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March 31, 2008 

New Joint Effort Aims to Empower Afghan Tribes to Guard Themselves
By Ann Scott Tyson Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, March 31, 2008; Page A15
Afghan, British and U.S. officials have launched a new security initiative to empower tribes and other residents -- including former Taliban -- to guard their communities in southern Afghanistan against insurgents and criminals.

2 British soldiers killed in Afghanistan
By NOOR KHAN, Associated Press Writer
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A clash in southern Afghanistan killed a Danish soldier and wounded two others Monday, officials said. A separate attack on a NATO patrol killed two British troops, officials said.

Georgia offers 500 troops to NATO Afghan force
Mon Mar 31, 2008
TBILISI (Reuters) - Georgia is offering to send a 500-strong force to join NATO operations in Afghanistan, a defense ministry source said on Monday, two days before an alliance summit considers Georgia's application for membership.

Bush starts European tour in NATO aspirant Ukraine
by Nick Coleman
KIEV (AFP) - US President George W. Bush was to visit Ukraine on Monday at the start of a tour aimed at pushing NATO allies for more support in Afghanistan as well as reaching compromise in relations with Russia.

Bush to Meet NATO Allies Divided Over Adding Troops in Afghanistan
By Peter Baker and Ann Scott Tyson Washington Post Staff Writers Monday, March 31, 2008; 7:50 AM
President Bush left for Europe today to try to rescue the faltering mission in Afghanistan, and key NATO allies plan to meet his demands for more forces with modest troop increases, though not by as much as U.S. military officers say is needed

UNHCR: 10,000 Afghan refugees return home from Pakistan in one month
People's Daily - Mar 31 3:36 AM
About 10,000 Afghan refugees have returned home with the support of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) since resuming voluntary repatriation over the past one month, the body's country representative Salvatore Lombardo said Monday.

Afghan lawmakers pass resolution aimed at censoring un-Islamic images on TV
By ALISA TANG,Associated Press Writer AP
KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghanistan's lower house of Parliament passed a resolution Monday seeking to bar television programs from showing dancing and other practices deemed un-Islamic.

What Afghanistan wants to see on television
By David Blair in Kabul The Telegraph (UK) March 31, 2008
When Afghans turn on their televisions, they do not want to be regaled with current affairs or debates on the Koran. Instead, they want Indian soap operas, complete with sari-clad women and convoluted love stories.

Norwegian base in Afghanistan attacked
March 31, 2008 at 10:17 AM
MEYMANEH, Afghanistan, March 31 (UPI) -- Three rockets targeted a Norwegian military base in northern Afghanistan early Monday, prompting the evacuation of the base, military officials said.

The Longest War
Washington Post, United States By Richard Holbrooke Monday, March 31, 2008
KHOST, Afghanistan -This former Taliban stronghold, where Osama bin Laden spent time planning the Sept. 11 attacks, has become an American success story. The Taliban is being pushed out, and a government presence is extending

Questionable peace if Taliban are part of it
Sydney Morning Herald, Australia Faridullah Bezhan March 31, 2008
After six years of fighting in Afghanistan, sharing power with the Taliban has been suggested as the way to end the war. Negotiating with the "moderate" and "good" Taliban is an idea the Afghan Government and the coalition forces have employed

Afghanistan: 'Opium Brides' pay the price
Press Trust of India Monday, March 31, 2008 (New York)
As Afghanistan battles to check growing poppy production, there thrives a disturbing trend behind the scene, where daughters of poppy producers pay the price for the unpaid loans.

Roadside bombing kills 3 guards of road construction company in S Afghanistan
www.chinaview.cn  2008-03-31 18:52:21
KABUL, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Three security guards from one local road construction company were killed by roadside bombing when patrolling in the construction site in southern Afghan province of Kandahar Monday, said an official.

ISAF inaugurates Sarobi hospital pavilion, police station
Source: North Atlantic Treaty Organisation 31 Mar 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan – ISAF troops celebrated the opening of two new structures Saturday.

Scribe on death row to appeal
Sunday, 30 March, 2008, 07:47 AM Doha Time
KABUL: A young Afghan journalist sentenced to death in northern Afghanistan on charges of blasphemy has been moved to Kabul ahead of an appeal due soon, media rights groups said yesterday.

Talking to the Taliban
Globe and Mail Update March 31, 2008 at 7:00 AM EDT
For six days Globe and Mail readers have been given an unprecedented look at the Taliban in the series Talking to the Taliban, by Graeme Smith.

World Bank to Fund Renovation of Power System in Afghan Capital
Monday, 31 March 2008, 03:00 CDT RedOrbit, TX
Text of report by state-owned National Afghanistan TV on 30 March
[Presenter] The Energy and Water Ministry and a representative of the World Bank signed a contract worth 16m dollars to renovate the system for distribution of low-voltage electricity in Kabul city. My colleague Asghar Jawed has more details.
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New Joint Effort Aims to Empower Afghan Tribes to Guard Themselves
By Ann Scott Tyson Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, March 31, 2008; Page A15
Afghan, British and U.S. officials have launched a new security initiative to empower tribes and other residents -- including former Taliban -- to guard their communities in southern Afghanistan against insurgents and criminals.

The controversial multimillion-dollar program, approved last month by President Hamid Karzai and a group of senior Afghan and foreign officials, will provide radios, phones and cash to village and tribal elders, who in turn agree to work with government forces and deny haven to insurgents. The program would also promote reconciliation by vetting and integrating former Taliban.

"You can call them night watchmen or home guards. They are not a formed militia, and there is no net increase in weapons. . . . It is simply creating an antibody to the Taliban in these communities," a senior Western official said. "Taliban commanders and their fighters have come over to us and say they want to work with the government . . . so this is already happening."

The initiative, called the Afghan Social Outreach Program, is partly a response to the troubled Afghan police force, which is widely viewed as predatory, officials said. It is part of a broader governance effort lead by Jelani Popal, head of the six-month-old Independent Directorate of Local Governance, which reports to Karzai. "There is a problem of corruption . . . warlordism and the drug mafia," Popal said.

Popal has been assessing governors and district leaders, and, with Karzai's authority, removing ineffective or criminal ones. He is also helping districts and provinces create their own development plans.

"The most important change in Afghanistan on the civilian side in 2007 was the removal of responsibility for local government from the flawed Ministry of Interior," said U.S. Ambassador William Wood.

British Ambassador Sherard Cowper-Coles said, "We've got to do it the Afghan way . . . by empowering communities."

Others warn the initiative could backfire. "If you begin to lean solely to local security solutions, you may inadvertently re-empower some old power brokers," said Gen. Dan K. McNeill, head of the International Security Assistance Force.
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2 British soldiers killed in Afghanistan
By NOOR KHAN, Associated Press Writer
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A clash in southern Afghanistan killed a Danish soldier and wounded two others Monday, officials said. A separate attack on a NATO patrol killed two British troops, officials said.

The clash with insurgents in volatile Helmand province brought to 14 the number of Danish troops who have been killed in Afghanistan since Denmark joined the U.S.-led coalition in 2002.

The blast that struck another NATO patrol in the same province killed two members of 40 Commando Royal Marines, Britain's Ministry of Defense said.

Ninety-one British troops have now died in Afghanistan since 2001.

Helmand, the biggest opium poppy-producing region in the world, has been the site of the bloodiest battles between insurgents and international forces.

In neighboring Kandahar province, a roadside bomb hit a car carrying Afghan private security guards protecting a road construction crew in Zhari district on Monday, killing three guards, said district chief Niyaz Mohammad Sarhadi.

More than 8,000 people were killed in the insurgency in 2007, the deadliest year since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

Twelve militants died in separate clashes with Afghan and international troops in the country's south over the weekend.
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Georgia offers 500 troops to NATO Afghan force
Mon Mar 31, 2008
TBILISI (Reuters) - Georgia is offering to send a 500-strong force to join NATO operations in Afghanistan, a defense ministry source said on Monday, two days before an alliance summit considers Georgia's application for membership.

"Talks on sending up to 500 Georgian peacekeepers to Afghanistan are now under way," the source, who did not want to be named, told Reuters.

To date, the ex-Soviet state's only contribution to the NATO force in Afghanistan has been a solitary doctor, though Georgia has several hundred servicemen serving in Iraq as part of a U.S.-led coalition.

NATO has been beset in recent months by noisy infighting over Afghanistan about troop levels, tactics and the refusal of some European allies to send soldiers into the fiercest fighting in southern areas of the country.

Georgia hopes to be given a Membership Action Plan (MAP) -- a roadmap to eventual entry to NATO -- at an alliance summit starting on Wednesday in Bucharest.

A tiny Caucasus nation, Georgia has drawn ire from its imperial master Russia because of its close ties with the United States and its bid to join NATO.

Georgia boosted its force in Iraq from 850 to 2,000 last year. It later said it would cut its contingent to 300 servicemen by August 2008.

But after Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili had talks with U.S. President George W. Bush in Washington this month, officials in Tbilisi said the contingent in Iraq would not be cut and would stay until the end of the year.

Several Georgian soldiers, who are deployed in and around Baghdad, have been wounded during the Iraq deployment, which started in 2003. But none have been killed.

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Bush starts European tour in NATO aspirant Ukraine
by Nick Coleman
KIEV (AFP) - US President George W. Bush was to visit Ukraine on Monday at the start of a tour aimed at pushing NATO allies for more support in Afghanistan as well as reaching compromise in relations with Russia.

At talks on Tuesday with Ukraine's pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko Bush was expected to stress Washington's support for the country's plans to join the NATO military alliance.

Analysts predicted however that both Ukraine and fellow NATO aspirant Georgia would not receive a formal signal to begin accession to the alliance at a summit to be attended by Bush later in the week in Romania.

"I believe that NATO benefits, and Ukraine and Georgia benefit, if and when there is membership," Bush told reporters ahead of his visit.

"I do know that one of the signals we're going to have to send, and must send, is there is a clear path forward for Ukraine and Georgia" on NATO membership, he said.

But ahead of Bush's arrival protesters demonstrated against NATO accession both on Ukraine's politically sensitive Crimea peninsula on Saturday and in the capital Kiev.

The protests underlined significant levels of opposition to membership both in Ukraine and on the part of its giant neighbour Russia, whose President Vladimir Putin has been invited to the Bucharest summit.

In Kiev a few thousand protesters waved flags and hurled abuse against Bush and NATO.

Amid a delicate patch in relations between Washington and Moscow, Bush is also to hold talks with Putin in Russia after the NATO summit, visiting the Russian leader's Black Sea holiday residence.

Moscow-based defence analyst Pavel Felgenhauer said that wider strategic considerations meant Georgia and Ukraine would not gain an immediate green light from NATO.

He said Bush was seeking a softening of Russian opposition to US plans to set up missile defence facilities in the Czech Republic and Poland, as well as Russian agreement to allow NATO supplies to transit through Russia en route to Afghanistan.

In part Bush wants to prove the success of his Republican party's policy on Russia and thus support the Republican candidate John McCain in the US pre-election period, Felgenhauer said.

"It's a grand deal that involves a lot of things outside -- not only Ukraine and Georgia.... The Bush administration and Bush personally want to show that Russia policy was not a disaster at all," Felgenhauer said.

Another key theme of Bush's visit and the NATO summit on April 2-4 is to persuade fellow NATO states to commit more troops for Afghanistan, the second front in the so-called "war on terror," where failure would be seen as a personal blow.

"Part of our collective mission in Romania for the NATO meeting is to encourage people to take our obligations seriously," Bush said on the subject of Afghanistan.

Ahead of Bush's arrival in Kiev, Ukraine desire for NATO membership was stressed by Yushchenko's chief spokesman, Alexander Chaly.

"We hope the United States will clearly support our ambition to join the membership action plan," a formal stepping stone to membership, said Chaly.

In Georgia meanwhile President Mikheil Saakashvili was more strident, warning NATO states against "appeasing" Russia and drawing comparisons with international appeasement of Nazi Germany before World War II.

"Appeasement is seen there (Russia)... as a signal that they should act even tougher, and they will be even tougher, and they will be even more aggressive and provocative," Saakashvili told The Financial Times daily in Britain.

"No matter what some Europeans might be thinking, it's basically giving them direct veto rights, because that's how they'll perceive it."

Bush was to spend less than 24 hours in Ukraine, before heading on to Bucharest.
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Bush to Meet NATO Allies Divided Over Adding Troops in Afghanistan
By Peter Baker and Ann Scott Tyson Washington Post Staff Writers Monday, March 31, 2008; 7:50 AM
President Bush left for Europe today to try to rescue the faltering mission in Afghanistan, and key NATO allies plan to meet his demands for more forces with modest troop increases, though not by as much as U.S. military officers say is needed to put down a stubborn Taliban insurgency.

France has signaled it will announce at this week's NATO summit that it will send another 1,000 troops to Afghanistan, while Britain plans to send about 800 more and Poland has already promised another 400. But Germany and others refuse to contribute additional ground forces, and the United States may have to increase its own commitment to make up the shortfall, U.S. and European officials and analysts said.

The friction over force levels underscores a philosophical divide between the United States and its allies over the best approach in Afghanistan more than six years after U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban government -- and, more broadly, over the future of the NATO alliance. The summit in Bucharest, Romania, which begins Wednesday, will also test the allies over issues such as NATO enlargement, missile defense and the relationship with an increasingly muscular Russia.

Nothing on the agenda is more important to Bush's legacy than turning Afghanistan around. "It's very clear that we all need to do more," national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley said last week. "The president's message is going to be one of the importance of success in Afghanistan, the need for all countries to make it a priority, the need for us to develop a more integrated strategy for success and the need for all of us to do more."

Gen. Dan K. McNeill, top commander of the NATO-led international force, has already sent the alliance a similar message in starker terms: Provide more troops or accept a longer war. "I'd like the NATO allies and their non-NATO partners in this alliance to properly resource this force," he said in a recent interview at his Kabul headquarters, "and absent that, that they adopt the patience and will for a slower pace of progress."

McNeill estimated that it will be necessary to maintain at least the current foreign force level in Afghanistan -- now about 55,000, including 27,000 U.S. troops among NATO and non-NATO forces -- for at least three to five years until Afghan security forces are ready to take over. It will take that long for Afghan forces to obtain the airplanes, helicopters and other logistical support they need to be fully independent, he said.

Also important would be lifting the restrictions each nation sets on what its forces can do. On the wall beside McNeill's desk is a chart detailing the various restraints, with columns labeled "Prohibited" and "Yes, but . . . ." McNeill said he repeatedly asks foreign governments to lift limits temporarily. "I'm batting about .500," he said. In a war, he added, "it's not a good average."

The resistance by many NATO allies to stepping up their involvement despite pressure from Bush and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates means that a greater burden will probably fall on the United States, administration officials said. Bush has authorized another 3,200 Marines for Afghanistan for seven months, but without more European help, he may be pressed to send even more U.S. forces or to extend the Marine buildup.

The debate in Bucharest comes after attacks in Afghanistan spiked by nearly 30 percent in 2007. A recent report by the Atlantic Council of the United States, headed by retired Gen. James L. Jones, a former NATO commander, warned that "NATO is not winning in Afghanistan." As the summit approaches, NATO leaders are trying to formulate a new strategy, drafting a "vision statement" intended to reassure European publics weary of the conflict, but Europeans reportedly resisted including a five-year commitment to Afghanistan sought by Washington.

The NATO leaders plan to debate strategies for southern Afghanistan, where the Taliban has been strongest. One idea under discussion is for the U.S. military eventually to take over the regional command for the south, which is currently headed by the Canadians and includes primarily British, Canadian and Dutch forces. Another proposal is to lengthen military tours, said William Wood, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, "so we're not swapping people out all the time." He suggested "extending the period for whoever is in charge of the south so it doesn't rotate every six or nine months."

U.S. troops in Afghanistan now serve 15-month tours, but other NATO countries balk at extending their shorter tours. "If they had us do more than six months, everyone would quit," British Bombardier Tim Dean, who is fighting in the southern province of Helmand, said in a recent interview.

Canada and other key NATO allies are pressing for a shift in their core military mission from combat to training Afghan security forces, in part to ease homefront concerns over casualties, officials said. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper even threatened to pull out unless NATO sends another 1,000 troops and helicopters to bolster it in the south.

"Britain at least has long historical memories of what happens to British troops in this land," said British Ambassador Sherard Cowper-Coles. "So we need to have a sense of perspective for moving our troops out of direct military combat operations into mentoring and training roles that will probably last decades. What neither the Afghan public nor our publics at home will support is the sense of this being a war without end."

At the heart of the discussion is whether NATO should even be projecting force so far from its own borders or return to its historical role of self-defense. "This is a debate we've seen inside the alliance for the last couple of years," said Julianne Smith, head of the Europe program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, "but it's really coming to a head over Afghanistan, because part of the alliance feels that Afghanistan should be a precedent for future missions and part of the alliance feels like it should be an exception, perhaps never to be repeated again."

Bush champions the precedent side of the debate, framing success in Afghanistan as vital for NATO's future. He flies this morning to Kiev, Ukraine, where he will visit before heading to Bucharest tomorrow. After the summit, he will stop in Zagreb, Croatia, to welcome nations expected to be invited into NATO, and then head to the Russian resort of Sochi to meet with President Vladimir Putin.

Bush has pushed for months for a greater NATO commitment to Afghanistan. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose nation has 1,500 troops on the ground, said last week that he will send more forces. French officials said details are still being finalized, but it appears likely to be a battalion of elite paratroopers. If the French are sent to the U.S.-led eastern region of Afghanistan, that could free up the United States to move 1,000 of its troops to the south, meeting Canada's demand for help.

The British, who already have 7,800 troops on the ground, plan to send the equivalent of another battalion plus a headquarters unit as well, though it was unclear if this will be announced at the NATO summit, British officials said. Poland has already promised to send 400 more troops by the end of April.

Bush took the French promise as a sign of progress. "It will pretty much ensure that this conference is a successful conference," he said last week. "When you combine our commitment, the Canadian commitment, the British commitment and the French commitment of troops that will be in harm's way, it is a strong statement that NATO understands the threats, understands the challenges, and is willing to rise to them."

Tyson reported from Kabul.
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UNHCR: 10,000 Afghan refugees return home from Pakistan in one month
People's Daily - Mar 31 3:36 AM
About 10,000 Afghan refugees have returned home with the support of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) since resuming voluntary repatriation over the past one month, the body's country representative Salvatore Lombardo said Monday.

"About 10,000 Afghan refugees repatriated from Pakistan under the UN Refugee Agency's first month of assisted voluntary repatriation," Lombardo told reporters here.

Voluntary repatriation of Afghan refugees living in the neighboring Pakistan began first in March and the figure of returnees presented by the UNHCR dignitary is about four times less than the figure returned at the same time last year.

The process of repatriation will be halted by the end of October ahead of winter sunset in Afghanistan.

More than 3.5 million Afghan refugees have returned home since the collapse of the Taliban regime in late 2001. But the peak of voluntary return of Afghan refugees took place in 2002, 2003 and 2004 while 2005 and 2006 witnessed a slowdown in the process.

Some 2.5 million Afghan refugees are still living in Pakistan while more than 1.5 million others are in Iran.

Security incidents and unemployment are the main factors that have undermined the process of refugees' return to their war-ravaged country Afghanistan.

UNHCR's country representative to Afghanistan expected the return of some 150,000 Afghan refugees from Pakistan to their homeland this year while in 2003 and 2004 more than 400,000 refugees had voluntarily returned to their homeland.
Source:Xinhua
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Afghan lawmakers pass resolution aimed at censoring un-Islamic images on TV
By ALISA TANG,Associated Press Writer AP
KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghanistan's lower house of Parliament passed a resolution Monday seeking to bar television programs from showing dancing and other practices deemed un-Islamic.

The decision came just days after the private Tolo TV channel aired a dance number featuring men and women together on an Afghan film awards program.

The Information and Culture Ministry condemned the scene, saying "dancing by men and women together was completely against the culture of the Afghan, Muslim society."

The parliamentary resolution, drafted by a commission for cultural and religious affairs, said dancers should not be shown on television, and un-Islamic scenes should be cut from Indian TV series broadcast in Afghanistan, said Din Mohammad Azimi, a lawmaker and member of the commission.

Azimi said the resolution also includes an article saying Afghan banks should not offer interest-bearing accounts because Islamic law forbids interest.

The resolution, which is not now legally binding and cannot be enforced, will go before the upper house of Parliament for consideration, Azimi said. It would also have to be approved by the president before becoming law.

Afghan media have bloomed following the fall of the hard-line Taliban regime in 2001, and Tolo TV has become one of the country's most popular channels with its steady stream of programing, including music videos and Indian soap operas.

But government officials and powerful factional leaders frequently pressure broadcasters because of programs deemed too racy or overly critical.

Last year gunmen entered the home of Zakia Zaki, the female owner of a radio station, and shot her to death in front of her 8-year-old son. Zaki had apparently criticized local warlords who warned her to change her station's programming.

Shaima Rezayee, a popular host for an MTV-style music show, was shot dead in 2005 after clerics criticized her show as "anti-Islamic."

Tolo TV's owner Saad Mohseni said the dancing on the awards show Friday was "very tame by any standard" and the women were dressed modestly.

Tolo TV often blurs any images deemed insulting to Islam, such as statues of Hindu gods on Indian programs and even the uncovered necks and shoulders of Indian actresses.

"It's the re-Talibanization of Afghan society," Mohseni said. "Every single week they come up with something new."

He called on the Afghan government and the international community to take a stand against the religious conservatives, saying they "cannot allow a very small minority within Afghan society to call the shots."
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What Afghanistan wants to see on television
By David Blair in Kabul The Telegraph (UK) March 31, 2008
When Afghans turn on their televisions, they do not want to be regaled with current affairs or debates on the Koran. Instead, they want Indian soap operas, complete with sari-clad women and convoluted love stories.

Tolo TV, the country's most popular broadcaster, was quick to learn this lesson. The Indian dramas which dominate peak time get 10 or 11 million viewers; news programmes cause a national turn-off.


Afghan television is the most visible symbol of the country's transformation since the Taliban's downfall in 2001.

The ancient regime condemned television as "un-Islamic", closed down every broadcaster and publicly crushed thousands of TV sets with bulldozers.

Today, Afghanistan has 13 stations, yet the old suspicion of television as a corrupting, Westernising influence remains strong. Saad Mohseni, head of the Moby Media Group which includes Tolo TV, said the authorities were "not tolerant or relaxed at all".

He added: "President Karzai himself has been quite tolerant and if push comes to shove, he'll defend the free press. But the government is not one individual, it's a number of movements, parties and ideologies.

"Individuals in the government are not happy with the free media and they have put obstacles in our path and we've probably suffered more than any other station. But we're still here."

Anyone running a TV station in Kabul encounters challenges found nowhere else in the world. Mr Mohseni must generate his own electricity - the mains supply only four hours of power on a good day - and hire his own armed guards in a city plagued by violence.

He believes his viewers are deeply disillusioned by the state of Afghanistan. "The level of frustration has reached boiling point," said Mr Mohseni.

"It's not because Afghanistan hasn't improved. It has improved. But relative to expectations, what people were promised hasn't been delivered."
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Norwegian base in Afghanistan attacked
March 31, 2008 at 10:17 AM
MEYMANEH, Afghanistan, March 31 (UPI) -- Three rockets targeted a Norwegian military base in northern Afghanistan early Monday, prompting the evacuation of the base, military officials said.

The military base in Meymaneh, the provincial capital of Faryab, came under attack in the early morning. The base held about 150 Norwegian and 50 Latvian soldiers at the time, the spokesman for the Norwegian armed forces, Lt. Col. John Inge Oegland said in Aftenposten.

"We're taking this very seriously," said Oegland. "It was an attack on our base but also an attack on NATO."

A roadside bomb killed a Norwegian soldier last fall and the base came under attack around the same time.
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The Longest War
Washington Post, United States By Richard Holbrooke Monday, March 31, 2008
KHOST, Afghanistan -This former Taliban stronghold, where Osama bin Laden spent time planning the Sept. 11 attacks, has become an American success story. The Taliban is being pushed out, and a government presence is extending into previously hostile territory. At NATO headquarters in Kabul, most of Khost has been moved out of the "red" column -- at least for now.

Khost shows that, with the right combination of resources and leadership, it can be done. But Khost is not simply a good-news story. It also underscores a larger, troubling truth: The conflict in Afghanistan will be far more costly and much, much longer than Americans realize. This war, already in its seventh year, will eventually become the longest in American history, surpassing even Vietnam.

Success in Khost required some of America's best troops. Today elements of the legendary 101st Airborne Division -- the Screaming Eagles of the Battle of the Bulge -- are replacing troops from another storied unit, the 82nd Airborne, who, over 15 tough months, took Khost back. That success resulted from tactics developed locally by a stellar team: a courageous and honest provincial governor, Arsala Jamal, who has survived four assassination attempts; a creative American troop commander, Lt. Col. Scott Custer (yes, he is a direct descendant), who devised a more aggressive system of joint patrols with local Afghan army units; and a remarkable young Foreign Service officer, Kael Weston, who has established a direct dialogue with tribal leaders, university students, mullahs, madrassa students and even Taliban defectors.

As I saw in hours of meetings with these groups, Weston's intense hands-on process identifies problems and misunderstandings that might otherwise spiral out of control. One of these -- serious enough to attract international media coverage and public expressions of concern from Afghan President Hamid Karzai -- was the death of several women and children in two recent nighttime U.S. Special Forces actions. The tribal elders were blunt in our meeting; a white-bearded chief said, "Not even my brother can enter my house at night, but you Americans did not even knock." Gov. Jamal, his own closeness to the Americans making him even more vulnerable, was distraught. "This undermines everything we are trying to do here," he said.

Jamal and the elders understood that locally based American troops were not involved in the operations and that the targets were supposed to be an important Taliban cadre. Despite the furor, they stressed that they want the Americans to stay as long as necessary, knowing that will be a very long time; without NATO's continued presence, their government would fail. They have little confidence in the Afghan army, even though it seems to be improving, because there is as yet no indication that it can function in difficult conditions without active NATO support. Moreover, the elders, like everyone else, despise the national police -- Afghanistan's most corrupt institution. I heard firsthand accounts of blatant police shakedowns on the main roads, police destruction of agricultural produce because the officers were not paid off and direct police participation in the drug trade (which makes the police and the Taliban de facto partners).

The police are the front edge of Afghanistan's biggest problem. In conversations with more than 80 foreigners (diplomats, journalists, soldiers), Afghans in the private sector and, most important, senior members of the Karzai government, I found unanimity on only one point: The massive, officially sanctioned corruption and the drug trade are the most serious problems the country faces, and they offer the Taliban its only exploitable opportunity to gain support.

One case came up repeatedly, that of the notorious warlord Gen. Abdurrashid Dostum. After he attacked, brutalized (allegedly with a beer bottle) and almost killed a rival warlord recently, Dostum was not arrested, despite pleas from Afghanistan's chief law enforcement officials. Kabul was aflame with theories regarding Karzai's decision not to move against Dostum; even the university students and the tribal elders in Khost raised it with me. The effect on Karzai's standing and reputation has been enormous. Excuses were made, but none justified his open disregard for justice.

This affair also highlights the conundrum Afghanistan presents the United States and NATO. There will be more successes like Khost as additional NATO troops, including 3,000 U.S. Marines, arrive later this year. But with each tactical achievement, Afghanistan will become more dependent on international support, which will always be better, faster and more honest than anything the government will be able to supply.

In the extraordinary intensity of what James A. Michener called "one of the world's great cauldrons," in his 1963 bestseller, "Caravans," no one has had time to think about the day after the day after tomorrow. The effort in Afghanistan is vital to America's national security interests, and we must succeed -- as the team in Khost has. But even as the United States and its NATO allies move deeper into the cauldron, questions must be asked: When, and how, will the international community hand responsibility for Afghanistan back to its government? Will short-term success create a long-term trap for the United States and its allies, as the war becomes the longest in American history?

Richard Holbrooke, a former ambassador to the United Nations, writes a monthly column for The Post. 
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Questionable peace if Taliban are part of it
Sydney Morning Herald, Australia Faridullah Bezhan March 31, 2008
After six years of fighting in Afghanistan, sharing power with the Taliban has been suggested as the way to end the war. Negotiating with the "moderate" and "good" Taliban is an idea the Afghan Government and the coalition forces have employed since the removal of the Taliban at the end of 2001.

All parties, including the Afghan Government, the United States and those Western countries that have considerable numbers of troops in Afghanistan, have been, at different levels, in secret negotiations with the Taliban. So why have all parties suddenly come to a more overt consensus that a political settlement with the Taliban is a solution?

The possibility of a coalition government that includes the Taliban came about after the Taliban dropped their demand that talks could start only after the withdrawal of foreign forces.

The coalition forces would have a special opportunity to change the Taliban's political and ideological nature if they became part of a coalition government, as the movement has never shared power with any political party.

The elements of the Taliban that the powerbrokers wish to include have been called "moderate", but the parties the President, Hamid Karzai, identified last September as those he wished to meet include those that have never been painted as moderate by themselves or anyone else. This includes Mullah Omar, who has led the Taliban since their emergence in late 1993, and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of another insurgency group, which received most of the military and financial aid from Pakistan in the 1980s, and was also responsible for inter-factional fighting in the early 1990s during which thousands of civilians died and the capital was destroyed.

At the same time Karzai said he was open to peace talks, Western nations, including the US, supported this idea of negotiation. The United Nations even offered to mediate. Amazingly, some of the Northern Alliance leaders, the Taliban's internal opponent, began to sing the same song.

This is the first time Karzai has gone so far as to effectively legitimise the insurgency. Not surprisingly, the Taliban for the first time responded positively to the idea of negotiations with the Government as there were no preconditions. Although the Taliban later changed their stand, it shows a new kind of rhetoric on their part. There are three main reasons for the Taliban's positive response to overtures from Karzai. First, in the past few months they have lost some of their most prominent commanders, including Mullah Dadullah, who was responsible for the regrouping of the Taliban after their collapse, and the tactics of suicide bombings, raids and kidnappings.

Second, with the coalition force's use of air raids, the Taliban cannot hold their territorial gains.

Third, the international community is placing increasing pressure on Pakistan to end its support for the Taliban.

In the past, Karzai tended to use the prospect of talks more as a card to threaten his political opponents, the Northern Alliance, than as a clear plan to include the Taliban in his administration. But Karzai is increasingly losing his popularity and his main objective of negotiating with the Taliban is his own ambition to stay in power. Because his opponent, the Northern Alliance, has established a new front with other political players, Karzai can only overcome the political deadlock, and survive in the next election, if he can bring the Taliban onside.

Pakistan has been trying to persuade the US to negotiate and continue negotiations on political settlement with the "moderate" Taliban since the Taliban regime collapsed at the end of 2001. Pakistan's policy is based on the conviction that sooner or later the West will lose interest in Afghanistan, as has happened before. Moreover, Pakistan is not pleased by Karzai's close relationship with India. Despite international pressure and internal political dynamics, Pakistan continues to provide sanctuary and covert support to the Taliban. Thus it is in Pakistan's interest to have more friends in the Afghan Government as a way of weakening Indian influence there. This might have the added benefit of reducing internal pressure on the Pakistani regime from Pakistan's own Islamic parties.

Despite some successes, the Taliban cannot remove the Government from without. But power-sharing with the Taliban would put into question the legitimacy of its overthrow by coalition forces in the first place. For the Afghan Government it would mean sacrificing some gains of the last six years. For the Taliban it would mean abandoning a rigid ideology. But neither side is the final decision-maker.

The real players are outside Afghanistan, namely the US and Pakistan. Pakistan's internal crisis is worsening, despite the recent elections, and it may not be able to support the Taliban to the extent it has done in the past. The US supports negotiation with the Taliban, while at the same time prosecuting war with them on an unprecedented scale. A peaceful settlement seems difficult. Nevertheless, a political settlement is the only true hope for peace. The real question is, what sort of peace would it be if it featured the Taliban in government?

Dr Faridullah Bezhan is a research fellow at the Monash Asia Institute at Monash University. He arrived in Australia 10 years ago as a refugee from Afghanistan. He is writing a book called War And Anti-War Literature In Afghanistan.
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Afghanistan: 'Opium Brides' pay the price
Press Trust of India Monday, March 31, 2008 (New York)
As Afghanistan battles to check growing poppy production, there thrives a disturbing trend behind the scene, where daughters of poppy producers pay the price for the unpaid loans.

Termed as ''opium brides'', the daughters of poor poppy farmers are often given to drug traffickers if their fathers are unable to pay the loan taken for growing the illicit crop because of the official action.

In a report in its upcoming issue, Newsweek takes the case of an illiterate poor farmer in Laghman Province who borrowed US$ 2000 from a local traffickers promising to pay back with 24 kilos of opium at harvest time.

But officials destroyed his two and half acre poppy farm.

Unable to pay, he fled but was located by the trafficker and then village elders decided that he should give his 10-year old daughter to 45-year old trafficker to settle the debt.

''It is my fate,'' she told the magazine. She had desired to be become a teacher. Afghan call these girls ''loan brides'' and their number is increasing since the opium eradication programme began.

The practice, explains the magazine, began with the dowry a bridegroom's family traditionally pays to the bride's father in tribal Pashtun society.

These days the amount ranges from US$ 3000 or so in poorer places like Laghman and Nangarhar to US$ 8000 or more in Helmand, Afghanistan's No 1 opium-growing province.

All the same, local farmers were quoted as saying that a man can get killed for failing to repay a loan.

No one, the magazine says, knows how many debt weddings take place in Afghanistan, where 93 per cent of the world's heroin originates.

But Afghans say the number of loan brides keeps rising as poppy-eradication efforts push more farmers into default.

''This will be our darkest year since 2000,'' says Baz Mohammad, 65-year old former opium farmer in Nangarhar was quoted as saying.

''Even more daughters will be sold this year.'' The old man lives with the anguish of selling his own 13-year-old daughter in 2000, after Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar banned poppy growing.

''Lenders never show any mercy,'' he said. The local farmers are quoted by Newsweek as saying more than one debtor has been bound hand and foot, then locked into a small windowless room with a smoldering fire, slowly choking to death.

While law enforcers predict yet another record opium harvest in Afghanistan this spring, the magazine says most farmers are struggling to survive.

An estimated 500,000 Afghan families support themselves by raising poppies, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.

Last year, those growers received an estimated USD one billion for their cropsabout USD 2,000 per household. With at least six members in the average family, opium growers' per capita income is roughly US$ 300.

The real profits go to the traffickers, their Taliban allies and the crooked officials who help them operate.
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Roadside bombing kills 3 guards of road construction company in S Afghanistan 
www.chinaview.cn  2008-03-31 18:52:21
KABUL, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Three security guards from one local road construction company were killed by roadside bombing when patrolling in the construction site in southern Afghan province of Kandahar Monday, said an official.

Niaz Mohammad Sarhadi, the chief of Jalai district of Kandahar province told Xinhua that it occurred at around 12 a.m.(GMT0730) as the security guards of road construction firms were patrolling by vehicles.

"Three guards were killed and one vehicle was completely damaged when their vehicles hit mines planted by militants," he said, "the company is building highways connecting Kandahar to western province of Herat."

No one has claimed responsibility for the incident so far.

More than 8,000 people had been killed in violent incidents in Afghanistan in 2007 while over 300 have lost their lives in conflicts and militancy so far this year in the war-battered country.
Editor: An Lu 
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ISAF inaugurates Sarobi hospital pavilion, police station
Source: North Atlantic Treaty Organisation 31 Mar 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan – ISAF troops celebrated the opening of two new structures Saturday.

Sarobi district sub-governor, Seyid Suleyman, and ISAF's Italian Task Force Sarobi inaugurated a new pavilion of the district hospital. The pavilion will enhance the hospital's capacity as it will be equipped with a radiology station, a surgery room and an analysis lab.

On the same day, the inauguration of the renovated police station took place in the city centre, attended again by the district sub-governor, the head of the Police kandak and ISAF's Italian officers. The structure was completely refurbished and given new offices and observation towers.

Both projects, worth approximately $170,000, were funded by ISAF's Italian troops and implemented by local contractors throughout the last three months.

"Thanks to ISAF and to the Italian Task Force based in Sarobi, health and security will be certainly and considerably improved," said Mr. Seyid Suleyman, who is holding weekly meetings with Task Force Sarobi to find ways of cooperation and development in the fields of security, health and economy.
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Scribe on death row to appeal
Sunday, 30 March, 2008, 07:47 AM Doha Time
KABUL: A young Afghan journalist sentenced to death in northern Afghanistan on charges of blasphemy has been moved to Kabul ahead of an appeal due soon, media rights groups said yesterday.

A primary provincial court in the northern town of Mazar-i-Sharif sentenced 23-year-old journalist Perwiz Kambakhsh to death in January in a case that has attracted worldwide condemnation. He had no legal representation.

Kambakhsh was moved to Kabul on Friday, said Afghan Independent Journalists Association president Rahimullah Samander. “The next trial will be soon,” he said, without being able to say when.

Paris-based media protection group Reporters Without Borders welcomed the transfer of the reporter and university journalism student saying in a statement he had been held with “criminals and terrorists” in Mazar-i-Sharif.

“His transfer to Kabul has given rise to hopes that his appeal will not be influenced by religious fundamentalists, as was the case when he was sentenced to death...,” it said.

Kambakhsh was held for three months before his trial, which reportedly only lasted minutes. Media groups inside and outside the country have asked President Hamid Karzai to intervene.–AFP
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Talking to the Taliban
Globe and Mail Update March 31, 2008 at 7:00 AM EDT
For six days Globe and Mail readers have been given an unprecedented look at the Taliban in the series Talking to the Taliban, by Graeme Smith.

"Understanding the insurgents is a basic part of reporting on the Afghan war, but it's a remarkably difficult task," Mr. Smith writes in his introduction to the extensive online piece. "I've had several meetings with individual Taliban since I started covering Afghanistan, but personal contacts with the insurgents are growing more dangerous because they have started kidnapping journalists.

"So we decided to try an unscientific survey."

What resulted was videos of 42 Taliban foot soldiers who were interviewed by a researcher able to get into places that would be off-limits for anybody without strong connections to the insurgency. Those interviews were circulated privately among Mr. Smith's sources in Kandahar and Kabul to gather opinions about the authenticity of the material and reaction to the Taliban statements.

The result: Stories about tribal wars, the poppy trade, the role Pakistan plays in the insurgency and how the concept of suicide bombing is changing within the Taliban ranks, have stirred debate and discussion, both for and against.

How did you feel about the series? Is there something more you'd like to learn about the Taliban?

We're pleased that Graeme Smith will join us online today from 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET to answer your questions and comments about his series and Afghanistan.

Send your questions now and join us then. Your questions and Mr. Smith's answers appear at the bottom of this page.

Mr. Smith joined The Globe in 2001 and was a national reporter in Winnipeg before becoming a foreign correspondent and moving to Moscow. He has been The Globe's main reporter in Afghanistan since 2004.

In 2003, he won the Edward Goff Penny Memorial award, which is given to the best young journalists under the age of 25. He also was part of a team that won a Canadian Association of Journalists award for investigative journalism in 1999.

Mr. Smith is presently nominated for two National Newspaper Awards, including one for foreign reporting.

Editor's Note: globeandmail.com editors will read and allow or reject each question/comment. Comments/questions may be edited for length or clarity. HTML is not allowed. We will not publish questions/comments that include personal attacks on participants in these discussions, that make false or unsubstantiated allegations, that purport to quote people or reports where the purported quote or fact cannot be easily verified, or questions/comments that include vulgar language or libellous statements. Preference will be given to readers who submit questions/comments using their full name and home town, rather than a pseudonym.
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World Bank to Fund Renovation of Power System in Afghan Capital
Monday, 31 March 2008, 03:00 CDT RedOrbit, TX
Text of report by state-owned National Afghanistan TV on 30 March
[Presenter] The Energy and Water Ministry and a representative of the World Bank signed a contract worth 16m dollars to renovate the system for distribution of low-voltage electricity in Kabul city. My colleague Asghar Jawed has more details.

[Correspondent] After signing the contract, the minister of energy and water told journalists that under the contract, 138 transformers with a capacity of 250 to 630 kilovolts will be installed at Power Station No 2 of Kabul city, which covers the Shahr-e Naw, Wazir Akbar Khan, Char Qala, Qalai-e Fathollah, Taimani, and Qalai-e Wakil areas.

He added that work on the installation of the transformers was under way and would be completed by the end of the month of Sonbola in 1388 [late 2009].

The minister of energy and water said his ministry spent 94 per cent of its budget last year, and that it was another achievement for the ministry.

Speaking about the extension of the power cable from Uzbekistan to Afghanistan, the minister said the cable would reach Afghanistan by the end of the month of Aqrab in the current year [October- November 2008].

He expressed concern over the shortage of water in the country. Mohammad Esmail said 95 per cent of the people enjoyed electricity at the beginning of last year, but that the distribution of electricity to Kabul residents fell by 50 per cent at the beginning of the new year [new Afghan year beginning 21 March].

[Mohammad Esmail, water and energy minister] With the arrival of the electricity cable from the north and with the completion of the ongoing installation of new power plants, we will be able to complete the electricity network of Kabul city, and the general electricity problems in the city will be addressed.

[Correspondent] The minister of energy and water expressed hope that, in spite of the problems and drought in the country, his ministry would be able to take practical measures in building and renovating power plants throughout the country.

Originally published by National Afghanistan TV, Kabul, in Dari and Pashto 1330 30 Mar 08.
(c) 2008 BBC Monitoring South Asia. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.
Source: BBC Monitoring South Asia
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