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October 30, 2007 

Dozens of Taliban, four police killed in fighting: police
HERAT, Afghanistan (AFP) - Taliban rebels overran a western Afghan district, sparking a fierce battle Tuesday that left six civilians, four policemen and 30 militants dead, officials said.

A soldier with the US-led coalition, an Afghan spy chief and 20 militants were killed in other incidents linked to the spiralling insurgency by the hardline regime, which was ousted by international forces in late 2001.

Local Taliban carried out the raid on Gulistan district of western Farah province on Monday night, joined by about 400 rebels from neighbouring Helmand, provincial police chief Abdul Rehman Sarjang said.

Intense clashes continued Tuesday night, with four policemen and six local people helping them killed in the fighting, Sarjang said, adding that 30 Taliban have also been slain.

Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi claimed the hardline movement's fighters had captured Gulistan. "We are in control of the district now," he said.

But the police chief denied that, saying police had made a tactical retreat and that Afghan forces and NATO-led troops were being deployed in support of police "to retake total control."

NATO's International Security Assistance Force said, however, that it was not involved.

The Taliban have kept control of at least one district in Helmand province, Musa Qala, for almost a year. They have seized other districts, mainly in the south, for short periods of time.

Separately, NATO and US-led coalition forces plus Afghan troopers launched a "clean-up" operation in the Arghandab district of southern Kandahar province, killing 20 militants, provincial police Sayed Aqa Saqib said.

Taliban spokesman Ahmadi and another purported spokesman for the group claimed the militants had also taken control of Arghandab and that 30 policemen had surrendered to them.

But police said the rebels had only infiltrated the district's outlying areas.

Meanwhile, a US-led coalition soldier was killed Tuesday in a military operation west of Kandahar city. Another foreign soldier and an Afghan policeman were wounded, the US military said in a statement.

The dead soldier was the 190th foreign service member to be killed in Afghanistan this year. International forces in Afghanistan do not release the nationalities of their casualties, leaving that task to their home countries.

In the central-southern province of Uruzgan, the US-led coalition announced that several Taliban were killed and three others captured in Baluchi, a region where 30 insurgents died in heavy clashes with NATO on Sunday.

In addition, an Afghan spy chief and three colleagues died in a roadside bombing Tuesday in eastern Laghman province.

The extremist Taliban were ousted from power in late 2001 by a US-led invasion of Afghanistan and have since been waging a bloody insurgency which has claimed the lives of thousands of people, mostly militants.

There are more than 55,000 foreign soldiers fighting the growing insurgency alongside Afghan forces.
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Coalition soldier, Afghan spy chief killed
Kabul (AFP) - A US-led coalition soldier was killed in a military operation in southern Afghanistan Tuesday, while an Afghan spy chief and three colleagues died in a roadside bombing, officials said.

The foreign soldier died and another another coalition soldier and an Afghan policeman were wounded west of Kandahar city airfield, a US military press statement said.

Kandahar was the former stronghold of the Islamist Taliban regime, which has been leading a fierce insurgency since it was ousted by US-led forces in late 2001 following the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

"A coalition service member was killed today while conducting combat operations," the statement said. "In addition, one coalition service member and one Afghan national policeman were wounded and evacuated for treatment."

International military forces in Afghanistan do not release the nationalities of their casualties, leaving that task to their home countries.

The latest incident brings the death toll of foreign soldiers serving with the US-led coalition and the separate NATO-led International Security Assistance Force to 190 this year.

A coalition soldier was killed Monday in a similar incident in neighbouring Helmand province in a roadside bomb blast targeting a convoy delivering supplies for Afghan army forces.

Separately a roadside bomb struck the vehicle of a district intelligence chief in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing him and three colleagues, officials said.

The head of the National Directorate of Security for the Qarghai district of Laghman province was on his way to work as his vehicle was blown up, provincial spokesman Nizamudin Mangal told AFP.
"The security director and his three friends including his driver were martyred in the blast," Mangal said.

Meanwhile three militants were killed in an Afghan army operation Monday in south-central Uruzgan province. The insurgents fled the area leaving behind three bodies, the defense ministry press statement said.

In addition six rockets were fired on the airport of western Herat province which is the base for the NATO-led troops in western Afghanistan and Afghan forces. The rockets caused no casualties.

There are more than 55,000 foreign soldiers fighting a growing insurgency alongside Afghan forces.
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Key tribal leader on verge of deserting Taliban
By Tom Coghlan in Kabul The Telegraph (UK) / October 30, 2007
An Afghan tribal leader is in talks to defect from the Taliban and take thousands of armed tribesmen with him to fight alongside British forces in southern Afghanistan.


The Daily Telegraph has learned that the Afghan government hopes to seal the deal this week with Mullah Abdul Salaam and his Alizai tribe, which has been fighting alongside the Taliban in Helmand province.

Diplomats confirmed yesterday that Mullah Salaam was expected to change sides within days. He is a former Taliban corps commander and governor of Herat province under the government that fell in 2001.

Military sources said British forces in the province are "observing with interest" the potential deal in north Helmand, which echoes the efforts of US commanders in Iraq's western province to split Sunni tribal leaders from their al-Qa'eda allies.

The Afghan deal would see members of the Alizai tribe around the Taliban-held town of Musa Qala quit the insurgency and pledge support to the Afghan government. It would be the first time that the Kabul government and its Western allies have been able exploit tribal divisions that exist within the Taliban in southern Afghanistan.

Nato forces in Helmand have been monitoring mounting tensions within the Taliban around the towns of Musa Qala and Kajaki.

"We have been aware in the last week that guns have been pulled and different armed camps formed within the Taliban in that area," said a military source.

According to tribal elders in Helmand and Western diplomats in Kabul, Mullah Salaam had been attempting to negotiate with the Afghan government in secret.

But details of the talks were leaked late last week to his erstwhile allies and this reportedly led to a split in the Taliban ranks.

Other Taliban leaders have since plotted to assassinate Mullah Salaam. "Mullah Abdul Salaam is very influential and he has the support of thousands of our tribe," said Haji Saleem Khan, the head of the Shura (or tribal council) of the Alizai in Helmand.

"When the Taliban found out that he planned to join the government three days ago they tried to kill him. But they have failed.

''These negotiations are still secret. We are going to see the government again today."

Another tribal leader in Helmand, Haji Abdul Rahman Sabir, the former provincial police chief, said of Mullah Salaam: "He was a very powerful figure in both the jihad [against the Soviet Union] and also the Taliban time.

"He is being protected by his tribe. There are 200 fighters around his house and they are waiting for support from the government. It is very important that the government helps."

A Western diplomat said that President Hamid Karzai had asked Nato forces to intervene in support of Mullah Salaam, but so far no Nato troops have been committed.

Lt Col Richard Eaton, a spokesman for British forces in Helmand, said: "The solution in counter insurgency is always ultimately political.

''The military can set conditions but there must be a political process and in Afghanistan that will always include a tribal dynamic."

Tribal friction and competition for power and resources in Helmand underpins the insurgent violence that has engulfed the province.

The Itzakzai tribe in particular have been key Taliban supporters, principally because they have felt excluded from both provincial power and the province's lucrative drugs trade since 2001.

Some sections of the Alizai, by contrast, have been dominant within both the drugs trade and provincial power structures.

Sher Mohammad Akhundzada, the former provincial governor who was allegedly a kingpin in the local drugs trade, was an Alizai.

However, within the Alizai are three sub-tribes and it is one of these, the Pirzai Alizai, that Mullah Salaam controls around Musa Qala.

The town is a drug-growing area and has been a centre of Taliban power since the collapse of a British-backed truce between the local government and the Taliban in February.
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AFGHANISTAN: Women workers exposed to health risks in Herat factories
HERAT, 30 October 2007 (IRIN) - The Safi fur and wool factory, in Herat city, western Afghanistan, has more than 350 female and 300 male workers who earn only 300 Afghanis (US$6) for their 48-hour, six-day week. The factory produces coats, jackets, hats and other garments for the European and North American markets. There are more than 1,500 women working in four such factories in Herat city.

The air in the Safi processing plant is full of dust from dirty furs, which workers tear to pieces with their bare hands.

Jamila (not hear real name) has worked in the factory for more than a year and recently experienced an unrelenting pain in her chest. “First, I was coughing and now I feel a terrible pain in my chest,” the 32-year-old said.

“Doctors and medicine are expensive,” she said. The modes amount she earns helps to supplement the family income to help feed her four children.

Less than 2m away from where Jamila is working, her baby has fallen asleep on a thin piece of straw. Jamila brings her youngest son to the factory every day, because there is nobody to look after him at home.

Health risks

Workers have to separate fur from goats’ hair and weave sheep’s wool without protective gloves or masks.

Ahmad Zia Rahmani, a lung and chest diseases specialist at the Herat city hospital, says workers in fur and wool factories are vulnerable to virulent microbes, which harm the respiratory system and cause chest infections.

“Sheep’s wool and goats’ hair usually contain harmful bacteria which can easily be transferred to a human via close contact and inhalation,” Rahmani said.

Mothers who regularly breastfeed their babies and consume food at the factory can also transfer dangerous microbes to their children if they do not wash their hands with antibacterial soap, Rahmani added.

Formal investigation

Afghanistan’s Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (MoLSA) said it would send a delegation to Herat to assess and report on the situation of female workers in factories there, after IRIN approached the ministry for a comment.

“We will make sure appropriate measures are adopted to improve the situation of workers,” said Ghulam Gaus Bashiri, a deputy minister in the department.

According to Bashiri, a revised draft labour law has been submitted to the National Assembly for approval, which has “many benefits for female workers”, including maternity leave, equal wages for men and women and a light working regime for women during pregnancy.

No medical insurance

According to Afghanistan’s labour law, public and private employers should provide medical insurance to employees who work in hazardous environments.

However, there are too many hurdles - including poor law enforcement institutions, lack of awareness about women's rights and conservative traditions - which constrict the law on paper with weak or no practical power.

Almost all workers in factories in Herat province have no written contract with their employers, particularly in the private sector. Workers and employers have only verbal agreements, which do not cover medical and hazard insurance.

In the past 12 months, seven women workers of the wool and fur factories in Herat have died due to respiratory diseases and chest infections, workers and Mohammad Ibrahim Ghafori, an official at the Safi factory, said.

Workers’ health problems have been compounded by their inability to afford medical checks and treatment.

There is no legal imperative for employers to offer assistance to their workers in need of medical treatment.

“We are not in a position to offer medical insurance or any financial assistance for health problems. We tell this to our workers before they start a job with us,” said Mohammad Ibrahim Ghafori, an official for the Safi wool and fur factory.

Some workers, meanwhile, acknowledged that they are exposed to health hazards in the factory but said lack of employment opportunities and economic needs force them to accept the risk.
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Iran, Afghanistan sign housing MoU
Press TV (Iran) Tue, 30 Oct 2007 10:47:31
Iran's minister of housing and urban development and Afghanistan's minister of rural development have signed an MoU for cooperation.

Mohammad Saeedi-Kia and the visiting Afghan minister, Mohammad-Ehsan Zia, signed the memorandum of understanding that consists of eight articles in Tehran on Monday.

In the MoU, Iran's Ministry of Housing and Urban Development has agreed to provide technical training courses in Afghanistan in the field of housing, rural development and reconstruction.

Iran's Islamic Revolution Housing Foundation is also to offer training courses in Afghanistan, send a group of Iranian engineers to the neighboring state as consultants, and help in the reconstruction of two model Afghan villages with a socio-economic approach. However, it will be up to the Afghan side to choose the villages and provide finance for the project.

Furthermore, the foundation has agreed to help Afghanistan devise a general plan for the country's rural development and reconstruction.

In the MOU, valid for three years but renewable, the Afghan government has pledged to set the groundwork for the foundation and its affiliated companies to bid for the country's development projects.
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Pakistan in new Taliban peace process
By Syed Saleem Shahzad Asia Times Online / October 30, 2007
KARACHI - Although the emphasis shifts almost daily, Washington's three-pronged plan to "tame" Pakistan and Taliban and al-Qaeda militants in the region is gathering momentum.

The one prong is represented by former premier Benazir Bhutto, recently returned from exile and entrusted with presenting a hard line against militancy. Last week's bomb attack on her homecoming parade in Karachi, in which more that 140 people

were killed, has temporarily placed her in the background.

Then there is opposition heavyweight Maulana Fazlur Rehman, whose star is in the ascendant at present. He is the key link with Taliban insurgents, and has already made a breakthrough by negotiating American-sponsored "small tribal jirgas" (councils) at which indigenous elements of the Afghan resistance, including the Taliban and Hezb-e-Islami Afghanistan, led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, will discuss peace issues. (Asia Times Online broke this development on August 24 - see Talks with the Taliban gain ground.)

The third prong is President General Pervez Musharraf, who, using American largesse, will pump millions of dollars into the tribal regions in an effort to isolate the militancy there.

This is Washington's three-pronged policy to mobilize the masses in the region against militancy. The policy echoes that of 1999-2001, when Washington tried to orchestrate plans with Pakistan against al-Qaeda. The result was the attacks of September 11, 2001, against the United States. And this time too, al-Qaeda can be expected to fight back on all fronts.

Talking to the Taliban

The small jirgas are expected to begin early next month. Farooq Wardak, the Afghan government representative, is minister of state for parliamentary affairs and deputy chairman of the Jirga Monitoring Commission. He will lead a delegation to Islamabad at the invitation of Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao.

This is the first time that the Taliban have been given official representation in a dialogue process sponsored by Washington, and this could be the first step toward an American exit strategy for Afghanistan.

However, Asia Times Online investigations reveal that the more the West hatches plans to isolate global jihadis in Iraq and Afghanistan, the more they look for options to retaliate against the West.

Rehman has certainly emerged as the man of the moment. Only six months ago, when a group of journalists asked the visiting US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, Richard Boucher, whether he had met Pakistan's leader of the paliamentary opposition (since resigned), he replied that Pakistan is a country of many million people and he could not meet every "Tom, Dick and Harry".

But since then Rehman has been "honored" with a meeting with Boucher. Rehman is an astute politician and his importance has grown in the past few weeks, especially in the runup to the presidential elections that saw Musharraf win another term, pending approval by constitutional authorities, and the attack on Bhutto.

"I can safely predict he will be the most important person in any future setup," commented Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, the federal minister of railways who was previously Pakistan's information minister and who is considered a part of Musharraf's inner "kitchen" cabinet.

In recent days, Rehman has spoken to top Taliban commanders, including Mullah Bredar in Quetta, and succeeded in obtaining tacit approval for a ceasefire, pending the Americans announcing a process for withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Rehman guaranteed that once the Taliban agreed to be a part of the dialogue process through the small jirgas, the US would gradually unfold its withdrawal plans.

Both parties agreed to take steps for peace and reciprocate each other's efforts. The Taliban were assured by Rehman that their participation in the jirgas would be a milestone in which their resistance would be accepted as legitimate.

After the initial jirgas, in which some political settlement would be agreed on, a grand jirga will be convened at which the Afghan nation will press its demands for a national Islamic government and the withdrawal of foreign troops. The Taliban agreed to this schedule. This year, a grand jirga representing hundreds of key figures from Pakistan and Afghanistan was held in Kabul, but the Taliban were excluded, so it achieved nothing concrete.

In the last week of September, US ambassador to Pakistan Anne W Patterson visited Rehman, after which Rehman publicly announced that the US was ready to plan for an exit strategy from Afghanistan once a proper mechanism was in place.

Not so fast

Al-Qaeda ideologues have been watching developments closely, and are working on a counter strategy. The first part of this is to groom a Taliban leadership that will be inflexible on the issue of resistance.

For instance, Sirajuddin Haqqani has emerged as a caliph within the Taliban movement. He is the son of the veteran Afghan resistance figure Jalaluddin Haqqani, and the Western alliance considers him the most powerful commander in Afghanistan. (For an interview with Sirajuddin Haqqani, see Through the eyes of the Taliban Asia Times Online, May 5, 2004.)

Importantly, Sirajuddin's constituency is not the Afghan Taliban but Pakistani jihadis and Arab fighters who will not compromise on their goal of complete victory for al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Sirajuddin is al-Qaeda's answer to Rehman's peace process. Since the killing of Mullah Dadullah this year, there is no one in southwestern Afghanistan to guarantee any deals.

Rehman is also attempting reconciliation in Pakistan's tribal areas of Waziristan, where the Taliban and al-Qaeda have a strong grip. He is courting figures such as Sadar Abdul Rahman and Maulana Mahmood, but it is not an easy task.

"Our people supported Maulana Fazlur Rehman for the cause of Islam, but he has sold our interests for the sake of politics. The Taliban are ready for any sort of negotiations, but if the negotiations are held to support US designs in the region or to ask us to surrender, our fight against NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] in Afghanistan, that will be a non-starter," Dr Essa Khan, the chief spokesperson of the Pakistani Taliban and chief of the Pakistani Taliban in the Bannu region, told Asia Times Online.

Essa was evasive when asked whether the Taliban had targeted Rehman's residence in Dera Ismail Khan in North-West Frontier Province a few months ago, saying that spilling the blood of the people was done by politicians, not by the mujahideen.

"We want to fight American forces. We want them to come to Waziristan and attack us so that we can fight against them. We don't want to fight against our own brothers [Pakistani soldiers] who are pitched against us as Washington's ally. We think this hypocrisy will be finished once American forces attack us in Pakistani territory and we will have a single enemy against us to fight with and we will be fighting against them with all our conviction," said Essa in response to a question about allowing US forces hot pursuit operations into Pakistan from Afghanistan.

Rehman has something to give, though. By June 2008, the US will have made US$180 million available for development work in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. US ambassador Patterson has been meeting members of Parliament from these areas (the majority of them hail from Rehman's Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam - JUI) and has assured them that the US will distribute the money with their collaboration.

Last week, US President George W Bush urged Congress to give an additional $60 million for the development of the tribal areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The Bush administration has also assured Pakistan that it is committed to setting up reconstruction zones in the tribal regions. Goods produced in the zones will be allowed duty-free access to the US market.

Bhutto awaits her turn

Speaking to Asia Times Online in Karachi, twice-elected premier Bhutto dismissed any chance of reconciliation with militants until they surrendered.

"There are two theories to deal with the militants. There is the theory of a ceasefire with militants and peace treaties with them. In 2002, under the same theory, the JUI [led by Rehman] was given [the provincial government] of North-West Frontier Province. I think there is a need to assess this policy. I don't believe in any negotiations with the militants until they surrender their weapons. I completely oppose speaking to irregular militias."

Bhutto also believes that a powerful segment of the establishment is still on the side of the militants, what she calls a legacy of late dictator General Zia ul-Haq.

"Those who don't want the moderate middle to mobilize on the streets were behind the October 18 blast. These are the same anti-democratic forces that destabilized the PPP's [Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party] past governments," Bhutto said.

Bhutto wrote a letter to Musharraf in which she accused retired Lieutenant General Hamid Gul, retired Brigadier Ijaz Shah, the Intelligence Bureau chief, and the chief minister of Punjab, Chaudhary Pervaiz Illahi, as the main supporters of those who carried out the bomb attack against her. "I named the people whom I understood as suspects and I think an inquiry should be conducted against them," Bhutto said.

She also accused al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden of conspiring against her first government in the late 1980s by financing former premier Nawaz Sharif against her.

When asked whether bin Laden was directly behind the October 18 bombing, Bhutto simply replied, "There is a lot of money in this battle through arms smuggling and drugs and all the faces of the perpetuators of this battle should be exposed."

Bhutto's tough line, Rehman's policy of reconciliation and Musharraf's pumping of money into the tribal areas have the single theme of isolating the militants.

Al-Qaeda's big plans

These constant pressures are once again forcing al-Qaeda to spin the game so that it can also influence the "war on terror".

Western intelligence has named Abu Obaida al-Masri as the new chief of al-Qaeda's external operations with the aim of targeting Europe.

Western intelligence has also revealed a powerful camp in the town of Mir Ali in North Waziristan. According to their information, the camp is run by Abu Haris al-Jazeri. Other prominent associates include Najib al-Fala, Omar Jalali, Bilal Abu Daghlol, Hussain al-Babi and Ahmed Taufiq. Fala and Jazeri are French citizens and the others are Tunisian.

According to the intelligence reports, this al-Qaeda camp is planning attacks in Europe, notably the United Kingdom, Germany and France.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief.
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Foreign Fighters of Harsher Bent Bolster Taliban
By DAVID ROHDE The New York Times October 30, 2007
GARDEZ, Afghanistan — Afghan police officers working a highway checkpoint near here noticed something odd recently about a passenger in a red pickup truck. Though covered head to toe in a burqa, the traditional veil worn by Afghan women, she was unusually tall. When the police asked her questions, she refused to answer.

When the veil was eventually removed, the police found not a woman at all, but Andre Vladimirovich Bataloff, a 27-year-old man from Siberia with a flowing red beard, pasty skin and piercing blue eyes. Inside the truck was 1,000 pounds of explosives.

Afghan and American officials say the Siberian intended to be a suicide bomber, one of several hundred foreign militants who have gravitated to the region to fight alongside the Taliban this year, the largest influx since 2001.

The foreign fighters are not only bolstering the ranks of the insurgency. They are more violent, uncontrollable and extreme than even their locally bred allies, officials on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border warn.

They are also helping to change the face of the Taliban from a movement of hard-line Afghan religious students into a loose network that now includes a growing number of foreign militants as well as disgruntled Afghans and drug traffickers.

Foreign fighters are coming from Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Chechnya, various Arab countries and perhaps also Turkey and western China, Afghan and American officials say.

Their growing numbers point to the worsening problem of lawlessness in Pakistan’s tribal areas, which they use as a base to train alongside militants from Al Qaeda who have carried out terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Europe, according to Western diplomats.

“We’ve seen an unprecedented level of reports of foreign-fighter involvement,” said Maj. Gen. Bernard S. Champoux, deputy commander for security of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. “They’ll threaten people if they don’t provide meals and support.”

In interviews in southern and eastern Afghanistan, local officials and village elders also reported having seen more foreigners fighting alongside the Taliban than in any year since the American-led invasion in 2001.

In Afghanistan, the foreigners serve as mid-level commanders, and train and finance local fighters, according to Western analysts. In Pakistan’s tribal areas, they train suicide bombers, create roadside-bomb factories and have vastly increased the number of high-quality Taliban fund-raising and recruiting videos posted online.

Gauging the exact number of Taliban and foreign fighters in Afghanistan is difficult, Western officials and analysts say. At any given time, the Taliban can field up to 10,000 fighters, they said, but only 2,000 to 3,000 are highly motivated, full-time insurgents.

The rest are part-time fighters, young Afghan men who have been alienated by government corruption, who are angry at civilian deaths caused by American bombing raids, or who are simply in search of cash, they said. Five to 10 percent of full-time insurgents — roughly 100 to 300 combatants — are believed to be foreigners.

Western diplomats say recent offers from the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, to negotiate with the Taliban are an effort to split local Taliban moderates and Afghans who might be brought back into the fold from the foreign extremists.

But that effort may face an increasing challenge as foreigners replace dozens of midlevel and senior Taliban who, Western officials say, have been killed by NATO and American forces.

At the same time, Western officials said the reliance on foreigners showed that the Taliban are running out of midlevel Afghan commanders. “That’s a sure-fire sign of desperation,” General Champoux said.

Seth Jones, an analyst with the Rand Corporation, was less sanguine, however, calling the arrival of more foreigners a dangerous development. The tactics the foreigners have introduced, he said, are increasing Afghan and Western casualty rates.

“They play an incredibly important part in the insurgency,” Mr. Jones said. “They act as a force multiplier in improving their ability to kill Afghan and NATO forces.”

Western officials said the foreigners are also increasingly financing younger Taliban leaders in Pakistan’s tribal areas who have closer ties to Al Qaeda, like Sirajuddin Haqqani and Anwar ul-Haq Mujahed. The influence of older, more traditional Taliban leaders based in Quetta, Pakistan, is diminishing.

“We see more and more resources going to their fellow travelers,” said Christopher Alexander, the deputy special representative for the United Nations in Afghanistan. “The new Taliban commanders are younger and younger.”

In the southern provinces of Oruzgan, Kandahar and Helmand, Afghan villagers recently described two distinct groups of Taliban fighters. They said “local Taliban” allowed some development projects. But “foreign Taliban” — usually from Pakistan — threatened to kill anyone who cooperated with the Afghan government or foreign aid groups.

Hanif Atmar, the Afghan education minister, said threats from foreign Taliban have closed 40 percent of the schools in southern Afghanistan. He said many local Taliban oppose the practice, but foreign Taliban use brutality and cash to their benefit.

“That makes our situation terribly complicated,” Mr. Atmar said. “Because they bring resources with them, their agenda takes precedence.”

Large groups of Pakistani militants operate in southern Afghanistan, according to Afghan officials. In the east, more Arab and Uzbek fighters are present.

Mr. Bataloff, the Russian arrested in a burqa, insists he is a religious student who traveled to Pakistan last year to learn more about his new faith. In an hourlong interview in an Afghan jail in Kabul, he said his interest in Islam blossomed three years ago when he was living in Siberia.

“First, I heard from TV, radio and newspapers about Islam,” he said in Russian. “I found Islam had a lot of good things, especially that Islam respects all prophets, including Jesus.”

But he declined to describe many details of his trip and grew angry when asked about his personal background. “Homicide and suicide is not allowed in any religion,” he said, when asked about the allegations against him. “Why are you asking me these questions?”

Mr. Bataloff said he grew up in Siberia, but would not identify his hometown or region. He said he could not remember the names of the Pakistanis he met or the two Afghan men who drove the pickup truck.

He said he decided to go to a predominantly Muslim country last fall to study Islam and learn about “the morals, the customs, the ethics and the literature.” He flew alone from Russia to Iran, he said, and met a Russian-speaking “guide” in the airport.

After spending 10 days in Iran, he crossed into Pakistan and traveled to North Waziristan, a remote tribal area that is a longtime Taliban and Qaeda stronghold. There, he spent a year living and studying in a small mosque in Mir Ali.

Pakistani security officials say the Islamic Jihad Union, a terrorist group led by militants from Uzbekistan, operates a training camp in Mir Ali.

[In mid-October, in some of the heaviest fighting in four years, the Pakistani military said 50 foreign fighters were among 200 militants reported killed in three days of clashes around Mir Ali. The dead foreigners were said to include mostly Uzbeks and Tajiks, as well as some Arabs, the army said.]

Some of the suspects arrested in a failed bombing plot in Germany in September received training in the tribal areas, according to German officials. Several men involved in the July 2005 London transit bombings and a failed August 2006 London airliner plot did as well.

Mr. Bataloff said he met no foreign militants in his 10 months in the tribal areas. But American military officials said he had told interrogators that he had attended a terrorist training camp in North Waziristan. He said local militants forced him to go to the camp and taught him how to fire an AK-47 assault rifle, the officials said.

“I didn’t have any specific teacher,” he said, when asked about Pakistanis he met there. “There were local people who knew the Koran.”

A second foreign prisoner produced by Afghan officials identified himself as Muhammad Kuzeubaev, a 23-year-old from Temirtau, Kazakhstan. Afghan officials said he was a bombmaker arrested in September in Badakhshan Province in northern Afghanistan.

In an interview, Mr. Kuzeubaev, who also spoke fluent Russian, said he was visiting Afghanistan as a tourist. “I was close to the border,” he said. “I thought I would go explore the country.”

In Badakhshan, he said, two Afghan men abducted him and demanded he join Al Qaeda. He agreed to do so fearing he would be killed, he said. That night, the men showed him parts of a suicide vest and promised to take him to Pakistan for training.

“They showed me the explosives, the vest and grenade,” said Mr. Kuzeubaev. “The next day, they brought some kind of weapons.”

Two days later, Afghan police officers surrounded the house and arrested him, he said. Afghan interrogators beat him, chained him to a wall and prevented him from sleeping for four days, he said.

“They are saying, ‘You are the man who was making the vests,’ ” said Mr. Kuzeubaev. “But the ammunition and other explosives were not mine.”
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Drugs, graft, insecurity threaten Afghan progress
By Jon Hemming Tue Oct 30, 7:24 AM ET
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan has made achievements in delivering development to its people, but needs to do more to tackle worsening insecurity, drug production and corruption which threaten further progress, the World Bank said on Tuesday.

After nearly three decades of war, Afghanistan's economy is largely propped up by international donations as the government attempts to deal with the revived Taliban insurgency, widespread corruption and record-breaking opium production.

These three main problems form a vicious circle whereby drug production funds the insurgency and encourages official corruption, which both allow more drugs to be produced.

"I am again deeply impressed by how far Afghanistan has come in delivering development benefits for its people," said World Bank Managing Director Graeme Wheeler.

"More girls are at school than at any time in Afghanistan's history, child mortality has been reduced substantially, and the government's national community development program is bringing development to over 18,000 communities," he said.

"I am concerned, however, that increased insecurity, drug production, and corruption are putting at risk further advances in state-building and other areas critical for growth and employment generation," he said in a statement.

MANY YEARS TO GO

In the past year, the number of security incidents is up 24 percent, opium production has risen by 34 percent and Afghanistan had slipped to 172 out of 180 countries in Transparency International's corruption perception index, Wheeler said.

"Tackling the challenges of widespread poverty, rebuilding institutions destroyed by two decades of war, and overcoming problems of security, narcotics, and corruption will require intensified efforts by Afghanistan and its partners for many years," the statement said.

With international military forces partially engaged in reconstruction efforts and more than 100 aid and non-governmental organizations with an annual budget of more than $100 million, Afghanistan has suffered from a lack coordination between donors.

This has meant that some projects overlap, have been ill-conceived, or were not coordinated with the Afghan government which has lacked funds or manpower to staff schools and health clinics, for example, once they have been built.

The World Bank has instead encouraged donors to channel funds to the government through an externally audited reconstruction trust fund it administers, arguing that strengthens state institutions.

"An assessment of Afghanistan's public financial management system based on international standards has been positive," the World Bank said. "Accordingly, donors, including the World Bank, have increased their support channeled through Afghanistan's national budget."

But many donors, including the biggest of all, the United States' economic and development agency, USAID, have remained outside the system.
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No deal by Japan PM, opposition on Afghan mission
By Linda Sieg Tue Oct 30, 4:05 AM ET
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's prime minister failed on Tuesday to win the main opposition leader's agreement to extend a naval mission backing U.S.-led Afghan operations, activities Washington says are vital to the fight against terrorism.

Under heavy pressure from the United States, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda is struggling against a newly confident opposition to enact a bill to enable Japan's navy to keep providing fuel for U.S. and other ships patrolling the Indian Ocean.

A Japanese supply ship on Monday conducted its last refuelling operation under the current law, which expires on November 1. The mission is certain to be halted for months, if not longer.

"Unfortunately, we did not reach an agreement today," Fukuda told reporters after meeting Democratic Party leader Ichiro Ozawa, who objects to the mission in part because he says it lacks a formal U.N. mandate.

"We have to make efforts to find some common point, so we agreed to meet again," said Fukuda, who had requested the unusual political summit.

Officials from the ruling and opposition camps said Fukuda and Ozawa were likely to meet again on Friday.

Fukuda's predecessor, Shinzo Abe, resigned suddenly last month after a year in office plagued by scandals and gaffes among cabinet ministers, saying he hoped to clear the way for extending the naval mission.

U.S. ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer has campaigned publicly for extending the naval mission. Last week he said that a permanent halt would send a "very bad message to the international community and terrorists."

DOING ALL HE CAN
Despite the intense U.S. pressure, some political analysts say the U.S.-Japan alliance is unlikely to be seriously dented by a halt to the mission.

Still, Fukuda is taking pains to show Washington that he is doing all he can. "America is making a very strong demand to have the mission resumed, so Fukuda is asking Ozawa to somehow agree," said political commentator Minoru Morita.

"But I think compromise is impossible."

Just under 50 percent of Japanese voters agree that the mission should be extended, short of the 60 percent Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba told Reuters this month was needed for the ruling parties to use their two-thirds majority to override an upper house rejection of the bill without sparking a backlash.

That means winning the public's hearts and minds is key, especially since speculation about an early election for parliament's powerful lower house is rife.

"Fukuda's strategy is to present an image of himself as gentle and polite, in contrast to an image of Ozawa as stubborn and cold," said independent political analyst Hirotaka Futatsuki.

Prospects for extending the mission, though, have been complicated by a scandal involving a senior defense ministry official who admitted in parliament on Monday that he was wrong to have accepted gifts from a defense contractor.

Former Vice Minister Takemasa Moriya denied he had done favors for the contractor, but opposition lawmakers and Japanese media said the testimony had not laid the scandal to rest.

(Additional reporting by Isabel Reynolds and Teruaki Ueno)
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Pentagon plays down end of Japan's Afghan mission
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Japan's failure to extend a naval mission in support of the Afghanistan war will not affect U.S. operations in that combat zone, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.

"I do not expect any operational impact whatsoever," said Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell.

Japan's prime minister failed on Tuesday to forge agreement with the opposition to allow Japan's navy to keep providing fuel for U.S. and other ships patrolling the Indian Ocean. Those operations support the war in Afghanistan. This means the mission is now certain to be halted for months, if not longer.

A Japanese supply ship carried out its last refueling operation on Monday under the current law, which expires November 1.

"We still hope that they will continue to support the mission through their refueling efforts," Morrell told reporters.

"But if they ultimately choose not to, we will certainly come up with alternative means of making sure that our men and women have the fuel they need to go about their missions."

The fuel provided by Japan's supply mission accounted for about 19.6 percent of total fuel consumed by coalition vessels from December 2001 through February 2003, according to Pentagon data. Since then, it has accounted for about 7.3 percent of fuel consumed by coalition vessels.
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UN: 34 aid workers killed in Afghanistan
By FISNIK ABRASHI, Associated Press Writer Mon Oct 29, 6:10 AM ET
KABUL, Afghanistan - The United Nations on Monday said 34 aid workers have been killed in Afghanistan this year and called on Taliban fighters and criminal gangs to stop attacking humanitarian convoys so food can reach millions of needy Afghans before winter.

Tom Koenigs, the head of the U.N. Assistance Mission to Afghanistan, also said that insurgents and criminal gangs have abducted 76 aid workers and attacked or looted 55 aid convoys this year.

"The attacks on humanitarian aid must stop," Koenigs told reporters in Kabul.

"Those responsible for these attacks and for the insecurity are pushing the most vulnerable people outside of our reach," he said. "Those responsible for these attacks need to know that they are attacking the welfare of Afghanistan's most vulnerable communities."

The majority of the aid workers killed and abducted in 2007 were Afghan nationals, including doctors, de-miners and engineers, the U.N. said.

This year has been Afghanistan's deadliest since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. More than 5,300 people have died so far due to insurgency related violence, according to an Associated Press count based on figures from Afghan and Western officials.

The number of attacks on aid convoys have also spiked, increasing six-fold this year over 2006, said Rick Corsino, the country director for the U.N.'s World Food Program. There have been 30 attacks on WFP food convoys so far this year, mainly in the country's south, compared with five attack in the whole of 2006.

"In a majority of these incidents, food was looted ... and so far we have lost something like 100,000 tons of food," Corsino said.

The violence that has swept the country's south has prevented WFP from moving any aid convoys on the main highway that connects the country's south and west, he said.

"We have not moved any food between (southern city of) Kandahar and Herat (in the west) for the past six weeks," Corsino said.

Authorities have six weeks to reach about 400,000 Afghan living at high elevations before winter sets in or risk them migrating from their homes, Corsino said.

The continued conflict has "tremendously" worsened humanitarian situation in the country and 78 districts in the country are rated as "extremely risky" for U.N. workers to operate, Koenigs said.

"Reaching the people is not a political issue, it is a humanitarian priority," Koenigs said.

Nearly 5 million Afghans are dependent on food assistance, Corsino said. The WFP have already distributed 220,000 tons of food worth $150 million this year, he said.
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UN leads Afghan campaign to eradicate polio
Techniques used in massive drive are the same ones the Canadian military is hoping will secure Kandahar province
OMAR EL AKKAD Globe and Mail (Canada) October 30, 2007 at 5:23 AM EDT
KANDHAR, Afghanistan — For the past three days, some 7,000 Afghan volunteers have travelled across the country as part of one of the most ambitious medical projects on the planet, a drive to immunize more than 1.1 million Afghan children against a crippling disease long-since eradicated in the developed world.

But the Unicef-led, monthly National Immunization Days campaign isn't just one of the largest drives against polio in the world. It also incorporates every strategy for getting things done in this war-torn and fiercely tribal country: getting villagers onside, employing well-connected local citizens to negotiate access to dangerous parts of the country and giving Afghans the tools to help one another, the same strategies on which Canadian troops are betting the future of Kandahar province.

Indeed, the goodwill of local villagers is the only form of protection for most of the 7,000 volunteers, including those responsible for immunizing children in areas under Taliban control.

"We don't have other measures," said Shahwali Popal, who heads the immunization project out of Unicef's Kandahar city office. "We are not soldiers, we don't fight."

Over the past few years, polio rates in Afghanistan have served as one of the most accurate indicators of the worsening security situation in this country. Of the nine polio cases discovered this year, seven were in Kandahar and Helmand, where the fiercest fighting is going on.

The statistics mirror a worsening situation for virtually all humanitarian agencies in Afghanistan this year, with a spike in attacks against aid workers and a growing area too dangerous to visit.

"Inside the cities it's improving," Dr. Popal said. "Outside the cities there is a risk. Security is a major problem."

Vaccination teams

It's a blistery Monday morning in Kandahar city and a group of half a dozen young men are walking through the back alleys of a mud and brick neighbourhood, dodging a stream of wastewater that surrounds the simple, single storey homes. The men carry small, cylindrical canisters full of tiny vials, each containing a few drops of liquid that, administered orally, may one day save the children of this neighbourhood from a lifetime of misery.

The young men make up about three or four of the thousands of Unicef-led vaccination teams currently prowling the country. Each team consists of two people, and every six or seven teams are monitored by a supervisor.

In Kandahar city, the teams move from door to door, looking for children five years old or younger. The supervisors carry tally sheets and record every child who is vaccinated. But the process is by no means systematic; noticing the teams at work, parents from down the street come by, bringing their children. Occasionally, the teams will come across one of the many unaccompanied youngsters running around in the back alleys. To find out if a passing boy is young enough to receive the vaccine, a team member raises the boy's hand over one side of his head and down around the other side. If the boy's hand doesn't reach past his other ear, the theory goes, he's young enough to receive the vaccine. The boy's arm doesn't reach, so a volunteer gives him the vaccine, marks one of his fingers with a pen, and moves along.

"Sometimes it's difficult for new volunteers," said Shah Mohammad, a 19-year-old team supervisor and Grade 12 student. "Sometimes the volunteer won't put the right amount of drops and it's difficult for the supervisor to control all the teams."

But while the operation may look a little slapdash on the ground, every one of these immunization drives is the product of weeks of work and years of experience.

Every Wednesday, a group of representatives from Unicef, the World Health Organization and other groups meet in a room adjacent to Kandahar city's Mirwais hospital. The meeting room's walls are plastered with maps. Most are neighbourhood-specific, drawn in bright-coloured markers by the people who live there. The level of detail is down to every mud hut; the mapmakers even draw tiny minarets on each mosque.

"We try to select [the volunteer] from the same locality," Dr. Popal said. "He knows the area; he knows how many people there are."

In a country composed of various, often warring, ethnicities and tribes, local knowledge is important to such a project. But with fighting raging throughout much of southern Afghanistan, local knowledge is now vital.

To get into some of the most dangerous areas of the country, the project relies on "access negotiators," well-known local residents who are also known to the Taliban and can persuade fighters to let the volunteers in. The tactic often works, allowing the drive to reach children in areas that even the Afghan police won't go to without backup.

But this year has been especially bad for aid workers in Afghanistan. According to the United Nations Assistance Mission, insurgents and criminal gangs have killed or abducted 110 aid workers this year and looted 55 humanitarian convoys. At least 78 districts across the country are now rated extremely risky for UN aid workers.

Things have gotten so bad that the United Nations issued a public appeal yesterday to end attacks against its convoys before winter sets in and cuts off remote villages from aid deliveries.

But beyond security concerns, the immunization drive's organizers have also had to deal with education barriers. Some Afghan villagers don't know what polio is. To combat this, organizers once again tailor their message to the local level. A massive education campaign is targeted at four distinct and influential groups of people in virtually any Afghan town or village: teachers, health workers, elders and mullahs.

"We used to have some people who say no to the vaccine," said Khalid, a 23-year-old Kandahar City resident who works as a translator for the U.S. forces here and whose little brother received the vaccine yesterday. "There are some families who are illiterate, who don't know what polio is, but they are very few."

The organizers also keep an eye on public relations. Each monthly drive is preceded by an advertising campaign that includes posters, ads on the back of rickshaws and even the occasional sponsored soccer match. This month's drive in Kandahar kicked off at the governor's house, with the deputy governor administering the first vaccination.

Thanks to the project, health workers in Afghanistan have come tantalizingly close to wiping out polio in Afghanistan, which, along with Pakistan, Nigeria and India, is one of the last places on Earth where the disease is endemic. But after years of work, the drive's organizers are now largely helpless as the disease re-emerges through the fog of war in southern Afghanistan, a region that's largely becoming inaccessible to aid workers.
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Afghan Wireless Completes 2,500km Microwave Ring for GSM Backhaul
Cellular-News, UK
Afghanistan's Afghan Wireless has announced the completion of its high capacity digital Microwave Ring around the country. This is the first Microwave Ring across the country in the history of Afghanistan covering a distance of 2,500 Kilometers and millions of dollars of investment. It passes through 18 provinces providing direct coverage and connectivity to the population residing in surrounding areas.

The Microwave Ring has also helped in providing coverage to all major highways connecting Kabul to Kunduz to Mazar to Herat to Kandahar to Kabul.

Afghan Wireless is the only telecom company providing microwave connectivity to the Uzbekistan and Tajakistan borders in the North to the Pakistan borders in the South and East. It also connects to the Iran border in the West. The ring probably has the longest link of 187km between Charkend and Qaramqol.

The backbone ring offers immense capacity with a minimum of STM1 connectivity (155Mbps) and redundancy while providing connectivity across the country.

Since most part of the country of Afghanistan is covered with mountains, it is extremely difficult to build a network based on fiber optics and terrestrial links. Most operators in the country prefer to roll out faster using satellite links to remote locations. The customer is quickly realizing the high quality of calls that a GSM network deployed over Microwave can offer and the immense growth of Afghan Wireless user base is a true evidence of this.

According to Tushar Maheshwari, Chief Commercial Officer of Afghan Wireless " this strategy, although costly and time consuming, helped in providing a state of the art GSM experience to the customer. The calls are clear, without any delay or satellite congestion restrictions. Looking into the future, when there would be a higher demand for Data services moving over GPRS, EDGE, and leased lines and eventually 3G, this backbone would have an important role in providing the necessary bandwidth".

The Afghan Wireless Microwave Ring connects the North of the Country in Mazar, Takhar, Badakshan and Kunduz to Kabul over the Salang which is further connected in the South to Kandahar and Spinboldak. The ring further extends West from Kandahar passing through Hilmand, Nimroz and Farah to reach Herat. It also extends from Herat to Mazar via Badghees, Faryab and Jawjan provinces. In the East, the ring connects Kabul to Jalalabad and Turkham Border along with the Kunar Valley. It also connects Gardez and Khost in the South East of the country.
Posted to the site on 30th October 2007
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Military tribunal investigating Afghan civilian shootings delayed
The Associated  October 30, 2007
RALEIGH, North Carolina: A Marine Corps legal tribunal called to investigate the killing of up to 19 Afghan civilians earlier this year has been delayed until early December, a spokesman said Tuesday.

The court of inquiry, a rare legal mechanism last used in 1956, will examine the roles of two Marines present during the shootings. It was scheduled to begin Thursday at Camp Lejeune but was tentatively pushed back because of scheduling conflicts, said Lt. Col. Sean Gibson, a Marines spokesman at Central Command.

Mark Waple, an attorney representing one of the Marines, said the defense asked for the delay so lawyers "could get through the several thousand pages of information we have to digest."

As many as 19 people were killed and 50 injured in March when members of the Marine special operations company opened fire in a crowded roadway, after their convoy was rammed by a minivan full of explosives, Army officials said. The shootings occurred in Nangahar province.

Witnesses said Marines fired at civilian cars and pedestrians, according to Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission, which said it did not find evidence the military unit was under fire.

Lt. Gen. James Mattis, the top Marine officer at Central Command, ordered the court to examine the roles of Maj. Fred Galvin, who was a company commander with the 2nd Marine Special Operations Battalion, and Capt. Vincent Noble, the platoon commander. Neither man has been charged.

Mattis will review the court's findings to determine if criminal charges are warranted.

Waple, Galvin's civilian lawyer, said his client never told anyone to fire and did not fire shots himself.

Noble's attorney did not immediately return a telephone call Tuesday.

None of the company's Marines has been charged, but eight members of the company were ordered back to Camp Lejeune after the incident. The remainder of the unit was ordered to leave Afghanistan and return to ships in the Persian Gulf.

Gibson said he could not provide details on why Galvin and Nobel were singled out, adding that it was unlikely other Marines would be formally examined.

The court of inquiry will be comprised of senior officers who will hear testimony before making a recommendation to Mattis.
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Canada brushes off allegations of Afghan torture
Mon Oct 29, 2007 2:55pm ET By David Ljunggren
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada brushed off allegations on Monday that Taliban members captured by Canadian troops and handed over to Afghan authorities had been tortured, saying the militants often made false claims of mistreatment.

Canada's minority Conservative government, which ran into serious trouble when faced with similar accusations earlier in the year, signed a deal with Kabul in May allowing Canadian officials unlimited access to prisoners. Ottawa said the deal would combat torture.

But the French-language daily La Presse said on Monday it had found three prisoners who alleged inmates had been beaten with bricks and cables, given electric shocks, deprived of sleep and had their nails torn out.

"We do expect these kind of allegations from the Taliban. It is their standard operating procedure to engage in these kinds of accusations. I'd caution ... against taking them as the word of the truth," government minister Peter Van Loan told Parliament.

Opposition politicians said there were serious doubts as to whether the May deal could protect prisoners.

"We now have headlines in the paper that suggest Canada is facilitating a process of torture. This is extremely serious. It's also serious under international law," said Jack Layton, leader of the left-leaning New Democratic Party.

Human rights experts, speaking earlier this year, said Canadian soldiers could be guilty of war crimes because they transferred the detainees at a time when Ottawa was aware that Afghan authorities regularly tortured prisoners.

International conventions prohibit a country from handing over prisoners if there is reason to suspect abuse.

The three suspected Taliban members said they had been captured by Canadian troops, given a document that said torture was no longer used in Afghanistan and then transferred to the Afghan secret police.

"The people from the secret service tore it (the document) up and threw it in my face. They tortured me for 20 hours. I protested and said the Canadians had promised that nothing would happen to me," La Presse quoted one of the three men as saying.

"They replied: 'We're not in Canada, we're at home. The Canadians are dogs!'" he said.

La Presse said it had conducted the interviews in Sarpoza prison in the southern city of Kandahar, where Canada's 2,500-strong military mission is based.
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2 New Zealand soldiers injured in rifle accident in Afghanistan
The Associated Press Monday, October 29, 2007
WELLINGTON, New Zealand: A New Zealand soldier climbing into an army Humvee in Afghanistan accidentally fired his high-powered rifle in the vehicle, injuring himself and a fellow soldier, a defense official said Monday.

The two soldiers, who were not badly injured, were transferred to a military hospital in Germany for treatment, said Maj. Gen. Rhys Jones, commander of New Zealand joint forces.

The soldier carrying the rifle was shot in the leg, while the second soldier was shot in the arm and side, he said.

Four soldiers were about to return to their Bamiyan base in central Afghanistan in the Humvee on Sunday after escorting foreign nationals to a Kabul airfield when the shot was fired, he said.

The weapon, an Austrian-made Steyr rifle, was supposed to be outside the vehicle but was pointing "down inside," he said.

Jones said the incident was being investigated and it was still uncertain whether the discharge was the result of human error or equipment malfunction.

In an earlier incident involving New Zealand Defense Force soldiers, Lt. Col. David Pirie was fined for unauthorized discharge of a weapon in Afghanistan in 2004.

In 2002 three New Zealand special force commandos were seriously wounded in an explosion in Afghanistan when a vehicle on routine patrol hit a land mine.

The three men were the first casualties in a group of about 40 New Zealand commandos committed to the war in Afghanistan in 2001.
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Afghan gov't reopens 50 schools in militancy-plagued areas  
October 30, 2007  People's Daily Online, China
Out of 400 schools which had been shut down due to Taliban-related insurgency in Afghanistan's southern region, some 50 have been reopened, the country's Minister for Education Mohammad Hanif Atmar said Tuesday.

"With the support of local communities and security organs we have been able to reopen 50 schools out of around 400 schools so far this year," Atmar told a press briefing here.

Some 400 schools had been closed down due to Taliban-led militancy and conflicts in Afghanistan's southern and the southeastern provinces over the past three years.

The forcible closure of the educational centers, according to Afghan officials, has deprived over 250,000 students from schooling and education in the regions.

Taliban insurgents who have been fighting the Afghan government for the past three years often set on fire schools and target both the students and teachers to destabilize security.

Over six million Afghan children go to school in the post-Taliban nation today. During Taliban regime, which collapsed in late 2001, the number of school children were less than half a million.
Source: Xinhua
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Foreign Affairs confirms reports of abuse   
DANIEL LEBLANC - From Tuesday's Globe and Mail October 30, 2007
OTTAWA — Canadian inspectors heard reports of abuse from Afghan detainees captured by Canadian troops during 11 unscheduled visits conducted after they gained access to the country's jails last spring, the Canadian Foreign Affairs Department said yesterday.

However, the government said yesterday that reports those detainees were still being tortured was Taliban propaganda.

"We do expect these kind of allegations from the Taliban," House Leader Peter Van Loan said during Question Period. "I would caution the honourable member against taking them as the word of the truth instantly without penetrating beyond them. As he well knows, we now have in place mechanisms to monitor and follow up Canadian-transferred Taliban prisoners."

The government initially offered the same reaction when The Globe and Mail published a number of stories on the treatment of detainees in Afghanistan this year. However, it was later forced to acknowledge that the Red Cross was not reporting back to Canada as former defence minister Gordon O'Connor had repeatedly claimed. Ottawa then signed a beefed-up agreement in May that gave Canadian officials the right to visit Afghan jails without notice.

The Montreal newspaper La Presse reported yesterday that prisoners in Afghanistan's Sarpoza prison were given electric shocks, beaten with bricks, had their fingernails ripped out and were forced to stand up for days without sleeping, even after the agreement came into effect.

La Presse attributed its account to a spokesman for Afghanistan's national human-rights agency and cited an unidentified senior prison official. The newspaper also interviewed three accused Taliban captives.
A spokeswoman for Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier said Canadian officials have heard of allegations of mistreatment since they obtained "unprecedented private access to detainees" in May.

"Since then, our officials have made 11 unannounced visits to detention facilities and have conducted private interviews with a number of detainees," Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Isabelle Bouchard said. "When allegations of abuse are made, we always follow up immediately." Ms. Bouchard said she could not provide further details.

The opposition Liberals urged the government yesterday to stop transferring detainees until it obtains assurances the Afghans are respecting the Geneva Conventions.

"If it cannot guarantee that those prisoners are protected, it's got to stop transferring,'' deputy Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff said.
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Afghan women are finding a voice in world of journalism
No longer silenced by the Taliban's, Afghanistan's female journalists still face their share of challenges in the field.
Ottawa Citizen, Monday, October 29, 2007
For one year, Humaira Habib lived in Afghanistan under Taliban rule. By law, she could not show her face nor attend school. At any time, she could have been whipped with wires for a sin as minor as wearing nail polish or having shoes that clicked too loudly in the street.

Immediately after the Taliban fell, Ms. Habib enrolled at Herat University and in 2004, was part of its first graduating journalism class.

"At first when we started working as journalists, it was hard because it was new. Female journalism was new in all of Afghanistan," said the 25-year-old, who is on an eight-month scholarship to study at McGill University in Montreal.

"It was strange for people, something unusual, but now it's getting better because all women worked hard and they tried a lot to tell people to tell men that this is our life and we have to do this."

Today in Afghanistan, more than six years after the Taliban's regime fell, almost 1,000 voices that were silenced for years are being heard and the faces that were unwillingly covered are being broadcast into people's homes.

"They were like birds that were not allowed to fly and kept in cages that were not allowed to sing," Khorshied Samad said Monday. "When the Taliban were driven from power, they were set free and were able to sing and to soar."

Mrs. Samad was born and raised in San Francisco's Bay Area, but was sent to Afghanistan - where her father is from - in 2002 by ABC News. She ended up staying and working there for three years, for a while as the head of Fox News in Kabul.

Mrs. Samad has lived in Canada since her husband, Omar Samad, was posted here as Afghanistan's ambassador three years ago. Since then, she has been a passionate advocate for Afghanistan's women, recently curating a photo exhibit entitled Voices on the Rise: Afghan Women Making the News.

Tuesday night she will give a speech of the same name to the National Press Club that touches on the role of Afghanistan's women in developing both its media and its politics.

"Oftentimes, Afghan women today - in the Parliament and in the ministries and in the media - are the ones who have the courage to bring up uncomfortable topics and challenge the men around them," she said.
However, while Mrs. Samad says the majority of Afghan men are supportive of women's role in a post-Taliban society, there are those left with a "medieval" attitude who can be extremely dangerous.

Within six days earlier this year, two female journalists were murdered. Shakiba Sanga Amaj, a local television newsreader, was shot by her family in an honour killing on May 31. On June 5, Zakia Zaki, a 35-year-old radio presenter, was shot while lying in bed, holding one of her young children.

"She was killed because she was a strong female voice who was shining light on various issues and she was representing the strength of Afghan women," Mrs. Samad said.

François Bugingo, the international vice-president of Reporters Without Borders, pointed to these two assassinations as examples of the extreme challenges faced by Afghanistan's female journalists.

"They're getting many threats, either to them, or they're getting pressured indirectly through their families," he said.

After the Taliban fell, he said, 350 news organizations were formed in the country. Today, in the face of rising insurgency and increased religious pressures, there are only an estimated 75. In its 2007 World Press Freedom Index, Reporters Without Borders placed Afghanistan 142 out of 169 countries.

Mrs. Samad said she knows everything in Afghanistan isn't rosy, and is honest about the challenges the country faces. However, while she acknowledges Afghanistan's remaining challenges, she said, she tries to also speak about the amazing progress that has been achieved, since many Canadians she has spoken to are unaware of it.

"Those who have lived and worked in Afghanistan can bring a certain knowledge to the table that Canadians are really hungry to listen to."

Tickets are sold out to this evening's dinner, but the photography exhibit, Voices on the Rise: Afghan Women Making the News, is available online at www.voicesontherise.org.
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Dalai Lama voices 'reservations' about Iraq, Afghanistan wars
Mon Oct 29, 1:38 PM ET
OTTAWA (AFP) - Exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama said Monday he had told US President George W. Bush during talks in Washington that he disapproved of US policies in Afghanistan and Iraq.

And he said he would also say the same to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper if the topic comes up during his first formal talks with a Canadian prime minister due later in the day.

"Right from the beginning, I have some reservations," the Dalai Lama told reporters as he continued a North America tour.

"When I met President Bush I told him directly that some of your policies concerned, I have some reservations. But as a person, I love you. I mention like that."

The exiled Tibetan leader said he had written to Bush in 2001 the day after the September 11 attacks expressing his condolences and sadness at the deaths of some 3,000 people in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington.

He urged that any response to the attacks should be non-violent. "But then violence is involved," the Dalai Lama said.

The Dalai Lama had met with Bush last week.

He arrived in Canada on Sunday and was scheduled to meet Harper in his Parliament Hill office later Monday.

In 2004, Paul Martin became the first Canadian prime minister to meet the Dalai Lama, but the unofficial meeting was held at the home of a local Roman Catholic archbishop and focused on its religious nature.

Beijing lodged an official protest with Washington earlier this month after the Dalai Lama was awarded Congress' highest civilian award at a ceremony attended by Bush.

It was the first time a sitting US president had appeared in public with the Dalai Lama, whom China accuses of being a dangerous figure agitating for Tibetan independence.
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Another private security firm closed down in Kabul
KABUL, Oct 29 (Pajhwok Afghan News): As part of an ongoing crackdown on unlicensed security firms, police have raided and close down another private company in the capital Kabul.

Crime Branch chief at Kabul Police Headquarters Brig. Gen. Alishah Paktiawal told Pajhwok Afghan News on Monday the Siddiqi Private Security Company was operating in Kabul without obtaining a licence from the government.

Paktiawal added the company was shut down as a result of a day-long operation, jointly conducted by officials from the National Intelligence Department, Counter-Terrorism Department at the Interior Ministry and the Attorney General Office.

Thirty-four Klashnikov rifles, two machine-guns and ammunitions were seized from the illegal firm, Paktiawal revealed. Two security companies were closed down recently and 82 weapons seized from them.

Currently about 60 private security firms are active in the capital city alone, with some of them allegedly involved in criminal activities. Such fraudulent companies as harass the locals and refuse to play ball with security officials are expected to face stricter laws in the near future.
Habib Rahman Ibrahimi
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Sub-jirga to meet in Islamabad in first week of November
KABUL, Oct 28 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The meeting of the jirgagai or sub-jirga between Afghanistan and Pakistani is scheduled to be held in the first week of November.

A press release from the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs here said that the two sides would expedite the ongoing process of dialogue for peace and reconciliation with the 'opposition'.

During the smaller jirga meeting, the two sides would discuss the plan to convene the next Joint Pak-Afghan Peace Jirga, said the release.

It said that Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Dr. Farooq Wardak visited Islamabad, capital of Pakistan, on the invitation of Pakistan Interior Minister and chairman of the Jirga Commission from Pakistan on October 23.

The meeting between the two ministers was held in cordial atmosphere. Wardak also met members of the Pakistan Jirga Commission, including Governor of NWFP Ali Muhammad Jan Aurakzai, Governor of Balochistan Owais Ahmad Ghani and Minister for Culture Dr. Ghazi Gulab Jamal.

The Afghan side handed over the list of Afghan jirgagai members (25 members each from Afghanistan and Pakistan) and the Pakistani side informed that it would convey names of members from its side in a few days.
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Accomplice of suicide bomber detained in Paktika
SHARAN, Oct 28 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Authorities claimed on Sunday arresting an accomplice of a suicide bomber, who killed four Afghan soldiers and a civilian in Barmal district of the southeastern Paktika province a day earlier.

Paktika intelligence chief Brig. Farooq Sangari told Pajhwok Afghan News the 203rd Military Corps personnel detained Amanullah - a resident of the border province - from a house in Barmal this afternoon.

Amanullah helped the suicide bomber cross the first entrance to the Afghan National Army (ANA) base, said the intelligence chief, who claimed the assailant, before blowing himself up, told soldiers at the second gate that he was brought to the centre by the detainee.

While being searched by the security personnel, the attacker detonated the explosives strapped to his body, Sangari added. The detainee may reveal vital information that could lead to the arrest of other suicide attackers, he believed.

Brig. Zahir Murad, in charge of the media office at the Defence Ministry, said on Saturday the bomber was wearing a military uniform. Apart from the five fatalities, as many people were injured in the explosion that took place near a US base.
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Pajhwok wins third award at int'l photo contest
KABUL, Oct 28 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Pajhwok's photographer Safia Safi become the third prize winner at the Photo Contest in the Second World Congress of news agencies held by EFE in Estepona, Spain.

More than 200 photos from around the world were placed in the contest. A photograph of the dead body of Zakia Zaki, directress of the US-funded Radio Peace, was declared as the third position winner with majority votes. 

Zakia was shot dead inside her house on the night of June 5 in the central province of Parwan. Although no militant group had claimed responsibility for her killing, officials and people close to the slain directress believe she was targeted for airing programmes against violence and terrorism.

Pajhwok's representative at the contest Abdul Salam Jawad said the competition was held in three categories. Pajhwok's photograph won the award in the category of Facts Reporting.

This is the first time an Afghan news agency participated in international photo competition and won the third award.
Muhammad Wais Khitab
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