't rent-free. As most land in Kabul is claimed by one or more owners -- individuals, companies or government institutions -- squatter households are usually obliged to pay some amount to remain on a property.

Minister Pashtun says he is aware of the acute housing shortage. The Afghan government, he says, with an investment of over $200 million, is in the process of building a small satellite town in northeast Kabul called Shar-i-Sabz, with 100,000 units of housing due to be completed in the next three years.

But beyond the efforts of the government, Pashtun says, the private sector can play a big role in building housing for war-weary Afghans.

At a dust-choked construction site some 20 miles north of Kabul, a private firm is in the process of building a swanky new housing complex that, its builders promise, will change the face of Kabul's rustic skyline forever.

Called "Green City," this ambitious $10 million housing project being financed by Khawar, and Afghan NGO, promises housing for over 3,000 families in multi-storey buildings and row houses spread over 2.5 million square feet. The project is due to be completed in the next two years.

Enayat Sahary, Green City's Iranian-born chief engineer, bent over an expansive blueprint of the township, a cigar dangling between his lips. "The Madrassah will be over here, the Masjid here, the shopping complex here," he says, jabbing his finger at different sections of the blue print.

"At the moment, Kabul stinks. It needs a makeover," he says. "Green city is something Afghans have never seen before."

However, the prices of the apartments being built are almost beyond the reach of ordinary Afghans.

Sahary attributes the high cost to the rising price of overhead. Cement, diesel, labor -- prices of all have sky rocketed since 2002. "Fifty kilos of cement cost 100 Afghani in 2002, now it costs 400; the cost of diesel has nearly doubled since then," he says.

Afghanistan today is facing unprecedented population growth and rapid urbanization, which is widening the gap in demand and supply of housing in urban areas like Kabul and Jalalabad.

"Increasing access to housing finance is key to developing a large-scale housing market in Afghanistan," says Sahary.

At a workshop conducted jointly by the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation in April, to present the findings of a study on Afghanistan's housing sector, experts recommended introducing microfinance loans for home renovation, construction, and purchase.

"Mortgage," says Minister Pashtun, "is the only way we can make homes affordable to our middle class. People can't afford to pay lump sum amounts."

At Shar-i-Sabz, in order to make apartments within the financial reach of Afghans, banks will buy homes from the government and then mortgage them to buyers who will pay up to $150 a month for 15 years before becoming owners. Pashtun is hopeful Afghanistan's 14-odd banks will show keen interest in buying them up, and offering them to buyers.

Anuj Chopra is a freelance journalist based in Pune, India.
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Let all Canadians vote on Afghanistan question
Oct 19, 2007 04:30 AM Sinclair Stevens Toronto Star,  Canada
This week we received a throne speech in Ottawa. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has warned opposition parties that if they defeat it there will be an election.

In fact, if they defeat any legislation contemplated in the speech it may trigger an election.

Last week Harper appointed a five-person panel to report on the future of Canada's presence in Afghanistan after the present 2009 deadline expires.

A review of the group reveals that none appear to have any in-depth knowledge of the Afghan situation. In short, they are well-known, very able Canadians, who have earned their livelihoods in diverse jobs like many other Canadians.

This scenario affords Harper a wonderful opportunity.

Why does he not expand the group of five to include all Canadians who will have a vote in the national election he would like to trigger?

If there is going to be a general election, what could be more appropriate than to also have a referendum at that time where all 32 million Canadian voters could give their advice to the Prime Minister on this important subject, which for many soldiers could mean life, death or permanent injury.

If it is right to ask five people, who will have to spend the next few months brushing up on the subject, listening to officials in Afghanistan, the generals and of course learning the government's party line, why would it not be right to give all Canadian voters that opportunity?

In 1942, faced with a somewhat similar situation in World War II, our then prime minister Mackenzie King did just that. He called it a plebiscite.

The question was whether there should be conscription of Canadian troops for military service in that war.

The voter turnout on the issue was one of the highest in history.

Our involvement in that war was not the issue. Canadians were asked to vote on whether they were in favour of compulsory service.

Today's question is much more fundamental. Should Canadian soldiers be involved in the Afghan war at all?

Surely Harper would accept this type of direct democracy with enthusiasm. After all it was part of his Reform Party heritage.

Their party platform called for all kinds of referendums, including the recall of previously elected party members.

The Reform Party's "Blue Book," written in 1990 by Harper, specifically called for "direct democracy." This was repeated in many Reform platforms.

Harper has often complained his government's furthering of Canada's involvement in Afghanistan has not been properly understood.

Clearly, many private sector companies will profit from the government's increased defence spending. But there has been a price in human sacrifice by Canadian soldiers.

In 2005, Canada lost one soldier in Afghanistan. From 2002 to 2006, we lost eight soldiers in total.

In 2006, the year Harper took over, we lost 36, with a further 27 so far in 2007, for a total of 63 soldiers having paid the supreme price during Harper's watch.

Surely Harper would want to explain why this has occurred. Particularly why there was not suitable helicopter transportation for many of our soldiers killed on the Kandahar roads, as was available for other non-Canadian troops in the area.

Then there is the question as to who has benefited in dollar terms in Afghanistan. We know it has been a bountiful bonanza for the military contractors in Canada, but unfortunately, in Afghanistan, the main benefactors have been the warlords who have harvested opium this year.

According to the United Nations office on drugs and crime, opium production is up 34 per cent this year; in 2006 it was 59 per cent higher than in 2005. Today, Afghanistan supplies 93 per cent of the global opiates market.

The report concludes: "On aggregate, Afghanistan's opium production has thus reached a frighteningly new level, twice the amount produced just two years ago."

The United Nations report states, "the yearly Afghan opium harvest may kill directly and not, over 100,000 people." It is estimated approximately 1,000 of those casualties will be in Canada.

The Taliban, for all their wrongs, practically eradicated production of opium in Afghanistan when they were in power.

It is also odd that Harper should announce in Winnipeg this month that they intended to spend tens of millions to combat drug use in Canada, yet he does not see how ineffective the Afghanistan military operation has been in stopping the production of opium, the deadliest drug of all.
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Four suspected militants detained in S. Afghanistan
October 19, 2007 People's Daily
Four suspected militants were detained by the U.S.-led coalition forces when conducting an operation Friday in southern Afghanistan of Zabul province, said a coalition statement.

"During a search of several buildings in the Shajoy District, the coalition forces received small-arms fire from one of the buildings on the compound," said Maj. Chris Belcher, a coalition spokesman, said.

"Coalition forces returned fire, effectively ending the attack."

The coalition forces detained four individuals intelligence sources indicated as having possible ties with militant forces.

The individuals will be questioned as to their involvement in extremist activities.

There were no indications of injuries or deaths to non-combatants.

About 55,000 International troops are being deployed in Afghanistan to fight militants and keep security.

Due to rising Taliban violence, over 5,2000 persons have been killed in this war-torn country this year.

Source: Xinhua
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Afghan Strongman’s Reign of Fear
Panicked residents of Faryab province say a local warlord is exacting tribute and abusing civilians while the government does nothing to stop him.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi in Faryab (ARR No. 269, 18-Oct-07)
Shahabudin fled when life became intolerable for him in his native district of Pashtun Kot, in the northern Afghan province of Faryab. He claims that a former militia commander has taken over Pashtun Kot and is ruling virtually unchallenged.

Some commentators say the situation here exemplifies a wider pattern of lawlessness where paramilitary strongmen are effectively sidelining local administrations in parts of northern Afghanistan, at a time when attention is focused on the war against the Taleban in the south.

“Abdul Rahman Shamal reigns in [Pashtun Kot], and he roams the district on his horses just like a king. He is accompanied by armed men on horseback. Anyone who sees him coming tries to hide,” said Shahabudin. “He treats people like slaves, and no one can do a thing without his permission.

“When we marry off our daughters, we have to go to the commander, offer him 5,000 afghani [100 US dollars] and ask his permission. Otherwise the marriage will not be possible.”

Shamal was formerly, at least, a militia commander within Junbesh-e-Milli-ye-Islami (National Islamic Movement), the military faction led by Uzbek strongman General Abdul Rashid Dostum.

Dostum is a controversial figure, but he has been at least partially co-opted into government, serving as chief of staff to the commander-in-chief of Afghanistan’s armed forces. However, some of his former lieutenants are using the power vacuum in the north to exert their authority. Despite concerted drives in recent years to dismantle the numerous irregular forces across Afghanistan, such men still retain significant private militias.

In Faryab, at least, the continuing existence of illegal armed groups is no secret. In August 2006, Shamal’s forces clashed with those of another commander, Khalifa Saleh, who was aligned with a major rival of Dostum. Some 300 armed men took part in the fight, which left 14 people dead. (See IWPR’s story on this, “Afghan Interior Ministry Takes on Armed Factions”, ARR No.228, 1-Sep-06.)

Shahabudin alleged that men are forcibly levied from local families to join Shamal’s paramilitaries.

“Anyone who refuses to send his son to the commander’s militia is beaten or even killed,” he said.

He added that the militia commander extorts money to buy horses and provide food for his men. Once again, resistance is punished by imprisonment or torture.

An arrest warrant has been issued for Shamal, and both government security forces and their international allies claim to be searching for him.

But while local people seem to know exactly where Shamal and his men are operating, the commander has not been detained.

“We have conducted three operations against this commander,” said General Khalilullah Ziaee, chief of police in Faryab province.

“But the terrain favours him. He hides in the mountains, and when we approach, he sees us coming three hours before we can get to him, and he makes an easy escape. Later on, when we are gone, he comes back.”

Ziaee said that police were determined to capture the commander, but lacked the resources to do so.

“We want to save people from his evil-doing,” he said. “But he runs away when we attack him, and we don’t have the horses to chase him with.”

In the end, Shahabudin had to make his own choice. “Life became unbearable. Death and dishonour followed us. So we had to flee,” he said.

Mullah Yar Bay is another Pashtun Kot resident who fled to escape the commander’s rule, which he said involved arbitrary detention, torture and murder.

“Commander Shamal has private prisons and he arrests those who do not obey him,” he said. “Many of those who have defied him have either disappeared or been imprisoned. Our lives and everything we own belong to this commander.”

Local residents chafing under the yoke are angry that the authorities are unable – perhaps even unwilling – to find the commander.

“The government doesn’t want to catch Shamal,” said a man who still lives in Pashtun Kot. “They come into his area and leave without doing anything. I am sure that if the government does fight him, it will not win.”

This interviewee believed the authorities were allowing Shamal a free hand in Pashtun Kot to keep him from branching out into other parts of the province.

“The government makes promises, but they are just deceiving people. I’ve decided to go and live somewhere else, because as long as Shamal is alive, no one can do anything in Pashtun Kot,” he said.

Sattar Barez, Faryab’s deputy governor, acknowledged that the presence of Shamal was a problem, but insisted the authorities were taking steps to deal with it.

“It is totally wrong to say that the government is silent,” he said. “[Shamal] is a criminal who tortures and beats people. His crimes are known to everyone. We have plans to deal with him soon.”

IWPR was unable to contact Shamal, but spoke to Junbesh, the party with which he was formerly connected and allegedly still is.

Junbesh officials say their party has made the transition from armed faction to legitimate political party, and deny links with commanders such as Shamal.

Deputy party leader Kinja Kargar told IWPR that the party was fully compliant with Afghan laws, which ban political groups from maintaining links with armed groups.

“Junbesh is a powerful public party that has dissolved all of its military branches under DIAG and DDR,” he said, referring to two government-sponsored programmes, Disbandment of Illegal Armed Groups and its predecessor, the Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration scheme.

Critics say both programmes, which were backed by the United Nations and which cost tens of millions of dollars, were less than successful.

But Kargar was adamant that the Junbesh organisation no longer embraces armed groups.

“Anyone in possession of weaponry does not belong to Junbesh,” he said.

Faryab’s police chief told IWPR that political parties often issue such disclaimers. “[Shamal] belongs to a party that is known to everyone,” said Ziaee. “The party denies the relationship so as to avoid legal problems.”

Human rights groups are worried about the situation, saying they have brought their concerns to the authorities’ attention but little action has been taken.

“This issue is of great concern, but unfortunately we have no powers of enforcement,” he said Zaidullah Paiwand, the head of the Faryab branch of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. “We see here that commanders torture people, rob them and beat them. We have received many complaints against this commander [Shamal]. We have submitted all our reports to the law enforcement agencies, but unfortunately nothing significant has happened.”

Paiwand could not confirm the existence of private prisons, but said, “I think that every inch of the area he [Shamal] has occupied is a prison for the local people, because he can do anything he wants.”

Worryingly, some analysts see the Pashtun Kot situation as part of a much broader trend. They argue that the militia commanders who were dominant in the early to mid-Nineties are once again emerging as a powerful force in the north, taking advantage of the weakness of central government.

“The government and human rights organisations have claimed that the situation is improving, but in reality the commanders are gradually gaining the upper hand, and the government can’t do anything about it,” said Mohammad Nabi Aseer, a journalist and analyst in northern Afghanistan.

“The government is unable to combat the Taleban, and it is afraid that if it alienates the [northern] commanders, they might turn into an even more powerful enemy.”

Aseer said disarmament programmes had not worked, and that most of the factions-turned-parties retained a paramilitary wing, a factor that encouraged central government to do nothing.

“In reality, leaders of political parties obtain power in government via these military wings,” he said. “Taking action against local commanders would entail taking action against their leaders in Kabul. [President Hamed] Karzai’s government does not have the power to do this. Commander Shamal is a good example.”

Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi is an IWPR staff reporter in Mazar-e-Sharif.
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Afghan Delegation To Promote Trade In Russia, Kyrgyzstan
Friday October 19, 06:01 PM
KABUL, Oct 19 Asia Pulse - A delegation of Afghan traders and businessmen will visit Russia and Kyrgyzstan on Saturday.

The 22-member delegation, officials said, would meet Russian and Kyrgyz entrepreneurs and the two sides would review ways and means to enhance commercial ties between their respective countries.

Dr Omar Zakhilwal, head of the Afghanistan Investment Support Agency (AISA), told Pajhwok Afghan News the delegation will leave Kabul for Moscow on Saturday.

According to Mr Zakhilwal, the Afghan businessmen were formally invited by the two governments. They will stay for eight days and meet their counterparts from Russia and Kyrgyzstan to discuss cooperation in the economic sector. Mr Zakhilwal said the team will leave for Bishkek from Moscow.

"There are plenty of opportunities for investment in Afghanistan, but these two countries so far have not come forward to invest here as was expected." The visit, Mr Zakhilwal said, was part of AISA's strategy to establish and improve commercial ties with other countries.

Previously, Afghan traders and representatives of the private sector have visited India, China, Turkey, Pakistan and other countries.

The Afghanistan Investment Support Agency was established four years ago to attract investment and encourage local and foreign entrepreneurs to invest in various sectors.
(Pajhwok Afghan News)
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Two schools blown up in Herat
Ahmad Qureshi/Muhammad Barat 
HERAT CITY, Oct 17 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Unidentified miscreants blew up two school buildings in Shindand district of the western Herat province last night, officials said.

Haji Muhammad Alam, district chief, told Pajhwok Afghan News four armed men destroyed buildings of the Naderia (boys) Middle School and Mir Sadaat Middle School for girls in the midnight by planting explosives.

Ghulam Hazrat Tanha, head of the education department, said a classroom was destroyed while all the books were burnt in the boys' school as a result of the explosion.

In the second explosion, two classrooms of the Mir Sadaat School were demolished. No one was killed or injured in the blasts, he added. Hundreds of boys and girls from the district were studying in the two schools.

Meanwhile, construction of a school building was completed in Roye Do Aab district in the northern Samangan province.

The building was erected at the cost of $70,000 provided by the Ministry of Education. Habibullah, deputy chief of the education department in the province, told Pajhwok Afghan News the one-storey construction had eight classrooms.
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UN faces staff shortage in Afghanistan: Ex-official
NEW YORK, Oct 17 (Pajhwok Afghan News): A former political officer for the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA) has said that the UN is facing staff shortage and having difficulties in bringing its international staff to Afghanistan.

A spokesperson for the UN Secretary General, however, told Pajhwok Afghan News that Ban Ki-moon was aware of the problem and was trying to address it. The vacancy level in UNs Afghanistan mission was at 30 percent, he said.

The issue of staff shortage in Afghanistan and its impact on the UN functioning was highlighted by former UNAMA political officer C. Christine Fair at a panel discussion on Revitalizing US Efforts in Afghanistan in Washington. The forum was organized by the Heritage Foundation.

Christine said: UN has actually staffing - a fairly significant human capital crunch. They do have bringing people to Afghanistan. There is also the quality of personnel that are there. So you do have an issue - how do you expand the organization when you have problem of filling the present staff they have.

She also charged that over the years, the UN mission was gradually evolving as giving preference to the Farsi or Dari and not many people speak Pashto. Most of the people who work at the UN are Farsi or Dari speakers. There are very few Pashto speakers. So I saw a lot of influence leaning among these people who were Dari speakers. When you are Dari speakers, you have access to certain network and you are going to be privileged.

Former interior minister Ali Ahmad Jalali told the participants of the panel discussion that the main concern among Afghans was that the international community would leave them in the midst of war against the Taliban.

He said the Afghanistan was faced with two challenges: Fight against insurgency and state building.
Lalit K. Jha
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