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October 5, 2007 

East Afghan clashes claim civilian lives
By FISNIK ABRASHI, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - U.S.-led coalition and Afghan troops clashed with insurgents during a raid in eastern Afghanistan on Friday, and civilians as well as militants were killed. In the country's volatile south, separate explosions apparently targeting NATO forces killed two children and a British soldier.

The joint force came under attack during a raid on compounds suspected of housing militants in Waza Khwa district, in Paktika province. In the ensuing battle, several Taliban fighters, but also civilians — including a woman and a child — were killed, a coalition statement said.

The military said it investigate the deaths, while blaming militants for using civilians as cover. Initially, the coalition had said there were no civilians killed and wounded in the clash, one of the latest in soaring violence in the country.

It was not immediately clear exactly how many people were killed.

Spokesman Maj. Chris Belcher said in the statement that Taliban fighters opened fire and threw grenades at the coalition and Afghan forces.

"Afghan and coalition forces countered the attack with a combination of small-arms fire and precision munitions strikes effectively neutralizing the threat to the team," he said.

The building housing the militants was destroyed and several coalition soldiers were wounded in the fighting, the statement said.

"During the follow-on assessment, coalition forces found several adult males, an adult female, and one child dead and two children wounded in the building housing the militants, who were engaging the combined force," the statement said.

In the restive south, a suicide bomber approaching NATO and Afghan forces blew himself up prematurely in Helmand province's Sangin district on Friday, killing two children, said district police chief Wali Mohammad.

There were no casualties among Afghan or NATO forces in that explosion, but a British soldier was killed in a separate blast Thursday about 19 miles west of Kandahar city, the British Ministry of Defense said in a statement.

Britain has some 7,000 troops in Afghanistan, where they are engaged in fierce, and increasingly bloody, fighting against the resurgent Taliban militants, mostly in the province of Helmand.

Eighty-two British personnel, including 57 soldiers, have been killed in Afghanistan since operations began there in November 2001.

Violence in Afghanistan has reached new highs this year, with nearly 5,100 people killed in suicide bombings, gun battles, airstrikes, and roadside bombs around the country through the first nine months of the year, according to an Associated Press count based on figures from Afghan, U.S. and NATO officials.
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British soldier, several militants killed in Afghanistan
Fri Oct 5, 6:53 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - A British NATO soldier was killed in a roadside blast in southern Afghanistan overnight while US-led coalition forces killed several militants, officials said Friday.

The unrest was the latest amid a swelling insurgency by the extremist Taliban movement that has killed around 5,000 people this year, mostly in southern and eastern Afghanistan.

The British soldier from the 1st Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles died and two others were wounded in a blast on Thursday in southern Helmand province, the country's most volatile region and its opium-growing heartland.

They were taking part in Operation Palk Wahel, which aims to drive out the Taliban, Afghanistan's former hardline rulers, from the province's insurgency-hit Upper Gereshk Valley.

A defence ministry spokesman in London said the incident happened just after 8:15 am local time (0345 GMT) Thursday as the soldiers were returning to their base at Kandahar airfield, the main allied air base in southern Afghanistan.

"The vehicle they were travelling in was hit by an explosion approximately 30 kilometres (19 miles) west of Kandahar," he told AFP.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul confirmed in a statement that one of its soldiers was killed and two wounded in southern Afghanistan on Thursday.

The latest death took the number of international soldiers killed in Afghanistan this year to 180, most of them in combat.

A total of 82 British soldiers have now died in Afghanistan since the start of operations in 2001 to oust the Taliban.

An ISAF civilian employee was killed in a roadside bomb blast in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday, the force said, without saying if the worker was Afghan or a foreigner.

Separately, coalition forces killed several militants in an attack on a suspected Taliban hideout in eastern Paktika province early Friday, the US military said in a statement.

"Several anti-coalition militants were killed by Afghan and coalition forces early this morning in Paktika province during an operation to disrupt extremist activities in the area," the statement said.

It did not give an exact number of casualties.

The Taliban launched an insurgency soon after they were driven from power by US-led forces following the 9/11 attacks on the United States.
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Germany's Fischer calls for bigger European role in Afghanistan
by Deborah Cole Fri Oct 5, 1:36 AM ET
BERLIN (AFP) - Former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer urged Europe to boost its backing for Afghanistan and chided his Greens party for its flagging support for the mission in the war-torn country.

Fischer told a news conference for the launch of his political memoirs, "The Red-Green Years: German Foreign Policy -- From Kosovo to September 11," that it had pained him to see his own party break with what he called one of the key decisions of his seven years in office.

"I believe more needs to be done in Afghanistan -- everything that is possible. That is not intended as criticism of my party -- it has to decide for itself -- but it is my personal view," said Fischer, who had threatened to resign in 2001 if his party did not support the deployment in an international peacekeeping force.

The Greens, a party with pacifist roots, voted at a stormy conference last month against the continued deployment of 3,000 German troops and Tornado surveillance planes in Afghanistan ahead of parliamentary votes on extending the mandates.

Fischer was the first foreign minister worldwide from a Green party and is considered here one of the most talented politicians of his generation.

He said he deeply regretted the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, which he vehemently opposed, saying it had drawn desperately needed reconstruction funds and diplomatic attention away from Afghanistan.

Fischer said the effort to stabilise the country would fall increasingly to the Europeans.

"We will remain linked to this crisis region whether we like it or not, particularly because of our strong Muslim minority," he said.

Fischer's 444-page tome covers the time from his taking office in 1998 to the September 11 attacks on New York in 2001, which he called a "historic turning point."

He retired from politics after the 2005 election that brought conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel to power in a "grand coalition" with former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats.

Fischer, 59, recently returned from a stint as a lecturer at prominent US university Princeton and speculation is rife about a possible future job in the European Union or the United Nations.

The sharp-tongued orator's unlikely rise from a radical activist in the 1970s to the country's top diplomat has long fascinated Germans and is expected to drive book sales.

He is already planning a second volume of his memoirs.

Fischer expressed some sympathy for Germans' squeamishness over the country's deployment in Afghanistan, saying it was a lesson they had drawn from their bloody history.

"It think it is good that there is a fundamental skepticism on military missions," he said. "That is something I appreciate about Germany and that I often mention when I travel."

He said Merkel needed to do more to convince Germans of the Afghanistan engagement's importance but for himself ruled out a return to political life.

Germany has resisted pressure within NATO to send any of its troops to volatile southern Afghanistan where US-led forces are fighting insurgents.

Berlin has kept its contingent in the relatively calmer north and opted to focus on training security forces and rebuilding infrastructure.

Public support for the mission is waning, with 52 percent saying in a recent poll that Germany should withdraw its troops.

Fischer, who was also vice chancellor in the so-called Red-Green coalition, acknowledged differences with his former boss Schroeder, particularly over human rights in Russia and China and arms exports to Turkey. But he said he thought history would judge Schroeder kindly.
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Narayanan makes secret visit to Afghanistan
Calcutta News.Net Friday 5th October, 2007 (IANS)
India's National Security Advisor M.K. Narayanan paid a secret visit to Afghanistan earlier this week for a first hand assessment of the security situation, prompted by the escalating violence and growing influence of the Taliban militia.

Informed sources told IANS that Narayanan met his Afghan counterpart Zalmay Rassoul, who reportedly briefed him on developments pertaining to the Taliban build-up on the Pakistan-Afghan border, during the day-long visit.

India has expressed concern over the growing violence in Afghanistan and underlined that Pakistan has a key role in checking the Taliban's resurgence in the war-ravaged country.

'As the Taliban regroups and continues its insurgency, the international community is faced with the need to re-evaluate and strengthen its own plan of action,' a source told IANS.

External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee had told reporters during the UN General Assembly in New York this week that if the Taliban was not kept in check, there was danger that the international community's efforts to bring stability to Afghanistan would be seriously jeopardised.

Pointing out that violent incidents have increased in the last few months, Mukherjee said the Taliban had regrouped and established training camps in the south of Afghanistan.

At an UN-sponsored high-level meeting on Afghanistan held Sep 23, participants felt the need for Pakistan to check the infiltration of Taliban militia into Afghanistan.

The meeting, co-hosted by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, focused on the rise of violent actions of the Taliban, Al Qaeda as well as the illicit narcotics trade between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

According to some reports, the Taliban insurgency this year has so far claimed over 5,000 victims, compared to 4,000 lives last year.

From safe havens in the Pakistan border areas, the Taliban is now pursuing a long-term strategy of exploiting its control of remote villages to gain control of districts and then regions, said the sources here.

'We are debating whether India should instead strengthen its relations with nationalist elements amongst Pashtoons and other dominant ethnic groups in order to pursue its interests in Afghanistan,' said an official.

India has played a big role in Afghanistan's reconstruction efforts and pledged $650 million in aid to Kabul. It has promised to consider a new credit facility to boost trade.
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Boy's rape scene delays film release as Hollywood and Afghan culture collide
Dan Glaister in Los Angeles and Declan Walsh in Islamabad Friday October 5, 2007 The Guardian
It is a pivotal moment in a heartbreaking story. A young man looks back on the moment that defined his life. "I became what I am today at the age of 12, on a frigid, overcast, day in the winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near the frozen creek."
The opening words to the best-selling novel The Kite Runner by the Afghan-American writer Khaled Hosseini describe the reaction of a young boy, Amir, as he witnesses the rape of his best friend, Hassan.

Now that same scene is at the centre of a row that has set an Afghan family against a Hollywood studio, and led to the delay of the film version of the novel, one of the most eagerly awaited films of the year.
Paramount Vantage, the arthouse division of Paramount Studios that made the $18m (£9m) film, has postponed the picture's release until it can ensure the safety of the two young Afghans who portray the protagonists.

Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada, the boy who plays Hassan, and his family have alleged that the film-makers did not tell them about the scene until the day of shooting. Concerned at the possible repercussions the children may face, the studio is bringing them to the US at the time of the film's worldwide release.

Twelve-year-old Ahmad Khan, who is from Kabul, spoke about the rape scene to the Associated Press last month, saying: "They didn't give me the script. They didn't give me the story. If I knew about the story, I wouldn't have participated as an actor in this film."

The scene is a highly impressionistic rendering of a Pashtun man raping Hassan, a Hazara boy from a servant's family. The actor's parents say it could inflame painful ethnic divisions in Afghanistan.

Another actor, Nabi Tanha, who plays Hassan's father, has also expressed concerns about the language used against members of Afghanistan's Hazara ethnic group, portrayed in the film.

Rebecca Yeldham, one of the film's producers, claims that both the boy and his father were aware of the scene. "The father was explicity told about the content of that scene at the time of casting," she said. "We rehearsed the scene very early during the shoot in China."

Yeldham said that although the pair never raised concerns about the scene, the film-makers knew that other Afghan members of the cast and crew had reservations about it.

"The day of the shoot I went to the trailer and the boy was teary," said the film's director, Marc Forster, who is directing the next Bond movie. "I asked what was wrong and he said he didn't want to expose any of his body. I asked if there was anything else wrong and he said no. He was fine and we shot the scene. I never wanted the scene to be gratuitous or explicit."

Changes were made and the most graphic elements of the final scene are a shot of a belt buckle being undone, and some drops of blood that fall from Ahmed's trousers in the next scene. But the boy's father says the film-makers agreed to drop the scene altogether. "When we argued, they said, 'we will cut this part of the film, we will take it out of the script'," said Ahmad Jaan Mahmidzada.

The 12-year-old said he feared schoolmates might make fun of him or that adults might physically harass him, believing the rape actually took place. "It's not one or two people that I have to explain to," he said. "It's all of Afghanistan. How do I make them understand?"

The studio has altered the film's release date to leave time for the two boys to complete their school year in Afghanistan, which ends on December 6. The boys will then go to the US, accompanied by guardians.

The studio fears that soon after the UK release, pirated copies of the film will make their way to Afghanistan, which does not have a functioning cinema system. "We're taking the position that any suggestion of risk for these kids is something that has to be taken with the utmost seriousness," said Yeldham.

A similar controversy exploded last year after the opening of Kabul Express, an Indian movie set in Afghanistan. A furore erupted around a scene in which a character accuses Hazaras of being bloodthirsty killers. The actor later fled to India. "We had to ship him out to Delhi as people were after his guts," said Saad Mohseni, of Tolo television.

Mr Mohseni, who has seen the final cut of The Kite Runner, said its portrayal of the rape was "very sensitive" and he doubted it would endanger the actors. "It's possible they will be ostracised within their families. But it will only become an issue in society if the minority leaders make an issue out of it."

Timor Shah Hakimyar, of Afghanistan's Foundation for Culture and Civil Society, said The Kite Runner's rape scene would create problems only if it were graphically portrayed.

"If there is direct sex against the boy, then it will be difficult to release here. But if it is symbolic, then it will be OK. People see so many films in Afghanistan, sometimes involving a [raped] woman. If they show it symbolically, there is no problem for the actor."

A trip to the US could bring benefits for the boys as the high-profile film is released in the run-up to the Hollywood awards season. "They really want to be part of the celebration of the movie," said Yeldham. "We want them to receive their due recognition for the work."
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'Afghanistan may be lost forever'
By ANI Friday October 5, 05:14 PM
Washington, Oct 5 (ANI): A US congressional panel was warned that the Bush Administration's Afghan policy had totally failed and Afghanistan was on its way to be lost forever.

At a panel hearing of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Republican congressman D. Rohrabacher also blamed the Clinton Administration, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia for creating the Taliban.

"Let me repeat that the Clinton Administration, along with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, created the Taliban," he said.

"And during the 1990s, the Clinton Administration stuck with that deal and tried -- and undermined every effort for those of us who were opposed to the Taliban."

Rohrabacher also blamed the ISI and other Pakistani officials for engaging in the drug trade, and claimed that the ISI has been up to their necks in the drug trade for 20 or 30 years now.

The panel's chairman, Congressman David Ackerman, painted a very bleak picture of the situation in Afghanistan, the Dawn reported.

"There is no security in much of the country. The central government's grip does not extend much beyond the environs of Kabul. In the provinces, there is no functioning local government, and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime projects that 2007 will be another record year for opium production in Afghanistan," he noted. (ANI)
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Canada pledges $60M to Afghan education
Sarah Boesveld The Ottawa Citizen Friday, October 05, 2007
Canada pledged $60 million over four years to education development in Afghanistan yesterday, but critics have raised questions on whether the money will be properly tracked.

The millions will go to Afghanistan's Education Quality Improvement Project, one of nine programs managed by the World Bank's Afghanistan Redevelopment Trust Fund. It will buy textbooks, fund teacher training and help build schools, Afghan Education Minister Mohammed Haneef Atmar said.

But the Senlis Council, an international think-tank that tracks government distribution of humanitarian aid, recently found CIDA hasn't put its money where its mouth is nor have its commitments been clearly tracked.

Senlis followed $39 million CIDA transferred to Kandahar last year to see where it was spent. In August, Senlis officials visited the site of a hospital maternity unit CIDA said was to receive $35,000 through UNICEF. When Senlis arrived, they found nothing, not even a tent.

This is just one example of CIDA's untraceable tracks, said Senlis president Norine MacDonald.

"We have not seen even a minimal level of effectiveness in CIDA projects in Southern Afghanistan, so we would hope, of course, that they would do a better job on this project," she said.

When reached yesterday, CIDA spokesmen said the World Bank's trust fund is audited by PriceWaterHouseCoopers, which routinely reports to the World Bank, though it wasn't specify how often.

It was not confirmed who specifically will ensure Canada's $60 million will be spent on books and school building. Nor was it specified how often CIDA contacts its organizations to track its finances.

This isn't good enough, says Almas Bawar, director of Canada's Senlis chapter.

"There's no clarity in where they're heading and what they're doing. They give money, but they're not sure where it's going," he said. And while Ms. MacDonald admits education funding will help Afghan redevelop, she said CIDA still has much to be accountable for.

"There's no way anybody could criticize the government for supporting education in Afghanistan," she said. "But that doesn't let them off the hook from the absolute necessity of doing food aid and medical assistance."

According to Senlis, CIDA has spent 10 times more on the military than on development aid.

Though Mr. Atmar said he is grateful for the funding, he said four years of funding just isn't enough.

"Education needs at least a 10-year commitment. CIDA, if you're going to be our friend, be our friend at least for 10 years," he said.

Mr. Atmar will end his four-day trip to Canada today. He said he came not only to champion Canada's support for Afghan education, but to say thank you.

"The first reason (for visiting) was to thank Canadians on behalf of our people and government, and at the same time say they are making a difference in Afghanistan," he said. "We are very grateful."
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Schools, youth a part of future success
David Ramsay The Leader-Post Friday, October 05, 2007
KANDAHAR PROVINCE -- It has taken more than half a day, along with the help of dozens of soldiers and some very sophisticated and expensive military hardware, to travel to a small school northwest of Kandahar City from Kandahar Air Field.

The trip takes six Canadian journalists visiting Afghanistan this week as guests of the Department of National Defence about one hour to complete. We spend the first part of the day in briefings, learning about security threats and how to respond in case of an attack.

We are then transported in a convoy of LAV-3 armoured vehicles, each manned by at least four soldiers, most of whom are equipped with massive firepower.

They are there to protect us in one of the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan.

The trip is uneventful in an area where suicide bombs and improvised explosive devices remain a constant fear.

The only incoming objects faced by the soldiers in our convoy this day are rocks thrown by Afghani children.

For us, the worst part is the dust. It is like a mist and covers everything in the close confines of the LAVs. Picture a hot, dry and windy day in Saskatchewan when there seems to be more soil in the air than in the fields. That would be a good day in this part of Afghanistan.

But in many respects, our trip is much easier than the one made daily by the more than 500 students who attend a modest school in a small village near Kandahar City. The Baba Wali Sahbb school, the only one in the area not damaged by the Taliban, is an example of how a very small amount of money can pay big dividends.

The key to the school's success: A non-descript concrete wall, built with Canadian money and designed by Canadian soldiers with the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team, at the bargain-basement price of $24,000. The team is helping to rebuild Kandahar province, taking on a variety of projects, large and small, including the construction of much-needed police stations.

When the wall at the school was completed earlier this year, attendance took a big jump. Many parents had been refusing to send their children, worried about their safety in an area where the Taliban's influence is still felt. Better to have them alive, well and uneducated at home than in danger at a school that doesn't provide any level of security or privacy.

Villagers had requested a wall for two reasons: To make the building a little safer for students and teachers alike, and to keep the students, especially the 70 girls, out of sight, and hopefully, out of mind of Taliban supporters.

But even with the wall in place, the school -- like Afghanistan itself -- is a work in progress. Paint peels from the walls, and there is nothing in the classrooms but old desks and small chalkboards. There are too few teachers, too many kids for too few classrooms (as many as 70 are scrammed into each room), and an uneven gender balance.

Niaknazar Band, the school's caretaker, says because of lingering cultural and tribal traditions, only about one-sixth of the students are girls and the oldest is no more than 10 years old. He adds many more students could be attending, estimating there are about 1,000 children within walking distance of the school.

As we walk around the grounds, we are followed by a throng of Afghani students. Like the children we saw earlier in the week in Kabul, they are very friendly and seem to genuinely like Canadians. Their day is made when soldiers begin handing out dozens of colourful hand-made cards created by students in Canada.

On many occasions during our trip, we are reminded that Afghanistan's future rests with its children. How they will turn out will depend very much on whether they have an opportunity to attend school.

By building a wall, a major barrier to a better future has been reduced for the students at a small school near Kandahar City.

- David Ramsay is the Leader-Post's Deputy Editor (nights)
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Afghan minister praises Canada as 'greatest ally'
Peter Goodspeed and Sarah Boesveld CanWest News Service; Ottawa Citizen; National Post Friday, October 05, 2007
TORONTO -- In a soft voice that quivered with emotion, Afghanistan's Education Minister Mohammed Atmar told a Toronto audience on Thursday that his countrymen want to thank "every Canadian citizen for what you have been doing in Afghanistan."

"You protect our people and advance the basic rights of our people," he said. "Our government is so proud to convey to you that you are our greatest ally -- an ally that we depend upon, an ally to be appreciated, an ally that we will long be grateful to."

Atmar's words of praise came on the same day Canada pledged $60 million over four years to education in Afghanistan.

Atmar paid particular tribute to "the brave Canadian men and women in uniform who are literally protecting my kids as they go to school."

What Canada has done in Afghanistan is "something that will be written in golden script in our history books," he said.

Speaking at a public forum sponsored by UNICEF, Atmar said it's natural the focus of the public debate on Afghanistan in Canada would be on security issues and the Canadian military's fight with elements of the outlawed Taliban.

But he insisted that while the security situation is challenging, there is a great deal of real progress taking place all over Afghanistan.

"What is happening in terms of education is a strategic transformation of society," he said, noting more than six times as many children are going to school now than when the Taliban ruled the country from 1996 to 2001.

There are now nearly six million children going to school and 40 per cent of those - more than two million - are girls.

When the Taliban were in power, it was illegal for girls to go to school, though a small number were secretly educated in underground schools in private homes.

The new Canadian money will buy textbooks, fund teacher training, and help build schools, Atmar said.

However, critics questioned whether the money will be properly tracked.

The money will go to Afghanistan's Education Quality Improvement Project, one of nine programs managed by the World Bank's Afghanistan Redevelopment Trust Fund (ARTF).

But the Senlis Council, an international think-tank that tracks government distribution of humanitarian aid, recently found the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) hasn't put its money where its mouth is, nor have its commitments been clearly tracked.

Senlis followed $39 million CIDA transferred to Kandahar last year to see where it was spent. In August, Senlis officials visited the site of a hospital maternity unit CIDA said was to receive $35,000 through UNICEF. When Senlis arrived, they found nothing, not even a tent.

When reached Thursday, CIDA spokespeople said the World Bank's ARTF is audited by PriceWaterHouse Cooper, which routinely reports to the World Bank, though it didn't specify how often.

It was not confirmed who specifically will ensure Canada's $60 million will be spent on books and building schools. Nor was it specified how often CIDA contacts its organizations to track its finances.

For his part, Atmar said his department is now focusing on training female teachers, so it can further boost female school enrolment. When the current government re-opened Afghanistan's school system in 2002, it had only 20,000 teachers -- a figure that has now grown to 140,000, of whom 40,000 are women.

Schools are a visible sign of reconstruction and progress and are frequently attacked by insurgents in Afghanistan. But in spite of the recent increase in attacks by the Taliban, only about three per cent of Afghanistan's more than 9,000 schools are threatened, he said.

"Canadians need to know this and not give up on Afghanistan," said Nigel Fisher, president of UNICEF Canada.

"If you look at a map of Afghanistan, it is important to see that the area of Taliban activity is only one third of the country. Most Canadians don't know that in two thirds of the country, there is considerable progress and the Taliban is not a problem."

"Our presence in Afghanistan has to be long-term," Fisher added, "because development is a long-term issue. And when you look at the chaos that Afghanistan came out of in 2002 - 25 years of predatory leadership, of foreign invasion and civil war - you don't turn that around in a couple of years."
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Afghan minister pleads for continued assistance
OMAR EL AKKAD October 5, 2007 Globe and Mail, Canada
Afghanistan's Minister of Education arrived in Toronto yesterday to make an impassioned plea for Canadians to continue supporting his country's fledgling social programs.

Mohammed Haneef Atmar presented his audience with an ambitious plan to revolutionize Afghanistan's small but growing educational system, firmly tying the system's future - as well as the security of his nation - to the fortunes of Afghanistan's women.

"Children of an educated mother would never become terrorists," he said. "At least not in our context."

In a frank half-hour speech, Mr. Atmar described the country's madrassas, or Islamic religious schools, as the biggest threat to educating girls in Afghanistan. However, he proposed reforming and integrating such schools, rather than excluding them from Afghanistan's new education system.

"The old policy of exclusion is what led to this disaster," he said.

Mr. Atmar's visit to drum up support for his government's programs comes at a time when Canadian attention is largely focused on the military side of this country's involvement in Afghanistan, something the minister was quick to praise as vital to his nation's security.

"This is something we deeply appreciate," Mr. Atmar told an audience during a speech at Toronto's Westin Harbour Castle hotel. "It will be written in golden scripts in our history books."

But Mr. Atmar was also quick to point out that war rages in only six of Afghanistan's 34 provinces, and that a solid educational infrastructure is vital if the country is ever to become independently functional.

With just over a year on the job, Mr. Atmar is charged with reforming a part of Afghan society that was decimated under Taliban rule. Yesterday afternoon, he presented his Toronto audience with a slew of statistics, initiatives and challenges that outline his mandate.

Mr. Atmar's appearance in Toronto was organized by Unicef Canada, whose president and CEO, Nigel Fisher, also spoke, describing Mr. Atmar as "a man, to say the least, with a difficult job." The meeting was moderated by Raymond Théberge, director general of the Canadian Council of Ministers of Education.

Both Mr. Fisher and Mr. Atmar repeatedly stressed that while the Afghan education system has a long way to go, it is far better than it was after two decades of war followed by six years of Taliban control.

Six years ago, there were fewer than one million Afghan children in school, Mr. Atmar said, and most of those were learning in secret. Today, six million children are in school - two million of them girls. Where there once were virtually no female teachers in the country under the Taliban's strict interpretation of Islamic law, there are now 40,000.

However, the shortage of female teachers is still the biggest obstacle to getting more girls in school, Mr. Atmar added. In primary school, he said, there are roughly two boys for every girl. In secondary school, that ratio rises to four boys for every girl. As Afghan girls grow older, he said, their families prefer they be taught by women. But because more girls are being taken out of school at the secondary level, fewer of them end up becoming teachers.

"That creates a vicious circle that needs to be broken," Mr. Atmar said.

After his speech, Mr. Atmar took a number of questions from audience members, including Afghan Canadians. One audience member asked whether his plan to have individual parent councils take full responsibility for their own schools could lead to ethnic discrimination among Afghanistan's various tribes. Mr. Atmar replied that he saw more of such discrimination among Afghan politicians than he did among local population.

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Canadians see success in training Afghan military recruits
Matthew Fisher CanWest News Service Friday, October 05, 2007
CAMP HERO, Afghanistan -- It's 10 o'clock in the morning and a battalion of fresh recruits from the Afghan National Army is already calling it a day.

It being Ramadan, they cannot drink or eat and they're tired.

Of the 100 new soldiers being mentored by Canadian troops, only 35 had actually shown up for work that morning. The missing infantrymen had been paid the day before and, this month being the Afghan equivalent of Christmas, they had gone to spend their time and money with their families.

For all that, Canadian mentors to several Afghan National Army battalions are gung-ho about the prospects for the raw recruits they were helping to transform into soldiers at a base not far from NATO's Kandahar Airfield.

"Seriously, this is the best job I have ever had in the army," says Sgt. Dave Querry, on his sixth overseas tour with the Royal 22nd Regiment. "My chums in the Van Doo are in Masum Ghar for combat and I am here in the culture of these people. The other Van Doo do their job but they do not meet Afghans. I see the people here from when they wake up in the morning."

Cpl. Alain Courturier of Edmundston, N.B., is also a strong fan of the mentoring program.

"All the soldiers stop talking and listen to us when we come around," Courturier said. "These guys didn't go to school but they are really intelligent. If you tell them something, you realize a week or two later that they remember."

The Harper government has sent mixed signals about Canada's military contribution in Afghanistan after the current mission, which involves a lot of fighters and a small number of mentors to the army and the police, expires in early 2009. One of the options being considered is a much larger military teaching presence so that Afghan government forces can learn to defend themselves.

"My idea is that we should invest more in this kind of thing, rather than in the battle," said Querry, 35, of Trois Rivieres, Que. "I am proud of what I do with this group. It isn't easy but I can see the evolution."

In Querry's group, four Canadians mentor 150 Afghan soldiers.

"Today we did the grenade. Imagine how much more of this we could do if there were more of us?"

Lieut. Balyali, a 28-year-old platoon commander who, like many Afghans, only has one name, is disappointed that Dutch mentors are about to take over, with the Canadians being shifted to another, more experienced battalion.

"I am glad to work with the Canadians," Balyali said. "It has been good training."

Relatively well paid by Afghan standards and housed in U.S.-designed barracks superior to the ones the Red Army left behind, Balyali's recruits receive about $100 a month while senior officers can earn as much as 10 times that.

Balyali, however, expressed two concerns. He's disappointed that the Afghan army did not allow his men to take the month of Ramadan off. And he's angry at the poor quality of his men's weapons.

"We have good training and good troops but without good weapons we can't fight," he says.

Lt.-Col. Muhammad Anbia, a 25-year veteran of the old and new Afghan armies who now heads a logistics battalion, expresses similar disappointment in a particularly Afghan way.

"We are happy but not too happy," said the colonel, whose family remained behind in a northern province when he was assigned to Camp Hero, leaving him to actively seek a second wife in Kandahar. "It is clear to everyone that we have light weapons, not heavy weapons. We and the enemy both have RPGs and AK-47s. We need help from the coalition who all have modern weapons and armour."

Capt. Sylvain Caron, of Baie Comeau, Que., illustrates the problem.

"One of the funniest things I have seen here happened on the range," Caron said. "Some of them really think that Allah will guide the bullet for them. That is not how it works and we have been trying to tell them that. One reason they have so much trouble shooting is that they have a mix of some new and a lot of old weapons."

Another factor is that "new recruits just want to go out in the field and fight," he says. "We try to teach them that it takes time to learn to shoot and to learn tactics or they won't last long."

Like the other Canadian mentors, Caron is reluctant to predict how long it might be before the Afghans no longer need training assistance from NATO armies.

Nor will Balyali: "I am sorry, we do not know the answer to this."

But after a long pause he adds: "I think it must continue for 10 or 20 years."

While the Afghans have fought the Red Army and each other for decades, they have never developed a logistics capability that would allow them to sustain operations in the field.

"It's the weakest part of their army," said Maj. Regis Bellemare, 32, who oversees a small team mentoring Anbia's new logistics battalion.

"They are good at squad and platoon levels and even companies. But they've never before tried to support a brigade or a corps.

"Logistics aren't sexy, but without them you cannot finish anything."

One of the curiosities of the Afghan forces is that in a country where water is extremely scarce, the battalions compete with each other to see who can grow the best lawn. Their officers also hold chess tournaments, in which they sometimes invite their Canadian mentors to participate.

Sgt. Maj. Guy Suttonwood, 48, of 31 Canadian Brigade Group's battle school in London, Ont., teaches leadership skills to senior Afghan non-commissioned officers. His Afghan opposite number, he says, is "academically inclined and highly respected, with all his ducks in a row," but Afghan army sergeants major and sergeants are "not allowed to initiate anything without permission from an officer."

For example, he says, "a sergeant cannot train troops on maps because they want officers to control this. We try to show them that it would be better for a sergeant to do this than an officer."

One of the first combat tests for Afghans being mentored by Canadians will come next month when Querry heads out to the battlefields of Kandahar province with another, much more experienced battalion.

"I can tell you, they are really good soldiers," Querry says of those older soldiers, whom he has also mentored. "They're ready."
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Canadians fire at two Afghan vehicles in separate incidents
Matthew Fisher CanWest News Service Friday, October 05, 2007
KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan -- A Canadian convoy was involved in two shooting incidents late Thursday as it drove to and from a Canadian base in Kandahar City and the airfield that is home to most of Canada's troops in Afghanistan.

The convoy, which was part of Canada's Provincial Reconstruction Team, first shot at an Afghan truck that had driven too close, a military spokesman said. There were no casualties.

On the return journey, the same convoy shot at a second vehicle that also drove too close, wounding an unknown number of Afghan civilians.

The shootings, which the military described as "escalation of force" incidents, highlighted the confusing and dangerous world that the Canadians enter whenever they leave their heavily fortified bases and take to the roads of Afghanistan where suicide bombers and buried improvised explosive devices often await them. More than 40 of the 71 Canadians who had died in Afghanistan have been killed in such attacks.

The first vehicle that was hit belonged to their allies in the Afghan National Police. The second vehicle belonged to Compass, a private company that provides security for a number of countries with troops and civilians living and working at the Kandahar Airfield.

Seven Afghans later turned up at the main gate to the Kandahar Airfield saying they had been wounded in the second shooting. Four of the seven were admitted to NATO's multi-national hospital for treatment. Three were quickly released. The fourth patient's condition was listed as stable.

Both incidents were being investigated by military police, including how many Afghans had been injured, said Capt. Josee Bilodeau.

"We are to review all our measures to make sure that such sad incidents do not happen again," she said.

The Canadian convoy was escorting vehicles from NATO's International Security and Assistance Force. They were returning from Helmand province, which is the responsibility of British troops. Canada has responsibility for Kandahar Province.

Earlier this week, another Canadian convoy based at Kandahar Airfield shot at a motorcycle, killing the driver and wounding his brother, a 12-year-old boy. The boy, who was struck in the head by a bullet, is in stable condition in an induced coma after surgery at the NATO hospital.

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Make the case for Afghanistan
J.L. Granatstein Citizen Special Friday, October 05, 2007
Because public opinion has soured on our mission in Afghanistan, the opposition parties could waste the efforts of our soldiers. It's up to Harper now.
 
Paul Martin's Liberals put us into a combat and development role in Afghanistan, the decision shaped by then-defence minister Bill Graham and Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier. Everyone in government knew there would be killing and Canadian casualties and, to his credit, Mr. Graham made speeches in 2005 telling Canadians precisely that. So too did Gen. Hillier.

The Harper Conservative government then made the war its own when it came to power in January 2006 and soon extended Canada's commitment in Kandahar two years more to February 2009. Moreover, it did so with the support of a vote in Parliament, a move almost unprecedented in a country that since 1945 has almost always sent its troops overseas without the benefit of approval from the House of Commons.

But now as the feared casualties continue to mount, the media are divided and public opinion shaky on what Canada should do. Get out? Continue to fight the Taliban? Concentrate more on development?

Polls done by the big survey companies continue to show Quebec opinion least supportive of the mission and even more so after recent casualties in the Royal 22nd Regiment battle group now carrying the load in Kandahar. Opinion across the rest of the country seems to be holding relatively steady, the polls say. But a self-selected and very large Internet poll in the Globe and Mail on Labour Day was striking: 85 per cent (or 22,673 individuals who registered their view) said that Canada should not extend its Afghan mission past February 2009. Only six per cent believed that Canadian troops should remain until the Taliban were defeated, while nine per cent believed that a decision should be put off until nearer the February 2009 date. That last option is all but impossible given Canada's responsibility to notify NATO of its plans so that some other nation's troops (if they can be found) can take over in Kandahar.

Now, it may be that the vast majority of those calling for Canada to get out of Kandahar in 2009 have been affected by signs that the Harper government itself is looking for a way out of the commitment or, at the most, a change to a different role in a safer part of the country. There needs to be a consensus among the political parties on the Canadian role, the prime minister said, sounding only slightly different than Mackenzie King's dictum of the 1930s, "Parliament will decide."

But consensus looks difficult to achieve. NDP leader Jack Layton wants to pull out now, never mind in 2009 and never mind concerns over abandoning the Afghans. (His successful candidate in the Sept. 17 Outremont by-election even slanderously called the United Nations-authorized mission Harper's "war of aggression," arguably the vilest comment of the political season.) The Bloc Québécois, hitherto a supporter of the Canadian role, wants it to end in 2009. The Liberals, who, it needs to be repeated again and again, first put us into Kandahar, say they too want the mission to end in 2009 but leader Stéphane Dion suggests he might not vote non-confidence in the government on this issue.

Nothing much is clear from the parties' professed positions except a distaste for Canadian casualties suffered in an "American" war. Certainly there's nothing to give solace to those who believe that Afghanistan is a crucial test for Canada and NATO, although the Harper government's by-election win in Roberval may indicate that Québécois are willing to vote bleu notwithstanding the war.

Still, there is not much comfort in the opinion soundings. To me, the Labour Day poll is the key one, far more so than the balanced hedging in most national opinion polls with their small samples. A conservative national newspaper asks its readers, usually believed to be opinion-makers, a simple and direct question on-line, and more than 22,000 reply: Get out of Afghanistan in February 2009. Enough, they're saying, no more killed soldiers.

In my view, this is a shortsighted position that neglects the impact a pull-out will have on Canada's standing with our NATO friends and the potentially devastating impact it could have on the ground in Kandahar. It is the wrong position, but it certainly seems to be where opinion is driving the government.

Why? Because Canadians still haven't grasped why Canada is involved. What must be said is that the Harper government has singularly failed to "sell" the Afghan war it made its own. Ministers have not tried to explain why we are there or the differences Canada has made -- and can make -- to the lives of Afghans.

The prime minister and his key francophone colleagues have not gone into Quebec to try to bolster support for the mission in a traditionally anti-military society. It's no wonder the polls there are so defeatist. Only in September did the first regular briefings of the media begin in Ottawa; only this month did the new foreign affairs minister speak in Montreal on the war.

If the prime minister wants to preserve his and his government's credibility and a shred or two of Canada's honour, if he wants to keep alive the idea that Canada isn't getting ready to cut and run, he needs to mount a major political and media campaign on the reasons for Canada's presence and role in Afghanistan. Now. Today. Right away.

J.L. Granatstein writes on behalf of the Council for Canadian Security in the 21st Century (www.ccs21.org).
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Q&A: Peering beyond the burqa to support Afghan women
QUETTA, Pakistan, October 5 (UNHCR) – Lynda Lim has worked with refugees in her native Malaysia. Currently a community services officer with UNHCR in the city of Quetta in south-west Pakistan's Balochistan province, the UN Volunteer braves late-night blasts and bumpy rides to address women's issues in conservative Afghan communities. She spoke recently to UNHCR Senior Public Information Assistant Babar Baloch. Excerpts from the interview:

Has your field experience prepared you for Quetta?

Quetta is very different from my previous field experiences. Before I came, I was told about the very conservative atmosphere where women have to be appropriately dressed and covered; to be prepared for limited mobility due to the cultural and security situation. But I did not expect it to be as conservative as this. Being a woman, I find it strange when handshakes with local men are not permitted. I should not be seen walking on streets alone and must be accompanied by a man. Another shock is the sporadic bomb blasts that constantly awaken me in the middle of the night.

Describe your typical working day.

As a community services officer, my role is to address the broad protection needs of and risks faced by Afghans, focusing on the female-headed households and children who lack community support, and ensuring that their rights to basic medical services, education, water and food are adequately addressed.

The refugee camps are between two and seven hours' drive from the Quetta office on bumpy and dusty roads. My first stop when I get to a camp is the Basic Health Unit (BHU). I talk to the doctors to find out about the services, medicines and the trends in diseases. The BHU also functions like a community centre where one can access information about all the happenings in the camp.

Most Afghan women do not have the freedom to walk around the camp as it is inappropriate for them to be seen in public. They face multiple burdens and gender discrimination, and have limited access to information and discussion of these issues. Most girls are not allowed to attend school. The BHU is one of the very few places they are allowed to visit. As a woman, I have the added advantage of having direct access to them, though it takes them a while to open up. We also try to sensitize refugee men, particularly the male community leaders, by helping them to see and understand the importance of sending their girls to schools, and to recognize and respect the rights and value of every woman.

What are some of your main achievements and continuing challenges?

Working among refugees gives me a day-to-day sense of achievement. But I realize there are constraints on how much we can help them. Issues like sexual and gender-based violence are taboo in the Afghan refugee community. Speaking about their trauma puts victims at a greater risk. Many survivors do not report their cases as they may be seen by the community as bringing disgrace to their family. Therefore, it is important for us to make sure our intervention does not re-traumatize the survivor though insensitive assistance.

I worked with UNHCR's partners to reactivate a mechanism for reporting and responding to such cases in Balochistan's camps. There have been small victories – for instance, there was a woman who was badly abused by her husband. There was no way out for her, but even then it took all her courage to report it to UNHCR partners who were responsible for providing help. She finally got a divorce and now lives peacefully with her relatives. We've crossed some barriers, but there is still a long way to go and we have to keep developing capacities and raising awareness among the communities.

Reduced funding is another challenge, especially when working in a protracted refugee setting. Resources are spread thin in our programme and we have to find ways to spend our limited resources on many pressing needs of the refugees.

Nonetheless, I like the complexities of UNHCR's work – in prevention, protection, relief and to some extent, development. But there are costs, as we are always at the forefront of humanitarian crises and often face security constraints.

What have you learnt from the refugees?

It's impossible to be untouched by the strength and resilience of Afghan women against all odds. I am taken by a handful of Afghan women whom I have encountered, who live from hand to mouth but even then have a strong sense of hope. I am also impressed by the strong community support among Afghan refugees. It is amazing to see the support to widows, divorcees, orphans, elderly, physically and mentally challenged people in camps. One would think that displacement would severely affect communal bonds, but what I observe among the Afghan refugees is just the opposite.

I've also seen for myself that refugees are capable people who contribute to the host community through business and production. It is misleading to perceive them as passive recipients of humanitarian aid.

What do you see as the way out for Afghans in Pakistan?

There is no quick and easy solution. To me, the central issue is to identify the different categories of Afghans within the 2 million who have registered recently. For those who do not have any protection concerns to return to Afghanistan, gradual and voluntary repatriation can be an option after a careful assessment of the situation, to ensure that conditions of safety and dignity can be met. For those who face obstacles to return after 2009 [when the Pakistan government's Proof of Registration card expires], UNHCR must work with the two governments and international community to find other durable solutions.
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Afghan pop star in schools drive
Thursday, 4 October 2007 BBC News
One of Afghanistan's most famous popular singers, Farhad Darya, has launched a project to encourage poorer children to attend school.

Mr Darya has set up a fund to help around 2,000 Afghan families, whose children have to work.

He said that he intended to put around $50,000 into the fund himself, and to travel abroad to raise more money.

The aid agency, Oxfam, has estimated that around half of Afghanistan's children do not go to school.

However, attendance is still much higher than it was when the country was ruled by the Taleban.
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A famed Afghan singer to visit her homeland after 20 years
Jonathan Curiel San Francisco Chronicle Thursday, October 4, 2007
She was one of Afghanistan's most popular female singers in the 1960s and '70s, that nation's equivalent of Barbra Streisand or Ella Fitzgerald. Farida Mahwash led a privileged life in her country until 1989, when she fled its civil war and became a refugee.

Eventually she settled in Fremont, joining thousands of other Afghans who have found a welcoming environment there. Mahwash still sings the love songs and traditional music that marked her career in Afghanistan, and she never quit longing to return to the land that nurtured her for 40 years.

Today, Mahwash will realize that dream. She has been invited to give a series of benefit concerts, and will step foot in Afghanistan for the first time in almost two decades. She's excited, nervous, happy and sad - sad at how many years have passed, and at how her native country is still trying to recover from decades of war and upheaval.

"I'm trying not to get emotional, because I'm very excited to go to see my country," Mahwash said at her Fremont home before flying to Afghanistan. "Every time I think about my country, I'm just blocking my throat and I can't sing - I want to cry."

Mahwash remains an exalted figure in her homeland, particularly among older Afghans who remember her songs that were constantly played on the radio.

In music shops around the capital, and in Afghan communities in the United States and Europe, her CDs are still popular sellers. Mahwash is the only Afghan woman to attain the title of "Ustad" - an honorific, meaning "master," that Afghanistan's culture ministry gave to her in 1977.

At age 60, Mahwash retains her youthful looks and her golden voice, which is sampled by young Afghan singers on dance-oriented recordings meant to appeal to a modern generation.

Mahwash left Afghanistan because the mujahedeen threatening the government of then-President Mohammad Najibullah seemed on the verge of taking over Kabul, where Mahwash lived. The mujahedeen targeted Mahwash because she was a prominent female singer and because she was associated with the government-controlled Radio Afghanistan, said John Baily, a music professor at the University of London and an expert on Afghan music.

Kabul's government also targeted Mahwash's family. In the days before she fled, Afghan authorities arrested her husband, Farouk, after he refused to "join them," and kept him jailed for two days, Mahwash said.

After she fled to Pakistan, Najibullah's regime said she had abandoned her country and that the country's secret police would hunt her down and harm her, Baily said.

"Her life was definitely in danger," Baily said.

Mahwash returns to Afghanistan with her husband and one of her five daughters. She's unsure how Afghans will react to their visit, but she hopes they will welcome her family with the same love she maintains for her homeland.

"I will go to cities like Kabul and Herat and Mazar-i-Sharif that accept me as a singer," Mahwash said, speaking through an interpreter in Afghan language of Dari. "I'll have programs there and collect money, and give this money to charity and people who don't have houses and who are in need. ... I will try to be safe and visit places that I feel safe."

Afghanistan has changed dramatically since Mahwash lived there. When she was in her musical prime, Kabul was a Westernizing city where some women wore skirts and many Afghans listened to Elvis Presley and other American artists.

When the Taliban took over in 1996, they instituted a harsh version of Islam that banned all music and forced all women to wear the burqa. Mahwash's return to Afghanistan coincides with the sixth anniversary of the U.S.-led bombings that removed the Taliban from power.

Mahwash says she was unaware of the anniversary date. She says her visit is timed to be at the end of Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month.

At her Fremont home, Mahwash follows the prohibition to eat food during the day. Her house is replete with mementos of her country, including Afghan carpets, a photograph of the cliff-carved Bamiyan Buddhas, which the Taliban destroyed in 2001, and photos of Afghan musicians with whom she has performed.

Tears roll down Mahwash's cheeks when she remembers her mother, a teacher of the Quran who is buried in Pakistan; the details of her old life in Afghanistan; and the day in 1989 when, hurrying to leave the country, she sold the family's five-story house in the center of Kabul for the U.S. equivalent of $5,000.

"I sold everything - my house, my car, everything," Mahwash said.

When the subject changes to her music and her life in America, Mahwash smiles again. Mahwash, who has sisters and cousins living around Fremont, says that "in the worst time, the United States helped me - this is my second country." She has performed around the Bay Area, including at UC Berkeley and Stanford, and in June gave a concert at the United Nations.

In many ways, Mahwash is fortunate to be alive and still performing at such a high artistic level. When she was in Pakistan, a U.N. official discovered her amid the hundreds of thousands of other Afghan refugees and helped arranged asylum for her in the United States.

Baily, who has studied Mahwash's music and visited her in Fremont, says she is one of Afghanistan's living treasures. In an increasingly globalized world where the Internet allows people to connect with each other from disparate parts of the globe, Mahwash can release new albums that are picked up almost instantly in Kabul.

In that way, the distance between Kabul and Fremont is shorter than it's ever been. Mahwash's visit to her homeland is a chance to bridge that distance as much as possible.

"My dear Afghanistan," she says. "My dear country. ... I love my people."
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U.S. military deploys teams of anthropologists to Afghanistan
USA Today
The U.S. military has deployed a secret weapon to Afghanistan: anthropologists.

The New York Times says anthropologists and other social scientists are being assigned to work with military units as part of a counter-insurgency program known as the Human Terrain Team. (What is anthropology? The American Anthropological Association has the answer.)

“We’re looking at this from a human perspective, from a social scientist’s perspective,”  Col. Martin Schweitzer tells the paper. “We’re not focused on the enemy. We’re focused on bringing governance down to the people.”

There are six teams working in Afghanistan right now, according to the Times. Critics derided the program's participants as practitioners of "mercenary anthropology."

“While often presented by its proponents as work that builds a more secure world, at base, it contributes instead to a brutal war of occupation which has entailed massive casualties," opponents say in a pledge that the Times says is circulating among academics.

That's not likely to convince the program's supporters in the Pentagon. Here's how they described the initiative in a recent report: Conducting military operations in a low-intensity conflict without ethnographic and cultural intelligence is like building a house without using your thumbs: it is a wasteful, clumsy, and unnecessarily slow process at best, with a high probability for frustration and failure. But while waste on a building site means merely loss of time and materials, waste on the battlefield means loss of life, both civilian and military, with high potential for failure having grave geopolitical consequences to the loser.
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Winter break for voluntary refugee repatriation
PESHAWAR, Oct 3 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The UN-assisted repatriation of Afghan refugees to their homeland would be halted from October 31, an official said here on Tuesday.

Returnees were asked not to approach the UNHCR Voluntary Repatriation Centres in Hayatabad (Peshawar) and Baleli in Quetta, starting November 1, until a further announcement early next year, he added.

Following the winter break, the official added, the refugee agency would resume the process of voluntary repatriation of Afghans from Pakistan in March 2008.

In case of further announcements on voluntary repatriation during the winter break, the refugee agency will keep the Afghans informed, who were advised to tune in to the UNHCR-sponsored radio show on Radio Pakistan.
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NATO, Coalition to help Afghans combat drugs
KABUL, Oct 3 (Pajhwok Afghan News): In a significant move, NATO and Coalition forces have agreed to help the Afghan government combat the scourge of narcotics, a minister said on Wednesday.  

The foreign forces would provide logistical support including aircraft to government delegations, travelling between the capital and different provinces, acting Counter-Narcotics Minister Gen. Khuda-i-Dad told journalists here.

Gen. Khuda-i-Dad added NATO and Coalition forces would cooperate with the Afghan authorities in shifting detained drug smugglers from far-flung areas to the central capital.

However, the acting minister made clear Afghan police - not foreign troops - would eradicate poppies, the main cash crop for growers of the impoverished country.

In the event of attacks on the police, he explained, the foreigners would come to their rescue by providing close air support. The international community is now convinced drugs and terrorism are inextricably intertwined and therefore the counter-narcotics drive has to be strengthened.

Separately, NATO civilian spokesman Nicholas Lunt also announced the alliance would cooperate with the Afghans in fighting the menace of drugs. We understand drugs pose a grave threat to Afghanistans security.

In the next 12-18 months, the spokesman said at a news conference, NATOs scope and responsibilities could be further widened. However, a final decision in this regard had yet to be taken, he continued.

According to a second quarterly report unveiled by Gen. Khuda-i-Dad, 168 drug smugglers including a woman and foreigner were arrested and 16 heroin labs destroyed during the last three months.

Also seized during the period were around 38 tonnes of heroin, hashish, morphine and other chemicals used in manufacturing drugs. Up to 1200 alleged traffickers had been detained hitherto, the acting minister claimed.

The detainees include Afghan National Army (ANA) and police officials, who wield a lot of influence, power and resources, Khuda-i-Dad disclosed.

But he hastened to add the ministry had no concrete evidence to suggest that high-ranking government officials were involved in the burgeoning drug commerce.

Reported by Babakarkhel & Najib Khilwatgar

Translated & edited by S. Mudassir Ali Shah
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Afghan squad to participate in ACC Twenty20 championship
KABUL, Oct 2 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The national cricket team will participate in the 10-nation ACC Twenty20 tournament scheduled to begin in Kuwait from October 27.

Afghanistan has been placed in group 'A' with Nepal, Malaysia, Qatar and Oman. Teams in group 'B' included the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Singapore, Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia.

The Afghan squad will play its first match against Qatar at the Hubara Stadium on October 27, head of the Cricket Federation Shahzada Massoud told Pajhwok Afghan News on Tuesday.

Taj Malak Alam, coach of the national cricket team, said names of 14 players had been declared for the ACC Twenty20 championship.

He said the players were engaged in net practice at the National Cricket Academy over the previous few days. "They are being trained in fielding, bowling and batting as well as being informed about different techniques through computer," said Alam.

He said the team's recent visit to Pakistan, where it played five one-dayers against local squads, had improved their techniques and earned them a great experience.

Skipper of the national team Nauroz Mangal hoped the players would come out with better performance and would try their utmost to win the championship.
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