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October 3, 2007 

Taliban burn district center in central Afghanistan; 5 Dutch troops wounded in clash
By AMIR SHAH,Associated Press Writer AP - Wednesday, October 3
KABUL, Afghanistan - Taliban militants killed two policemen and destroyed a remote district center in central Afghanistan, as five Dutch troops were wounded in a clash in the country's south, officials said Wednesday.

Dozens of militants armed with heavy weapons attacked a government office in Ghazni province's Ajristan district late Tuesday, burning the building and killing two policemen, said Ghazni police chief Ali Shah Ahmadzai. The remaining officers fled into a nearby village, he said.

Police reinforcements, backed by the U.S.-led coalition, were sent to the remote area on Wednesday, Ahmadzai said.

Taliban routinely attack remote police and government offices, but are rarely able to control these buildings for long after police or army reinforcements arrive.

In southern Afghanistan, meanwhile, five Dutch soldiers serving with NATO's International Security Assistance Force were wounded Tuesday night in Uruzgan province, after militants opened fire on them, the Dutch Defense Ministry said in a statement.

The five wounded troops were transferred to a Dutch hospital in the force's main base near Tirin Kot, Camp Holland. Their injuries ranged from grazes and back injuries to broken bones, the ministry statement said.

The latest incidents come as the United Nations reported a nearly 30 percent increase in violence this year in Afghanistan, with suicide bombings causing a high number of civilian casualties.

The report said Afghanistan is averaging 550 violent incidents a month, up from an average of 425 last year. It said three-fourths of suicide bombings are targeting international and Afghan security forces, but suicide bombers also killed 143 civilians through August.

An Associated Press count of insurgency-related deaths, meanwhile, reached 5,086 in the first nine months of this year. AP counted 4,019 deaths in 2006, based on violent incidents reported by Western and Afghan officials. That was the first year AP compiled such figures.

The AP tally for this year includes more than 3,500 militants killed and more than 650 civilians dead from either insurgent violence or U.S. or NATO attacks.

Nearly 180 international soldiers have been killed. That includes 85 U.S. military personnel, nearing the total of 98 American deaths reported by the Pentagon for all of 2006.

Insurgents have staged a record number of suicide attacks this year _ more than 100, including the two bus bombings in Kabul since Saturday that killed 43 people between them.
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Associated Press Writer Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, contributed to this report.
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Taliban seize Afghan district, two police killed
October 3, 2007
GHAZNI, Afghanistan (AFP) - Hundreds of Taliban attacked and captured a remote district in central Afghanistan overnight, torching the district centre and killing two policemen, the government said.

Police pulled out of the Ajristan district centre in the province of Ghazni after the attack and were sending police and military reinforcements, they said. The area is 200 kilometres (124 miles) southwest of Kabul.

The interior ministry in Kabul said police had pulled out in a "tactical move" following heavy attacks by the rebels, who used artillery and rocket fire that damaged the district centre, which includes the offices of the police and district administration.

The two policemen were killed while leaving, spokesman Zemarai Bashary told AFP.

"The district centre is out of our hands," Ghazni deputy police chief Mohammad Zaman told AFP.

Provincial police chief General Alishah Ahmadzai said it had been set alight.

The Taliban have captured several remote districts over the past months. Most have been retaken fairly easily but several parts of southern and eastern Afghanistan are in rebel control.

The Islamic rebels were in government between 1996 and 2001 when they were ousted in a US-led invasion for sheltering Al-Qaeda. They are waging a bloody insurgency to take back power.
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Suicide bomb wounds foreign soldier in Afghanistan
KABUL (Reuters) - A suicide bomber targeted a foreign military convoy in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday, slightly wounding one soldier, said a spokesman for NATO-led forces.

The attack came a day after a suicide bomb killed at least 11 people on a police bus in the capital Kabul, part of a Taliban offensive coinciding with the holy month of Ramadan. Another 30 people were killed in a similar attack in Kabul on Saturday.

The number of Taliban attacks has risen this year as the insurgents switch tactics from the conventional battles of last year to suicide and roadside bombs.

Wednesday's attack came in the province of Uruzgan where Dutch troops are in command of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

Separately, Taliban insurgents attacked and briefly took over a district centre in the neighboring province of Ghazni on Tuesday, a provincial official said.

"The Taliban attacked Ajristan district of Ghazni province ... overnight, killing two Afghan policemen and wounded one other," said provincial police chief Ali Shah Ahmadzai. "The rest of the district personnel fled to a nearby village."

"Police reinforcements, backed by Afghan army and foreign forces were sent to the remote district to deal with the Taliban rebels," Ahmadzai said.

Taliban insurgents have overrun a number of remote districts a number of times, but usually flee the area before the Afghan army backed by the international forces arrive at the scene.

Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf said insurgents had the control of the district till Wednesday morning.

Violence has surged in Afghanistan in the past 19 months, the bloodiest period since the Taliban were toppled by U.S.-led and Afghan forces in 2001.
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Afghanistan: Would-Be Suicide Bombers Speak Of Indoctrination, Fear
By Ron Synovitz
October 2, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- Akhunzada is a 46-year-old would-be suicide bomber from Afghanistan's southern Helmand Province.
The father of 10 children, Akhunzada spent years studying Islam in Afghanistan and as a refugee in Pakistan.

Until early this year, Akhunzada was teaching at a religious boarding school for the poor, a madrasah, in Pakistan's Baluchistan Province. He says he saw two Taliban commanders come to his madrasah repeatedly in order to recruit young students as suicide bombers.

In February, amid intense pressure from others at the madrasah, Akhunzada says he joined a group of three dozen young men who were recruited by Pakistani militants to become suicide bombers.

"It was in the middle of the night [when we left]," he told RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan. "They took us in a specially prepared vehicle when it was dark. [There were no windows but] there were some small holes in the roof [of the vehicle] to allow air for us to breathe. Through those small holes, we could see the sky. They took us from Kuchlagh [a small town in Baluchistan near the city of Quetta]. Then we went to a madrasah in Quetta. But I don't know where they took us after that.

"On the way [to a training camp somewhere near the Pakistan-Afghan border], I was looking at the mountaintops [through the holes in the roof] and I was trying to draw them on paper," Akhunzada says. "I was imagining that these could be mountains in Afghanistan. That's when I began to think that this work was not being done for God's sake. It is against Islam and it is against Afghanistan. That's when I realized that this is absolutely a case of interference [by militants] of Pakistan within Afghanistan."

Felt Unable To Speak Out

Akhunzada says that despite his doubts, he completed a short training program with the other recruits. Often militant trainers indoctrinate young men -- using passages from the Koran out of context to justify the killing of innocent people, including Muslims.

Akhunzada says he became convinced that his militant trainers were manipulating and misleading the younger students. But he feared for his own safety if he spoke out. Instead, he kept his thoughts to himself until after the training was completed and each recruit had been given explosives along with instructions to carry out suicide attacks in Afghanistan.

"There were 36 of us [including one Chechen], who were transported [to the training camp]," Akhunzada continues. "We all completed our training. And after we finished the training, we were allowed to return to our homes for a week to 10 days to say goodbye to our families, to pray, and to prepare ourselves mentally for a suicide attack. This is the normal process for suicide bombers. But I didn't return [to the militants]. They were very much on my trail, trying to catch me. But I went into hiding instead."

During the six months that have passed since Akhunzada went into hiding, he says four suicide attacks have been carried out in Helmand Province by men that he knew from the mountain training camp.

Akhunzada says he managed to convince two young recruits from the group to abandon plans to commit suicide attacks in Afghanistan. Those two also have gone into hiding, fearing that they would be killed by militants because of what they have learned about the Taliban's recruiting and training infrastructure.

Recruits Often Impressionable Youths

At the age of 46, Akhunzada is an unusual recruit for a suicide attack. Officials in Kabul say it is more common for suicide bombers and Taliban fighters to be recruited from among impressionable youths at madrasahs in Pakistan's border regions near Afghanistan.

In July, Afghan President Hamid Karzai pardoned a 14-year-old Pakistani boy who was caught wearing a suicide bomber's vest while riding a motorbike in the southeastern Afghan city of Khost. The boy's father says he lost contact with his son after he sent the boy to a madrasah in Pakistan to study the Koran.

Another would-be suicide bomber told RFE/RL that he felt trapped and helpless once he had been trained for a suicide mission.

Mohammad Feroz, a man from southern Afghanistan, says he was recruited by militants who trained and paid him to carry out a suicide attack in Kandahar in late 2006.

Feroz went into hiding and contacted Radio Free Afghanistan by telephone after he decided not to detonate the suicide bomber's belt that his trainers had given him. He credited a Radio Free Afghanistan report on suicide bombers with dissuading him from carrying out the attack.

"I am in Kandahar right now," Feroz said. "I want to get out of this place. I was listening to Radio Free Afghanistan and they had a report. Thank you for such a good message -- it has saved my life. I received [the equivalent of $10,000 in afghanis] from a man who told me that I must become a suicide bomber in Kandahar. [But] I have escaped and I am in hiding now."

Feroz's whereabouts today are unknown. Radio Free Afghanistan has been unable to contact him since his initial telephone calls to the station.

(Contributors to this story include Hashem Mohmand and Freshta Jalalzai of RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan. The name of the man identified as Akhunzada has been changed at his request to protect his safety.)
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UN Condemns Taliban Hanging Of Boy
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
KABUL, October 3, 2007 -- The United Nations Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has condemned the hanging of a 15-year-old boy by Taliban rebels in the southern Helmand Province.

UNAMA spokesman Aleem Siddique said (on October 2) that killing children "goes against all norms in Afghan society". The boy was hung from a tree and his mouth stuffed with $1 dollar bills. On the same day (September 30), a bomb disguised as a toy exploded in Khost Province, killing two children andn wounding five.
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Canada requests special UN envoy for Afghanistan
Wed Oct 3, 2:45 AM ET
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier on Tuesday called for the United Nations to name a special envoy for Afghanistan to better advance international peace efforts in the strife-torn nation.

"The Canadian government continues to support the leadership of the UN in Afghanistan. This is why Canada supports having a high level UN special envoy for Afghanistan," Bernier said in his first speech to the United Nations General Assembly.

Bernier, who took office in August, did not specify the special envoy's approach in Afghanistan, but Canadian media said it should be along the lines of former British prime minister Tony Blair's mission in the Middle East.

Media reports also said Bernier had discussed his suggestion with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and officials from several other countries including United States and France.

The UN special envoy would be tasked with coordinating international peace efforts in Afghanistan and giving them more public prominence.

Canada currently has 2,500 troops deployed in southern Afghanistan, the most dangerous area of the country, and has lost 71 servicemen since its mission there began in 2002.

Bernier stressed Canada's sacrifices in Afghanistan and that "no country can shoulder the task alone," alluding to his government's efforts to get more countries to participate in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization mission in southern Afghanistan.

In his speech to the General Assembly, he also deemed it "imperative" that democracy and respect for human rights be restored in Myanmar.
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Canadians kill Afghan civilian, wound child
DENE MOORE The Canadian Press October 2, 2007
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — An Afghan civilian was killed and a child injured Tuesday in what a military spokesman said was an accidental shooting by Canadian troops.

A Canadian combat logistics patrol was on a resupply mission to Canada's forward operating base at Ma'sum Ghar when a motorcycle approached the convoy in downtown Kandahar.

The driver of the motorcycle was shot and the passenger, an eight-year-old child, was injured, a military spokeswoman said.

It is unclear whether the shooting was a result of an equipment malfunction or human error.

“While the exact cause of the incident is unknown at this time, it is clear that this was an accident and not the result of enemy activity,” said Captain Josée Bilodeau, spokeswoman for Canada's Joint Task Force Afghanistan.

Canadian soldiers immediately cordoned off the area and offered medical assistance.

Afghan National Police arranged for the victims to be taken to the local hospital, where the driver was pronounced dead.

There was conflicting information from the military and the family following the shooting.

The military said a 35-year-old male was shot and an eight-year-old injured. The family said the victims were two brothers, Esmatullah Zia, 18 or 19, and Ahmad Zia, 12.

At the request of the family, the wounded boy was later transferred via ambulance to the military hospital at Kandahar Airfield, where he was in serious condition.

Wing Commander Antony McCord, spokesman for Regional Command South, said there will be a full investigation.

“This incident is deeply regrettable” Wing Cmdr. McCord said in statement.

Civilian casualties have been a source of scathing criticism for foreign troops, and something the Canadian military has taken steps to avoid as it tries to win the support of the Afghan public in the fight against the insurgents.

International troops regularly traverse Kandahar city and its chaotic traffic en route to patrols throughout the province.

There are public-service announcements in local media warning drivers to keep a safe distance from the heavily armed convoys, which have been targetted by suicide bombers and roadside bombs.

Large red signs on the front of all military vehicles warn drivers to keep away.

When a vehicle approaches too closely, Canadian troops sound a warning alarm, followed by a warning shot into the ground or the air if the vehicle continues to advance.

“There are a lot of mitigation measures we've put in place to avoid this sort of thing,” Capt. Bilodeau said.

The statement by the ISAF said the patrol “experienced an equipment malfunction, which resulted in an accidental discharge from a weapon system.”

Canadian military officials said, however, that it is too early in the investigation to determine whether an equipment malfunction was involved.

Last week, Afghans protested against international troops, including Canada, blaming them for the deaths of a religious scholar and his brother during a raid on a suspected insurgent's home.

In February, two civilians were shot by Canadian soldiers under similar circumstances. Two others were shot the previous year when vehicles they were riding failed to heed warnings and approached Canadian convoys.
via The Globe and Mail
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Japan may scale down naval mission for Afghanistan
Wed Oct 3, 2:47 AM ET
TOKYO (AFP) - Japan said Wednesday it may scale down a naval mission supporting US-led forces in Afghanistan to try to resolve a row with the opposition that helped bring down the previous government.

Lawmakers are to debate whether to halt the refuelling of foreign supply ships in the Indian Ocean so Japan is not seen to be providing indirect support for military activities outside of the Afghanistan theatre, said Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura.

But Japan would continue to supply fuel directly to coalition ships involved in the Afghanistan mission.

"If we can keep the operation that way, it would be one idea," said Machimura, the top government spokesman.

Under legislation passed after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in the United States, Japanese ships refuel and give other logistical support to coalition forces which overthrew Afghanistan's extremist Taliban regime.

But opposition lawmakers have alleged that fuel meant to supply forces in Afghanistan had been diverted to US operations in Iraq, and are expected to grill Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda about those claims.

The mandate for the Indian Ocean mission expires on November 1. The resurgent opposition party, which controls the upper house of parliament, opposes the government move to extend the anti-terror law.

News reports on Wednesday said the ruling coalition would seek a fresh law to sustain the mission, with plans to submit a bill to parliament in mid-October.

The Yomiuri Shimbun reported that the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its junior coalition partner New Komeito will put a draft of the bill on the negotiating table with opposition parties on Friday.

Renewing the naval mission is the first task for Fukuda, who took office last week.

While the ruling coalition could use its large majority in the lower house to ram through the bill, the new legislation may not be passed before the current mandate expires if the opposition in the upper house tries to stall it.

In that case Japan's mission might have to be suspended until the new law takes effect.

Ichiro Ozawa, head of the main opposition Democratic Party, has said Japan, which has been officially pacifist since defeat in World War II, should not be part of "American wars" and that overseas missions need UN backing.

The UN Security Council last month adopted a resolution expressing thanks to Tokyo for supporting the operations in Afghanistan.
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AFGHANISTAN: Lack of agreement on how to tackle IDP issue in south
03 Oct 2007 06:15:27 GMT
More  KABUL, 3 October 2007 (IRIN) - Thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in and around Kandahar city in southern Afghanistan need to be temporarily sheltered in a new camp and provided with urgent humanitarian assistance, provincial aid workers told IRIN.

About 2,500 families - roughly 13,000 people - have left their homes in several insurgency-hit districts of Helmand, Uruzgan and Kandahar provinces since late July fleeing violence, government officials say.

Many IDPs have sought refuge at their relatives' homes, in empty government buildings and rented housing, or have built illegal mud-huts around Kandahar city, according to the local authorities.

"The need for the establishment of a new camp to host recent IDPs is so obvious," said Abdul Rahim Safi, head of the provincial department for refugee and returnee affairs. "We must accommodate these people somewhere for the foreseeable future," Safi added.

Several displaced families said they would move to a camp, provided aid agencies addressed their needs. "We will go to any place where shelter, water and security is available," said one displaced man refusing to be identified.

Drawbacks of new camp

Provincial officials acknowledge their inability to effectively tackle the IDP issue due to lack of resources. Furthermore, Afghan officials worry that international aid agencies may not assist them if they decide to open new IDP camps in the country.

Shojaudin Shoja, an adviser to the Ministry of Refugee and Returnee Affairs, said: "The UN wants to avoid a protracted humanitarian emergency which could be created by a new IDP camp."

Regarding demands for a new IDP camp in Kandahar Province - where thousands of drought and poverty-affected IDPs already reside in several camps - Nader Farhad, a spokesman for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Kabul, said: "The UNHCR does not have a fixed position on whether to open or not to open IDP or refugee camps."

Farhad said violence in southern Afghanistan was of a "short term and localised nature" and those fleeing the fighting normally return and "resume their lives" soon after the conflict dies down. He said the UNHCR would only back a plan to manage IDPs if this were proposed by the government and "discussed and agreed upon" by international aid agencies.

Immediately after the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001, about one million people were displaced in Afghanistan. Most IDPs in the region were settled in Zheray and Mukhtar camps in Helmand and Kandahar provinces, where relief was provided.

However, at the request of the Afghan government, UN relief agencies ended their food aid operations in these two camps in mid 2006 for fear of creating a dependency on food aid, which could motivate some to remain in the camps indefinitely, Nader Farhad said. Thousands of people still live in both camps and need humanitarian assistance, according to local officials and aid workers.

The UNHCR says it has assisted over half a million IDPs to return to their homes since 2002. "This year will be the last year of assisted IDP returns. The UNHCR plans to help some 2,500 families to return to their home areas," it said in early September, adding that the aim was to conclude the assistance programme in the next three months.
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New Zealand signs agreements with NATO, EU to help in Afghanistan
The Associated Press Wednesday, October 3, 2007
BRUSSELS, Belgium: New Zealand's prime minister, Helen Clark, signed agreements Wednesday with NATO and the European Union for her nation to contribute to international efforts to bring stability to Afghanistan.

However, Clark told reporters the agreements did not signal an increase in New Zealand's deployment of 150 troops and three police training experts.

On a visit to NATO headquarters Clark signed an agreement making it easier to share classified information with the 25-nation Atlantic alliance.

"The ability to exchange information is critical to practical cooperation and for example will help enhance the safety of our personnel deployed in Afghanistan," Clark said.

Across town at the EU, Clark signed New Zealand up to work with the European mission to train Afghan police officers. The three New Zealand police officers working in the central province of Bamiyan as part of a training mission previously led by Germany will now switch to the EU command, she said.

The New Zealand troops are also based in Bamiyan as part of the NATO-led force.
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Schools Aimed to Keep Afghan Boys from Militancy
by Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson NPR Morning Edition, October 3, 2007
Building Islamic schools in Afghanistan has become a top priority for Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government as it struggles with the Taliban insurgency.

Officials hope the new schools will keep Afghan families from sending their sons to neighboring Pakistan, where many religious schools are said to be teaching boys to become militants. Karzai in July paraded one would-be teenage suicide bomber from a Pakistani school before reporters to prove that point.

But getting Afghans to accept the new government schools may take some work.

At a two-month-old school known as Dar Ulum, or House of Knowledge, in eastern Laghman province, young Afghans in prayer caps sit cross-legged on straw mats, rocking back and forth as they chant verses from the Koran.

Theirs is the only classroom in this 14-room religious school, or madrassa, that has anything resembling furniture. In this case, the furniture is small wooden trays to keep the Korans from touching the floor.

These young men also get to study indoors, unlike many of the 900 other male students relegated to straw mats beneath trees on school grounds.

But students at this school say they are happy. They say even an overcrowded, under-furnished compound along the busiest street in the provincial capital is better than having to go to Pakistan to study.

Jafar Mohammadi, 26, a student who returned from a Pakistani religious school to study here, says he also likes that the Dar Ulum teaches subjects besides Islam — subjects like science, math and even English.

But there are things he misses about his old school.

"In Pakistan, they provided us with accommodation, food and books," Mohammadi says. "Plus the school was in a quiet place. Here, we don't have these things."

School officials say they are trying to fix that. A top priority is getting funding for books, which for higher grades cost the equivalent of $200 per student. That's more than two months' income for most Afghans.

But with the Afghan Education Ministry determined to open Dar Ulums in each of the country's 34 provinces by March, matching the Pakistani model is not easy. The ministry also wants at least one lower-level religious school operating in each of Afghanistan's 364 districts. That, according to ministry estimates, translates into more than $70 million in building costs alone.

Why the rush? Both proponents and critics of the schools say it's because the Afghan government figured out that in this ultra-conservative tribal society, there is a high demand for Islamic education.

"This is something the government should have done six years ago," says former Taliban official and author Wahid Mujda. "But because of Western pressure, it went after things like women's rights. Women aren't terrorists, so their issues could have waited. So could building a democracy. Instead, the government should have cut off the roots of the problem."

The problem he's referring to is the growing insurgency, which many believe gets recruits from the many, pro-Taliban religious schools in Pakistan. A U.N. report in September found suicide bombers in Afghanistan often come from Pakistani madrassas.

But that's not how Afghan parents like Janatgol see it. He sends his teenage boys to a madrassa in Pakistan.

Janatgol, a driver from Logar province, says he became frustrated with regular Afghan schools because they taught his sons too little about the Koran. He says that during the Taliban's rule, the Koran was the only book he used to teach his children.

So a year ago, Janatgol sent his sons to a madrassa across the border. He says up to 10 other relatives are also attending schools in Pakistan.

Still, he says he would consider sending his boys to a Dar Ulum back home — but only if the mullahs teaching there are ones he likes.

That's a high hurdle for the education ministry, especially in provinces where the Taliban is strong. Deputy Minister Mohammad Sidiq Patman says officials are doing their best to hire qualified teachers locally. But the ministry also doesn't want anti-government rhetoric in the classroom.

"We don't check someone's ideology, but what we want them to do is teach the subjects, not the ideology," Patman says. "That's to everyone's benefit."

Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi says his group will be watching the schools closely. He says the Taliban wants to make sure the schools — some of which will be built with the help of Western money and reconstruction teams - don't become outlets for Western spies.
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Struggle to unite Afghan tribes, one by one
By Scott Peterson Tue Oct 2, 4:00 AM ET The Christian Science Monitor via Yahoo! News
Shabak Valley, Afghanistan - The land dispute had plagued two rival Afghan tribes for 70 years. Afghan military officers were to begin mediation efforts on a recent afternoon, to prevent further bloodshed.

But a US Army officer, intent on making a positive impact – and with $100,000 to spend on solving local problems as part of a broader US counterinsurgency effort – made an initial peacemaking bid that morning.

"Will it make a difference if I make a school on it?" asked the officer, hoping the project might provide extra glue for unity and in turn weaken the pull of the Taliban and other militants in this mountainous patch of southeast Afghanistan.

"They don't have to agree on whose land it is, just agree that we build a school there," the officer said. Otherwise, he added, "All that's going to happen is they will argue about the land until they are dead, then their kids will argue."

The peacemaking effort was an American input into an Afghan problem, on the sidelines of a recent US and Afghan military medical and veterinary clinic.

In the end, it wasn't clear to what degree the US offer had influenced the feuding elders. But the narrative of the day shows the difficulty of implementing a joint US-Afghan counterinsurgency effort amid tribal disputes.

'Brilliant futures' for your kids
On hillsides of this disputed area, a 16-square-mile parcel adjacent to the medical clinic – the Sultan Khel families have taken up residence and are cutting the trees. But, another tribe, the Piraangei, say decades-old official documents show the land is theirs.

In the first of two meetings that day, elders from the two tribes sat in a semi-circle beside stacks of thick, rough-hewn logs – a reminder of the raw material at stake.

An Afghan officer buttered up the elders. "Does everyone want their kids' future to be brilliant?"

"Yes," the elders replied in unison, as if in a classroom themselves.

"You see that school? It's like a horse stable," says the Afghan, waving toward a distant, old structure. "Do you agree, if well educated [your children] can be doctors and engineers?"

"Yes" the elders said. They also agreed that a new American-funded school was a great idea, though its location – and the US military requirement that its door be open to pupils of all four sub-tribes – was a problem.

"I am very grateful," the lead Piraangei elder, called Maligul, told the US officer. "But location matters. If it is by that hill," he said, pointing his arm behind him, "the answer is 'No.'"

Elders of each tribe set off on foot in turn, with a handful of US soldiers, to show their preferred spot for the American gift.

"The Piraangei want to build the school on their own land; it's not good," complains Sultan Khel chairman Miakee Khan, during the walk. Wearing a long black beard and black turban with grey stripes, he professes allegiance to the American plan.

Rivals accuse the Sultan Khel of siding with the Taliban in the 1990s and even today. Not true, protests Mr. Khan, who claims to have received a threatening "night letter" from the Taliban, and has a personal guard. When an US officer walking beside him asks if Khan can ensure the safety of the students, he says he can't speak for the other three subtribes.

"I can guarantee safety from my tribe, but not others," declares Khan. "If the Taliban is going to kill the kids, first they will have to kill me."

The Piraangei lead the Americans to another place, but Maligul insists on a deal-breaker: If the school is built on the disputed turf, there must be an official document saying it is Piraangei land.

"This land is useless!" says an exasperated Afghan US military translator, stepping through dusty knee-high scrub. "Why are they fighting over this useless land?"

That question dominates the second elder pow-wow, convened by Afghan officers in the afternoon. In the shade of the only tree left standing, the Piraangei state that documents in the provincial capital, Gardez, will prove their case. They want all Sultan Khel families moved away until it is settled.

The American offer of the school appears not to be a factor.

"Even if you fight and fight and fight, in the end you must solve this problem by talking," lectures Lt. Col. Fazel Rahman, an Afghan battalion commander who says the government aim is to ensure "no more dead."

With no agreement in sight an hour into the confab, the officers point to another reason for peace. "If you don't come down [from the mountains], fighting will start, and the BBC and Washington Post will not say there were two tribes, but Taliban fighters and the government couldn't stop them," says Colonel Rahman.

Amid threats of firefights and funerals, the Afghan officers draft a written agreement for both parties to sign, pledging not to resume fighting and to cease any harvest of trees from the disputed land.

"This is awesome," says US Army Lt. Col. Dave Woods of Denbo, Pa. The commander of the 4th Squadron 73rd Cavalry, he's sitting a few feet back, up the stony hillside. "Think about it. I ain't down there. And no one is shooting at each other on the mountain." Instead, his Afghan counterparts are mediating, putting Afghanistan one step closer to establishing order and security themselves.

But elders here are reluctant to sign anything, despite the added school inducement. Running out of patience, Rahman makes a dramatic gesture. He literally tears up the agreement, and warns: "All of you go to the mountains, and we'll send artillery strikes onto all of you!"

At last, an agreement
Finally the bickering men reach a verbal agreement. There will be no fire fights. The Sultan Khel families can stay, but there can be no more "taking from the trees." And four representatives from each tribe will journey to Gardez the following Sunday, to get documents and face a judge. If a single representative fails to show up, that side automatically forfeits the dispute.

While the results of the meeting with the judge were unknown at press time, the day's events were a small step towards peace in this corner of Afghanistan. "I call that progress" said Woods diplomatically, giving an assessment of the proceedings.

"Right now they brought us together," acknowledged Maligul, the Piraangei elder. "Otherwise we would be separate."
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Playing politics with foreign policy
Oct 02, 2007 04:30 AM James Travers Toronto Star,  Canada
Talking to the enemy isn't sleeping with the enemy. It's an obvious distinction this federal government wilfully ignores every time it distorts foreign policy in the relentless pursuit of domestic votes.

Once a calm, respected voice in the diplomatic babble, Canada is now inclined to shout first and angrily. That's what it did when Palestinians exercised their democratic right to turf the corrupt, incompetent Fatah. That's what it's doing again in Afghanistan where the administration and insurgents are taking halting first steps away from civil war and toward political accommodation.

Canada's refusal to talk to Hamas or the Taliban is appealing. Both have histories and agendas this country rightly rejects. Opprobrium makes that perfectly clear and, to the extent of Ottawa's modest offshore influence, encourages better behaviour.

But lesser motives are top of mind for a prime minister and a Conservative government that sees international affairs through the prism of partisan politics. Ostracizing Hamas is mostly about breaking the connection between Jewish voters and the Liberal party. Rejecting the Taliban as a negotiating partner reinforces that tough image essential to a ruling party selling itself as standing up for Canada.

Those tactics serve Conservatives better than the country. As hard as it may be to grasp or even stomach, the rise of Hamas to power and the emergence of the Taliban as an interlocutor are small success stories within an otherwise relentlessly bleak global narrative.

Nurturing democracy is worthy work. It's also painfully slow and rife with trial-and-error that masks long-term progress with short-term setbacks.

Stephen Harper put his finger on one of the vexing problems in New York last week. Violent groups often morph into political parties to use democracy as just another weapon. That's particularly true where the ballot box question is pre-determined by loyalty to clan and sect.

Surprising themselves as well as Hamas, many Palestinians crossed that divide when, much like Canadians, they used their votes not so much to elect a government as to throw one out. But instead of rewarding the process or imposing the discipline of power on the winning party, Ottawa and, much more actively, Washington made sure the government couldn't effectively exercise its mandate or even provide security. The results are now sadly self-evident.

Afghanistan is just as complex, just as riddled with pitfalls. As a combatant Canada can't be an honest broker. And today's Taliban, unlike the one forced from power, is still too fissured and amorphous to bargain with a single, credible voice. Even so, with no military victory possible, it's as much in this country's interest to push for a political solution that includes insurgents – but not Al Qaeda – as it is for Hamid Karzai to advance negotiations while his wearying allies are still there doing the fighting and strengthening the president's hand.

In Asia as in the Middle East, Harper's manoeuvring room is now limited by Conservative foreign policy impatience, unfortunate rhetoric and hunger for home applause.

By demonizing enemies and diminishing their importance to local solutions, the Prime Minister gravitated to the wrong side of potentially positive trends.

Voters will ultimately decide if stonewalling Hamas and the Taliban is better politics than foreign policy. But talking is a prelude to peace and peace is made between enemies.
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James Travers' national affairs column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
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INTERVIEW-NATO, not Dutch, must secure southern Afghanistan
03 Oct 2007 08:32:54 GMT By Alexandra Hudson
THE HAGUE, Oct 3 (Reuters) - The Dutch government, under pressure to keep its troops in volatile southern Afghanistan, wants NATO to take responsibility for the region's security after its mandate expires at the end of August 2008.

The Dutch have failed to respond to entreaties from NATO to stay on longer and are even contemplating a pull-out amid international wrangling about how best to shoulder responsibility for security in the country.

"NATO has asked us to stay there and now we are in a period of consultation with NATO but still all options are open, even the option of withdrawal," Defence Minister Eimert van Middelkoop told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.

"Of course we are a member of NATO and we are willing to think with them but the first responsibility is with NATO."

Van Middelkoop sent an extra 80 soldiers to Afghanistan last week to help deal with intensifying fighting by Taliban insurgents and after another Dutch fatality -- the 11th of the mission.

Five Dutch soldiers were injured on Tuesday in an attack on their patrol, the government said.

A Dutch pull-out could see the Canadians follow suit. They are stationed in Kandahar in the south and must also decide whether to extend their mandate which runs until February 2009.

The issue is likely to feature prominently at an informal NATO meeting in the Dutch town of Noordwijk on Oct. 24-25.

Between 1,500 and 1,700 Dutch troops are serving in Afghanistan, and public pressure to withdraw is growing, as is concern about whether NATO allies are pulling their weight.

Van Middelkoop said he was confident that if the Dutch government did decide to prolong the mission they would get public and parliamentary support.

The Dutch have a well-equipped military and a tradition of punching above their weight on the international stage, but it was only after long and agonised debate that the Dutch decided in 2006 to commit troops to the Afghan province of Uruzgan.

Failure to do so could have proved a major embarrassment to Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the Dutch secretary general of NATO, who said recently he could not imagine the Dutch would now leave.

TALIBAN HEARTLAND
The minister dismissed talk the Dutch had underestimated the nature of the mission and now wanted to bail out.

"The Dutch government and parliament knew exactly what they were getting when they accepted Uruzgan. It is the heartland of the Taliban. It was for very quiet for almost a year in the province, but now ... the Taliban is stretching us," he said.

"We knew that alongside reconstruction work we have to fight, we do it."

The Taliban are leading a dogged insurgency after being ousted from power in 2001.

Last month Germany, one of almost 40 countries in the International Security Assistance Force, said it had no plans to change the mandate that confines its soldiers to the north.

Van Middelkoop noted some countries were active in the more stable north with more military than the Dutch had in the south.

He added he saw a need for an international coordinator in Afghanistan, under the authority of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who could operate between the nearly 50,000 troops in the country under the command of NATO and the U.S. military.

"We need someone with an overview: sometimes that is missing. Most of the debates on Afghanistan are conducted within national parameters."
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Tajikistan closes border with Afghanistan during summits
03.10.2007, 14.09
DUSHANBE, October 3 (Itar-Tass) -- Tajikistan closed Wednesday the border with Afghanistan and other neighboring countries until October 10, the Tajik National Security Ministry told Itar-Tass on Wednesday. These measures were taken over the forthcoming summits of the heads of states of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation and the EurAsian Economic Cooperation Organisation on October 5-6.

The only exclusion was made for diplomats of foreign countries and representatives of international organisations.
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Terror-hit Afghanistan turns to Gandhi for peace
By IE Wednesday October 3, 04:18 PM Indian Express via Yahoo! India News
For the first time the Gandhian ethos of non-violence and peace were celebrated in the terror-hit Afghanistan on Bapu's 138th birth anniversary.

The students of the famous Habibia High School sang Mahatma's favourite bhajans Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram and Vasishnav Jan before a distinguished audience on Tuesday and read out compositions on Gandhi that they had prepared.

A message from President Hamid Karzai was also read out, extolling Gandhiji's message of non-violence that had captivated freedom fighters across the world.

India's ambassador Rakesh Sood spoke of the non-violent struggle of the Mahatma by which he galvanized millions to participate in India's freedom movement, an event that electrified the world and inspired freedom fighters everywhere, including Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King.

A photo exhibition on the Mahatma was also inaugurated.

Habibia, the school that Karzai and many other distinguished figures of this country went to, was started in 1903 with an Indian headmaster. When the school marked its century, India helped reconstruct its building.
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Ten militants, two soldiers killed in Pakistan clash
Wed Oct 3, 4:44 AM ET
MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (AFP) - Pakistani security forces killed 10 pro-Taliban militants after an early morning attack on a checkpost near the Afghan border left two soldiers dead, the military said.

The fighting erupted in the troubled tribal region of North Waziristan, where the US military said a day earlier that Al-Qaeda was re-emerging despite the presence of Pakistani troops.

Pakistani military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad said that militants raided the post near the town of Mir Ali before dawn, killing two soldiers and wounding another four.

"Ten miscreants were killed in the clash," Arshad told AFP. "The situation is now quiet."

Security officials in the region said earlier that troops responded with artillery fire after the militants attacked with rockets.

The US military in Afghanistan said on Tuesday it expected Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network to continue its "re-emergence" in the Pakistani tribal areas along the frontier with Afghanistan.

A peace deal signed between the Pakistani government and militants in September 2006 in North Waziristan -- one of seven semi-autonomous tribal zones -- broke down in July.

Violence has spiked in Pakistan since the collapse of the deal and after Pakistani forces staged a bloody raid on the radical Red Mosque in Islamabad at about the same time.

The mosque is due to reopen on Wednesday on orders of the Supreme Court.
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Al-Qaeda 're-emerging' in Pakistan sanctuaries: US military
by Sardar Ahmad Tue Oct 2, 2:52 PM ET
BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan (AFP) - The US military said Tuesday it expected Al-Qaeda to continue its "re-emergence" in sanctuaries in Pakistan's tribal areas from where it supported attacks in Afghanistan.

Sanctuary was provided to Al-Qaeda and Taliban rebels after Islamabad signed a peace deal with militants in an attempt to quell the unrest in its federally administered tribal areas in September 2006, a US military official said.

The militants called off the deal in July this year after Pakistani security forces raided a radical mosque in Islamabad where rebels had massed. Dozens were killed in those raids.

"This area remains a support and sanctuary area for the insurgency (in Afghanistan) as results of those peace accords," US Major Tim Williams, future operations intelligence planner, told reporters at Bagram air base, the main US base in Afghanistan.

He said Islamic rebels were likely to maintain their presence in those areas despite apparent efforts by Pakistani army to root them out.

"In the federally administered tribal areas, we anticipate sanctuary in this region to continue the Al-Qaeda re-emergence," Williams said.

"What we're looking into over the next 12 months ... is the ability and the capability of the enemy to attempt to retain the success, some of the successes, that they have had in that area."

This "sanctuary" could shelter fugitive Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the Taliban's supreme chief, Mullah Mohammad Omar, the officer said.

Most Taliban leaders fled to the Pakistan's mainly ethnic Pashtun tribal belt following the 2001 US invasion which toppled the largely Pashtun group from power for sheltering Al-Qaeda, which had training camps here.

Asked if there was an increased Al-Qaeda presence in Afghanistan, Williams said Al-Qaeda operatives did not normally cross into this country to carry out operations.

"They will provide the resources, training and all the requirements that are necessary in order to conduct an operation," he said.

The Taliban's Al-Qaeda-linked insurgency has grown steadily, particularly in the past two years, with suicide bombings in a hallmark of the violence. The militia claimed responsibility for a suicide attack in Kabul Tuesday that killed 13 people.

Williams said the military expected insurgents to keep trying to isolate Kandahar, the southern province from where the Taliban picked up arms in 1994 taking control of Kandahar city before sweeping to power in 1996.

"In the Regional Command South the enemy wants to control," he said.

They would maintain the level of violence in the east, with increased cooperation expected between insurgent groups, he said, a likely reference to the Taliban and the radical Hizb-i-Islami faction.

Insurgents would also continue to intimidate and coerce locals against supporting the military forces, he said.

In the relatively calm north of the country, "we anticipate increased suicide attacks targeting key cities as the insurgency attempts to extend their influence into more areas within Afghanistan."
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Costing $5m, 47 schools under construction in Khost
KHOST CITY, Oct 1 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Construction work on 47 schools, costing about five million dollars, began in the southeastern Khost province on Monday.

Aziz Ahmad Hashmi, director education department, told Pajhwok Afghan News the schools would be built in Alisher and Tani districts at the cost of $4.7 million by the end of the current year.

Khost Governor Arsala Jamal laid the foundation of five primary schools in Tani and one in Alisher. Addressing gathering in Tani, he announced: "Forty-seven schools will be constructed with the help of the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) by the end of the current year."

Meanwhile, construction work on two primary schools was launched by the UNICEF in Gardez and Ahmadabad districts of the Paktia province. The foundation stone of the school was laid on Monday by Governor Rahmatullah Rahmat.

Education Director Mehrabuddin Shafaq said the schools would be constructed at the cost of $100,000 in three months. He said each school would have 14 classrooms and administrative sections. Work on 21 primary and middle schools is underway in Paktia, where 30 other such projects are on the boil.
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20 development projects completed in Samangan
AIBAK, Oct 1 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Twenty development projects have been executed under the National Solidarity Programme (NSP) in two districts of the northern Samangan province.

Expected to benefit more than 4000 families, the projects include the pavement of a 34-kilometre road, digging of 11 wells, a 150 metres supportive wall, a bridge and a flour mill. The projects were completed in Dara-i-Souf Bala and Dara-i-Souf Payan.

Eng. Ahmad Javed, rural rehabilitation and development director, told Pajhwok Afghan News two other projects of rug-weaving, tailoring and six-month literacy courses for 150 women were also launched in the district. About 4000 families living in 17 villages of the two districts will benefit from the schemes.

The projects were completed at the cost of 10.8 million afghanis provided by the Ministry for Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD), with 10 per cent local contribution. 

Eng. Javed reckoned more than 1085 uplift projects were approved for the Samangan province in last three years under the NSP by the MRRD. As many as 554 - benefiting more than 70000 families - have since been completed.
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Iraq war not diversion from Afghanistan: Rice
NEW YORK, Oct 1 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The war in Iraq is not a diversion from Afghanistan as both are part of US efforts to nail down the al-Qaeda network in the global war against terrorism, says Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

"It is not a matter of diversion, Rice said in an interview with the CBS editorial board. She was answering the question the war on Iraq had diverted the attention and focus of the US from Afghanistan, giving al-Qaeda and Taliban an opportunity to regroup themselves.

Conceding Afghanistan needed attention, Rice also acknowledged one had to deal with the Middle East as a whole because al-Qaeda activities has not originated in Afghanistan, where it had shifted later on.

"Al-Qaida came out of a set of circumstances in the Middle East, in which authoritarian regimes really choked off any channels for legitimate peaceful political resolution. And as a result, there was politics going on, but it was going on in radical mosques. And it was getting more and more radical and its kind of really virulent form was al-Qaeda and it sprung forth, Rice explained.

"So if you've got to deal with the root cause here, you're going to have to find a way for all of the kinds of political tensions, differences that one finds in any society to be expressed through legitimate political means, Rice observed.

She claimed al-Qaeda was different from it was before. It does not have some of the most important assets that it once had, including essentially not being pursued while they sat on the territory of Afghanistan and trained people and plotted and planned, she said.

Countering the arguing the al-Qaeda had regained strength, Rice asserted the terrorist outfit was constantly on the run. (They are) constantly under pressure and constantly having to reconstitute leadership because their leadership is constantly being captured and killed. And when you think from it -- think about it from that perspective, I find the argument that they're somehow stronger to be a little hard to fathom.
Lalit K. Jha
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Weapons surrendered to DIAG in Nangarhar
JALALABAD, Oct 1 (Pajhwok Afghan News): As many as 1273 pieces of light and heavy weapons, seized by Nangarhar police in different operations, were surrendered to the Disarmament of Irresponsible Armed Groups (DIAG) programme here on Monday.

The arms turned over to DIAG included Klashnikov assault rifles, heavy guns and rocket-launchers, provincial police spokesman Col. Abdul Ghafoor informed Pajhwok Afghan News. The weapons were seized by police over the last few months.

So far, Ghafoor reckoned, the provincial police had handed 2909 pieces of weapons, 8818 boxes of ammunition and 130,000 bullets over to DIAG.

The spokesman explained of the arms surrendered today, 300 pieces were recovered by the border police and the rest by the national police. Cases have been filed against four people arrested with arms.

Dr Abdul Hameed, DIAG spokesman for the eastern zone, confirmed the arms surrender. He said 3289 weapons, 10,000 boxes of ammunition and 138,000 bullets had been collected in the eastern provinces since the launch of the DIAG initiative.

The programme is currently underway in Momand Dara and Ghanikhel districts of Nangarhar and will soon be extended to Batikot, Khewa, Kama and Behsud.
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Six Afghans transferred from Guantanamo Bay
WASHINGTON, Oct 1 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Eight detainees, including six Afghans, have been transferred from the notorious US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. 

Apart from the six Afghans, a Libyan and a Yemeni were determined to be eligible for transfer following a series of review processes conducted at Guantanamo, the Defence Department announced Sunday morning.

The Pentagon said the transfer was a demonstration of Washington's desire not to hold the detainees --- approximately 70 of them eligible for transfer or release --- any longer than necessary.

"Departure of these detainees is subject to ongoing discussions between the United States and other nations," said the department. Around 330 suspects are currently held at Guantanamo. 

The Pentagon statement, without explaining when the transfer operation occurred, said each captive was repatriated under "processes put in place to assess each individual and make a determination about their detention while hostilities are ongoing -- an unprecedented step in the history of warfare."

Over the last five years, some 445 detainees have left Guantanamo for countries including Albania, Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, Bahrain, Belgium, Denmark, Egypt, France, Great Britain, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Maldives, Mauritania, Morocco, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uganda, UK and Yemen. 

Pentagon spokesman Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon was as calling the detainees at Guantanamo a threat to the US. "As a condition of repatriation, nations accepting detainees must take steps to prevent the return to terrorism, as well as providing credible assurances of humane treatment."
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