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Afghanistan: Taliban offers kidnapped diplomat for leader
Islamabad, 12 Feb. (AKI) - The Pakistani Taliban are reported to have offered to exchange kidnapped ambassador, Tariq Azizuddin, for the militant Mansour Dadullah, captured by security forces on Monday.
Pakistan unsure if missing envoy kidnapped
By Augustine Anthony Tue Feb 12, 2:29 AM ET
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani authorities said on Tuesday they didn't know whether their ambassador to Afghanistan had been kidnapped, a day after he went missing in a Pakistani tribal region plagued by bandits and militants.
Pakistan searches for missing envoy to Afghanistan
by Danny Kemp Tue Feb 12, 12:39 AM ET
ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistani authorities searched for the country's missing ambassador to Afghanistan on Tuesday after he was feared abducted in a troubled tribal area where Taliban militants are active.
Afghans, Arabs kidnapped in Afghanistan
By AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - Taliban militants kidnapped about 20 Arabs and Afghans in western Afghanistan and were holding six captive, while a suicide car bomber detonated his explosives next to a NATO convoy, wounding a soldier, officials said Tuesday.
NATO soldier wounded in Afghan suicide blast: officials
HERAT, Afghanistan (AFP) - A suicide car bomber attacked a convoy of NATO forces in western Afghanistan Tuesday, wounding a NATO soldier, while two Afghan militia troops died in a separate blast, officials said.
Karzai seeks aid for Islamic schools
By AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghanistan needs more international help to build Islamic schools so fewer students will attend more radical ones outside the country, President Hamid Karzai said Tuesday.
US dismisses Taliban assertion of 'defeat' in Afghanistan
Tue Feb 12, 1:38 AM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Washington has dismissed an assertion by fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar that the United States has been "defeated" in Afghanistan.
PM issues warning on Afghanistan conflict
Wednesday February 13, 01:51 AM ABC (Australia)
On the first of the year's sitting days, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has warned Federal Parliament that more Australian troops could be killed in Afghanistan.
UN appeals for 13 million dollars to help Afghan children
KABUL (AFP) - Hundreds of thousands of Afghan children lack proper food, water and other essentials while conflict hampers the delivery of help, UNICEF warned Tuesday in an appeal for 13 million dollars' emergency aid.
Answer to Afghanistan question more complex than adding troops
Feb 12, 2008 04:30 AM James Travers Toronto Star
Just weeks ago, John Manley's report was part of the Afghanistan solution. Now it's part of the problem. Instead of informing a complex debate, its pivotal recommendation is being used to force a simplistic political choice and perhaps a federal election.
Pakistan nuclear staff go missing
Tuesday, 12 February 2008 BBC News
Two employees of Pakistan's atomic energy agency have been abducted in the country's restive north-western region abutting the Afghan border, police say.
Taliban only fighting to expel foreigners - Omar
KABUL, Feb 11 (Reuters) - Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar said on Monday the hardline Islamist movement was not a threat to the world and was only fighting to eject foreign troops from Afghanistan.
Al-Qaeda sets sight on the next battlefield
REVOLT IN PAKISTAN'S TRIBAL AREAS, Part 2
By Syed Saleem Shahzad Asia Times Online / February 12, 2008
PESHAWAR, North-West Frontier Province - Despite last week's ceasefire agreement between the Pakistani security forces and the Pakistani Taliban in the tribal areas, it is clear that a major regional battle between al-Qaeda
Soldier film feeds German Afghanistan debate
Reuters
BERLIN - When director Brigitte Bertele shot her film about a traumatized German soldier returning from Afghanistan, she did not think its release would coincide with a heated debate about the deployment of further troops abroad.
Vodafone to launch mobile phone money transfer service in Afghanistan
by Katell Abiven Tue Feb 12, 1:51 AM ET
BARCELONA, Spain (AFP) - British operator Vodafone announced Monday at the industry's annual trade show in Barcelona that it would launch a money transfer service in Afghanistan after the successful introduction of a similar initiative in Kenya.
Will India again leave Afghanistan?
Ajai Shukla Business Standard (India) New Delhi February 12, 2008
Being forced out of a country by the enemy, like India was from Afghanistan in 1996, when Taliban fighters encircled Kabul, is always a foreign policy nightmare. Just twelve years on, another evacuation from Afghanistan no longer seems impossible.
United Club triumph in Martyrs Cup opener
Ahmad Shah Sabir
ZARANJ, Jan 12 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The United Club edged past their rivals in the opener of a soccer tournament played in Zaranj, the capital of the Nimroz province.
Commerce minister summoned to Parliament
Makia Monir - Feb 9, 2008
KABUL (Pajhwok Afghan News): Wolesi Jirga speaker Muhammad Younis Qanoni on Saturday said that President Hamid Karzai had accepted legislators' demand for summoning Commerce & Industries minister to the parliament.
Afghanistan: Taliban offers kidnapped diplomat for leader
Islamabad, 12 Feb. (AKI) - The Pakistani Taliban are reported to have offered to exchange kidnapped ambassador, Tariq Azizuddin, for the militant Mansour Dadullah, captured by security forces on Monday.
According to Ahmad Zaidan, head of the Pakistani bureau of Arab TV network, Al-Jazeera, local Taliban led by commander Beitullah Mahsoud have claimed responsibility for the diplomat's abduction on Monday and offered an exchange.
The offer was believed to have been made to the government of Islamabad.
Tariq Azizuddin was said to have been travelling through the tribal areas near the Khyber Pass on the Afghan border.
According to media reports, the ambassador, his driver and security guard were on their way to the Afghan capital Kabul, but went missing near the town of Jamrud.
The Khyber Pass links Pakistan and Afghanistan but the road between the two countries has been closed since the diplomat went missing.
He is believed to be the highest-ranking official to have been kidnapped in the tribal region.
As a condition for his release they have called for the liberation of Manour Dadullah, brother of the late Mullah Dadullah.
He was captured and seriously injured in Waziristan by Pakistani security forces on Monday in a raid.
Dadullah succeeded his elder brother , the Taliban's top military commander Mullah Dadullah killed in an Afghan and NATO operation in southern Afghanistan in May 2007.
After several years in prison, Mansour was released with four others in March 2007 in exchange for the liberation of Italian journalist, Daniele Mastrogiacomo, from the Italian daily, La Repubblica.
Media reports said that four Pakistani employees of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) went missing on 2 February in the same border area.
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Pakistan unsure if missing envoy kidnapped
By Augustine Anthony Tue Feb 12, 2:29 AM ET
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani authorities said on Tuesday they didn't know whether their ambassador to Afghanistan had been kidnapped, a day after he went missing in a Pakistani tribal region plagued by bandits and militants.
Ambassador Tariq Azizuddin was on his way to Kabul from the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar when he disappeared along with his driver and bodyguard in the Khyber tribal region.
"The search is on. We have nothing to share at the stage," Foreign Office spokesman, Muhammad Sadiq, told Reuters. He refused to speculate whether the envoy had been kidnapped.
"We don't know what happened, we have no idea," Sadiq said. "There is no confirmation he has been kidnapped."
A security official said the envoy was to change cars at the border but he did not show up and was believed to have not reached the border.
Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai was sure the envoy had been snatched.
"The Pakistan ambassador to Afghanistan has been kidnapped while traveling to Afghanistan," Karzai said in Kabul, during a conference on education.
"I hope he is safe and I hope he will be released soon."
The historic Khyber Pass is the main road link to landlocked Afghanistan in northwestern Pakistan.
Khyber is notorious for smugglers and bandits, but unlike other parts of the tribal belt on the Afghan border it has been relatively free of the violence linked to al Qaeda and the Taliban, though militant activity has picked up in adjoining regions.
Scores of people were killed late last year in clashes between tribal militants loyal to two rival clerics in Khyber.
Four Pakistani workers of the International Committee of the Red Cross went missing in the same region earlier this month. They have not been found.
Meanwhile, two technicians from the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission were kidnapped on Monday near the northwestern town of Dera Isamil Khan, police said.
"The technicians were going for some geological survey in the area when they were kidnapped at gunpoint along with their driver and five local people," Romail Akram, a senior police official in the area said.
"The local people have been released but the technicians and their driver are still missing. We don't have any idea, so far, who has done it."
The security situation in Pakistan has deteriorated markedly since mid-2007, mainly in the northwest, with militants linked to the Taliban and al Qaeda carrying out a suicide bomb campaign against security forces and politicians campaigning for an election on February 18.
More than 400 people have been killed in militant related violence since the beginning of this year alone.
(Additional reporting by Alamgir Bitani)
(Editing by Zeeshan Haider and Sanjeev Miglani)
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Pakistan searches for missing envoy to Afghanistan
by Danny Kemp Tue Feb 12, 12:39 AM ET
ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistani authorities searched for the country's missing ambassador to Afghanistan on Tuesday after he was feared abducted in a troubled tribal area where Taliban militants are active.
The diplomat's disappearance on Monday highlighted the spiralling insecurity ahead of crucial elections next week in the nuclear-armed nation, a key ally in US efforts against Islamic extremism.
The envoy, Tariq Azizuddin, was heading to the Afghan capital Kabul with his driver when they disappeared in the Khyber tribal district, a lawless northwestern region bordering Afghanistan, the foreign office said.
"He has gone missing, we are confirming he is missing but at this stage I cannot give you any more details," foreign office spokesman Mohammad Sadiq told AFP.
Security officials said tribal authorities were scouring the rugged area, the site of the famed Khyber Pass linking Afghanistan and Pakistan, and had closed the main road between the two countries.
The Pakistan embassy in Kabul said it last had contact with the ambassador on Monday morning as he travelled from the northwestern city of Peshawar to Kabul. The Afghan foreign ministry said he was not in Afghanistan.
"We are trying our best to find out what happened," embassy spokesman Naheem Khan told AFP.
If confirmed, Azizuddin would be the most senior of several government officials to have been abducted in the mountainous tribal belt. Blame has either fallen on Islamist militants or criminal kidnap gangs.
Officials said security forces had seen the envoy's car driven at speed through a checkpost with "local people sitting in the front seat". They raised the alarm when he did not reach the main post on the frontier.
The ambassador went missing in an area where two Pakistani employees of the International Committee of the Red Cross disappeared earlier this month. Their fate is unknown.
Pakistan's tribal zone has been wracked by fighting between government forces and Islamist militants linked to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, although Khyber has been one of the more peaceful regions.
Militants had kidnapped around 250 Pakistani soldiers in the tribal zone of South Waziristan. They were reportedly released in exchange for several rebels held by Pakistani authorities.
Meanwhile, Pakistani officials were giving medical treatment to a senior figure in Afghanistan's Taliban movement who was captured near the southwestern border between the two countries on Monday.
Mullah Mansoor Dadullah, the brother of the Islamist militia's slain military chief in Afghanistan, was captured along with at least five other militants in a gunbattle on Monday.
Dadullah had been responsible for operations against NATO and US-led troops in the southern Afghan province of Helmand.
The Taliban said in December that he had been sacked for disobedience -- a claim Dadullah's spokesman denied.
State media quoted Interior Ministry spokesman Brigadier Javed Cheema as saying that Dadullah was "injured but out of danger".
Islamist fighters in Pakistan who are variously described by officials as Al-Qaeda or pro-Taliban militants have been blamed for a string of suicide bombings and clashes with security forces in recent months.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has accused a key militant leader, Baitullah Mehsud, of orchestrating December's assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.
Her killing caused the postponement of general elections due in January.
The polls are now scheduled for Monday but the run-up has been hit by further violence, including a suicide bombing in the tribal region of North Waziristan that targeted political activists going to an election rally.
Bhutto's party was due to release her posthumously published autobiography in Islamabad later on Tuesday. Back to Top
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Afghans, Arabs kidnapped in Afghanistan
By AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - Taliban militants kidnapped about 20 Arabs and Afghans in western Afghanistan and were holding six captive, while a suicide car bomber detonated his explosives next to a NATO convoy, wounding a soldier, officials said Tuesday.
The hostages were in the western province of Farah to hunt for rare birds when they were taken hostage by Taliban militants approximately two days ago, said Younis Rassouli, Farah's deputy provincial governor. They were robbed of their money, weapons and personal belongings, he said.
Four Afghans and two people from Qatar were still being held Tuesday, Rassouli said. The rest had been released.
Abdul Rashid, a spokesman for police in western Afghanistan, said a Taliban commander named Mullah Khodaidad was behind the kidnappings.
Earlier, Farah Gov. Muhaidin Baluch said the Taliban had kidnapped 11 Pakistani construction workers, but the other officials said no Pakistanis were among the group of kidnapped Arabs and Afghans.
The suicide bomb attack in Farah province wounded one soldier and damaged a NATO vehicle, said Maj. Richelle Dowdell of NATO's International Security Assistance Force. She did not identify the nationality of the wounded soldier.
Last year the Taliban launched more than 140 suicide missions — the highest number since being ousted from power by the U.S.-led invasion of 2001.
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NATO soldier wounded in Afghan suicide blast: officials
HERAT, Afghanistan (AFP) - A suicide car bomber attacked a convoy of NATO forces in western Afghanistan Tuesday, wounding a NATO soldier, while two Afghan militia troops died in a separate blast, officials said.
The suicide attacker detonated his explosives-filled vehicle near a NATO convoy in the Delaram district of western Farah province, provincial governor Ghulam Muahidin Baluch told AFP.
NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) also confirmed the incident, for which the extremist Taliban movement claimed responsibility.
"One ISAF soldier was wounded. It was a suicide car bomb attack," an ISAF spokesman told AFP.
The police spokesman for western Afghanistan, Abdul Raof Ahmadi, said the attack took place on the main highway from the southern city of Kandahar to the main western city of Herat.
A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, claimed responsibility for the attack in a telephone call from an unknown location.
"The attack was carried out by our mujahedeen," he said.
Separately, Afghan police clashed with Taliban insurgents in the same area on Monday, killing one Taliban fighter and wounding two Taliban and two policemen, said the governor.
Meanwhile a remote controlled roadside bomb struck the vehicle of Afghan militia soldiers hired by NATO forces in eastern Khost province, killing two militiamen, the provincial governor told AFP.
"The blast killed two soldiers and their vehicle was destroyed" in the attack in Alishir district, governor Arsala Jamal said.
The Taliban's Mujahid claimed responsibility for the blast and said four soldiers were killed in the incident.
The hardline Islamic Taliban movement was ousted from power in late 2001 by a US-led offensive but it has since launched a wave of bloody attacks which have claimed thousands of lives.
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Karzai seeks aid for Islamic schools
By AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghanistan needs more international help to build Islamic schools so fewer students will attend more radical ones outside the country, President Hamid Karzai said Tuesday.
Karzai said parents would not know what their children study in Islamic schools or madrassas outside the country — an apparent reference to neighboring Pakistan, with whom relations have been prickly.
"I wish all international communities, especially Islamic countries, would help us in constructing madrassas," Karzai said at an education conference in the capital, Kabul. He did not specify any countries.
"Our students should be inside our country under the control of our religious scholars and clerics," he said.
Education Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar said Afghanistan is building a "modern system of madrassas" offering a broad-based Islamic education.
He said Afghan parents do not want their children studying in "hate madrassas" abroad.
About 91,000 Afghan pupils — less than 2 percent of the country's 5.8 million students — now attend 336 madrassas nationwide.
Atmar recently said that when militant violence forces Afghan schools to close, students are left with no schooling or they attend madrassas in Pakistan, where he said they would be "professionally trained as terrorists."
A Pakistan religious affairs ministry employee said his country's madrassas were educating students well.
Atmar said the Afghan government has asked international military construction teams to help build madrassas.
The U.S. military has built two educational facilities and is building five more in eastern Afghanistan called centers for educational excellence — though some Afghans would call them madrassas — said spokesman Lt. Col. David Accetta. He said the boarding schools offer a balanced curriculum that includes religious studies.
"It's not what you would expect, I think, if you called it a madrassa," Accetta said. "A madrassa in most people's minds is a school where there is extremist religious education, and that's not what we're doing."
Atmar said militants destroyed 98 schools and forced 590 more to close in the past year, denying over 300,000 children the opportunity to go to school. Attacks have killed 147 children and teachers in the last year.
"However, the terrorists have miserably failed to break the will of our people," Atmar said. "Afghan parents continue to send their children to schools (and) rebuild the schools destroyed." Back to Top
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US dismisses Taliban assertion of 'defeat' in Afghanistan
Tue Feb 12, 1:38 AM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Washington has dismissed an assertion by fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar that the United States has been "defeated" in Afghanistan.
"He might want to come in and mention that directly to some of the NATO or American forces there," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Monday.
"I am sure they would be happy to receive him," he said.
The spokesman said that far from being vanquished militarily, NATO forces were succeeding in improving life for the people of Afghanistan.
"This is a country that has a government and people who are dedicated to getting a better future for themselves and not returning to the dark past of the rule of the Taliban," he said.
His remarks came in answer to a statement Monday attributed by a Taliban spokesman to Omar that "the United States has been defeated in Afghanistan."
"They have been trapped here and are desperately trying to get other countries involved," a spokesman for the militant Islamic leader said in a telephone call from an unknown location.
Omar's statement went on to say that the United States, which led the campaign that toppled the Taliban from government in late 2001, had "invaded" and "occupied" Afghanistan.
"We're fighting to free our country," it said, adding: "We're not a threat to the world."
"The world nations must compel their governments to withdraw from Afghanistan and abandon supporting the United States."
Omar has been on the run since 2001, when the United States levied a 10 million dollar bounty on his head.
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PM issues warning on Afghanistan conflict
Wednesday February 13, 01:51 AM ABC (Australia)
On the first of the year's sitting days, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has warned Federal Parliament that more Australian troops could be killed in Afghanistan.
Mr Rudd led this condolence motion in Parliament on Tuesday for the three soldiers who died in Afghanistan late last year.
"Our troops abroad - particularly those in Afghanistan - are facing increasingly difficult and dangerous times ahead and I fear greatly the prospect of further losses," he said.
"On behalf of the Australian Government and all members of the House, I offer our thoughts, our prayers [and] our support to the families and friends of Sergeant (matthew) Locke, Trooper (David) Pearce and Private (Luke) Worsley - brave soldiers all."
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UN appeals for 13 million dollars to help Afghan children
KABUL (AFP) - Hundreds of thousands of Afghan children lack proper food, water and other essentials while conflict hampers the delivery of help, UNICEF warned Tuesday in an appeal for 13 million dollars' emergency aid.
Its Humanitarian Action Report 2008 covers medicines, supplements, water systems, education facilities and play areas for children -- many from families that have returned from exile or been displaced by conflict.
"Afghanistan is facing a variety of natural and man-made disasters across the country," said the United Nations Children's Fund appeal for 39 countries.
"Armed conflict, school burning, suicide attacks and kidnapping and killing of humanitarian workers limit the access to civilian population and hamper the delivery of humanitarian assistance," UNICEF added.
The report said the return of 353,000 people from Pakistan and Iran last year, and the deportation of 260,300 more, was adding to the needs of people already affected by natural disaster.
Around 760 people have died from cold this winter, the government says, but parts of Afghanistan also suffer drought.
Growing conflict in the south and east is also adding to civilian casualties and population movement, with more than 2,000 families displaced in the south last year, UNICEF said.
Afghan people suffer some of the worst conditions in the world after decades of war and neglect. Around 1,600 out of 100,000 women die giving birth, while about 165 of 1,000 babies die in birth, according to United Nations figures.
One child out of four does not live to five, it says.
The UNICEF appeal said two million primary school-aged children, about 60 percent of all children, are out of school. About 1.3 million of these are girls.
Only 23 percent of the population -- 24 million based on UN figures for 2007 -- has access to safe drinking water and 12 percent to sanitation facilities, it says.
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Answer to Afghanistan question more complex than adding troops
Feb 12, 2008 04:30 AM James Travers Toronto Star
Just weeks ago, John Manley's report was part of the Afghanistan solution. Now it's part of the problem. Instead of informing a complex debate, its pivotal recommendation is being used to force a simplistic political choice and perhaps a federal election.
To the beat of campaign drums, Stephen Harper is demanding a yes-or-no answer to a public policy question Manley panellist and former top mandarin Paul Tellier calls the most difficult in memory. Clever as ever, the Prime Minister is remanufacturing Manley's minimum condition for continuing the Kandahar mission into a vital component for Afghanistan success.
Adding 1,000 NATO troops and more air support won't fix what's wrong with this attempted rescue of a failing state. As Manley found and studies warn, unco-ordinated strategies countering the insurgency, corruption and the booming opium business aren't working and demand hurried reconsideration.
That's not happening here. Neither the government's motion to stay the course at least until 2011 nor opposition objections come close to the heart of a matter costing lives and billions. What matters most is not how long the military stays or if its primary purpose is to fight, train, or reconstruct; it's what can reasonably be achieved.
Airing awkward truths is a first step toward a meaningful response. A stalemate bringing the Taliban into peace talks is now the best military hope, war-zone development is an oxymoron and, crucially, the Afghanistan outcome turns on factors far beyond Canadian control.
Another consideration is less abstract, closer to home. Ottawa must decide if distant, perpetually troubled Afghanistan is important enough to warrant being Canada's defining defence and foreign policy priority for the foreseeable future.
None of those worries will be eased in time to shape the federal government's immediate choice. The Taliban is far from its knees, it's early days for NATO's critical mission review and policy introspection is not a Conservative trait.
All that uncertainty suggests Parliament should be doing something it usually does well – buying time. Much will change over the next year, one that includes a U.S. presidential election. NATO will have to change course and make good on commitments or accept the Afghanistan consequences. Pakistan will either stabilize or become an even more jagged piece in the neighbourhood puzzle. And more experience might just widen Conservative tunnel world vision.
Whatever happens, and beyond assuring its allies that Canada will hold the Kandahar fort for at least a year beyond next February, there's little benefit and no urgency in making what is effectively an open-ended Afghanistan commitment. Instead, the Prime Minister should add to Manley's minimum condition a few others making this country's future role contingent on coherent, co-ordinated NATO strategies, agreement on what constitutes success and a clear commitment to burden sharing.
No matter how simple this government tries to make the question, the answer to Afghanistan is more complex than finding, as NATO will at Washington's insistence, more troops and aircraft. In reducing the debate to a binary choice, the Prime Minister is losing the opportunity for Manley's report to fuel a frank debate and perhaps a political consensus.
James Travers' national affairs column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
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Pakistan nuclear staff go missing
Tuesday, 12 February 2008 BBC News
Two employees of Pakistan's atomic energy agency have been abducted in the country's restive north-western region abutting the Afghan border, police say.
The technicians went missing on the same day as Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan, Tariq Azizuddin, was reportedly abducted in the same region.
Mr Azizuddin had been going overland from the city of Peshawar to Kabul.
Pakistan's north-west has witnessed fierce fighting between Islamist militants and government troops.
The pro-Taleban guerrillas declared a unilateral ceasefire last week after months of clashes with troops garrisoned there.
The workers from Pakistan's Atomic Energy Commission were on a mission to map mineral deposits in the mountains when they were kidnapped, police say.
"The technicians were going for some geological survey in the area when they were kidnapped at gunpoint along with their driver," Romail Akram, a senior police official, told Reuters news agency.
Their vehicle was intercepted by masked gunmen in the Dera Ismail Khan district, a stronghold of local militants.
"We don't know if the abductors were militants or members of some criminal gang," a local police chief, Akbar Nasir, told the AFP news agency.
He said efforts to locate the missing men had yet to yield any results.
Karzai concerned
Efforts are also continuing to locate the missing Pakistani envoy, Tariq Azizuddin.
Mr Azizuddin went missing on Monday as he was travelling overland from the Pakistani city of Peshawar to the Afghan capital, Kabul.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he was certain the envoy had been abducted, adding: "I hope he is safe and I hope he will be released soon."
The Khyber region has long been a base for bandits and smugglers but has seen little of the unrest linked to an uprising by Islamist militants in adjoining areas.
Pro-Taleban militants recently kidnapped more than 200 Pakistani troops in the South Waziristan region.
The soldiers were reportedly released in a prisoner exchange with Pakistani authorities.
'Protected road'
Pakistan's government has refused to confirm Mr Azizuddin has been kidnapped, saying only that he was missing.
The Pakistani embassy in Kabul said contact was lost with Mr Azizuddin at around 1045 local time (0645 GMT) on Monday.
There were reports on Pakistani television of his car going through a checkpoint without stopping.
An official of the Khyber agency tribal administration told the BBC that the ambassador went through the Khyber agency without taking a security escort that was waiting for him at the start of the tribal territory.
Correspondents say that such escorts are routinely sent with dignitaries and officials when they travel through tribal areas.
But some travellers dispense with them because they think it makes their movements more noticeable.
Mr Azizuddin is said to have previously travelled to Kabul by road, often without the tribal security escort.
The route through the agency is believed to be the shortest and quickest way between Peshawar and Kabul.
Being the main trade route, the Khyber agency road is busy in daylight hours, supplying reinforcements and to the US and Nato forces in Afghanistan.
It is also one of the most protected of all the tribal roads, with a contingent of tribal police posted every 100m. The paramilitary Frontier Corps have a fort along the road.
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Taliban only fighting to expel foreigners - Omar
KABUL, Feb 11 (Reuters) - Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar said on Monday the hardline Islamist movement was not a threat to the world and was only fighting to eject foreign troops from Afghanistan.
The reclusive Afghan Taliban leader said he was making the remarks in response to statements by U.S. officials, who have warned Afghanistan could again become a failed state and an al Qaeda haven if the fight against the Taliban is lost.
"We want legitimate relations with countries of the world and we are not a threat to anyone," said a statement signed by Omar and published by the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press.
"America portrays the Taliban as a threat to countries of the world and, with such propaganda, wants to use the countries and governments of the world in pursuit of its own interests.
"If foreign troops leave Afghanistan, that will be a victory for the people of Afghanistan," he said.
U.S. and British ministers are pressing reluctant NATO allies to send more troops to Afghanistan, especially the volatile south, to quell the Taliban insurgency relaunched two years ago.
More than 6,000 people were killed in fighting in Afghanistan last year, nearly 2,000 of them civilians.
While the Taliban have suffered heavy casualties every time they have fought international troops, their strategy of guerrilla attacks, suicide and roadside bombs is aimed at sapping foreign governments' political will to sustain the war.
"It would ... be better if the people of the world put pressure on their governments to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan and give the people of Afghanistan the right to establish a government based on their own will," Omar said.
U.S.-led and Afghan forces toppled the Taliban government in late 2001 after Omar refused to hand over al Qaeda leaders behind the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
A U.S. official last week said Omar was directing Taliban operations in Afghanistan from the Pakistani city of Quetta, a charge the Pakistan government strongly denies.
In a separate development on Monday, Pakistani security forces wounded and captured prominent Taliban commander Mullah Mansour Dadullah as he crossed the border into Pakistan.
Omar removed Dadullah from command of Taliban militants in the southern province of Helmand after the regional commander had been involved in failed negotiations to enter the Afghan government's reconciliation process, diplomats said.
NATO forces in Afghanistan say they are making progress against the Taliban and have had a number of successes targeting Taliban leaders and bringing Afghan forces increasingly to the fore in consolidating security.
But frustration with poor security, the slow pace of development and official corruption is turning public opinion against the pro-Western government of President Hamid Karzai. (Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
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Al-Qaeda sets sight on the next battlefield
REVOLT IN PAKISTAN'S TRIBAL AREAS, Part 2
By Syed Saleem Shahzad Asia Times Online / February 12, 2008
PESHAWAR, North-West Frontier Province - Despite last week's ceasefire agreement between the Pakistani security forces and the Pakistani Taliban in the tribal areas, it is clear that a major regional battle between al-Qaeda and the Western coalition is still pending, starting in Pakistan.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, during a visit to Germany on Sunday, did not mince his words in saying that al-Qaeda and Taliban forces in Pakistan's northwest frontier region pose a direct threat to the Islamabad government.
The remaining issue is who strikes first, and against whom.
"Undoubtedly, we are under observation, especially those who live in the cities," says a Pakistani and a member of al-Qaeda's shura (council) who spoke to this correspondent in Peshawar.
"We can sense a big operation is being planned against us in Pakistan's cities, but perhaps the security agencies will not get the chance to strike first," says the man, speaking under the nom de plume of Abu Haris.
"Pakistan's fears are not without basis. After Lal Masjid [Red Mosque operation in Islamabad last year in which the radical mosque was stormed], Sheikh [Osama bin Laden] personally appointed an amir [chief] for Pakistan for khuruj [revolt]. The decision got the approval of the shura and then an organization was set up in various Pakistani cities," the al-Qaeda member says.
"They were given resources and recently a new amir was appointed [the change was due to some unavoidable circumstances]. However, the greatest shock [for us] was in Karachi, where members of Jundullah [Army of God - a militant organization that targets the Pakistan state] were arrested. But we will recover and the arrests did not expose the identities of others as we have worked a lot to plug loopholes in our organization," Abu Haris says. (See Shootout echoes across Pakistan Asia Times Online, January 31, 2007.)
He says different people have different tasks and although the cells do meet together in the Waziristan tribal areas, they are not aware of each other's locations or precise tasks and operations.
Abu Haris believes this approach has saved the organization from being penetrated by intelligence agencies, which is why the rate of arrests of al-Qaeda members has dwindled in recent months.
Abu Haris is assigned by al-Qaeda to Pakistan, which means the cities, not the tribal areas. He says al-Qaeda has not only revived the structure that was destroyed after the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, but has greatly expanded its work.
Largely known as an Arab organization, al-Qaeda has now absorbed thousands of former members of Pakistani jihadi organizations, given them representation in the shura and delegated them operations in Pakistan.
Abu Haris is an example of this. He was a member of the banned Lashkar-i-Toiba, which concentrated its operations on Kashmir, but he is now a member of al-Qaeda's shura and in charge of a cell operating in the Peshawar Valley.
"The nature of operations and policies is different in Afghanistan, entirely different from those in the tribal areas, and now we have a completely different approach in Pakistani cities," Abu Haris said.
The post-ceasefire suicide bombing in the town of Charsadda in North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) at the weekend illustrates this. At least 25 people were killed and more than 40 injured in an attack on a rally of the Awami National Party - a secular, ethnic Pashtun group - ahead of national elections scheduled for February 18.
The plan of khuruj
The addition of former jihadis, who were trained by Pakistani intelligence to fight in Indian-held Kashmir, and some retired Pakistani army officers to al-Qaeda's ranks has brought about a major change in the group's operational approach.
Al-Qaeda began to concentrate more on strategic matters and an intelligence and review committee was formed. This is run by Pakistanis based in Pakistani cities. One of their tasks is to cull media sources for items on issues ranging from United States and European Union policy to matters concerning al-Qaeda. They then prepare summary papers and analysis which is passed on to members of the shura and high command.
For instance, recently the committee analyzed the issue of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, which has been much in the spotlight amid Western fears of it falling into militant hands. There has even been talk of the US trying to take control of it. However, the al-Qaeda assessment was that staff at the nuclear facilities was "patriotic, clean and better Muslims than the military leadership" and that any intervention by the Americans would be strongly resisted.
Al-Qaeda's shura makes all decisions, including the religious and strategic assessment of any project, for instance the decision to stage a khuruj was approved by Bin Laden last year.
The shura discussed the religious justification of khuruj and after long debate agreed it was essential for Pakistan. The religious requirements to launch khuruj include the appointment of an "amir of khuruj".
According to sharia law, khuruj against rulers can only be launched when the chances of success are good.
"It [khuruj] will be different from isolated attacks, rather it will be collective actions of revolt throughout Pakistani cities. This is what khuruj is by strategy and according to the demands of sharia," Abu Haris said.
All the same, al-Qaeda is aware it doesn't have the following such as the Iranian revolution had in 1979 when the Shah was swept out of power. Al-Qaeda's strength in urban centers is estimated at not much more than a few thousand.
All the same, Abu Haris is confident. "Just a few steps would be enough to break the binding forces of the country, and then it will fall into our hands," he says. "For instance, there are two major [oil] refineries in the country. If we were to blow them, the country would face a severe energy crisis. Everything would come to a halt and riots would erupt. There are already so many divisions in the country that the riots would bring it to the verge of collapse.
"The Pakistani army would be incapable of containing this. The 1965 war [with India] is evidence. Pakistan opened up a front in Indian Kashmir and in retaliation the Indians went for large-scale war ... the fact is that the Pakistani army was demoralized and desertions were rampant.
"We assess that any large-scale operation would break the army and Pakistan, and this would be a blessing for us. Of course, the Indians would take advantage of the situation and that's why we have a plan to immediately spread this war to the whole region, including India and Afghanistan," Abu Haris explains, basing his arguments on information from al-Qaeda's intelligence and review committee.
Pakistan in peril? Pakistan and al-Qaeda have had an informal agreement that al-Qaeda will not be targeted if it respects the sanctity of Pakistan. Certainly, the Pakistani security forces - mostly under US duress - have launched many operations in the tribal areas, but the militants have generally responded by only fighting against the security forces.
However, the recent arrests in Karachi stunned General Headquarters in Rawalpindi as they came to appreciate the full extent of al-Qaeda's plans for sabotage in the cities.
Pakistani intelligence agencies were aware to some extent of the problem of militancy, but preferred not to tackle it head-on lest it explode in their faces.
Another incident also jolted the Pakistani army. Intelligence had been reporting for the past year of the presence of militants in Dara Adam Khail, in NWFP, but the army ignored the warnings. However, when militants seized the strategic Peshawar-Kohat tunnel, which cut off NWFP from the rest of the country, and with it military supplies, the army was shocked.
Retired Brigadier Mehmood Shah, a former secretary of FATA (the Federally Administered Tribal Areas) , commented to a national TV network, "I don't think that ordinary Taliban are behind such a sophisticated military strategy, which cuts off military supply lines. Only national armies can plan such operations. I think there is some external hand behind that operation."
However, this assessment ignores developments. The forms of militancy have changed. It is nothing like the tribal rebellion against British India when guerrilla war meant firing on military convoys from behind rocks. The touch of the military brains (see Military brains plot Pakistan's downfall Asia Times Online, September 26, 2007) has brought sophistication to the militancy.
In addition to mainstream al-Qaeda, the Pakistani Taliban and the Afghan Taliban, many unnamed militant groups operate with different agendas, and they are little-know to Pakistani intelligence.
Many analysts believe Pakistan has undergone a major shift in its policies in the tribal areas and that last week's ceasefire is a manifestation of this.
"It is an illusion to think Pakistan has changed its policies. American pressure is so immense that Pakistan just would not dare to change its policies. They will definitely come after us, but this time we will not give them the chance of first strike," Abu Haris says.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief.
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Soldier film feeds German Afghanistan debate
Reuters
BERLIN - When director Brigitte Bertele shot her film about a traumatized German soldier returning from Afghanistan, she did not think its release would coincide with a heated debate about the deployment of further troops abroad.
Bertele's "Nacht vor Augen" is set to engage viewers just as Chancellor Angela Merkel's government is under pressure from its NATO partners to send more troops to dangerous parts of Afghanistan.
"It seemed like irony of fate," Bertele, 33, said of the timing, adding she hoped the film would open people's eyes about the implications of a deployment that German politicians have often played down as a limited humanitarian relief mission.
The film shows 25-year old David returning to his village in the Black Forest, where his friends jokingly receive him as "Rocky Kabul" and his girlfriend Kirsten proudly presents their newly refurbished apartment to him.
"All paid for with your danger money!" Kirsten exclaims.
But instead of showing interest in the new furniture -- or his girlfriend -- David locks himself in the bathroom.
The blonde, muscular soldier is haunted by nightmares. But he struggles to share memories of his combat experience with friends and family who treat his time in the war zone like an exotic holiday.
"Why are you carrying a weapon?" David's mother exclaims as she glances over his Afghanistan pictures. "It's compulsory," her son says, as his young half-brother Benni watches him admiringly.
"He didn't really fight, did he?" David's mother asks her husband. "No, he was building peace," he replies.
Many politicians have been careful not to portray the Afghan deployment as a combat mission, aware that images of Germans fighting abroad still stir unease among many people mindful of the horrors of World War Two.
But Bertele said this stance was problematic.
"Since 1945, it's been clear that Germany would not participate in war activities again," she told Reuters. "But I think we must also be careful not to make this a taboo issue."
"If Germany decides to send troops abroad, then we must also talk about aspects linked to a possible use of force ... is being presented as a reconstruction mission, but there's huge psychological pressure attached to being in an area where you may fear for your life every day."
As David is training his admiring half-brother how to become a better soccer player and a tougher boy, he realizes he cannot shrug off the demons that are slowly taking over his life.
"Have you ever been scared?" Ben asks the older brother, who local media have dubbed "the hero from the Black Forest" but who has become a secret bed-wetter.
"Not since the age of six," David boasts, before admitting quietly: "And in Afghanistan, sometimes."
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Vodafone to launch mobile phone money transfer service in Afghanistan
by Katell Abiven Tue Feb 12, 1:51 AM ET
BARCELONA, Spain (AFP) - British operator Vodafone announced Monday at the industry's annual trade show in Barcelona that it would launch a money transfer service in Afghanistan after the successful introduction of a similar initiative in Kenya.
An estimated 1.6 million people have begun using the Vodafone scheme in Kenya since its launch in March last year. In a country of 10 million mobile phone users, there are only 400 bank outlets and 600 automatic teller machines.
"This is really the early days, but when you see the low banking penetration in emerging markets, compared to rapidly growing mobile penetration, the potential is very big," said James Moberly, senior manager for payment solutions at Vodafone on the sidelines of the Mobile World Congress here.
The GSM Association, the global mobile phone industry body, estimates that about a dozen such schemes involving money transfer services are in operation throughout the world, with 10 million users.
Vodafone plans to launch cash transfer services soon in India and other African countries.
"You can send money, withdraw cash, pay your bills or your loan, and all this is within seconds," said Aleeda Fazal, head of product development at Afghan group Roshan, which is the partner for Vodafone in the troubled country.
In effect, the network operator acts as a money transfer agent for the subscriber.
The user deposits money and then sends an SMS to a person who can go to a phone shop anywhere in the country and take out the amount stipulated in the text message.
Operators win in three ways, explained a spokesman for the GSM Association, which represents 700 mobile operators.
"The operator gets a small commission, but above all it boosts customer loyalty and it increases traffic on its network", said David Pringle.
The problem, or opportunity, at the moment is that the cash transfers can only be done within a country, excluding the millions of migrant workers who send money home regularly from abroad.
The GSM Association cites figures that 200 million people work in a country that is not their own, on average sending home 2,000-3,000 dollars per year to their loved ones.
This puts the value of the international money transfer market at about 250 billion dollars, with India, China and Mexico the biggest destinations for cash.
International money transfers are long, complicated and are also limited by the lack of banking infrastructure in many developing countries.
With a view to promoting the idea of cross-border money transfers via mobile phones, the GSM Association launched last year a pilot programme with 19 operators in 100 countries and involving Mastercard and international transfer specialist Western Union.
If a solution can be found, the GSM estimates that the flow of funds could increase by four-fold by 2012, reaching 1,000 billion dollars.
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Will India again leave Afghanistan?
Ajai Shukla Business Standard (India) New Delhi February 12, 2008
Being forced out of a country by the enemy, like India was from Afghanistan in 1996, when Taliban fighters encircled Kabul, is always a foreign policy nightmare. Just twelve years on, another evacuation from Afghanistan no longer seems impossible.
On Saturday, Washington sent out a warning that reeked of mission failure. After six years of counter-terrorism operations, a senior Bush official categorically stated that the top leaders of the Taliban's shura (council), including Mullah Omar, were living in Quetta in Pakistan; the Al Qaeda leadership, including Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, said the official, are living in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP).
Washington's frankness was not directed at Pakistan alone; it was timed with the annual Munich Conference of the 26-country North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), where the US unsuccessfully prodded reluctant NATO countries to send troops into combat in southern Afghanistan. The combined armies of NATO number more than two million men in arms, but the alliance can barely muster up 26,000 soldiers in southern Afghanistan. Other than four countries - the US, the UK, Canada and Holland - the other NATO members are willing to send troops only to the relatively peaceful north of the country. The rift is growing bitter; on Sunday, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates called NATO's very future into question, saying it could not continue as a two-tiered alliance of countries that fought and others that did not.
But Europe is unmoved, and the reason is two-fold. First, there is the mistaken belief that the global policeman, America, will continue to fight the difficult battles. And secondly, there is an understandable reluctance to get embroiled in Afghanistan, where the seemingly simple issues of relief and stabilisation have been complicated by local and regional power dynamics that outsiders simply cannot influence.
Take, for example, the difficult debate among Pakistan's policymakers between those who see no option but to fight the Taliban in the areas bordering Afghanistan, and those who advocate making peace with them. Islamabad is caught in the cleft stick between getting into a bloody counter-insurgency war on the side of the unpopular Americans, on the one hand, or surrendering the tribal areas to self-avowed fundamentalists, on the other.
Until last week, Islamabad was fighting the good fight. But on Thursday, the Pakistani Army signed a cease-fire with Taliban commander Beitullah Mehsud, the man who proudly claims to control an army of suicide bombers and who Islamabad itself blames for the murder of Benazir Bhutto.
The ceasefire has immediately de-escalated the fighting in Pakistan's NWFP. That is good news for the Pakistan Army, but even better news for Afghan Taliban commanders who rely on safe havens on the Pakistani side of the border for manpower and provisions. The Afghan Taliban will gain strength and sustenance from this cease-fire; the cease-fire in North Waziristan in 2006 allowed them to launch their fiercest ever offensives in Afghanistan that year. These complex regional interlinkages make most European countries reluctant to risk their soldiers' lives in such a shifting and uncertain battlefield.
Bonn and Paris have also noted that regional powers like India, with a far more direct stake in Afghanistan, have steadfastly refused to join the fight. India has committed close to three quarters of a billion dollars in the carefully considered reconstruction of that ravaged country. But NATO's more cautious members would have noticed that India's National Security Advisor, MK Narayanan, who addressed the Munich Conference on Sunday, spoke about the interconnect between Al Qaeda and terrorist outfits that target India - the Lashkar-e-Toiba, the Jaish-e-Mohammad, the Harkat-ul-Jehad-e-Islami - but not about sending troops to Afghanistan.
Today, New Delhi is already facing up to the possibility that Afghanistan could fall to the Taliban and, like in the late 1990s, it may have to close its embassy and pull Indian nationals out of that country. Senior foreign ministry officials have already begun totting up the gains and losses of the last six years in Afghanistan. One of the gains they focus on is the building of strong linkages with the Pashtun community, and even with the more moderate elements within the Taliban. New Delhi's flow of aid has won many friends within a country that is naturally well disposed to India. But the well understood bottom-line remains: India will evacuate from Afghanistan rather than get embroiled in battle there.
Like most members of NATO, India prefers to fight terrorism at home, rather than the go-out-and-get-'em approach that America has followed. This despite signals from extremist networks that a jehadi victory in Afghanistan would translate into a stepped up jehad in J&K. Former ISI chief, Lt General Hamid Gul, one of the architects of the Kashmir insurgency has called for a renewed push in Kashmir, which, he says, will be possible after the US leaves Afghanistan.
But for now, the US stands fast and India benefits daily from that presence. History will mock one of George W Bush's most ill-judged speeches, when he declared victory in Iraq from the flight deck of the aircraft carrier, USS Abraham Lincoln, on 1st May 2003. Later in that speech, in a statement that has already been forgotten, Bush said, "Other nations in history have fought in foreign lands and remained to occupy and exploit. Americans, following a battle, want nothing more than to return home."
India is not the only country that secretly hopes that America stays on for now in Afghanistan.
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United Club triumph in Martyrs Cup opener
Ahmad Shah Sabir
ZARANJ, Jan 12 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The United Club edged past their rivals in the opener of a soccer tournament played in Zaranj, the capital of the Nimroz province.
A thousand fans looked on as the victors downed the Arman-i-Shuhada Club 1-0 in dying moments of the action-packed encounter. The decisive goal was scored by Ahmad Javed 15 minutes before the end of the match.
Arman-i-Shuhada coach Syed Mehmud told Pajhwok Afghan News on Saturday his players would work harder to give a better performance in remaining matches of the competition.
Provincial Olympic Committee head Muhammad Nasir Husseini said the Inqilab team from Zaranj and their rivals from the Chehar Burjak district were to meet in the second fixture later today.
The Martyrs Cup, featuring 10 clubs, is aimed at discouraging the involvement of the youth in narcotics and social evils, according Husseini, who said the tournament would last a month and a half.
First, second and third teams would be awarded cups and prizes at the end of the competition, the official said.
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Commerce minister summoned to Parliament
Makia Monir - Feb 9, 2008
KABUL (Pajhwok Afghan News): Wolesi Jirga speaker Muhammad Younis Qanoni on Saturday said that President Hamid Karzai had accepted legislators' demand for summoning Commerce & Industries minister to the parliament.
The minister is due to present his explanation to the house on Monday.
Following sever criticism by a number MPs regarding the increasing prices at least 20 MPs voted to summon Muhammad Amin Farhang for explanation. According to the state constitution a cabinet minister can be summoned for explanation by votes from at least 20 legislators.
President Hamid Karzai had once refused the MPs suggestion for summoning the minister in the lower house, Ramazan Bashardost angry on the presidential response had called on the MPs to stage a walkout from the house unless the government respected their decisions; however the parliament house resumed normally on Saturday.
President Hamid Karzai agreed with the demand of the legislators in a grand meeting of three powers of the state led by President Hamid Karzai, Qanoni added while briefing in the house on Saturday.
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