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February 27, 2009 

Afghans protest alleged NATO gunshots in mosque
By HEIDI VOGT and AMIR SHAH Associated Press February 27, 2009
KABUL – About 500 protesters blocked roads and clashed with police in southern Afghanistan on Friday, alleging international forces fired gunshots in a village mosque.

US, Afghans, Pakistan see 'common threat'
by Shaun Tandon Fri Feb 27, 12:08 am ET
WASHINGTON, (AFP) – Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United States vowed to fight a common threat of terrorism, pledging to chart out a new strategy despite sharp differences simmering below the surface.

Afghan FM urges U.S. to engage with Iran on conflict
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States should engage Iran as an "important regional player" on Afghan security and reconstruction issues, Afghanistan's foreign minister said on Friday.

Secret talks with Taliban under way
Al Jazeera
Secret negotiations are under way to bring troops fighting alongside the Taliban into Afghanistan's political process, Al Jazeera has learned.

FACTBOX - Security developments in Afghanistan
Feb 27 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan reported until 0910 GMT on Friday:

Afghanistan's defense minister warns against U.S. pullback
Abdul Rahim Wardak says the Obama administration's recent comments of lowered goals have Kabul worried that Afghanistan's civilian government could fall to the Taliban.
Los Angeles Times By Peter Spiegel February 27, 2009
Washington - Afghanistan's defense minister warned Thursday that the Obama administration's proposed changes in U.S. war strategy risk undermining Kabul's civilian government because they appear to scale back U.S. goals in the country.

Afghanistan: Resurgent Taliban creates alarm, says MP
Madrid, 27 Feb. (AKI) - NATO is facing "serious difficulties" in Afghanistan because it has too few troops stationed there, according to a prominent Italian MP. Margherita Boniver

Pakistan's turmoil echoes in Afghanistan
By Syed Saleem Shahzad Asia Times Online February 27, 2009
KARACHI - The Pakistani government's peace agreement last week with militants in the Swat Valley, followed by ceasefires all across the tribal areas and the formation of a united Pakistani tribal front of mujahideen

Russia To Sign Spain's Afghan Transit Deal In March
February 27, 2009
MOSCOW (Reuters) -- Russia will sign an agreement next month to allow Spain to use a route through its territory to Afghanistan for military cargo and personnel, an aide to President Dmitry Medvedev has been quoted as saying.

Kabul Wants Obama to Promote the "Afghanization" of War Effort
Eurasianet By Joshua Kucera 02/26/2009
Afghanistan's foreign minister, Rangeen Dadfar Spanta, has asked the United States to give more assistance to Afghan institutions in order to press the fight against terrorism and the drug trade. And conjuring up bad memories

Cost of Afghanistan mission could reach $11.3B, government says
CBC News Thursday, February 26, 2009
The Canadian combat mission in Afghanistan could cost taxpayers around $11.3 billion by the time it ends in 2011, according to a new government estimate.

Treasured artifacts from Afghan museum on display
By DOUGLAS BRITT HOUSTON CHRONICLE Feb. 26, 2009, 6:19PM
Walking through the galleries where Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures From the National Museum, Kabul is being installed at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, curator Fredrik Hiebert still can’t quite believe what he sees.

New Technology Users Are Boosting in Afghanistan
Written by www.quqnoos.com Thursday, 26 February 2009
The new technology users say that these equipments have created more facilities for them

Unemployment Has Forced Young People to Join the Insurgents
Written by www.quqnoos.com Thursday, 26 February 2009
Lack of job opportunities is a big problem in Kandahar, says the governor
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Afghans protest alleged NATO gunshots in mosque
By HEIDI VOGT and AMIR SHAH Associated Press February 27, 2009
KABUL – About 500 protesters blocked roads and clashed with police in southern Afghanistan on Friday, alleging international forces fired gunshots in a village mosque.

A spokesman for NATO forces said they had no reports of international troops in the area where Thursday's incident allegedly occurred.

Afghanistan's southern provinces continue to be Taliban strongholds wracked by violence, years after a U.S.-led invasion ousted the hard-line Islamists from the central government in 2001. It is often difficult in the turbulent region to separate actual incidents from Taliban propaganda, but a government delegation said the mosque door was damaged by bullets and some protesters said they had witnessed the mosque raid.

A protester reached by phone said he saw Polish forces fire their guns in a mosque in the village of Dhi Khodaidad in Ghazni province.

Abdulrahman, who only gave one name, said he was in the mosque when the troops raided. He said the bullets hit a wall but did not injure anyone.

Robert Rochowicz, spokesman for Poland's Defense Ministry, said he had "no information at all about any kind of incident concerning Polish troops in Afghanistan." He said he would have been informed if anything had happened.

A number of incidents in recent months in which NATO or U.S. strikes killed civilians have increased anger against international troops in Afghanistan, threatening the effort to drive back the Taliban. President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly called on international forces to do more to respect the local population and prevent civilian deaths.

The Ghazni protest turned violent as the crowd threw rocks at police and at least three demonstrators were wounded by gunfire before the melee calmed down, Ghazni police Chief Mohammad Zaman said.

"We don't know if the Polish forces entered a mosque or not, but the protesters are claiming that," Zaman said.

At least two bullets hit the door of the mosque, said Deputy Gov. Kazim Allayar, who led a delegation that visited the building Friday. He said he did not have further information but that government officials would meet with Polish forces Saturday to find out if they were involved.

NATO forces said an initial query turned up no reports of troops in Dhi Khodaidad, but they were continuing to investigate.

"We don't believe there were any forces in the area yesterday," said Lt. Commander Chris Hall, a NATO spokesman in Afghanistan.

Separately Friday, NATO forces said one of their troops was killed in a bomb attack in neighboring Zabul province.

The service member died in an explosion Thursday, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said. A spokesman declined to provide further details.

NATO forces typically do not release the nationalities of killed or wounded troops. A number of countries have troops in Zabul, including Romania, Canada and Britain.

President Barack Obama has ordered another 17,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan to try to fight back the strengthening insurgency. They will augment 38,000 American troops already in the country.
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US, Afghans, Pakistan see 'common threat'
by Shaun Tandon Fri Feb 27, 12:08 am ET
WASHINGTON, (AFP) – Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United States vowed to fight a common threat of terrorism, pledging to chart out a new strategy despite sharp differences simmering below the surface.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the three countries would hold a regular dialogue after she met in Washington with the South Asian neighbors' foreign ministers for talks she called "valuable and unprecedented."

"Our three nations have a common goal, a common threat and a common task. And my government commits itself to our friends and to the success of this common endeavor," Clinton told reporters.

She said the next trilateral talks were set tentatively for late April or early May.

President Barack Obama has vowed a new focus on fighting a resurgent Taliban and Al-Qaeda in the region and is sending 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan as his administration winds down the US involvement in Iraq.

Afghan Defense Minister Mohammad Rahim Wardak, who came to Washington for the talks, welcomed the fresh deployments and hoped they would help rid the country of remnants of the Taliban regime, which was ousted in the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

"We can expect 2009 to be a critical year and we should be prepared for the challenges and yet we are optimistic to turn the tide in our favor," Wardak told a Washington think tank.

"We still lack sufficient forces and equipment to hold our gains and to facilitate good governance and development.

"The requirements of our national security forces are urgent and undeniable," he added.

The three-way meeting comes as relations sharply improve between Kabul and Islamabad after civilian Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari took over last year from former army chief Pervez Musharraf.

But Zardari's government has remained under pressure from both Kabul and Washington, which are concerned that insurgents fleeing Afghanistan enjoy a virtual safe haven in Pakistan's lawless border areas.

Richard Holbrooke, the US envoy to the region, has voiced dismay after Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire with pro-Taliban militants in Pakistan's Swat Valley in a deal that includes the imposition of Islamic sharia law.

Holbrooke took part in the three-way talks along with General David Petraeus, who commands US forces in the Middle East and Central Asia.

Holbrooke worried the Swat Valley deal amounts to a surrender after a bloody two-year campaign by militants who have attacked girls' schools and entertainment in the onetime ski resort.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi defended the deal, saying it neutralized the threat of extremists by meeting local concerns.

His Afghan counterpart, Rangeen Dadfar Spanta, said that while he strongly supported the new Zardari government, nuclear-armed Pakistan remained a top worry for Afghanistan as it fights militants.

"My thesis is that the main threat center for instability in the world is not Iraq, it is not Afghanistan, it is much more Pakistan," Spanta said.

"If Pakistan becomes a failed state, it is a serious threat for you, for us and for the entire region."

But Pakistan has concerns of its own that it wants addressed.

Qureshi said Pakistan wanted the United States to consider ending US drone attacks inside the country that have killed militants but also civilians, inflaming local opinion.

He said after the talks that he felt optimistic about dealing with the Obama, whose predecessor George W. Bush was closely allied with military ruler Musharraf.

"We get the sense from this administration that they are really willing to listen to us," Qureshi said.
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Afghan FM urges U.S. to engage with Iran on conflict
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States should engage Iran as an "important regional player" on Afghan security and reconstruction issues, Afghanistan's foreign minister said on Friday.

"I hope that with the new administration here in Washington come some changes in the bilateral relations between Tehran and Washington," Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta said.

"Iran is an important regional player and to engage the neighboring countries of Afghanistan in the anti-terror war and anti-drug campaign ... this is in the vital interest of Afghanistan and stability in our region," he told reporters.

Spanta was in Washington for talks on the Obama administration's review of policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the three allies endorsed a regional approach to staunch the resurgence of the Taliban, seven years after they were ousted from power in a U.S.-led invasion.

Iran had contributed $300 million to Afghanistan's reconstruction and was active in development projects, said Spanta.

Afghanistan took seriously "some rumor about some disruptive activities from the Iranian side in some part of Afghanistan" but remained committed to engaging with a neighbor with close historical and cultural ties, he said.

The minister did not elaborate on the alleged Iranian activities, but security experts say Tehran provides a trickle of supplies to Taliban militants and backs some Afghan dissidents in order to put pressure on the U.S. military.

Italy said on Monday that it was considering inviting Iran to a conference in June on securing the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan to fight terrorism, drugs and organized crime. The United States is expected to attend that event.

Iran is embroiled in a row with the West over its disputed nuclear program, but the new U.S. administration of President Barrack Obama has expressed possible readiness to talk to its leaders.

While Iran and the United States sat at the same table to discuss Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks on the United States, the Bush administration made sure the new pro-Western Afghan government kept Tehran at arm's length.

The United States and Iran, which have not had diplomatic ties for three decades, held three rounds of talks in Baghdad in 2007 on ways of reducing violence in Iraq.
(Reporting by Paul Eckert, editing by Philip Barbara)
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Secret talks with Taliban under way
Al Jazeera
Secret negotiations are under way to bring troops fighting alongside the Taliban into Afghanistan's political process, Al Jazeera has learned.

The talks, between Taliban-linked mediators, Western officials and the Afghan government, are believed to involve a proposal for the return to Afghanistan of Gulbaldin Hekmatyar, the country's former prime minister, who has been in hiding for seven years.

Hekmatyar, the leader of the Hezb-i-Islami forces fighting alongside the Taliban and labelled a "terrorist organisation" by the United States, would be allowed to return to Afghanistan with immunity from prosecution, according to information revealed to Al Jazeera.

Hekmatyar, who is believed to be in the northwest tribal region of Pakistan, would first be offered asylum in Saudi Arabia, under the proposal being backed by the British government.

Asylum offer

James Bays, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Kabul, said: "The plan is to widen these talks and to bring in elements of the Taliban."

It is not clear whether the secret negotiations were aimed at separating Hekmatyar's Taliban-linked faction from the group, or encouraging some elements of the Taliban to join the political process.

Michael Griffin, an Afghanistan expert, told Al Jazeera: "If Hekmatyar is in this only to trade for his own survival and immunity from prosecution and eventual retirement, that doesn't provide for his followers.

"If they are not included in the deal, they will follow the Taliban."

Patricia Degennaro, a professor at the Centre for Global Affairs at New York University, told Al Jazeera the talks were a central part of attempts to end the conflict.

"It's long overdue that there is some kind of jirga, or regional council in Afghanistan, where some of these parties who have had grievances over the years are brought together.

"They need to start talking to each other and move forward so people can start putting their arms down."

Divide and rule

Mullah Mottawakil, a former Taliban foreign minister, said the talks would fail if the plan was to split the Taliban.

"It will not benefit anyone if he [Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president] brings one part of the Taliban into the government, and leaves the other part behind. It will not finish the war."

Ghairat Baheer, one of Hektmatyar's two son-in-laws released from the US prison at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan in May last year after six years in custody, is involved in the process, according to reports.

Baheer, an ambassador to Pakistan in the 1990s, was given a visa to travel to London by British authorities last month.

Humayun Jarir, a Kabul-based politician and son-in-law of Hekmatyar, is also said to have been involved.

Karzai has long proposed holding talks with the Taliban.

Should secret talks be taking place without his knowledge, it is likely to undermine him and further sour relations between the US and Afghanistan, Bays said.

Wider talks

There have been other attempts to open talks between the Afghan government and Taliban representatives in recent months, Al Jazeera has also learned.

Ahmed Jan, an intermediary for the Taliban and tribal elder from Helmand province, was sent on behalf of the Taliban to Kabul for talks with the Afghan government last year, Bays said.

Jan was arrested after US officials discovered the talks were to take place, and is in US custody at Bagram, an Afghan political source told Al Jazeera.

With the arrival in Kabul last month of Richard Holbrooke, the US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, resistance to the idea of holding talks with the Taliban may change, Bays said.

Ahmadshah Ahmadzai, another former Afghan prime minister, said trying to bring all Afghan parties – including Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader - to the negotiating table is the only option.

"If Mullah Omar agrees [to talks] and those around him do - this is the real Taliban faction - then they can bring peace."

Degennaro said: "It's really important to at least test the waters and see what's happening, and what response we're going to get, which is probably what they're doing right now."

The Afghan foreign minister is currently in Washington DC to discuss the future of the region.
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FACTBOX - Security developments in Afghanistan
Feb 27 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan reported until 0910 GMT on Friday:

GHAZNI - Six people were hurt on Friday when Afghan police fired on demonstrators who claimed U.S.-led troops had desecrated copies of the Koran during a raid on a mosque in Ghazni province southwest of Kabul, residents said.

SOUTH - An explosion killed a soldier from the NATO-led force in southern Afghanistan on Thursday, the alliance said.

PAKTIKA - A roadside bomb hit a NATO-led force convoy in southeastern Paktika, wounding two soldiers of the organisation, a provincial official said on Friday.

ZABUL - Unknown armed men kidnapped two Afghan aid workers in southern Zabul province on Thursday, a provincial official said.

(Compiled by Sayed Salahuddin; Editing by Sugita Katyal)
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Afghanistan's defense minister warns against U.S. pullback
Abdul Rahim Wardak says the Obama administration's recent comments of lowered goals have Kabul worried that Afghanistan's civilian government could fall to the Taliban.
Los Angeles Times By Peter Spiegel February 27, 2009
Washington - Afghanistan's defense minister warned Thursday that the Obama administration's proposed changes in U.S. war strategy risk undermining Kabul's civilian government because they appear to scale back U.S. goals in the country.

Abdul Rahim Wardak said he was troubled by recent comments from senior U.S. officials that they were "lowering expectations" in Afghanistan in order to set more "obtainable goals," saying such language recalls memories of the U.S. desertion of Afghanistan after the Soviet Union pulled out in 1989.

"Changing course, adopting a new strategy of containment or dropping the idea of a strong central government will be falling into the trap the enemy has laid, helping them to achieve their evil objectives," Wardak said in a speech at a Washington think tank ahead of meetings with U.S. diplomatic and military officials.

Wardak's comments were among the strongest from an Afghan leader since President Obama announced he was ordering a revamp of the U.S. military strategy in Afghanistan. They appeared to be aimed at Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who in recent weeks has said U.S. strategy would be to scale back objectives there.

In congressional testimony and recent news conferences, Gates has said the U.S. should focus on helping the provincial governments, rather than the central government, and narrow its mission to preventing terrorist havens from redeveloping in the nation.

"My own personal view is that our primary goal is to prevent Afghanistan from being used as a base for terrorists and extremists to attack the U.S. and our allies," Gates told the Senate last month. "Whatever else we need to do flows from that objective."

Gates is not alone, however. Both Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have indicated frustration with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who has been accused of failing to stamp out corruption and extend public services.

The growing tensions came amid a weeklong visit to Washington by senior Afghan and Pakistani officials for meetings on regional strategy with the new administration.

After a session with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta struck a more conciliatory tone, thanking Obama for making a "personal commitment" to Afghanistan.

But Wardak, a former mujahedin commander who is widely respected in Western military circles, appeared frustrated with recent signals coming from the administration and implied that U.S. efforts had contributed to the problems in Afghanistan by devoting more resources to Iraq.

"Any comparison with other successful campaigns in other nations should be judged on the basis of the resources dedicated," Wardak said. "The Taliban lacks strong leadership. They do not have an ideology that the Afghans can embrace. The threat is not yet strong, but it's growing because our joint efforts have been weak."

During a question period following his address to the Center for a New American Security, a 2-year-old Washington think tank that has provided several senior officials to Obama's administration, Wardak also objected to the Pakistani government's recent move to sign a peace deal with Islamic radicals in Pakistan's lawless western territories.

Wardak said such overtures, which were tried by former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, never succeeded and only shifted the attention of extremists onto other targets.

"In the past . . . the results were more terrorist focus was diverted into Afghanistan," he said.
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Afghanistan: Resurgent Taliban creates alarm, says MP
Madrid, 27 Feb. (AKI) - NATO is facing "serious difficulties" in Afghanistan because it has too few troops stationed there, according to a prominent Italian MP. Margherita Boniver, former undersecretary for foreign affairs and president of the Schengen Committee, told Adnkronos International (AKI) of her concern during a visit to the Spanish capital, Madrid.

"There is growing alarm, because for many months now there has been an increase in attacks by terrorist groups," she told AKI. "The Taliban in particular, have begun a really frightening offensive.

"The military strategy of the multinational forces in Afghanistan is in serious trouble."

Boniver, a former Socialist who later transferred to prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's conservative People of Freedom party, served as undersecretary of foreign affairs from 2001 to 2006.

"Afghanistan has always been described as 'the graveyard for empires' , it is a country that has never been tamed or conquered by foreign troops," she said.

Boniver said the international presence in Afghanistan since the ousting of the Taliban in 2001 was important.

"It is not about the conquest of Afghanistan, but an attempt to win the hearts and minds of the Afghans, to give that country and those people hope for a less bloody future amid the reality they face," she said.

However, achieving this objective required a major commitment, she said, underlining that it was no comparison between the NATO military presence in Afghan of 55,000 men and what happened in Iraq in 2002, a region far smaller and more accessible that had 130,000 American troops stationed there.

She said obviously both countries presented very different situations but Afghanistan has been overwhelmed by the deteriorating security situation and now the militants were at the doors of the capital Kabul.

Boniver said the security issue was being addressed by Berlusconi, the minister for foreign affairs, Franco Frattini and the minister for defence, Ignazio La Russa.

"They have recently decided to increase the Italian presence in the country by around 200 to 300 troops and that will lead to the stabilisation and the maintenance of a security framework leading up to the presidential elections.

Boniver said the Italian government has given an assurance to continue its military and civil support in Afghanistan, which continues to be of primary importance among European countries.

She said after Britain, Italy was the most committed in relation to numbers, capacity and responsibility.

Margherita Boniver founded the Italian section of Amnesty International which she led from 1973 to 1980.

A former Socialist MP she served as an Italian senator from 1992 to 1994 and later as a member of the European Parliament from 1987 to 1989.

After joining Berlusconi's conservative Forza Italia party, Boniver served until 2006 as undersecretary of foreign affairs in Berlusconi's previous cabinets. She is now sits in the lower house of parliament, representing the prime minister's People of Freedom party.

The Schengen Agreement is a treaty signed between five of the then ten member states of the European Community in 1985.

It was supplemented by the convention implementing the Schengen Agreement some five years late, and provided for the removal of systematic border controls between participating European countries.
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Pakistan's turmoil echoes in Afghanistan
By Syed Saleem Shahzad Asia Times Online February 27, 2009
KARACHI - The Pakistani government's peace agreement last week with militants in the Swat Valley, followed by ceasefires all across the tribal areas and the formation of a united Pakistani tribal front of mujahideen to reinforce the Taliban's battle in Afghanistan were the first seeds sown for the failure of the United States' plans for the region.

Wednesday's development in Pakistan now conclusively ends the political package drawn up in 2007 by Saudi Arabia, the US and Britain and implemented through February 2008 elections to install a consensus government of liberal and secular political parties to provide popular support for the "war on terror".

The possible ramifications for Afghanistan are enormous.

The Pakistani Supreme Court ruled that opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, chief of the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N), a former two-time prime minister, could not stand for parliament as a result of an old criminal conviction. The court also disqualified his brother, Shahbaz, who was chief minister of the provincial government in Punjab, Pakistan's most prosperous and populous province, ordering him to resign immediately over a plane hijacking incident in 1999.

The decision sets the scene for political turmoil and unrest and a major challenge to the one-year-old government headed by President Asif Ali Zardari and his Pakistan People's party (PPP).

Within hours of the news of the Sharif brothers' disqualification, violent street protests forced the government to impose governor's rule in Punjab for two months.

At a press conference at their Raiwind farm house near Lahore, the brothers blamed Zardari for orchestrating the decision. They said the reason was their support for the restoration of former chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhary, who was sacked by the government of president General Pervez Musharraf on November 2, 2007.

Lawyers and others have since then agitated on behalf of Chaudhary and other members of the judiciary who were dismissed and large protests are planned for next month. These could get even bigger, judging by Wednesday's events in which the PML-N-dominated province was brought to a virtual standstill by protesters.

The ability of the federal government to function could well be compromised. A key coalition partner in the PPP-led government, the Awami National Party, issued a statement saying that the court decision was unacceptable and that it would stand with the PML-N.

The benchmark Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE)-100 index on Wednesday fell by 294.05 points or about 5% to close at 5,580.78 points. Shares earlier gained 1% before the court ruling prompted panic selling. The market is likely to remain under pressure in the short-term because of worry about political instability, according to the local traders.

The Afghanistan connection

The situation in Pakistan impacts heavily on Afghanistan. The Taliban-led insurgency relies to a large degree on its bases inside Pakistan and the latest ceasefires in the tribal areas will allow the Taliban uninterrupted preparations for its spring offensive. The Taliban, therefore, want the political uncertainty to continue as the central government will continue to leave them in peace.

Washington, on the other hand, will view the political turmoil in horror and will possibly back the military to take some form of initiative, at the least in dealing with the militants.

In this regard, the visit by Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani to Washington on February 20 could turn out to be crucial as to date he has advocated neutrality in political matters. The US might have tried to convince him otherwise.

In Afghanistan, meanwhile, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has deployed an additional 3,000 troops in the restive provinces of Logar and Wardak, and US President Barack Obama has ordered 17,000 more US troops to southern Afghanistan. Other countries, such as Italy and Britain, will contribute more troops and the total number could reach 90,000, only 30,000 fewer than the Soviet Union had in the country in the 1980s.

Pakistani strategic expert Dr Farrukh Saleem, however, pointed out to Asia Times Online that today's troops "are far superior to the 120,000 Soviet troops in terms of training, equipment and strategy".

The new troops will be split between Logar, Wardak and Ghazni provinces around the capital Kabul and Khost, Paktia, Paktika, Kunar and Nangarhar provinces, where they will attempt to stop the infiltration of Taliban fighters from Pakistan.

The Taliban believe they already have sufficient fighters to keep up the heat around Kabul and intend to send more forces to two areas:

- Pakistan's Khyber Agency for continued attacks on NATO supply convoys;

- Helmand province in Afghanistan.

Asia Times Online contacts say that Pakistani fighters will come mostly from the South Waziristan tribal areas and head for the Garmsir district of Helmand. This is extremely inhospitable territory and the permanent ground deployment of NATO troops is not possible.

From Helmand, forces will be sent to the northwestern Afghan provinces of Nimroz and Herat. The province of Farah, situated on the same belt, is already under the control of the Taliban and the Taliban often slip into Nimroz and Herat to carry out actions against NATO troops.

An added element this year will be a concentration on disrupting NATO's supply lines, whether they enter the country from Pakistan, Iran or Central Asia.

In these new struggles, the decisions that are made in Islamabad over the next few days or weeks will be crucial, that is, just which way the Pakistani military is going to jump.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief.
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Russia To Sign Spain's Afghan Transit Deal In March
February 27, 2009
MOSCOW (Reuters) -- Russia will sign an agreement next month to allow Spain to use a route through its territory to Afghanistan for military cargo and personnel, an aide to President Dmitry Medvedev has been quoted as saying.

NATO members are looking for alternative supply routes from the north and Central Asia rather than routes through Pakistan, where convoys are repeatedly attacked by Taliban militants.

"An agreement on the transit via Russian territory of military property and personnel...will be signed during the president's state visit to Madrid on March 1-3," Interfax news agency quoted Kremlin aide Sergei Prikhodko as saying.

Prikhodko said Russia already has Afghan transit agreements with Germany, France, and the United States, though the deal with Washington applies only to nonmilitary cargoes.

Prikhodko said Spanish cargo would be transported by rail.

Spain has more than 700 military personnel based in Afghanistan.
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Kabul Wants Obama to Promote the "Afghanization" of War Effort
Eurasianet By Joshua Kucera 02/26/2009
Afghanistan's foreign minister, Rangeen Dadfar Spanta, has asked the United States to give more assistance to Afghan institutions in order to press the fight against terrorism and the drug trade. And conjuring up bad memories of an American quagmire from four decades ago, Spanta also has called for the "Afghanization" of security operations.

"We encourage the international community to invest in Afghanistan's national security forces -- the army, police, and other security entities. That will be the precondition of Afghanization of the security sector in Afghanistan," Spanta said. "This will be cheaper, more acceptable for you and your taxpayers, your public opinion and of course the Afghans, to take more responsibility. We are determined and we will take more responsibility."

Spanta made the comments during an appearance at the Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank, on February 26. Spanta was in Washington as part of a large delegation from Afghanistan, which, along with another delegation from Pakistan, engaged with top US officials in a comprehensive review of American strategy toward that region.

Later on February 26, he was scheduled to meet with Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, along with Richard Holbrooke, special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi.

Spanta said he was satisfied with the level of input that his government has had in the policy review, and said that the officials he has spoken to have been receptive to his ideas.

He expressed approval for some of the early moves of the Obama administration. He welcomed the decision to deploy an additional 17,000 US troops to Afghanistan, as well as the appointment of Holbrooke, which he said shows an understanding that the problems of Afghanistan and Pakistan are inseparable.

He said the United States should not try to lower its standards for what it intends to achieve in Afghanistan, adding that Washington needs to sharpen its strategy towards his country, formulating ways to address pressing problems in the areas of security, sustainable economic development and governance. Spanta revealed that 621 mid-level and senior officials were prosecuted or fired in 2008, including ministers, deputy ministers and governors.

Spanta painted an upbeat picture about democratization's prospects in Afghanistan. He cited Afghanistan's presidential and parliamentary elections, and the facts that the country now has more than 500 newspapers, 20 television stations and more than 100 civil society groups. All of this, he said, is "forcing Afghanistan toward further democratization."

But only a multi-pronged strategy by the United States can help Kabul complete the task, he argued. "In recent weeks and months we have heard some views here and elsewhere of the need to reduce our expectations for Afghanistan, and to pursue a 'realistic' view of Afghanistan. In my view it is a reductionist strategy if you focus on only one component, terrorism and al Qaeda, and history shows that any reductionist policy is bound to fail," he said.
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Cost of Afghanistan mission could reach $11.3B, government says
CBC News Thursday, February 26, 2009
The Canadian combat mission in Afghanistan could cost taxpayers around $11.3 billion by the time it ends in 2011, according to a new government estimate.

But the report, posted on the government website Canada's Engagement in Afghanistan, suggests that the 10-year cost estimate for the mission could change, depending on the circumstances.

“Afghanistan is an enormously complex and challenging mission. Operations are constantly changing and adapting to the security situation on the ground,” the report states. “As such, cost estimates are constantly refined and adjusted to reflect this changing reality.”

Around $9 billion of the costs are Defence Department-related and include expenses for personnel, equipment, supplies, maintaining bases and medical needs.

The report also lays out $2.3 billion of mission expenses in other departments, including $1.7 billion for the Canadian International Development Agency, $400 million for the Foreign Affairs Department and $150 million for Veterans Affairs Canada.

Long-term health-care costs are not included because they are more difficult to account for, as health-care issues can be the consequence of cumulative mission experiences, the report says.

In October, parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page offered different estimates, saying the mission costs could reach as high as $18.1 billion, or $1,500 per Canadian household.

Page reported that Canada had spent $7.7 billion to $10.5 billion on costs related to the mission in the past six years, and could spend $13.9 billion to $18.1 billion by the end of the 2010-11 budget year.

Page's report also said a lack of government consistency and transparency made it difficult to come up with estimates, and the figures likely understate the full costs of the mission.

Canadian special forces troops were on the ground in Afghanistan in late 2001 and the country has maintained a full battle group in Kandahar since early 2006.

Currently 2,850 soldiers, aircrew and support staff are officially in the war theatre, but temporary-duty assignments add to that total.

Since the mission began, 108 Canadian soldiers and one diplomat have died as part of the mission, while roughly 375 troops have been wounded.
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Treasured artifacts from Afghan museum on display
By DOUGLAS BRITT HOUSTON CHRONICLE Feb. 26, 2009, 6:19PM
Walking through the galleries where Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures From the National Museum, Kabul is being installed at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, curator Fredrik Hiebert still can’t quite believe what he sees.

“Every time I look at these objects, I feel that I’m looking at something that is so special, because it shouldn’t be here,” says Hiebert, a National Geographic archaeology fellow. “It should have been melted. It should have been stolen.”

But the 228 intricately crafted gold ornaments and other ancient artifacts, which reflect not just one country’s heritage but much of the ancient world’s, were saved from looting and destruction by a group of determined Afghans. Part of a tour organized by the National Geographic Society and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., they go on display Sunday at the MFAH.

For most of his career, Hiebert, like the rest of the world, believed these masterpieces had fallen victim to some 25 years of conflict that had plagued Afghanistan.

After all, he knew Viktor Sarianidi, the Russian archaeologist who discovered the six 2,000- year-old nomadic burial grounds containing more than 21,000 pieces of gold in 1978, on the eve of the former Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. The first evidence of ancient nomads’ trading routes in northern Afghanistan, they revealed a synthesis of Greek, Roman, Persian, Indian, Chinese and Siberian styles.

“He literally had to excavate these six burials right through the winter in the freezing cold and then take all the artifacts in brown paper bags in buses down to Kabul, inventory them very quickly and then hide them away,” Hiebert says.

Sarianidi photographed the objects but had no opportunity to study or display them. He told Hiebert the story of his find in 1987, when the two were on a dig in the deserts of Turkmenistan. In 1990, Sarianidi wrote an article for National Georgraphic magazine that Hiebert translated.

The last line of the article read: “Look well at these pictures of the Bactrian masterpieces that follow. Who knows when they will be seen again.”

Four years later, as civil war raged, the National Museum, Kabul, was struck by a rocket and burst into flames. Reports spread that a large number of works had been stolen. That was that, Hiebert and Sarianidi thought.

“Our mantra was, ‘Everything’s gone — lost, melted or stolen,’ ” Hiebert says.

Then, in August 2003, Hiebert heard a BBC Radio report that Afghan President Hamid Karzai — then the newly appointed interim president — had been “snooping around the presidential palace and found that there was a bank vault in the basement, which hadn’t been breached,” Hiebert says. “His minister of finance and the bank director went in there and found the gold bullion of Afghanistan. It hadn’t been breached by the Communists, not by the mujahideen, not even by the Taliban — and there it was.”

That’s because National Museum officials — including Omara Khan Masoudi, who has been the museum’s director since 2002 — had secretly transferred many of the most precious objects to the vault during an escalation of violence in 1988, when Masoudi was head of the exhibitions department.

“The people who were involved in the transportation (of the artifacts), some of them left the country. Some of them died during the civil war,” Masoudi says. “But the few people who were left alive, we took this decision never to give any information to anybody. Why? Because we knew that if people knew about the value of the artifacts … it would be too dangerous.”

National Geographic sent Hiebert to Kabul, where Masoudi agreed to open the locked boxes if Hiebert would do an inventory. After three months inside the vault, Hiebert determined that “every single piece of gold that (Sarianidi) had counted from the Bactrian hoard was there,” he says.

But that wasn’t all. Masoudi and his colleagues had also hidden treasures from three other archaeological sites in the vault and at a second location. They included fragmentary gold bowls with artistic links to Mesopotamia and Indus valley cultures; bronze and stone sculptures and a silver gilded plaque from a former Greek colony; and bronzes, ivories and painted glassware that had been imported from Roman Egypt, China and India and excavated from ancient storerooms discovered in the 1930s and 1940s.

Now a selection of the masterpieces are on tour, showcasing a side of Afghanistan not seen by the outside world in recent decades. National Museum staffers accompany each stop, receiving training in current curatorial and conservation practices — and learning English, which helps connect them with the global art world.

“The fact that we can show these objects here, this exhibition, is a testament to modern Afghans — to their bravery and their nobleness for preserving their culture,” Hiebert says. “Because it’s not just the culture of Afghanistan. … This is the center of the Silk Road, so it’s the composite of all our worlds, which is why, when you look here, you see many familiar things.”
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New Technology Users Are Boosting in Afghanistan
Written by www.quqnoos.com Thursday, 26 February 2009
The new technology users say that these equipments have created more facilities for them

Some shopkeepers say that the numbers of new technology users have increased by 80 percent in Afghanistan.

The usages of new technology, especially computers, Internet, Mobiles and other developed equipments have tremendously increased in the country.

People, especially youths believe that these equipments have created many facilities for them; therefore they spend most of their time using these equipments.

The new technology users say these equipments have turned the world into a “small village”.

They say the use of Internet and mobiles has helped them a lot in doing their works faster.

These people urged the government to create more opportunities in this field, that more people could get familiar with the new technology.

After the fall of the Taliban, and the recent changes in Afghanistan in different fields, the numbers of information technology users have also tremendously increased.

The establishment of private mobile companies is one of such changes, which is known as one of the important achievements of the Afghan government.
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Unemployment Has Forced Young People to Join the Insurgents
Written by www.quqnoos.com Thursday, 26 February 2009
Lack of job opportunities is a big problem in Kandahar, says the governor

Residents of Kandahar province say that lack of job opportunities is the main reason that some youths in the province join the Taliban.

Although unemployment has turned into a big problem all over the country, youths in Kandahar province believe that the government can overcome the problem by creating job opportunities for the people.

Meanwhile the governor of Kandahar called the lack of job opportunities in the province a big problem, and approved the report about the joining of some youths with the government opposition forces.

Kandahar MPs also said that if job opportunities are created for the youths in the province, the government opposition forces and the drug-smugglers will not be able to misuse these youths.

Head of the Kandahar Textiles Mill, which is not functioning now, had also said a while ago that the mill's workers, who had got unemployed, had joined the government's opposition forces.

Kandahar Textiles Mill which had more than 2000 workers once has 30 workers now, who are responsible for guarding the factory's building and its machineries.
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