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October 25, 2007 

Taliban ambush Afghan army, eight dead
Thu Oct 25, 7:15 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Taliban insurgents ambushed an Afghan army convoy north of Kabul in an attack that left five soldiers and three militants dead, the defence ministry said Thursday.

The militants attacked the convoy 50 kilometres (31 miles) north of the capital in Kapisa province on Wednesday, the ministry said in a statement.

Four militants were also critically wounded in the exchange of fire.

The remaining insurgents fled into the harsh mountainous terrain, taking their wounded and dead fighters with them. They left one body behind, the ministry said.

There have been several major battles near the capital in recent weeks linked to Taliban-led insurgents who have stepped up a rebellion launched soon after their leaders were removed from government in late 2001.

Separately, nine soldiers were wounded in a rocket attack launched by militants Wednesday in Daychopan district of troubled Zabul province, the ministry said.

The government also updated to nine the number of people hurt in a failed suicide attack on the governor of eastern Khost province on Wednesday.

The Taliban appear to be gaining ground in parts of the country and spreading their insurgency out from traditional hotspots in the east and south.
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10 suspected Taliban killed in clash
By NOOR KHAN, Associated Press Writer Thu Oct 25, 6:12 AM ET
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - U.S.-led coalition and Afghan troops attacked a gathering of Taliban militants in southern Afghanistan, leaving 10 insurgents dead and 14 wounded, an Afghan official said Thursday.

Four Afghan soldiers were also wounded in the attack staged Wednesday evening in the Daychopan district of Zabul province, said district chief Fazel Bari.

The operation was launched after intelligence reports indicated that a Taliban gathering was taking place in the area, Bari said.

Earlier Wednesday, a car bomb exploded near a convoy carrying a provincial governor in eastern Afghanistan, leaving nine people wounded.

Afghanistan's Interior Ministry said that Arsallah Jamal, the governor of Khost province, was unhurt in the blast in Khost city, but five of his bodyguards and four civilians were wounded.

U.S. troops surrounded the area of Wednesday's blast and took the wounded to a hospital at their base near the city, said Gen. Mohammad Ayub, the provincial police chief.

It was at least the third attempt to kill Jamal, who was returning from a visit to districts near the border with Pakistan when he was targeted on Wednesday.
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Britain pushes for 'burden-sharing' in Afghanistan
by Robin Millard Thu Oct 25, 6:48 AM ET
LONDON (AFP) - Britain called Thursday for more "burden-sharing" in Afghanistan where an international force is struggling against Taliban insurgents.

The call from Prime Minister Gordon Brown came as one top politician said NATO had already lost in Afghanistan.

Speaking after talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and as NATO ministers met in the Netherlands to scrape together more forces, Brown said it was time for the international community to spread the load of stopping Afghanistan falling back into the hands of the Taliban.

Britain has the second-biggest troop deployment in Afghanistan after the United States and is engaged in much of the fiercest fighting against Taliban militia.

Some in Britain and elsewhere have expressed frustration at countries that do not take part in frontline fighting against the Taliban.

"I firmly believe that burden-sharing has got to become very much part of our strategy for Afghanistan in the future," Brown told reporters at his Downing Street office after talks with Karzai.

"We have had the Taliban on the defensive by the combined efforts of everyone. The form of our strategy for the future is development, defence and diplomacy, all three working together.

"We are all determined that Afghanistan should never become a failed state again. We want to see the burden-sharing amongst the different countries that have an interest in stopping the Taliban.

And he added: "I believe over the next few months we can move to a better situation where the long-term future is best guaranteed by a better system of burden-sharing for the future."

Karzai said the joint efforts of the international community and the Afghan government had led to "magnificent" progress, and stressed that his country was ready to take on more responsibility.

"We must also concentrate on reducing the burden from the international community and adding more of that to the shoulders of Afghanistan," he added.

"Is it time to leave Afghanistan? No. Is it time to add more responsibility to the Afghan people? Yes."

He also stressed he would not talk to members of Al-Qaeda or terrorist networks in a bid to halt the insurgency.

However, the door remained open for those who renounce violence and who accept the Afghan constitution and "to live in peace."

"We are not speaking of reconciliation in any manner with terrorist networks. The terrorist networks must be fought," he insisted.

The talks came after Paddy Ashdown, the former international envoy to Bosnia-Hercegovina, said NATO had lost in Afghanistan and failure to bring stability there could trigger a regional sectarian war.

"We have lost, I think, and success is now unlikely," he told The Daily Telegraph.

"I believe losing in Afghanistan is worse than losing in Iraq," added the politician, who has been tipped for a role as a UN envoy to Afghanistan.

"It will mean Pakistan will fall and it will have serious implications internally for the security of our own countries and will instigate a wider Shiite-Sunni war on a grand scale."

Britain's top military officer said improving security in Afghanistan could only be done by political, rather than military, means.

"There is a common misperception that the issues in Afghanistan, and indeed elsewhere around the world, can be dealt with by military means. That's a false perception," Air Chief Marshall Jock Stirrup, the chief of defence staff, told Sky News television.

"The military is a key, an essential element in dealing with those problems, but by and large these problems can only be resolved politically."
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Politics, not military will improve Afghanistan: Britain's top brass
Thu Oct 25, 5:56 AM ET
LONDON (AFP) - Improving security in Afghanistan can only be done by political, rather than military, means, Britain's top military officer said Thursday as NATO offered more troops.

The Chief of Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshall Jock Stirrup, said in an interview with Sky News television that reconstruction in Afghanistan and helping the country take its place on the world stage would take decades.

"But it's an engagement of economic assistance, it's an engagement of social development, it's an engagement of education and all of these things," he added.

"There is a common misperception that the issues in Afghanistan, and indeed elsewhere around the world, can be dealt with by military means. That's a false perception.

"The military is a key, an essential element in dealing with those problems, but by and large these problems can only be resolved politically."

Stirrup's interview was broadcast as Afghan President Hamid Karzai prepared to meet British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in London.

NATO allies on Wednesday offered more troops for the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan amid claims the burden is not equally shared by members, particularly for counter-insurgency operations.
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NATO nations scrape together reinforcements for Afghanistan
Thu Oct 25, 4:37 AM ET
NOORDWIJK, Netherlands (AFP) - NATO defence ministers resumed talks Thursday after drumming up fresh troops for Afghanistan despite reluctance, led by Germany, to deploy to dangerous parts of the country.

On the final day of an informal meeting in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, the ministers were set to tackle the thorny issue of the US missile shield with Russian counterpart Anatoly Serdyukov.

They were also to reassess the NATO Response Force (NRF), a contingent of several thousand soldiers able to be rapidly deployed to the world's hot-spots, which is fraying at the edges through lack of troop commitments.

Pressures for the 26 NATO nations to provide forces around the world, in places like Darfur, Chad, Lebanon and Kosovo, have weighed heavily on allied efforts to find troops for volatile southern Afghanistan.

"I wouldn't say I am satisfied but today was considerably more positive than I anticipated," US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said late Wednesday, after leading the charge for more combat troops and equipment.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is trying to help spread the influence of President Hamid Karzai's weak central government across the country and encourage reconstruction.

But it has faced stiff resistance, notably in the south and east, from Taliban-led insurgents, and civilian and military casualties have begun to wear away at public support for the mission.

Officials declined to speak on the record about which countries had made offers as those pledges must be confirmed at a so-called "force generation conference" in Belgium next month.

But an alliance diplomat said that nine nations had come forward, and one senior official said that non-NATO nations Albania, Croatia and Georgia were among them, as well as member country Slovakia.

If confirmed, the official said, it could mean a total of 1,000 more troops.

France said it would for the first time send dozens of military trainers to southern Afghanistan, where heavy fighting has taken place, according to a defence ministry official.

The trainers, expected to total around 50, would be embedded with Afghan soldiers in the southern province of Oruzgan, where some 1,700 Dutch troops are based.

The diplomat said that such trainers -- members of Operational Mentoring and Liaison Teams (OMLTS) -- were the key to NATO handing over security duties to the Afghans and leaving the country sooner.

"Successful training of Afghan forces will be central to any progress," Gates underlined.

Germany has often come under the spotlight for resisting moves, for which it would need parliamentary approval, to redeploy away from the relatively stable north of the country and play a greater combat role.

But German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung insisted that reconstruction work was at least as important as fighting insurgents, and suggested that Berlin's stance is unlikely to change.

"There are 3,200 soldiers in northern Afghanistan and in the south there are 30,000 soldiers. It would be a great error if Germany didn't assume its responsibilities in Afghanistan," he told reporters.

"I don't think these demands for more military engagement are very judicious," he said. "The north must remain our prime focus."

A NATO official said some other nations had offered the same argument.

The talks came on a day when the governor of the troubled Khost province on the border with Pakistan survived a Taliban-style suicide attack, one of more than 120 suicide bombings this year blamed on the fundamentalist militia.
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NATO 'losing' fight in Afghanistan
LONDON, England (CNN) -- NATO has "lost" its military campaign in Afghanistan, a former UN envoy warned Thursday, as Britain's prime minister met his Afghan counterpart and coalition defense ministers struggled with strategies in the war-ravaged country.

NATO has 35,000 troops in Afghanistan, but is calling for more.

 Former UN High Representative to Bosnia and Herzegovina Paddy Ashdown warned major instability was inevitable in the region if resurgent Islamic extremists gained the upper hand.

"We have lost, I think, and success is now unlikely," Ashdown told British newspaper the Daily Telegraph.

He said the implications for losing in Afghanistan were 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," Ashdown said, comparing its potential scale to that of World War I or II.

But a NATO spokesman said he was baffled by Ashdown's comments.

"I couldn't begin to understand what he's talking about," James Appathurai told CNN.

"We are firmly committed to this, we feel we're on the right track, and we're going to keep going. There is no doubt."

U.S. commanders also believe NATO is winning in Afghanistan, but victory will still take years and requires a long-term commitment of more troops and equipment.

On Thursday Gordon Brown and Afghan President Hamid Karzai met at Downing Street in London.

At a press conference Karzai called for continued commitment from the international community, but added he wants to gradually give more responsibility to the Afghan people.

"Is it time to leave Afghanistan? No. Is it time to add more responsibility to the Afghan people? Yes," Karzai said.

"While that commitment by the international community is necessary and important, we must also concentrate on reducing the burden from the international community and adding more of that to the shoulders of Afghanistan," Karzai said.

Brown called for greater "burden sharing" in the battle against the Taliban.

"We have got the Taliban on the defensive by the combined efforts of everyone," he said.

"We are all determined that Afghanistan should never become a failed state again, and to support the democracy that's been created in that country."

But he added the long-term solutions in the country, which was controlled by the hardline militia for five years until it was ousted in late 2001 by a U.S.-led military coalition, could not rely on defense and security only.

"The military effort must be complemented by the diplomatic effort and the development work that's being done," he said.

His comments come as NATO defense ministers meet in the Netherlands in an attempt to call for more troops to step up the fight against the Taliban.

On Wednesday diplomats said nine of the 26 NATO nations had made new troop offers, the Associated Press reported.

But U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he was not satisfied with the numbers, although the response had been "more positive" than he had anticipated.

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said while there had been offers from some nations, more troops were still needed.

"We have 90 percent filled of what we need, but ... there are still shortages," he told a press conference.

The new troop offers are expected to be confirmed next month.
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Japan, Italy Agree to Cooperate on Afghanistan and Environment
By Keiichi Yamamura and Sachiko Sakamaki
Oct. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and his Italian counterpart Romano Prodi agreed to cooperate on environmental issues and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan.

``We've agreed to work together where we can,'' Fukuda told reporters in Tokyo, after the two leaders spoke by phone today.

Japan is debating whether to continue refueling coalition ships in support of military operations in Afghanistan. Fukuda wants to continue the support mission, whose mandate will expire on Nov. 1. Opposition parties, which control the upper house, are opposed to the extension.

As a member of NATO, Italy has dispatched about 2,000 troops to Afghanistan.

Fukuda took up predecessor Shinzo Abe's aim to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Nations are debating a framework to replace the Kyoto Protocol on climate change which expires in 2012.
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Canada's top military commander says Afghanistan not ready to go it alone
By Bill Graveland, The Canadian Press
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - There is little chance that Afghanistan will be able to handle it's own security needs any time within the next decade, Canada's top soldier said Thursday.

Gen. Rick Hillier made the comment as he wrapped up a three-day whirlwind visit to war-torn Kandahar province to meet with commanders and troops in the field.

Hillier's frank assessment may come as a disappointment to those hoping the Afghan military may be close to being able to operate on its own and keep the Taliban in check, thus allowing Canadian troops to go home.

"I think most Canadians living in the incredible country that we have don't always see all the complexities of trying to rebuild a country and, in some cases, build a country from the 25 years of destruction that took place in Afghanistan," Hillier told reporters at Kandahar Airfield.

The Afghan soldiers that have been trained so far are "top-notch," Hillier said, but he noted it takes about three years to train a single battalion - about 500 to 600 troops.

"You just don't build that overnight and the international community will have to be involved for some time to see this through to the final level where you've got a government that works effectively," Hillier said.

After years of work and training, there are about two battalions of Afghan soldiers in Kandahar province and about 38,000 troops overall. It sounds good on paper but is only about half of what is needed for Afghanistan to provide its own security.

"An army is what's required to allow them to keep their security, so that's a long term project," Hillier said.

"It's going to take 10 years or so just to work through and build an army to whatever the final number that Afghanistan will have, and make them professional and let them meet their security demands here."

"Canada will decide whatever role it's going to play," Hillier said. "The panel is in place and the government will make its decisions."

Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed a five-person panel, headed by former Liberal cabinet minister John Manley, to examine options for the future of the Afghan mission. The range of options includes the continued training of the Afghan army and police, or withdrawing altogether.

But the Harper government's throne speech indicated it wants Canada's direct involvement in Afghanistan to continue until 2011, two years past the current deadline.

Canada has about 2,500 troops serving with NATO's International Security Assistance Force, also known as ISAF. Most of them are in Kandahar province, a Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan where the bloodiest fighting during the conflict has taken place.

Since 2002, 71 Canadian military personnel and one diplomat have died in Afghanistan. The Canadian government is under public and opposition pressure to bring the troops home.

In the short-term, Hillier is hoping to get additional support from other NATO allies in terms of helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles and more troops.

"What would be best here would be another manoeuvre battalion group to give us the flexibility to be able to ... keep a footprint in an area where we've been until the Afghan police and army can take that area over by themselves," Hillier said.

"That will allow us to manoeuvre off to other areas where the Taliban are slightly stronger, and put them on the back foot in those other areas."

"With just the one battle group here, even with the Afghan National Army forces and the police we are now getting here, we still do not have all the capabilities that we have to do."
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Afghanistan: Children endangered by surging violence
New York, 25 Oct. (AKI) - A growing number of young girls in Afghanistan are being killed or attacked on their way to school, according to the United Nations Children's Fund.

In a new report released on Thursday, UNICEF said a surge in violence, a decaying health system and unabated attacks on schools were having a severe impact on young Afghani children, particularly girls.

"Despite a multitude of plans and proposals, projects and partners, and the support of many countries, I have witnessed a spike in insecurity that is causing more and more schools to close and more children to be killed," said Martin Bell, UNICEF's UK ambassador for humanitarian Emergencies.

Forty-four school attacks occurred in the first six months of 2007, mainly at girls' schools.

UNICEF said these incidents stalled or reversed the progress achieved in female education since the fall of the Taliban regime, and had already caused a significant drop in attendance in secondary schools.

The organisation said health workers in Afghanistan lacked access to over 40 per cent of the country, and even areas that could be reached were under constant threat of attack.

It is reported that in 2005, over 60 women died daily from pregnancy-related causes, and nearly 900 children under the age of five died every day in 2006.

On the positive side, the report showed that the polio eradication campaign achieved considerable progress, and that more than 7.3 million children had been immunised.

Afghan president Hamid Karzai met with UK prime minister Gordon Brown in London and called on the international community to share the burden of the military campaign in Afghanistan.

The UK has 7,700 troops in Afghanistan and since combat operations began in 2001, over 82 UK soldiers have been killed.
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Australian soldier killed in Afghanistan
Associated Press
CANBERRA, Australia - An Australian soldier became his nation's second combat casualty in Afghanistan when he was shot dead by Taliban fighters Thursday, Australia's defense chief said.

The elite Special Air Service Regiment soldier was part of a patrol in the southern province of Uruzgan when he was wounded by small-arms fire, Defense Chief Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston told reporters in Canberra, the national capital.

"A coalition helicopter immediately responded to a call for assistance from the Australian patrol and evacuated the soldier to a nearby medical facility," Houston said.

"Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of his mates and the aeromedical team, the soldier succumbed to his wounds," he added.

The family of the soldier, whose name has not been released, had been informed, Houston said.

Further details of the operation would not be released as it was ongoing, he said.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard said the soldier's death would be felt "very keenly" by his friends and family, but that he "died serving the cause of liberty and freedom."

A soldier killed by a roadside bomb in the same province on Oct. 8, Trooper David Pearce, 41, was the first Australian combat casualty in either Afghanistan or Iraq.

Australia has almost 1,000 troops serving in Afghanistan and another 1,600 in and around Iraq.
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Cracks in coalition as Afghanistan campaign drags on
It remains an open question whether Nato members will have the patience to stay in Afghanistan for another 10 or even five years, writes Mark Tran
Thursday October 25, 2007 Guardian Unlimited
When France offered troops for the US-led attack on Afghanistan in November 2001, the Bush administration refused.
American commanders had found the process of waging war by consensus in the Balkans in the 1990s thoroughly exasperating and were in no mood to repeat that frustrating experience as they prepared a military strike against the Taliban.

Only the British were allowed to take part in the bombing campaign that eventually led to the overthrow of the Taliban and their al-Qaida allies.

Six years on, the shortcomings of trying to fight an effective campaign through a coalition of almost 40 countries are all too evident.

The Dutch are threatening to pull out their 1,600 troops when their mandate ends next August, unless other countries pull their weight. It is a familiar complaint from other countries whose troops are bearing the brunt of the fighting - the US, Britain and Canada.

Nato diplomats fear a Dutch pullout could influence others, starting with the Canadians, who must decide by 2009 whether to extend the mandate of their 1,700 troops in the south of the country. The Canadians have taken particularly heavy casualties in clashes with the Taliban.

The Nato effort in Afghanistan is unlikely to unravel soon as members will not want to see the alliance's first military campaign outside Europe - involving 40,000 troops - end in humiliation. More is at stake than Nato leaving with its tail between its legs. Should Afghanistan revert to being a failed state, al-Qaida, which is already regrouping across the border in Pakistan's lawless Waziristan region, would once again enjoy a secure haven.

At this week's meeting of Nato defence officials in the Netherlands, the alliance was trying to hold the line. Diplomats said nine of the 26 Nato countries made new troop offers when the meeting opened yesterday. Robert Gates, the US secretary of defence, sounded more upbeat than he had before the meeting.

"I wouldn't say I'm satisfied," he said. "But I would say that today was considerably more positive than I anticipated."

The US has been pressing Europe to put more resources into Afghanistan, including more instructors to train Afghan army units to eventually take over from Nato troops. Nato commanders want to almost double the 26 training units it currently has embedded with the Afghan army, but training will take time. Nato estimates that it would take five to 10 years before the Afghans could stand alone.

As Nato looks at the prospect of a long haul, the picture is not all bleak. The Taliban have taken a severe mauling in the south as they fought pitched battles with Nato forces. Mr Karzai, backed by Britain - although the US has reservations - is trying to split the Taliban by persuading some of its senior members to defect. Many Taliban commanders reportedly have put out feelers to the Afghan government, dispirited by losses at the hands of Nato bombing and worried about the loss of their sanctuary in neighbouring Pakistan.

These are encouraging straws in the wind for Nato and it is not surprising that British commanders emphasise there is no military solution to Afghanistan, a point forcefully made by Air Chief Marshall Sir Jock Stirrup.

"There is a common misperception that the issues in Afghanistan, and indeed elsewhere around the world, can be dealt with by military means," Sir Jock told Sky News. "That's a false perception. The military is a key, an essential element in dealing with those problems, but by and large these problems can only be resolved politically."

Mr Brown today emphasised the importance of economic development to complement military action. But it remains an open question whether Nato members will have the patience to stay in Afghanistan for another 10 or even five years.

A recent paper from Chatham House, the international affairs thinktank, faulted Nato for lacking a coherent strategy on how to achieve its objectives in Afghanistan - the elimination of al-Qaida, the defeat of the Taliban and the delivery of stability and democracy. The consensus-based nature of Nato's decision-making is also an Achilles heel.

"The multi-faceted nature of the Afghanistan operation makes it difficult for coalition members to generate the necessary political will," wrote Timo Noetzel and Sibylle Scheipers, "to raise the necessary resources to make progress towards agreed operational objectives."
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Roundup: Taliban-related militancy keeps Afghans away from durable peace
Xinhua / October 25, 2007
Continued insurgency and NATO's inability to stamp out Taliban outfit and al-Qaida network in the post-Taliban Afghanistan have made Afghans worry about their future.

Taliban in their latest wave of violent attacks against Afghan government interests targeted the governor of eastern Khost province Wednesday evening, injuring nine persons including five bodyguards of the governor.

While a day earlier clashes between militants and security forces, according to officials, claimed the lives of 17 insurgents in Wardak province, 70 km west of capital city Kabul and the southern Zabul province.

Taliban's purported spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmadi in talks with media from undisclosed location rejected the claim and said their fighters inflicted huge casualties on foreign troops.

He said only one Taliban was killed in firefight with government troops in Wardak while 10 civilians lost their lives.

He also further claimed the Taliban militants by a remote- controlled bomb destroyed a tank of international force in Charkh district of the neighboring Logar province 60 km south of Kabul.

Twelve more Taliban insurgents, according to Afghan Defense Ministry, were killed in Jalriz district of Wardak province on Monday while Taliban spokesman rejected the claim and said only one Taliban fighter was killed and the remaining were civilians.

Taliban insurgents have been gradually extending their influence from their hotbed in the south towards capital of Kabul as both Wardak and Logar provinces have seen the scene of militancy over the past couple of months.

Kapisa, 80 km north of Kabul, has also witnessed a series of Taliban activities over the past six months and thus caused concern among the war-weary people.

"I am gradually losing my optimism about the future as more than 50 people were killed in two suicide bombings in the capital city Kabul just one month ago," a street vendor Abdul Rashid told Xinhua while referring to two suicide attacks against Afghan army and police in the holy month of Ramadan, or Muslims' fasting month.

In the two bloody suicide attacks for which Taliban outfit claimed responsibility more than four dozens people mostly police and army officers were killed and dozens others were injured.

More than 80 people according to local media have been killed in conflicts between militants and security forces in the war-torn Afghanistan over the past two weeks.

"Two years ago I used to bring one or two used cars in each two months from Herat and sold to Kabul to earn money, but this year I stopped the business due to deteriorating security situation on Kabul-Kandahar highway," a car dealer Abdul Majid told Xinhua.

He said that the continued insurgency and security forces' inability to check it has disappointed him.

A survey conducted recently by the U.S.-funded agency Asia Foundation indicates that 46 percent of Afghans believe that the security is the biggest problems facing by their country. However, they believe that the living standard today is better than the life under Taliban regime ousted in late 2001.

Since the fall of Taliban regime, Afghanistan has made significant achievements, especially in the fields of communication.

During Taliban regime, an ordinary Afghan has to travel to Pakistan to make phone calls to his or her relatives abroad, while today in the Central Asian country more than 2 million Afghans have cellular phones and can easily contact their nears and dears in every part of the world.

Taliban insurgents who vowed to evict international troops from Afghanistan and oust the Afghan government staged a bloody comeback three years ago during which some 10,000 people including civilians are said to have been killed.

More than 5,300 persons, including militants, Afghan and international troops comprising NATO and the U.S.-led coalition forces as well as civilians and aid workers have been killed in Taliban-related violence, air strikes and conflicts so far this year in Afghanistan.

To exert pressure on Afghan and international troops, the militants have copied new tactics from Iraqi insurgents and begun carrying out suicide attacks.

Over the past 10 months, they had conducted 193 suicides bombing which left some 200 persons dead, mostly civilians, while in 2006, only 160 cases of such attacks had been registered.

U.N. Secretary General's special envoy to Afghanistan Tom Koenigs told the U.N. Security Council on Oct. 15 that the violence had claimed the lives of some 1,200 people since the beginning of 2007 in Afghanistan.

He also added that the U.N. has recorded 606 roadside bombs and 133 suicide attacks since January this year which indicates 30 percent increase against the same period last year.

"Keeping in mind Taliban's pigheaded stance, international troops' failure to annihilate insurgents and Afghan government's inability to convince opposition of joining the peace process, all speak that the tug-of-war would continue for the years to come," a retired teacher Noorul Haq Khan said.
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Afghan city of party prohibitions
By Charles Haviland BBC News, Mazar-e-Sharif Thursday, 25 October 2007, 09:02 GMT 10:02 UK
Since the fall of the Taleban, some areas of life in Afghanistan have relaxed, with girls going back to school and kite-flying and music - both of which the Taleban completely banned - returning.

Yet, in this highly conservative country, some places are becoming more restrictive again, including the relatively liberal northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.

Here, in July, local mullahs persuaded the provincial authorities to introduce new restrictions on parties and celebrations.

Evidence of the new rules and regulations is clear on a Friday night on the terrace of the Hotel Kefayat.

Neon-lit plastic palm trees glow, while party music drifts through doors that swing open from time to time, giving glimpses of women and young children inside - a very un-Afghan looking scene.

Many of the women are wearing tight tops and short skirts. The male wedding party was held separately; now the girls and women are having their fun.

Outside that very private space, smartly dressed men and boys - family, mostly - wait for them on the terrace, chatting.

A genial man clutching red prayer beads, the groom's Uncle Faizullah, tells me the women's party is subject to new rules. All the live musicians and singers are children; no adult male entertainers are allowed.

"It's because of a suggestion from the religious scholars to the respected governor of our province," he says, referring to General Atta Muhammad Noor, a well-known former Mujahideen commander.

"Our governor agreed, because he wants to impose Islamic law here. So he decided not to allow men or boys over 14 or 15 to entertain at women's parties. Men of 20 or 30 used to perform at women's parties, but that's changed now."

Exquisitely decorated

Mazar-e-Sharif has a special relationship with weddings, as a visit to the famous shrine to Hazrat Ali, the Prophet Muhammad's son-in-law, shows.

At this 15th century monument in the heart of the city, exquisitely decorated in blue and turquoise, a steady flow of solemn young bridegrooms visit with their friends to seek Ali's blessings on their marriage.

Under the new, stricter rules, the city's many hotels and marriage halls can continue to host wedding parties, but nothing else. They are banned from hosting engagement parties, parties for the newborn, parties for pilgrims to Mecca, or any other types of celebration.

At the Asadia Madrassa, a modern Islamic school with 700 pupils including 60 newly-admitted girls, I meet its head, Mawlawi Rahmatullah - the senior local mullah who persuaded the governor to tighten the laws.

The softly-spoken cleric greets me warmly. He says one major reason for the changes is that people often get into debt because they feel obliged to hold too many parties, especially before and after weddings.

"So we are getting rid of the extra parties," he says.

He would like further restrictions.

"To be honest, Islam bans music," he says. "Music is unlawful. Anyone who listens to it is guilty. Anyone who listens and enjoys it is more guilty."

I tell him some people are describing the current clampdown in Mazar-e-Sharif as Talebanisation. He rejects this.

"It's not Talebanisation; it's Islamisation. The Taleban was a strong government because it was able to ban music. The other governments should have banned music," he says, referring not only to Afghanistan but the wider world.

Not far away, Shoib Najafizada showed me round his garden, an oasis of fruit trees and flowers in a hot and dusty city, and explained how the new rules have affected him.

His first child, a boy, was born five days earlier. But he couldn't formally name him without a special party - a party usually held in a big public place.

"We need to take this party in a hotel to really enjoy it," he said, laughing at the recollection.

"I asked many hotels. But they rejected us and said that 'sorry we don't have permission from the government'. I said, 'what if we take this party as a secret?' He said 'no, it's not possible for it to be kept secret!'"

Denunciation of music

Mr Najafizada said it was not up to the government to tell people how to spend their money and he did not believe the new rules would be popular.

"In the past there were parties, music, everything was in Mazar-e-Sharif. It's very difficult to change the habits."

I met the provincial governor's adviser on social matters, Abdul Qadir Misbah.

He seemed uneasy about the mullah's denunciation of music - but stressed that his government would punish hotel owners who allowed unauthorised parties.

"There are many factors involved," he said. "One is the need to implement religious rules. Another is the freedom of neighbours not to be disturbed by music at night. Also we need to help the younger generation to marry, even if they don't have much money."

That is the message the authorities in Mazar-e-Sharif are stressing - they mention the need to protect people from going into debt in justifying their tighter rules.

Some local people welcome the changes for that very reason.

But underneath there also seems to be a more basic tension at work - between mullahs who admire the Taleban's extreme austerity, and more liberal people who are waiting to see whether party-going and music are going to be further restricted.
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Interior minister: US training terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan
Kuwait City, Oct 25, IRNA
Interior Minister of Iran Mostafa Pour- Mohammadi said on Wednesday that US has established training centers in Afghanistan in the past years to train terrorist forces and dispatched them to other countries including Iran.

"There are enough documents in this regard" Pour-Mohammadi said in a press conference on the sidelines of the fourth meeting of interior ministers of Iraq neighboring countries.

The meeting began with participation of interior ministers of Iran, Turkey, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait as well as Egypt and Bahrain on Tuesday to discuss the security situation in Iraq.

The Iranian minister added that Washington has also established a terrorist-training school in Iraq.

"Whoever fans the flames of insurgence, will be burned in the same flames," stressed the minister.

Referring to the "destructive role" of the US forces in Afghanistan, Pour-Mohammadi said the illegal drugs production which was 1,000 tons a year before US presence in Afghanistan, has presently mounted to 8,000 tons a year.
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Farah Provincial reconstruction team funds $1.7 million bridge
Source: Government of the United States of America
American Forces Press Service
TOJG VILLAGE, Afghanistan, Oct. 24, 2007 – Construction is under way for a $1.7 million bridge across the Farah Rud River here. The project, funded by the Farah Provisional Reconstruction Team, will employ several hundred Afghans for two years.

Each year, the Farah Rud River rises about six feet, cutting the people in Tojg off from the main road and their farmlands. The nearest crossing is several hours away, in Farah City. Eight to 10 people drown annually attempting to cross the river.

The massive masonry and reinforced concrete bridge will span 300 meters and rise 12 meters over the center span.

The bridge will benefit not only the 10,000 residents of Tojg, but also people from the districts of Shib Koh, Qalay Ka, Lashe Juwain and Farah City.

Due to the size and duration of the project, several local contractors joined forces to create a joint venture company, pooling resources, equipment and manpower for the bridge construction. These companies include Shir Pir Construction Co., Bradaran Noori, Kheyaban Construction Co., and Meihan Parwar.

By reducing travel time to the city center, this link will enhance economic activity, improve response times for the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police, and improve access to social services. The link also will extend the reach of the central government, allowing officials to conduct more frequent assessments of the outer districts.

"This project is right up there with some of the major projects we have done in Afghanistan. It's part of the foundation infrastructure, roads and bridges and dams, heavy infrastructure that allows transportation and goods and services to flow. Projects like this are critical for the functioning of the economy," said Navy Lt. j.g. Stephen Ramsey, an engineer at Farah PRT.

(From a Combined Joint Task Force 82 news release.)
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Failure would be a disaster, Dutch warn NATO
Globe and Mail, 10/24/2007, Alan Freeman
NOORDWIK, THE NETHERLANDS — As NATO defence ministers prepared for the start of a crucial meeting on the future of the precarious mission in Afghanistan, the Dutch Defence Minister warned that failure in the war-shattered country would be a "disaster."

"I think everyone realizes that NATO took on a responsibility [to Afghanistan]. We have to succeed," Eimert van Middelkoop told The Globe yesterday. "It would be a disaster for world peace and justice if a modern professional alliance such as NATO will fail in a country like Afghanistan."

Mr. van Middelkoop is hosting the two-day meeting of the 26-member alliance, which starts today, at a particularly sensitive moment. The Dutch cabinet is to decide any day now whether or not to renew the mandate of its 1,500 soldiers stationed in the volatile region of Uruzgan.

As in Canada, the Afghan mission is unpopular with the Dutch public, which is increasingly bitter about the failure of other NATO nations, such as Germany and Italy, to pitch in and help in the south, where violence is heavier and the risk to troops all that much higher. Instead, those nations have decided to stick to the safer northern regions.

Yet despite the mission's unpopularity, the Dutch government is reluctant to let NATO down in its most ambitious military venture ever and does not want to be the first to abandon the alliance. If the Dutch were to pull out in August of next year, it's widely believed that Canada would be next when the current parliamentary authorization runs out in February of 2009.

"We do realize that because we are the first making a decision that it has enormous international implications," said Mr. van Middelkoop, who added that he feels particular kinship with Canada because of its commitment to Afghanistan and its role in liberating the Netherlands from the Nazis. "Canada is watching us, and we are watching Canada."

It's widely believed that the Dutch cabinet will agree to a two-year extension of its commitment and will continue to lead the force in Uruzgan, though with a reduction of its force to about 1,200 members. Making up the numbers is still a challenge, although Australia has upped its troop numbers, Slovakia has agreed to send 35 more soldiers to the region and there is talk of adding 200 or so troops from Georgia.

Britain has also added recently to its force, which now numbers 7,700, as it reduces its troop strength in southern Iraq. The United States is by far the largest foreign presence in Afghanistan with more than 15,000 soldiers.

"What's at stake is the foundation of NATO," said Frank van Kappen, a senior analyst at the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies, who added that the Dutch are angry that they volunteered to do some of "the heavy lifting" in the south for two years but nobody has turned up to pick up the load.

"NATO doesn't have any troops of its own so a promise from NATO that they would find others is not exactly rock solid," he said.

Mr. van Kappen said that when it became time to pacify Kosovo at the start of the decade, NATO had no trouble gathering a force of 65,000 for a tiny piece of territory. Instead, the alliance has assembled a force of just 40,000 to pacify Afghanistan, a territory twice the size of Germany.

"ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] doesn't have enough troops and because it doesn't have enough troops, it can't keep the territory it takes," said Timo Noetzel, a visiting fellow at Chatham House, a foreign-policy think thank in London.

"A German newspaper has called it a discount war," he added.

Dr. Noetzel is particularly concerned about what will happen if Canada decides to bring its soldiers home. "If a government like Canada decides to pull its troops, the entire operation would run into great difficulty."

In Denmark, which is beefing up its commitment to 650 soldiers from 450, the public appears less concerned even though the troops are fighting alongside the British in Helmand, another hot spot.

"Our commitment is open-ended," said Mikkel Vedby Rasmussen, head of the Danish Institute for Military Affairs, who expects the Danish parliament to continue renewing the mission annually.

The more positive attitude toward the Danish role is based on a key fact. The Afghan mission has replaced a more controversial one in Iraq.

"Because we've been in Iraq, Afghanistan looks more benign," Dr. Rasmussen said.
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Community TV Comes to Helmand
The government has set up a new local television channel, but in a conflict-torn province, there may not be enough electricity to keep it running.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By Mohammad Ilyas Dayee in Lashkar Gah (ARR No. 270, 24-Oct-07)
Finally, some good news for a corner of Afghanistan that has seen more than its share of trouble over the past year: Helmand, the centre of drugs and insurgency, now has its own television station.

In late September, government officials cut the ribbon on Helmand Radio and Television, which will provide local residents with three hours a day of news and information in Pashto, the language of the overwhelming majority here.

While not everyone is convinced that a media outlet answering directly to the provincial governor will be able to provide an objective view of life in the province, most people seems overjoyed that there is at last an alternative to the national TV channels, which sometimes offend local sensibilities.

“At last we don’t have to watch dirty programmes like those on Tolo,” said Nazardin, a resident of the Nawa district. “I am very happy that this television has started. If it works well, with enough programming, I don’t think anyone will watch those other stations any more.”

Local residents have been hungry for television in their own language and about their own culture.

The newer Afghan TV channels like the independent Tolo TV, are extremely popular in the north of the country, but cause resentment in this conservative southern province, which is heavily dominated by Pashtun tribal customs. Tolo’s standard fare of Bollywood movies, news in the other official state language, Dari, and political commentary that pokes fun at many ethnic groups including the Pashtuns have raised hackles in Helmand and other parts of the south.

“I am very happy that people can now watch their own television, in their own culture,” said Rahmatullah, a resident of Chan Jir, a village in the Nad Ali district. “Before this, my children were watching Tolo TV, but now no one will watch that station and its Indian programmes.”

Helmand television was in fact funded mainly by the Indian government, which contributed 100,000 US dollars for construction work and equipment.

The station will broadcast only to an area within a 40-kilometre radius of the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, and for the moment will broadcast three hours per day, from six until nine in the evening.

The government has ambitious plans for the station.

“This television will put programmes on air that will encourage the people of Helmand to have peace, security, and culture,” said provincial governor Assadullah Wafa at the opening ceremony. “We will not show foreign culture or foreign programmes.”

It was hard work to get the station up and running. There is little local technical expertise, and engineers were reluctant to come down to Helmand because of security concerns.

“The station was supposed to open three months ago,” said the governor. “But due to the lack of engineers, it was delayed again and again. No one was willing to come from Kabul because of the security situation. I personally told the engineers from national television, based in Kabul, to help us launch this station, but they didn’t come.”

The experts finally arrived, but they were clearly unhappy about the security risks.

Helmand, the centre of the Taleban-led insurgency, is cut off from much of the rest of the country. The 145 –kilometre road from Kandahar is one of the most dangerous stretches of asphalt in the country, with suicide bombers, “improvised explosive devices”, and Taleban checkpoints quite common.

Flights are irregular and expensive. The only private company that flies with any frequency to Helmand charges 440 dollars for a one-way flight from Kabul to Lashkar Gah. This was clearly beyond the government’s means.

“We were very afraid, and we wanted to fly to Helmand, but the government couldn’t afford the tickets,” said Saber, an engineer who came from Kabul to help with setting up the station.

“Now that we’re here, I am scared to death about getting back to Kabul.”

Aziz Rahman, another engineer, showed a bit more bravado.

“I am not afraid of being killed,” he said. “I am just concerned for my family. They don’t want me to be here, and they are very worried.”

Launching the station was only half the battle. Now the provincial authorities have to lay on the power to keep it going.

The Kajaki hydroelectric station, in northern Helmand, theoretically furnishes much of the electricity for this province and for neighbouring Kandahar. But fierce fighting around the Kajaki dam has delayed a project to upgrade its generating capacity. Current levels of output are frequently interrupted when insurgents or local residents cut power lines in major switching stations such as Sangin.

Lashkar Gah also has generators to supply residents with power, but the money to run them is tight.

Abdul Malek Mushfeq, the head of Helmand Radio and Television, says the power supply is the main problem facing his station.

“We don’t have a stable electricity supply,” he complained. “It comes and goes three times in an hour. This is no good for television.”

He said the TV station had been given a generator, but did not have the money to pay for fuel.

“We haven’t even been able to start up the generator yet,” he said. “Even though we are a government institution, we get the same electricity as residents. When their power is off, ours is, too. So we are facing a big problem here.”

Mohammad Nabi, head of the provincial electricity department, confirmed there was a supply problem.

“The power coming from Kajaki is weak; it isn’t enough for the city,” he said. “Sometimes there is an overload at Kajaki and they just shut it down. Then we have no power at all.

“We would like to give the television station two power lines, so that when one isn’t working the other can provide back-up. But the automatic switch box that connects Kajaki-generated power and the generator is malfunctioning.”

Mushfeq said the station lacked the capacity to broadcast for more than a few hours a day. “We can only operate for three hours a day, because we don’t have enough resources, including equipment and journalists,” he said.

The station will relay some centrally-produced programmes from Kabul, as well as providing its own coverage of local government activities.

“We will cover meetings and conferences taking place in Helmand,” said Mushfeq. “Recently we went to every single government department and told them we’d be making programmes about their work,” he said. “For example, we went to the agriculture department and filmed them. We got information about how many farmers they had helped, what assistance they are providing to the population, and so on.”

The focus on local government may help to overcome some of the anger and disaffection that Helmand residents have felt at the lack of progress in their communities.

Mushfeq believes the TV station will bring people closer to those who govern them.

That may create the odd uncomfortable moment. In one of its first broadcasts, Helmand TV showed the mayor of Lashkar Gah abusing a reporter for asking what he felt to be an intrusive question.

“We just showed it without editing it,” said Mushfeq. “The mayor himself said, ‘go ahead, just put it on air’. And it was late, so we didn’t have time to edit it out.”

Such interviews could make for problems, said Mushfeq, although he stopped short of saying that the station would be subject to government censorship.

Local residents welcome the exposure given to local affairs.

“Last night I watched Helmand TV, and they were showing a local meeting. It was very interesting for me, as it was the first time I’d seen my own community elders on television,” said Muzamel Shukri, a resident of Nad Ali district.

Others were more sceptical, however.

“I am not optimistic about this television,” said Hezbullah, who lives in the Marja district. “It’s government-run. And it needs lots of support. I can’t even watch it in Marja, because there is no relay tower and the signal is very weak. To be effective, the station would have to cover the whole of Helmand.”

Qudratullah, from Lashkar Gah, was critical of the quality of programmes he had seen.

“These Helmand programmes are not worth watching,” he said. “The picture is very bad, and those long reports are very boring.”

But most were willing to give the new station a chance.

“This television station is a good thing, because it may tell us what is really going on in our society,” said Malem Afzal, a resident of Marja district. “I swear I haven’t seen a good programme on national television in the last ten years. I am thirsting for our own television and our own programmes. It’s a shame they don’t have more [broadcasting] time.”

Mohammad Ilyas Dayee is an IWPR staff reporter in Helmand.
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Afghan Homecoming
The Wall Street Journal, 10/24/2007 By Khaled Hosseini
"Why has everyone forgotten about us?" an Afghan village leader asked me last month. He was a refugee who had returned from Pakistan to the village of Dar Khat in northern Afghanistan three years ago. Today, his people still live in dire poverty. They have little food, no home, no school, no water and no work. This past winter, 22 members of his family were cooped up in a hole in the ground covered with wooden boards and mud. "Why are we forgotten?" he asked. "Are we animals?"

Afghans are a resilient and courageous people, but they live in perpetual fear of being forgotten. They point to the post-Soviet years and cite -- at least in part -- global inattention for the ensuing civil war, chaos and religious extremism. Now, Afghans fear they are being forgotten once again, and wonder what the consequences will be this time.

Since 2002, nearly five million Afghans have returned home from neighboring Pakistan and Iran. This past month, I went to Afghanistan with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to visit some of the returnees. In the center in Kabul where returnees are registered, I met families who had made the tiring journey home from Pakistan the day before. I spoke to them as they descended from the brightly colored trucks loaded with women, children, wooden beams and bundles of bags. They were weary from the road, but I found their mood positive and hopeful. "We are happy to be home," one smiling man told me. "We have helped the economy of Pakistan for 20 years. Now we can help the economy of our own country. We are happy."

For how long, I wondered. I had sat down a few days before with the leader of Jeloghir, a small Uzbek village, whose people had returned five years earlier from Iran. They too had come home buoyed by hope and the promise of opportunity. But the disenchanted leader, a father of five, told me that Jeloghir's children go uneducated because the nearest school is a two-hour walk each way. His people live on bread, and drink water from a nearby muddy river. When the children get diarrhea, they must ride a donkey for hours to get to the nearest clinic. He told me he missed the comfort and opportunity of his life in Iran. "Here, no one looks after us," he said with a tired wave of his hand.

In a settlement of nomads, on barren desert land between the cities of Kunduz and Mazar, I saw hundreds of homeless returnees still living idly in ragged tents and makeshift mud shelters, a full three years after returning to Afghanistan. The village elder told me that, quite predictably, his village loses 10-15 children every winter from exposure to the unforgiving elements. He said he was indignant and humiliated that his people were still homeless. "Beg for bread if you must," he told me ruefully, "but may you never, ever, beg for a home."

I spoke about these people with President Hamid Karzai, during a luncheon in Kabul. He told me that Afghanistan would welcome any Afghan who wants to return home. It was an honorable position to take. But historically, even in the far more stable era of royalty, the central Afghan government has never been able to provide adequately for its people. Today, the country is still recovering from a 30-year nightmare of war, famine, drought, displacement and massive human suffering. By all indications, the government is overwhelmed with the task of providing even basic services, and does not have the capacity to absorb the millions of Afghans who have come back. In the villages that I visited, the presence of the government was simply not palpable, severely testing the self-sufficiency in which Afghans take so much pride.

The situation is likely to worsen. Pakistan is closing down its refugee camps and wants the two million Afghans living in Pakistan to be repatriated by 2009. The Iranian government, burdened with illegal Afghan migrant workers, is taking increasingly aggressive measures to send home the nearly one million Afghans living in Iran. So far this year, Iran has deported more than 200,000 unregistered Afghans. No official that I spoke to in Kabul believed that Afghanistan can accommodate these additional returnees.

The return of millions of Afghans can be seen as an encouraging indicator of progress in Afghanistan. But repatriation will falter unless the international community makes a sustained commitment to help reintegrate the returning refugees, and provide them with a livelihood and basic services. Failure to do so will have destabilizing effects beyond Afghanistan. It will increase illegal movement across the Iranian and Pakistani borders, as destitute Afghans seek economic opportunity they cannot find at home.

I could imagine all too easily the villagers I met turning to poppy cultivation to provide for their families. And there is always the specter of disillusionment with the Afghan government, and by extension, the promises of the West -- not to mention the Taliban waiting in the wings, eager to welcome the disillusioned into their insurgent ranks.

With the global focus on Iraq, I have watched with dismay as my native country continues to recede from the headlines. The returnees I met in northern Afghanistan may languish in obscurity, but their homeland remains vitally important. A failed state would be a catastrophe for both Afghanistan and the West.

This is a very critical juncture for Afghanistan, beset as it is by rising insecurity, a stout insurgency in the south, and an alarming increase in narcotics production. I hope that international will does not falter during this difficult period. Now more than ever, the global community must make a genuine, long-term and comprehensive commitment to the Afghans and ensure the future of the coming generation.

In other words, the world must not forget the Afghans again.

Mr. Hosseini, a goodwill envoy to UNHCR, is the author of "The Kite Runner" (Riverhead, 2003) and "A Thousand Splendid Suns" (Riverhead, 2007).
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'Pakistan army ill-suited to fight tribal insurgency'
KABUL, Oct 23 (Pajhwok Afghan News): No matter what government is in office, the Pakistan army is ill-suited and perhaps incapable of accomplishing the necessary in the Tribal Areas bordering Afghanistan, says a report appeared in Washington.

The analysis by Mark Sappenfield in the Christian Science Monitor quotes Moeed Yusuf of Strategic and Economic Policy Research, Islamabad, as saying, If this continues, the army will tone it down because there will be too many losses. The US must temper its expectations of what Pakistan can do militarily in the war on terror or risk inflaming the situation further, through increased anti-American attitudes or even possible defections from the army.

The US correspondent writes that the offensive is almost universally perceived to be an American war contracted out to its Pakistani ally. The army built to counter the massive threat of the Indian military is being asked to fight its own citizens in an unpopular counterinsurgency campaign that it has neither the will nor the skill-set to fight.

The Army officers have started realising that this battle is not worth the cost, according to Hassan Abbas of Harvard University. It has had a huge impact on the psychology of the Army.

Yusuf told the Monitor that despite misgivings about the current offensive in the Tribal Areas, the army brass does not dismiss the need for action there. The military is thinking about it very seriously. The threat is an internal one for years to come. Some in the army still believe the militants are a useful and manageable tool.

If the West leaves Afghanistan as many here believe it will they will give Pakistan a means to influence events there. Moreover, the army is hardly designed to take them on in their own territory. Since its inception, the Pakistani army has looked eastward to India, focusing on the plains of Punjab and sands of Sindh, from where any invasion might come. It is not trained to fight the kind of insurgency it is now engaged in.

The article quotes Pakistani diplomat Zamir Akram as telling a recent meeting in Washington, When we hear people in Washington or London say that Pakistan needs to do more, the question is: Do you understand what youre asking us to do? Would you go into Texas or wherever on the border areas and actually kill Americans? For this reason, many experts do not expect the current offensive to continue. If it does, the army will get divided vertically, with officers remaining loyal to headquarters and the rank and file becoming increasingly alienated, according to Ayesha Siddiqa. Cracks are appearing, she adds. She agrees that the way forward is not militarily it is by developing the region economically over the next 15 to 20 years, undercutting the poverty and lack of education that feeds extremism.
PAN Monitor
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Most Afghans view security as a major concern
KABUL, Oct 23 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Forty-two percent of Afghan citizens believe their country is moving in the right direction, compared to 44 in 2006 and 64 percent in 2004, reveals a new US-funded survey released here on Tuesday.

Released by the Asia Foundation here, the survey finds 24 percent of the Afghans - a number up from 21 percent in 2006 and 11 percent in 2004 - think the war-battered country is headed in the wrong direction while 25 percent have mixed feelings.

A spreading Taliban-led insurgency and escalating violence during the year fuelled people's concern about security, with an overwhelming majority of respondents viewing it as the most complex issue facing the nation.

The latest public opinion poll, covering the largest population sample ever surveyed at one time in all the 34 provinces, captures the publics perceptions of reconstruction, security, governance and poppy cultivation.

Afghanistan in 2007: A Survey of the Afghan People follows polls conducted by the Foundation in 2004 and 2006. It also reflects attitudes towards government and informal institutions, the role of women and Islam in society and the impact of media.

Collectively, the non-profit organisation said, the three surveys establish an accurate barometer of public opinion across Afghanistan to help assess the direction in which the country is moving in the post-Taliban era.

Security issues, including terrorism and violence, are the single biggest problem in Afghanistan, according to a third of the people polled. In 2006, only 22 percent of the respondents accorded top priority to security concerns.

Conducted in June 2007, the fieldwork for the survey consists of a random sample of 6,263 in-person interviews with Afghan men and women 18 years of age and above, from different social, economic, and ethnic communities in rural and urban areas in all 34 provinces.

Funded through the Asia Foundation's ongoing cooperative agreement with the US Agency for International Development, the survey was designed, directed and edited by the foundation, with all in-person interviews completed by 494 Afghan men and women employed by the Afghan Center for Socio-economic and Opinion Research (ACSOR) in Kabul. Similar surveys will be conducted in 2008, 2009 and 2010.

Respondents also listed joblessness, the out-of-whack economy and widespread graft as fundamental concerns that need to be addressed. Around 57 percent say the level of corruption has increased in the past year.

The Asia Foundation's Kabul office was re-established in February 2002 to launch programmes in areas vital to the political, social, economic, and intellectual development of post-Taliban Afghanistan.

Headquartered in San Francisco, the Foundation addresses a wide range of issues on both a country and regional level. In 2006, the Foundation provided more than $53 million in programme support and distributed 920,000 books and educational materials valued at $30 million throughout Asia.
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Afghans in China for Asian Indoor Games
KABUL, Oct 23 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Four Afghan teams have reached China to take part in Asian Indoor Games scheduled to begin in Macau city of that country from October 26.

Press office in charge of the National Olympic Committee Arif Paiman told Pajhwok Afghan News the four teams included snooker, chess, futsal and Kurash.

Afghanistan had sent 13 futsal and three players of each snooker, chess and Kurash, said Paiman, who added the country had previously missed the competitions held every two years. The last competitions were hosted by Thailand.

He hoped the teams would show better results during the current competitions. According to officials of the National Olympic Committee, Afghanistan had earlier participated in the higher level competitions held every four years.

The Afghan Taekwondo team had won bronze medal during the 15th Asian games held in Doha, capital of Qatar, last year, said the officials. Forty-nine Afghan athletes had taken part in the competitions. 
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