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February 3, 2009 

Afghanistan says Kabul suicide gang smashed
by Waheedullah Massoud
KABUL (AFP) – Afghanistan's intelligence agency said Tuesday it had smashed a Pakistani-led group behind six deadly suicide bombings in Kabul over the last two years, including blasts outside the German and US embassies.

Afghan army detains 3 would-be suicide bombers
People's Daily - Feb 03 12:34 AM
Afghan troops arrested three persons on charge of attempting to carry out suicide attacks in the southern Uruzgan province, a press release of Defense Ministry received here Tuesday said.

UN: 2,100 civilians killed in Afghanistan in 2008
GENEVA (Reuters) – More than 2,100 civilians in Afghanistan were killed last year, a 40 percent rise from the previous year, because of escalating fighting that spread to new areas, the United Nations top aid official said on Tuesday.

Another Afghan stands for Presidency
February 03, 2009 People's Daily
While the date for holding the second presidential polls in Afghanistan is getting closer, another Afghan former Finance Minister Anwarul Haq Ahadi offered his candidacy, a local television channel TOLO reported Tuesday.

ANALYSIS-Upset with West, is Afghan president turning east?
03 Feb 2009 12:26:15 GMT By Sayed Salahuddin
KABUL, Feb 3 (Reuters) - Frustrated with some of his Western allies, in particular the United States, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has begun to reach out to Afghanistan's giant northern neighbour Russia.

Afghanistan: Can Obama succeed in the 'land of the unruly?'
By John Blake
(CNN) -- The ancient Persians called it "the land of the unruly." Historians call it "the graveyard of empires." President Obama calls Afghanistan something else: The "central front" in the battle against terrorism.

Taliban violence spreads in Afghanistan: US report
by Dan De Luce
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The Pentagon said insurgent violence was on the rise across Afghanistan and international forces lacked the troops and resources to control the country's south in a report to Congress Monday.

Mullen: Afghanistan is no Vietnam
By LARA JAKES, Associated Press Writer – Mon Feb 2, 8:52 pm ET
WASHINGTON – The top U.S. military officer cautioned Monday against comparing the Pentagon's renewed focus on Afghanistan to the Vietnam War, citing terrorism and a non-occupation strategy as "dramatic differences" between the two conflicts.

Taliban Hits NATO Supply Route
By SALMAN MASOOD February 3, 2009 The New York Times
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Supplies intended for NATO forces in Afghanistan were suspended Tuesday after Taliban militants blew up a highway bridge in the Khyber Pass region, a lawless northwestern tribal area straddling the border with Afghanistan.

Factbox - Afghan supply routes: problems and possibilities
03 Feb 2009 Rueters
Suspected Islamist militants blew up a bridge in northwestern Pakistan's Khyber Pass on Tuesday, cutting the main route for supplies bound for Western forces in land-locked Afghanistan, Pakistani officials said.

Clinton to discuss Iran, Afghanistan with top allies
by Lachlan Carmichael – Mon Feb 2, 2:44 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Hillary Clinton will seek allied support for Afghanistan and Iran when she receives her British and German counterparts on Tuesday, in her first high-level meetings since becoming secretary of state two weeks ago.

Taliban who? Afghan filmmakers brave off-screen dramas
By Anand Gopal – The Christian Science Monitor via Yahoo! News - Tue Feb 3, 3:00 am EST
Kabul, Afghanistan – In the war-torn countryside, a maiden finds her path blocked by a group of threatening men.

UN launches 600-million-dollar aid appeal for Afghanistan
Tue, 03 Feb 2009 14:59:55 GMT EARTHtimes.org
Geneva - The United Nations issued an appeal Tuesday for Afghanistan, asking donors to give 603 million dollars for aid as the humanitarian situation in the country continued to deteriorate.

Holbrooke Prepares To Visit Afghanistan, Pakistan
by Michele Kelemen Morning Edition, NPR - Tue Feb 3, 6:10 am EST
The Obama adminstration's special representative on Afghanistan and Pakistan is heading on his first trip to the region. Richard Holbrooke is perhaps best known as the architect of the Bosnian peace agreement.

Welch back from Afghanistan, where hopes are high
By Louis Porter Vermont Press Bureau via The Barre Montpelier Times Argus - February 3, 2009
U.S. Rep. Peter Welch and other members of the chamber's Oversight and Government Reform Committee returned Monday from a trip to Afghanistan taken to evaluate progress and problems with the U.S.-led war and attempted reconstruction of that country.

Indonesia Detains 41 Afghan Migrants - Police
JAKARTA (AFP)--Indonesia detained 41 Afghan migrants on the country's eastern Sulawesi island and arrested six people smugglers who were trying to bring them to Australia, police said Tuesday.

U.S. helping Afghan farmers give up opium for wheat
CNN Atia Abawi 3 February 2009
LASHKAR GAH - Afghanistan Toiling in what once was the opium capital of the world, farmers in southern Afghanistan are swapping out their poppy plants for wheat crops.

Health Minister to be Called to the Parliament
Written by www.quqnoos.com Monday, 02 February 2009
The decision was made after the parliament health commission's report was released

PRT Called Inefficient in the North
Written by www.quqnoos.com Monday, 02 February 2009
The Provincial Council chief says the activities of NATO-led PRT in the last six years is under question
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Afghanistan says Kabul suicide gang smashed
by Waheedullah Massoud
KABUL (AFP) – Afghanistan's intelligence agency said Tuesday it had smashed a Pakistani-led group behind six deadly suicide bombings in Kabul over the last two years, including blasts outside the German and US embassies.

The National Directorate of Security (NDS) told reporters it rounded up 17 suspects, including a Pakistani alleged to be the ringleader, days after the January 17 suicide car bomb near the German embassy that killed five people.

"They all have confessed to their involvement in the suicide attacks and the case is under investigation," NDS spokesman Sayed Ansari told a news conference in the Afghan capital.

The attacks -- dating from March 2007 to the January 17 attack near the German embassy and a US military base -- killed at least 20 Afghan civilians and wounded more than 120 others, Ansari said.

They also caused casualties among foreign soldiers but he could not say how many.

The agency handed out a DVD showing some of the suspects admitting to involvement in the attacks, including the Pakistani.

Ansari said the group was affiliated to the Haqqani network, a Taliban wing led by the Haqqani family, and Harakat-ul-Mujahideen, an Islamic militant network based in Pakistan.

"The group is trained, financed and formed outside Afghan borders in Pakistan by the Harakat-ul-Mujahideen and Haqqani terrorist networks," Ansari said.

Harakat-ul-Mujahideen is classified as a "terrorist" organisation by the United States. Defence analysis group Jane's says the outfit has conducted raids on Indian security positions and is active in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

The suspects, aged between 23 and 55, were all Afghans except for their alleged leader, a 23-year-old man identified as Pakistani national and named only as Yasar, the official said.

The men performed various tasks related to the attacks, from fixing bombs into vehicles to housing the suicide attackers, and collecting information about damage and casualties at the scene after the blasts.

They were allegedly involved in the January 17 bombing, a November 27 suicide attack near the US embassy that killed four civilians, and four other blasts in the east of Kabul.

Ansari said the intelligence agency was looking for three other men in connection with the "dangerous network".

The arrests come in addition to three others announced by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force days after the German embassy bombing, the spokesman said.

ISAF said it arrested the three in Kabul and the adjacent province of Logar, where another suspect was killed after he tried to attack the troops.

The January suicide bombing was the first in the capital this year.

Suicide bombings have been a regular insurgent tactic in Afghanistan since 2005, with the number of such attacks growing every year. They are most often claimed by the Taliban, which was in government between 1996 and 2001.

The Pentagon said in a report to Congress on Monday that the period between spring and summer 2008 marked the worst violence in Afghanistan since the Taliban were removed from government in the 2001 US-led invasion.

Insurgent attacks rose 33 percent last year and assaults along the country's major highway increased by 37 percent compared to 2007, it said.
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Afghan army detains 3 would-be suicide bombers
People's Daily - Feb 03 12:34 AM
Afghan troops arrested three persons on charge of attempting to carry out suicide attacks in the southern Uruzgan province, a press release of Defense Ministry received here Tuesday said.

"Afghan troops acting on an intelligence report arrested three would-be suicide bombers from Deh Rawad district on Monday, thus saved the lives of innocent people," the press release added.

Several hand grenades and satellite phone were recovered from their possessions, the press release added.

A deadly suicide bombing against police in Uruzgan's provincial capital Trinkot on Monday claimed the lives of 21 cops and injured at least eight others.
Source:Xinhua
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UN: 2,100 civilians killed in Afghanistan in 2008
GENEVA (Reuters) – More than 2,100 civilians in Afghanistan were killed last year, a 40 percent rise from the previous year, because of escalating fighting that spread to new areas, the United Nations top aid official said on Tuesday.

John Holmes, U.N. emergency relief coordinator, gave the toll to representatives of donor countries while launching a U.N. funding appeal of $604 million for Afghanistan for 2009.

"According to U.N. figures, over 2,100 civilians were killed as a result of armed conflict in 2008, which represents an increase of about 40 percent from 2007," Holmes said in a speech, the text of which was issued to reporters in Geneva.

He did not say whether the majority of civilian casualties were due to Taliban militants or U.S.-led air strikes in the country, where violence is at the highest levels since the 2001 overthrow of the Islamist militants.

The Taliban have regrouped and, despite the presence of nearly 70,000 international troops, in the last year increased both the scope and scale of their attacks. Air strikes which have killed civilians have provoked anger among Afghans and resentment against the presence of foreign troops.

"The armed conflict is increasingly characterized by the use of suicide bombings, improvised explosive devices, kidnappings and air strikes, all of which tend to increase civilian casualties," said the U.N. funding appeal document.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Jonathan Lynn and Katie Nguyen)
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Another Afghan stands for Presidency
February 03, 2009 People's Daily
While the date for holding the second presidential polls in Afghanistan is getting closer, another Afghan former Finance Minister Anwarul Haq Ahadi offered his candidacy, a local television channel TOLO reported Tuesday.

"Dr. Anwarul Haq Ahadi is the candidate of Afghan Millat party to contest the upcoming Presidential Elections," TOLO quoted a member of the party Mohammad Farooq Milanai as saying.

Ahadi, who rendered his resignation as Finance Minister couple of months ago, has been heading a nationalist party Afghan Millat or Afghan nation.

Besides Anwarul Haq Ahadi, four others including the incumbent President Hamid Karzai have hinted to run for the top slot in the post-Taliban country.
Source:Xinhua
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ANALYSIS-Upset with West, is Afghan president turning east?
03 Feb 2009 12:26:15 GMT By Sayed Salahuddin
KABUL, Feb 3 (Reuters) - Frustrated with some of his Western allies, in particular the United States, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has begun to reach out to Afghanistan's giant northern neighbour Russia.

U.S. President Barack Obama has pledged to make Afghanistan his top foreign policy priority and will be unlikely to give Karzai an easy ride, having accused him in the past of failing to get "out of the bunker" and rule effectively.

Karzai, once the darling of the West, is no longer assured of the unwavering support he enjoyed from former President George W. Bush, and European leaders have joined the chorus continually calling for good governance -- more implied criticism of Karzai.

"When Karzai sees his former allies are not in power and the rest criticise him, instead of helping him, then he looks for new allies," said Shukriya Barakzai, a prominent parliamentarian.

The new allies, she said, were led by Russia, and included neighbours Iran and China who have economic interests in Afghanistan, but also reservations about the presence of foreign troops.

Russian diplomats have said the West was making the same mistakes the Soviet Union made during its ill-fated 10-year occupation of Afghanistan.

On the eve of President Barack Obama's inauguration, Karzai's office released a statement saying Moscow had accepted his request for providing defence aid to Afghanistan.

Karzai's chief spokesman played down the importance of the move, saying despite Karzai's call, Afghanistan was committed to its ties with NATO and the United States, which have nearly 70,000 troops fighting Taliban-led insurgents in the country.

The request by Karzai, facing elections in August, was made last November and the timing of the release of the news of Moscow's acceptance could be no more than just a coincidence.

However, the next day in parliament, just hours before Obama took office, Karzai, who has led Afghanistan with Western military and financial support since the Taliban's 2001 overthrow, spoke apparently for the first time of his desire for closer ties with Russia.

Days later, as the U.S. ambassador and U.S. commander of NATO troops looked on, Karzai told an army graduation ceremony Afghanistan needed to acquire planes and tanks from anywhere it could after failing to get them from NATO and the United States.

"We told America and the world to give us planes soon and if you do not, we will get them from another place," Karzai said. "We told them we have become impatient and we cannot live without planes."

RECRIMINATION
Seven years after swiftly dispatching the Taliban government, Western forces are struggling against insurgent attacks that rose by a third last year and a campaign of suicide bombing that has heightened the sense of insecurity and eroded public trust in the ability of both Karzai's government and NATO to bring security.

Mutual recrimination, though often muted and diplomatically coded, has risen accordingly.

Karzai has repeatedly hit back at Western criticism of his government, endemic official corruption and lack of rule of law, with stinging attacks on the U.S. and NATO record of accidentally killing hundreds of civilians in air strikes.

Last week Karzai warned he would call a national assembly of tribal chiefs and elders to discuss civilian casualties and house searches by foreign troops if NATO failed to reply positively within a month to a draft agreement with his government he sent to the alliance, state newspapers said.

The draft agreement largely wants control over where and how foreign troops are deployed, an end to house raids and coordination at the "highest level" on the use of air power.

In an election year, Karzai may well want to distance himself from foreign forces and Western allies and shift the blame for the failures and missed opportunities of the last seven years.

Seeking regional allies is just part of that shift.

"The Russians may have more supporters in Afghanistan than the Americans since they know Afghanistan much better and Iran is also its major ally," said Waheed Mozhdah, an analyst who served under the Taliban government. (Editing by Jerry Norton)
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Afghanistan: Can Obama succeed in the 'land of the unruly?'
By John Blake
(CNN) -- The ancient Persians called it "the land of the unruly." Historians call it "the graveyard of empires." President Obama calls Afghanistan something else: The "central front" in the battle against terrorism.

Afghanistan has defied armies led by military leaders including Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan. Now Obama's new administration will attempt to accomplish what few leaders have been able to do: stabilize Afghanistan.

Obama says he wants to start by adding U.S. troops to Afghanistan. Although some believe that a "surge" helped in Iraq, there is no military solution for stabilizing Afghanistan, several military and political experts say.

"Controlling the Afghan people is a losing proposition," says Stephen Tanner, author of "Afghanistan: A Military History from Alexander the Great to the Fall of the Taliban." "No one has ever been able to control the country."

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is struggling to control the country now, Tanner says. The landlocked nation, which is roughly the size of Texas, has no strong national police, he says; its citizens are averse to taxes and a strong central government.

Afghans seem to unite only when a foreign army occupies their country, Tanner says.

"The people are so disunited within that they can't resist an invader at the border," Tanner says. "But once you're in, you're surrounded by them."

The resurgence of the Taliban will complicate Obama's plans as well, Tanner says.

The Taliban are making a comeback. Since 2004, the last year of relative calm, annual acts of violence have increased from about 900 to 8,950 in 2007 and roadside bombs from 325 incidents to 1,469, Tanner says.

U.S. and coalition documents, based on NATO statistics, show more than a 30 percent increase in such attacks from January to December 2008. Last year, attacks by Taliban and al Qaeda forces around the country increased 31 percent. Since January 2008, U.S. and NATO troop deaths rose 26 percent, according to the statistics. Afghan security forces deaths rose 64 percent in the same period. Read more about the rising number of attacks

The government has also degenerated. It has become a corrupt "narco state," with opium trade providing nearly half of the country's gross national product, Tanner says.

There are about 30,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, but there are plans to add 15,000 troops. Defense Secretary Robert Gates briefed Obama on Monday about adding U.S. troops to Afghanistan, which would ultimately involve sending two additional combat brigades and a brigade of trainers for Afghan security forces.

It is clear that Obama intends to focus more on Afghanistan. He called it "the central front in our battle against terrorism" in a CBS "Face the Nation" interview.

"I think one of the biggest mistakes we've made strategically after 9/11 was to fail to finish the job. ... We got distracted by Iraq," Obama says.

Said T. Jawad, the Afghan ambassador to the United States, says the Afghan people would welcome a temporary increase in U.S. troops to make the country and its borders more secure. But the U.S. military will alienate Afghans if it continues to strike with unmanned Predator drones instead of surgical commando operations to go after the Taliban, Jawad says.

"In the long run, the real security solution is to be found in the capacity of the Afghan police and army," he says.

Should the U.S. negotiate with the Taliban?

Obama's policy toward Afghanistan won't just revolve around force, though, believes Caroline Wadhams, senior national security policy analyst for the Center for American Progress, a progressive Washington think tank.

She says Obama wants to accelerate training of the Afghan police, reduce corruption, increase economic development and possibly negotiate with the Taliban.

"It's never been just about the troops for Obama," Wadhams says. "More troops are part of a bigger strategic shift. The Obama administration wants to engage Afghanistan more deeply than the Bush administration."

President Obama has talked about a "more for more" strategy, which will commit more troops to the effort in Afghanistan, but would be looking for more help from its allies and from the Afghan government.

The U.S. will also increase aid to strengthen the Afghan government, including additional aid for education, infrastructure and human services. It will also help fund alternative livelihoods for farmers who abandon producing opium.

But that aid will be tied to better performance by the government on fighting corruption and establishing rule of law.

Any ultimate solution to Afghanistan's challenges would have to involve political negotiations with two players: Pakistan and the Taliban, some say.

Pakistan gives the Taliban financial and logistical support, along with sanctuary, says Jawad, Afghanistan's U.S. ambassador.

"The reason we have not been able to establish sustainable peace and stability has been Pakistan," Jawad says. "We were able to push the Taliban out of power, but we pushed them out into the countryside and Pakistan, where they were able to reorganize."

Richard Holbrooke, who was just appointed as an envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, will be making a first trip to the region next week. He wants Karzai to crack down on corruption and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari to crack down on extremists on Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.

Tanner, the military historian, says just cracking down on the Taliban is a mistake -- some would be open to negotiations.

"The Taliban are no longer all hardcore fanatics," Tanner says. "There are a lot of moderate elements. You have to bring the Taliban into the Afghan government, not to take it over but to at least participate."

Afghanistan's bloody history

Afghans are filled with a fierce nationalism that goes back centuries.

Milton Bearden, a former CIA station chief who worked in Afghanistan, once called the country a "graveyard of empires" in a Foreign Affairs magazine essay. He says its tribesmen almost killed Alexander the Great when he invaded and bloodied Genghis Khan's armies so much that the Mongol leader gained control "only after reaching painful accommodations with the Afghans."

Afghanistan's history is so steeped in violence that some historians say the ancient Persians called it the "land of the unruly" (others say the term was coined by an Afghan king).

Joel Hafvenstein, author of "Opium Season," is an American who spent years working in Afghanistan among the people. He went there to help reduce the country's opium harvest.

He says Afghans are a lot like Americans: They're filled with a powerful national pride.

"Even broadly pro-Western friends of mine still don't really consider their country 'free' as long as foreign soldiers are here, and each airstrike that kills civilians reduces tolerance for foreign military forces around the country," he says.

The Taliban are seen as a foreign force by many Afghans, Hafvenstein says.

"Many Afghans saw the Taliban as an occupation army funded by Pakistan and various Arab countries, and were willing to tolerate a U.S./NATO military presence in Afghanistan as a lesser evil," he says.

Hafvenstein says he saw something else in the Afghan people that Obama -- and U.S. troops -- would be happy to see more of in the coming years.

"I've been surprised by the gentleness of most Afghans I know," he says. "You come here laboring under these stereotypes of the ferocious Afghan, and you find instead that most people are extremely gentle and compassionate -- and extremely determined with a knack for survival."
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Taliban violence spreads in Afghanistan: US report
by Dan De Luce
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The Pentagon said insurgent violence was on the rise across Afghanistan and international forces lacked the troops and resources to control the country's south in a report to Congress Monday.

The US Defense Department described a dramatic increase in insurgent attacks in the spring and summer of 2008, saying the period marked the worst violence since the Taliban's ouster in 2001.

A resurgent Taliban was challenging the Kabul government for control of the south and east of the country, "and increasingly in the west," the report said.

In the south, "where resources are not sufficiently concentrated, security cannot be established or maintained," it added.

"In such areas, the full military, governance and economic spectrum of the COIN (counterinsurgency) strategy cannot be implemented and the insurgents retain their hold on the local Afghan population."

The report, delayed for months pending the outcome of various strategy reviews, came as President Barack Obama weighed urgent military requests for up to 30,000 more US troops in Afghanistan, nearly doubling the US force there.

The report's account of growing violence in the country was underscored by a suicide bombing on Monday that killed 25 policemen in the southern town of Tirin Kot.

"The Taliban regrouped after its fall from power and has coalesced into a resilient and evolving insurgency," the report said.

Insurgent attacks rose 33 percent last year and assaults along the country's major highway increased by 37 percent compared to 2007, it added.

The use of improvised explosive devices has also increased sharply, as has the targeting of construction and infrastructure projects.

"It is likely that attacks on these 'softer targets,' with less security and protection measures, will continue at elevated levels throughout the year," according to the report.

Titled "Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan," the report predicted the insurgents would attempt more high-profile strikes, such as the failed assassination attempt on Afghan President Hamid Karzai in April 2008.

Insurgent surface-to-air fire rose 67 percent, the report added, without specifying which weapons were used.

Increased attacks on aircraft represent a potentially serious development for stretched international troops that rely heavily on helicopters to operate across rugged terrain.

According to the bi-annual report, insurgent attacks were concentrated in the east along the border area with Pakistan considered a stronghold for Al-Qaeda militants, and in the south, a stronghold for the Taliban, an extremist Islamist group that ran the Kabul government from 1996 to 2001.

Although combined efforts by international and Afghan forces have dealt setbacks to the guerrilla forces, uncovered safe havens and dismantled roadside bombs, the insurgents have managed to step up the pace of their attacks.

The militants were targeting police and civilians more often, in a move that has caused "an increasing sense of personal insecurity among the populace," according to the report.

More patrols by NATO-led forces have also contributed to the rise in attacks as militants and allies forces were coming into contact more often, it said.

While the insurgents were gaining influence among the population, the Kabul government was plagued by widespread corruption, poor leadership and a lack of educated workers, it added.

Describing the government as one of the weakest in the world, the report said Kabul was "hampered by pervasive corruption and a lack of sufficient leadership and human capital."

The country's police meanwhile were "hampered by a lack of reform, corruption, a lack of trainers and advisors, and a lack of unity of effort among the international community," the report said.

It outlined "two distinct insurgencies" aiming to oust the Afghan government and expel foreign forces from the country.

One was the Taliban based in the south and the other was "a more complex, adaptive insurgency in the east," it said.

Afghanistan is likely to feature prominently at this week's annual Munich security conference, where new US envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, is expected to highlight the Obama administration's overhauled approach to the region.
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Mullen: Afghanistan is no Vietnam
By LARA JAKES, Associated Press Writer – Mon Feb 2, 8:52 pm ET
WASHINGTON – The top U.S. military officer cautioned Monday against comparing the Pentagon's renewed focus on Afghanistan to the Vietnam War, citing terrorism and a non-occupation strategy as "dramatic differences" between the two conflicts.

"Afghanistan is much more complex," said Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

He added: "I certainly recognize — and having been in Vietnam myself — that there are those who make comparisons. I would be pretty careful about that though, for lots of reasons."

Mullen's comments came as the Pentagon prepares to deploy an additional 15,000 Army and Marine troops to Afghanistan this spring and summer in the Obama administration's military campaign to shut down the Taliban and al-Qaida.

Ultimately, an estimated 60,000 U.S. troops could be in Afghanistan over the next year as Obama starts ordering soldiers from Iraq. There are currently about 32,000 American troops in Afghanistan.

Speaking to a Washington meeting of the Reserve Officers Association, Mullen stopped short of predicting how long U.S. troops would remain in Afghanistan. He said the main difference between Afghanistan and Vietnam is that "we are not an occupying force."

"We have no intention of that," Mullen said. "There isn't any of the 42-plus countries who are there that have that intention. ... That said, we cannot send a message to the Afghan people that we are."

Chief among the concerns, Mullen said, is making sure Afghanistan never again becomes a safe haven for al-Qaida leaders who moved to lawless Pakistan tribal regions in the post-9/11 hunt for Osama bin Laden.

"We cannot accept that al-Qaida leadership which continues to plan against us every single day — and I mean us, here in America — to have that safe haven in Pakistan nor could resume one in Afghanistan," Mullen said.

Efforts to eliminate government corruption and develop the poor nation also marks a contrast between the U.S. mission in Afghanistan from Vietnam, Mullen said.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates met Monday with President Barack Obama, but White House spokesman Robert Gibbs would not say whether the two discussed troop levels in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon released a long-awaited study Monday describing crumbling security and a peak in violence in Afghanistan in spring and summer of 2008.

Reacting to the study, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo., said in a statement that the situation in Afghanistan is troubling and will need more time and effort.

"The mission in Afghanistan continues to be limited by shortfalls in both military and civilian resources," Skelton said. "The problems are manifold: too few trainers and mentors for the Afghan National Security Forces; pervasive corruption and a lack of leadership and human capital within the Government of Afghanistan; slow progress in economic reconstruction and in the counternarcotics fight; and the ongoing existence of insurgent safe havens along the border with Pakistan, one of the greatest challenges to long-term security in the region."

The quarterly status report, required by Congress, focused mostly on data available between April and September 2008 but included some year-end details, including:

_Between January and December 10, 2008, 132 U.S. personnel in Afghanistan died as the result of hostile action, up from 82 in 2007.

_The Afghan National Army Air Corps is beefing up its reconnaissance and gunship fleets and added 27 new helicopters and cargo planes by the end of December.

_As of December, NATO had provided only 42 Operational Mentor Liaison Teams out of 103 promised to train the Afghan National Security Forces.

The shortfall of the teams impacts the training of the Afghan forces, the report noted.

_The annual Failed State Index, published by the Fund for Peace, showed worsening governance in Afghanistan between 2006 and 2008.

Mullen also said the global financial crisis is threatening U.S. security options abroad, forcing a delicate balance between national security and federal budget cuts.

"I am extremely concerned that in fact one of the outputs of this financial crisis will be an increase in instability," Mullen said.

He added: "Clearly, in listening to our new president, it's going to have an impact on the budgets in our government."
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Taliban Hits NATO Supply Route
By SALMAN MASOOD February 3, 2009 The New York Times
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Supplies intended for NATO forces in Afghanistan were suspended Tuesday after Taliban militants blew up a highway bridge in the Khyber Pass region, a lawless northwestern tribal area straddling the border with Afghanistan.

Hidayatullah Khan, a government official in the region, was quoted by Reuters as saying that the 30-yard-long iron bridge was located 15 miles northwest of Peshawar, the capital of the restive North-West Frontier Province.

Pakistani officials said they were assessing the damage and teams had been sent to repair the bridge. But it was not immediately clear how soon the trucks carrying crucial supplies for NATO forces would be able to travel through the Khyber Pass to Afghanistan.

More than 80 percent of the supplies for American and coalition forces in Afghanistan flow through Pakistan. Attacks aimed at choking the supply lines have become increasingly frequent and brazen, despite the presence of Pakistani security forces in the area.

Previously, the militants attacked convoys of cargo trucks with rocket-propelled grenades and Kalashnikov rifles. Consequently, most truck drivers refused to make the trips as they became more dangerous.

In December, attacks by Taliban militants on NATO supply depots in Peshawar destroyed 300 cargo trucks and Humvee military vehicles.

The increasing vulnerability of the supply line passing through the border areas of Pakistan has forced United States and NATO to find new supply routes through Central Asia to deliver fuel, food and other supplies to coalition forces in Afghanistan.
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Factbox - Afghan supply routes: problems and possibilities
03 Feb 2009 Rueters
Suspected Islamist militants blew up a bridge in northwestern Pakistan's Khyber Pass on Tuesday, cutting the main route for supplies bound for Western forces in land-locked Afghanistan, Pakistani officials said.

The easiest land route for supplies and military equipment into Afghanistan is by ship to the Pakistani port of Karachi, and then by truck through Pakistan and into Afghanistan.

But militant attacks that intensified last year have forced the U.S. and other Western forces to look for alternatives through central Asia and Russia into northern Afghanistan.

Following are some facts about the Pakistani routes and the alternatives:

THE ROUTES AND SUPPLIES
There are two routes through Pakistan into Afghanistan, one through the Khyber Pass in northwest Pakistan to the border town of Torkham and on to Kabul. The other goes through Pakistan's Baluchistan province to the border town of Chaman and on to the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.

The U.S. military and NATO have not given details of the supplies they get via Pakistan or a breakdown of how much comes on the two routes. The U.S. Defense Department says the U.S. military sends 75 percent of supplies for the Afghan war through or over Pakistan, including 40 percent of fuel.

Pakistani customs officials say under normal circumstances about 300 trucks with Western force supplies travel through the Khyber Pass crossing at Torkham every day, compared with about 100 through the Chaman crossing.

The responsibility for equipping forces within NATO's Afghan force lies with each country. Some imported supplies for the fledgling Afghan armed forces, which the United States and its allies are building up, also come through the Pakistani routes.

THE TROUBLE
Khyber is one of seven so-called agencies in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas. The area is awash with weapons and inhabited by ethnic Pashtun tribes.

Under a system inherited from colonial Britain, a government "political agent" administers through tribal elders meant to maintain peace and keep open the road through the pass to the border.

Pakistani Taliban stepped up attacks on trucks last year. They have also attacked staging areas outside Peshawar and at Torkham. The attacks have disrupted supplies but, before Tuesday, the route has only been briefly closed twice since September.

The route through Chaman has been largely free of attacks on the Pakistan side, although the section passing through Afghanistan from the border town of Spin Boldak to Kandahar has seen Taliban attacks.

THE ALTERNATIVES

The chief of the U.S. Central Command, General David Petraeus, said last month agreements had been reached for new transport routes for Western Forces into northern Afghanistan through Central Asian states and Russia. He did not give details.

Apart from Pakistan, Afghanistan has a border with Iran to the west, Turkmenistan to the northwest, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to the north, and a sliver of remote mountainous territory with China in the far northeast.

Afghan-bound supplies coming by ship would have to dock at ports in the Mediterranean (Turkey), the Black Sea (Russia or Georgia), or at other Russian ports.

From Russia, goods would most likely have to cross Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and into northern Afghanistan.

Another possibility for goods off-loaded in Georgia or Turkey could be through Azerbaijan, then across the Caspian Sea to Turkmenistan and then into northwest Afghanistan.

Iran could provide a convenient and cheap link from its port of Chabahar to western Afghanistan but tense ties with the United States would appear to rule out that route for military supplies for the U.S.-led effort in Afghanistan.
(Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Jerry Norton)
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Clinton to discuss Iran, Afghanistan with top allies
by Lachlan Carmichael – Mon Feb 2, 2:44 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Hillary Clinton will seek allied support for Afghanistan and Iran when she receives her British and German counterparts on Tuesday, in her first high-level meetings since becoming secretary of state two weeks ago.

Unlike main US ally Britain, Germany has balked at following the plans of President Barack Obama's administration to send more troops to Afghanistan and has voiced doubt about its plans to engage diplomatically with Iran.

State Department acting spokesman Robert Wood said Monday that Clinton would meet British Foreign Secretary David Miliband at 10:30 am (1530 GMT) Tuesday and then German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier two hours later.

"I expect these will be very, very substantive meetings," Wood told reporters.

"I think Iran and Afghanistan will certainly be there" near the top of the agenda, Wood said, adding Afghanistan is "central to this administration's foreign policy."

Wood said he understood Miliband would be the first foreign minister Clinton would meet since she took over the reins of US foreign policy on January 22.

After Obama was inaugurated president on January 20, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown vowed to strengthen Britain's "special relationship" with the United States under the new US president.

Brown, whose predecessor Tony Blair was controversially close to former president George W. Bush, has been keen to bolster ties now that the new US administration has taken office.

Britain was America's strongest ally during the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and ousting of the Taliban government there in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on the United States, and continues to have the second-largest contingent of troops in the country, with more than 8,000 soldiers based there.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said January 20 that Obama's becoming president did not mean Germany would send more troops to Afghanistan, and was doubtful whether talking to Iran would bear fruit.

She pledged that Germany "will live up to its responsibilities in Afghanistan," where it has around 3,300 troops mostly in the relatively the calmer north.

But she added: "We took our decisions based on our capabilities, our skills, not on who is president."

Germany decided last year to increase to 4,500 the number of troops it has in Afghanistan where they form part of NATO's 50,000-strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

Obama has singled out Afghanistan as his main front in the war on terrorism and plans to deploy 30,000 more US troops there over the next 18 months, but he is likely to draw a blank if he presses Germany either to send more soldiers or to deploy those already present to the more volatile south.

State Department spokesman Wood said the United States is seeking more support on Afghanistan, but gave no details.

"We're going to be consulting closely with our allies to see what additional value added they can bring and, of course, what we can bring to the situation on the ground," Wood said.

"But we're under no illusion is about how difficult it's going to be to get Afghanistan on the proper footing," Wood said.

He gave no details about the discussions on Iran.

But top envoys from the United States, Britain, Germany, France, China and Russia -- which are trying to convince Iran to curb its nuclear ambitions -- will meet Wednesday in Germany for their first meeting since Obama took office.

Merkel said that while it could "make sense" for Obama to seek diplomatic engagement with Iran and Syria, as he has promised, she was skeptical on his chances of success.
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Taliban who? Afghan filmmakers brave off-screen dramas
By Anand Gopal – The Christian Science Monitor via Yahoo! News - Tue Feb 3, 3:00 am EST
Kabul, Afghanistan – In the war-torn countryside, a maiden finds her path blocked by a group of threatening men.

But a woman from a nearby village suddenly jumps between the men and their victim. The men laugh at this ordinary peasant's attempt at a rescue.

Alas for them, this is no common peasant: It's Feroza! The undercover cop saves the day with some back flips and well-placed karate moves – all without smudging her eyeliner.

It's a scene from the movie "Najat," a recent title in the growing catalog of Afghan films that questions everything from gender roles to political corruption. Some filmmakers are braving death threats to bring such issues to the big screen, and they hope to change the way Afghans think.

"I want to show that I am powerful," says Saba Sahar, who directed the film and starred as Feroza. "I want to convince all Afghan women that they are powerful."

Afghanistan has hundreds of small film companies, almost all of which started after the fall of the Taliban in 2001. Like Indian Bollywood films, they usually contain song-and-dance routines. Unlike Bollywood films, they often focus on war, deprivation, and loss. Many lack happy endings: One recent feature follows the travails of an Afghan in search of food. The movie closes after the protagonist dies of starvation.

Funding is a constant problem. The films are often crudely produced and they struggle to compete with their more polished Bollywood counterparts. But home-grown movies are popular outside Kabul, where most don't understand the Hindi spoken in Bollywood pictures.

Policing by day, directing at night
Ms. Sahar, a favorite among rural housewives, says she hopes to raise awareness about the widespread corruption that plagues the country. Later in "Najat," after another round of high-flying karate helps her nab a suspected kidnapping ring, Feroza delivers the captured men to her police chief for interrogation. When the men refuse to divulge their ringleader, the police begin torturing the suspects – not an uncommon practice here. When Feroza finds out, she becomes livid. "How dare you beat prisoners! We must follow the rule of law!" she insists. The police chief hangs his head in shame.

Sahar knows a thing or two about interrogations – when she's not acting and making movies, she works as one of Afghanistan's few female police officers.

Another of Kabul's enterprising filmmakers, Asad Salahi, is also a police officer. A diminutive man with a large mustache and booming voice, Mr. Salahi runs a police checkpoint north of Kabul, checking for drug traffickers and insurgents.

He's written some of his experiences into his upcoming feature, "The Hungry Wolf," a tale about Afghanistan's "land mafia" – powerful warlords with government connections who steal land and displace poor villagers. The sensitive subject is rarely discussed in the press out of fear of the warlords, but Salahi hopes that his movie, which is fictionalized but based on real events, will help expose the practice.

"We are trying to teach Afghans about their rights," he says. "There is no democracy here. The government and police take advantage of the people all the time."

Such films earn Salahi powerful enemies. The Taliban sent him death threats after his previous movie was critical of the insurgents. He's already been told to stop producing "The Hungry Wolf."

"I'm not scared," he says, pointing to a bulge in his right pocket. "I have my pistol. Let them come for me."

Hurdles didn't end with Taliban
Afghan moviemaking dates back to Soviet-funded film schools and academies of the 1970s. While years of war and Taliban rule dispersed much of the film community, a few directors never left the country.

Said Rahim Saidi was one who stayed behind. He even made movies during the Taliban regime, when filmmaking was banned. His "Tears of Blood," shot in the late 1990s, tells the story of jobless youths who turn to drugs. His cameraman hid the camera under a burqa and secretly shot the cast as they acted out scenes on Kabul's streets.

"When the Taliban would come by, we would all scatter," actor Basir Mujahed says. "I would hide the camera in a crate and pretend that I was a shoeshine boy."

The Taliban captured and beat many of the crew, but Mr. Saidi managed to complete the film. In spite of the difficulties, he says that his love of cinema pushed him to continue making movies.

"I even ran secret training courses for filmmakers in my office, until one day the Taliban came and took everything, including the film and cameras," he recalls.

Filmmakers complain that their troubles continue today, albeit in a different form. "There is no money to spend, no good cameras or film," says Salahi. Like many other filmmakers here, he puts his own money into the films.

The Afghan government has also tried to clamp down on the industry. The Ministry of Culture, for example, recently asked moviemakers to submit their scripts for vetting.

"The Afghan government wants to keep film at a low level," says Siddiq Barmak, director of the award-winning "Osama," which portrays a young girl forced to dress as a boy to survive during the Taliban era. "They want us to make Bollywood-style films, but they don't want anyone to put money into making social and political movies."

Directors also say that they run up against cultural prejudices. "It's very hard to find girls to act in my films," says Sahar. "The culture doesn't allow women to act."

Some filmmakers even have to go to neighboring Tajikistan to find women. "But that's why we make these movies," Sahar adds. "It's to change people's minds."
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UN launches 600-million-dollar aid appeal for Afghanistan
Tue, 03 Feb 2009 14:59:55 GMT EARTHtimes.org
Geneva - The United Nations issued an appeal Tuesday for Afghanistan, asking donors to give 603 million dollars for aid as the humanitarian situation in the country continued to deteriorate. Mounting insecurity along with natural disasters, specifically drought, have set the country back from gains made earlier this decade, the UN said.

"Poverty indicators, maternal mortality and infant mortality rates, are all very poor," said John Holmes, the under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs.

"Afghanistan is close to the bottom of the United Nations Development Programme's human development list," he added. "That is background against which we are trying to help people."

Average life expectancy in the country is just 43 years, with about half of the country living on less than one dollar per day. Nearly 70 per cent of the population of 31 million people do not have proper access to clean drinking water.

Food and agricultural aid would make up the lion's share of the appeal, worth together almost 355 million dollars, followed by a request for 100 million for landmine removal.

During the initial years following the fall of the Taliban in 2001, the international community placed a large emphasis on development and reconstruction.

This appeal would be the UN's first humanitarian plan for Afghanistan, an indication that the situation is deteriorating and coordination of funding and work needed to improve, UN officials said.

In 2008, over 2,100 civilians were killed, a rise of 40 per cent compared to the previous year. An additional 28 aid workers from charities were killed and 78 abducted in the same period.

The insecurity and violence have made delivering aid more difficult and hampered efforts to gather precise information on Afghanistan's humanitarian plight.

Holmes said the UN was opening offices for its humanitarian coordination agency (OCHA) in Afghanistan, to help improve access to information and the delivery of aid.

The appeal was conducted in coordination with the government in Kabul, international aid agencies and a few local Afghan groups.
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Holbrooke Prepares To Visit Afghanistan, Pakistan
by Michele Kelemen Morning Edition, NPR - Tue Feb 3, 6:10 am EST
The Obama adminstration's special representative on Afghanistan and Pakistan is heading on his first trip to the region. Richard Holbrooke is perhaps best known as the architect of the Bosnian peace agreement. He will meet with regional leaders as he tries to coordinate a new administration strategy on Afghanistan.
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Welch back from Afghanistan, where hopes are high
By Louis Porter Vermont Press Bureau via The Barre Montpelier Times Argus - February 3, 2009
U.S. Rep. Peter Welch and other members of the chamber's Oversight and Government Reform Committee returned Monday from a trip to Afghanistan taken to evaluate progress and problems with the U.S.-led war and attempted reconstruction of that country.

Traveling to Afghanistan, "you cannot help but have a much fuller appreciation for how difficult it is to execute any strategy," Welch said.

With longstanding corruption, different languages and culture and other difficulties it will be hard to accomplish any goals established by the United States, Welch said by telephone from Hungary on the way back from the six-day trip.

Members of the military he talked to during the trip "are pretty clear-eyed about the limits of what they can do," Welch said. It is important that leaders in the United States be "very careful about what it is we ask them to do."

The new presidency of Barack Obama is a cause for optimism among political leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the members of Congress also toured, Welch said.

"It is quite striking to me, from Pakistan to Afghanistan, in talking to leaders in both of those countries (to see) the new sense of optimism," he said.

"They have some sense that there is an open hand and America is going to do its best to be a friend," Welch added. "That is very encouraging."

The Obama administration is in the process of re-evaluating the country's strategy in Afghanistan.

Welch said he also met with some Vermont soldiers when he was in Kabul.

"That was the best part of my trip," he said.

The visit, the second by Welch to Afghanistan, of some members of the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee who deal most with national security, came as two news reports broke related to Afghanistan. The first was a suicide bombing that killed at least 21 police officers in Afghanistan. The second were comments to The Washington Post by Stuart Bowen Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq. Bowen said that many of the problems made in Iraq are being repeated in Afghanistan and there is little time to change how the United States is operating there.

"It's too late to do the structural part and make it quickly applicable to Afghanistan," Bowen told the Post. More than $30 billion has been spent by the United States in Afghanistan.

It is important to remember that Afghanistan, unlike Iraq, was a base for the 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, Welch said.

When members of the Vermont National Guard go to Afghanistan — a large deployment of up to 1,800 Vermonters is expected later this year — their primary mission is likely to be helping to train members of Afghanistan's police and military.

Military commanders told him that the guard has a particular role to play given their civilian jobs, Welch said.

"They bring life experience," he said. "They have a lot to offer."
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Indonesia Detains 41 Afghan Migrants - Police
JAKARTA (AFP)--Indonesia detained 41 Afghan migrants on the country's eastern Sulawesi island and arrested six people smugglers who were trying to bring them to Australia, police said Tuesday.

The Afghans were detained after Indonesian and Australian police tailed the ferry they were traveling on from the capital Jakarta to Sulawesi's Bau Bau city, police transnational crime head Untung Sangaji said.

"The Indonesian police and the Australian Federal Police followed them from Jakarta to Bau Bau and arrested them there at 9 p.m. (1300 GMT) on Monday on suspicion of people smuggling," Sangaji said.

"(An Indonesian) middleman named Tahir was waiting for them at Bau Bau and had prepared a boat to take them to Australia," he said.

The police also arrested an Indonesian boat captain and four crew members and seized an engine-powered wooden boat equipped with a map and compass.

Indonesia is a key staging point for people smugglers bringing Afghans and other nationals on the dangerous sea journey to Australia.

Four Afghans who escaped an immigration detention center in the eastern city of Kupang were found floating dead at sea by fishermen in January.
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U.S. helping Afghan farmers give up opium for wheat
CNN Atia Abawi 3 February 2009
LASHKAR GAH - Afghanistan Toiling in what once was the opium capital of the world, farmers in southern Afghanistan are swapping out their poppy plants for wheat crops.

The farmers are participating in programs sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development, which is offering seeds, fertilizers and improved irrigation to the region in an effort to stop poppy crops and, ultimately, the production of opium and heroin.

Observers have noticed a significant decline in the opium trade in Afghanistan, with the number of poppy-free provinces increasing from 13 in 2007 to 18 in 2008, according to a U.N. report released last year.

Opium cultivation in the country, which has 34 provinces, dropped by about 20 percent in a year, the U.N. reported in August.

"It's a challenge to deliver assistance in a war zone -- you can hear fighter jets flying above us right now," said Rory Donohoe, a USAID development officer.

"At the end of the day, what we found is successful is that we work in areas that we can work," he told CNN in a recent interview in Helmand province.

"We come to places like this demonstration farm where Afghans can come here to a safe environment, get training, pick up seeds and fertilizer, then go back to districts of their own."

Many of Afghanistan's northern and eastern provinces have already benefited from USAID alternative farming programs, which have doled out more than $22 million to nearly 210,000 Afghans to build or repair 435 miles (700 kilometers) of roads and some 2,050 miles (3,300 kilometers) of irrigation and drainage canals.

Giving Afghan farmers improved access to markets and improved irrigation is successfully weaning them away from poppy production, according to officials at USAID.

Over the years, opium and heroin -- both derivatives of the poppy -- have served as a major source of revenue for the Taliban, the insurgent Sunni movement that once ruled Afghanistan.

"If you can just help the people of Afghanistan in this way, the fighting will go away," said Abdul Qadir, a farmer in Lashkar Gah.

"The Taliban and other enemies of the country will also disappear."
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Health Minister to be Called to the Parliament
Written by www.quqnoos.com Monday, 02 February 2009
The decision was made after the parliament health commission's report was released

The minister of health, Muhammad Amin Fatimi, will be called to the parliament.

Parliamentarians criticized the activities of the ministry of health in their today's meeting, and voted that the minister of health must testify before parliament.

Commonplace bribery and corruption in the ministry, spending the development budget without fiscal oversight, the minister's lack of attendance in the parliament's health commission and hiring employees without due process are among the allegations which have prompted greater parliamentary scrutiny.

The parliament will soon decide when Mr. Fatimi's must face Parliamentary review.

The decision comes after the parliament's oversight commission has started investigating the government's activities more closely recently.
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PRT Called Inefficient in the North
Written by www.quqnoos.com Monday, 02 February 2009
The Provincial Council chief says the activities of NATO-led PRT in the last six years is under question

The head of the Provincial Council of the northern province of Balkh, Farhad Azimi, has called the activities of NATO's Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT) in the north “inefficient”.

He said the PRT has not been effective in restoring peace and accelerating the reconstruction process in the northern provinces of Afghanistan, and therefore they must leave the north.

The PRT in the north which has 400 soldiers led by Sweden has the responsibility of coordinating peace efforts and the reconstruction process in Balkh, Samangan, Jouzjan and Sari Pul provinces.

Farhad Azimi who was making a speech about the reconstruction process in the province, during the inauguration ceremony of the start of the work of a ten kilometer road in the north, criticized the PRT and said: “The PRT forces do not care about the development and reconstruction process in Balkh, and their activities have had no positive impacts on developing the people's living conditions.”

He urged the PRT to leave the area.

The media officer of the PRT in the north, Lax Lin, said: “We have left our homes and families and from the far side of the world, we have come to Mazar-I-Sharif to help the people of Afghanistan.”

He added that Sweden spent about $1.3 million in the north last year.

Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Poland have their soldiers in the country's four Northern provinces.
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