Karzai addresses police graduation ceremony in Bamyan - Pajhwok Afghan News 07/27/2005

BAMYAN/KABUL - President Hamid Karzai visited the central Bamyan province on Wednesday to attend a police graduation ceremony. He also inaugurated a local telephone exchange.

Heading an official delegation on the Bamyan visit, Karzai also listened to problems of the people through local elders. The president also went round a local girls' school in the central province.

Earlier, Bamyan officials complained about the glacial pace of the reconstruction process in the province and said repairs of clinics, roads, hospitals and schools had made little progress.

In his address, Karzai urged the graduating policemen to serve the nation to the best of their ability as dwellers of Bamyan, as indeed all Afghans, had suffered lots of troubles in the past.

The president said it was his second trip to Bamyan after his takeover as president. He remarked the city had changed a great deal in terms of development, compared to its status two year ago.

Ministers of defence, public health, communication, urban development, public works, education and advisors from several ministries accompanied the president. During the presidential visit, provincial police set ablaze three tons of drugs seized over the two years as part of the government's campaign against narcotics.

Te Reo For Afghan President - New Zealand Defence Force, 07/28/2005

New Zealand Defence Force personnel had the opportunity to introduce Te Reo and Maori culture to a different audience during Maori Language week when the Afghan President visited Bamyan, Afghanistan on Wednesday 27 July.

President Karzai said, 'It is a tremendous pleasure to see your native welcome and to know that you, in New Zealand, keep your traditions alive and display it, even thousands of thousands of miles away. That's really the way to represent a people and to keep a nation alive forever...this is what I will be telling the people of Afghanistan.'

The President then met members of the Provincial Reconstruction Team and received a brief on recent work.

NATO to boost troops to 12,000 ahead of Afghan elections

KABUL, July 27 (Xinhua) -- NATO has decided to enhance its strength to 12,000 ahead of the landmark legislative elections in post-Taliban Afghanistan, spokesperson of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said Wednesday.

"ISAF now has more than 10,000 forces on the ground and that number will increase to more than 12,000 once all Election Support Forces are on the ground by mid August," Karen Tissot Van Patot told newsmen at her last press conference.

The strength of multinational force has already increased from 8,300 to more than 10,000 with the arrival of around 2,000 troops from member countries. Enhancing troops is part of the NATO commitment to face any eventuality and ensure security for the coming polls in the war-torn central Asian state.

Troops from the Netherlands and Spain have already arrived and those from other states will arrive soon. "The Spanish will be based in Herat and the Dutch will be based in northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif," the spokesperson said.

Afghan Defense and Interior Ministries in conjunction with ISAF and US-led coalition forces are busy to chalk out a comprehensive security arrangement to ensure a safe and peaceful environment for the Sept. 18 parliamentary elections.

Taliban's leader Mullah Mohammad Omar who termed the election as a "toll to legitimize the US occupation of Afghanistan" has vowed to derail the next legislative polls by any possible means.

Canadian troops begin arriving in Kandahar for new mission in Afghanistan

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CP) - The main body of Canadian soldiers being deployed to Afghanistan has begun arriving in the treacherous Kandahar region. They're part of what will be a 250-strong provincial reconstruction team, the first such team Canada has sent to Afghanistan. The Canadian troops were flown on two C-130 Hercules military aircraft to the U.S. military base just outside Kandahar on Thursday.

Over the next couple of days, the remainder of the soldiers will arrive. They will rest for a day or so before going on patrols with U.S. forces already in the area. The reconstruction team, known as a PRT, is setting up camp closer to Kandahar.

Most of the troops are from 1 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group, mainly members of Edmonton Garrison's 1 Combat Engineer Regiment, 3 Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry and 1 Service Battalion. Another 50 from other Canadian bases will provide specialized skills such as satellite communications.

In Kandahar, the southern Afghan region that was once a stronghold of the Taliban, the reconstruction team will assist in defence, diplomacy and development. The Canadians will take over patrols in and around Kandahar from a U.S. team that lost four soldiers to a suicide bomb attack less than a month ago.

Canada to send more troops to Afghanistan: US military

KABUL, July 27 (Xinhua) -- Canada has decided to send more troops to Afghanistan to boost the US-led war on terror in the post-Taliban nation, US military spokesman said Wednesday.

"Canada has reaffirmed its strong defense commitment to Afghanistan and the war on terror by its decision to deploy a provincial reconstruction team in August this year," Jims Yonts told journalists here.

The contingent with a strength of 250 soldiers, he added, will be stationed in the form of Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in southern Kandahar province, the former stronghold of Taliban. However, the spokesman declined to say whether the new Canadiancontingent will serve under US military or NATO troops.

So far, 19 PRTs or civilian-military units from both US-dominated coalition troops and NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have been established in different provinces to help stabilize security and rebuilding process in thewar-ravaged country.

Some 800 Canadian troops are presently serving in Afghanistan within the framework of over 10,000-strong ISAF multinational force to enhance peace and security here. Enditem

Son takes Afghan post that father held – AP 07/27/2005

WASHINGTON – Taking a diplomatic post his father once held, Ronald E. Neumann was sworn in Wednesday as the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and promised to work with the president of the war-damaged country.

Neumann said in a speech at the State Department ceremony that the U.S. struggle with terrorism was not "a clash between civilizations," but a clash within Islam that sought to remove U.S. influence and restrict human freedom.

Such a view, Neumann said, is rejected by Muslim scholars. Neumann's father, Robert, was ambassador to Kabul more than 30 years ago, in addition to serving as ambassador to Saudi Arabia.
It was the first time an American ambassador has taken a post once held by his father. But three generations from the Adams family served as minister to Great Britain before the United States created the rank of ambassador in 1893.

"I wish my parents, Robert and Marlen Neumann, had lived to see this day," the younger Neumann said. "My father was a particular friend and colleague as well as a father. Their love for this profession and for Afghanistan was deep."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Afghanistan was "a place of hope and great promise" and "no longer a platform for terrorism."

Some 20,000 U.S. troops and other allied forces remain in Afghanistan, trying to cope with increasing violence and steer the country from which the U.S. helped oust Taliban from control in 2001.

Ronald Neumann has extensive experience in the Arab world. He served 18 months in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, as the U.S. political counselor, and was ambassador to Algeria and Bahrain. In Kabul, he will succeed Zalmay Khalilzad, now U.S. ambassador to Iraq.

US Chinook helicopter 'destroyed' - BBC News, 28 July 2005

An American Chinook helicopter has been destroyed by fire in southeast Afghanistan, US military say. The incident, which happened late Wednesday, was not caused by hostile fire, the US says.

Coalition forces believe the aircraft caught fire after landing in difficult conditions in Spin Boldak, near the border with Pakistan. Thirty one people, including six US troops and 25 Afghans, were said to be on board but no one was injured.

The Chinook was one of two conducting an operation in response to reports of insurgent activity in the area. The aircraft was scheduled to move forces taking part in the operation, US Sergeant Marina Evans said.

Spin Boldak, linking Kandahar with Pakistan's Balochistan province, is near the conflict zone. A team of investigators was due to arrive at the site later on Thursday.

The American military lost another Chinook last month when militants shot down the twin-rotor machine, killing all 17 people on board, in the province of Kunar.

Afghanistan: Religious campaign for drug demand reduction

Source: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) - [This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]
KABUL, 27 July (IRIN) - Afghanistan is launching a nationwide religious campaign to reduce addiction in the post-war country, officials at the Haj and Awqaf (Religious Affairs) ministry announced on Tuesday.

Around 500 Afghan religious leaders have participated in a symposium in the Afghan capital, Kabul, to discuss combating drug abuse throughout the country.

"As drug abuse is forbidden in Islam, religious leaders can be very effective in the struggle against drug abuse - particularly at the grass roots level," Neyamatullah Shahrani, minister of Haj and Awqaf, said in Kabul.

ng aimed at understanding drug addiction from an Islamic perspective and to identify the role of mosques in various aspects of drug demand reduction, Shahrani said.

"After the symposium these religious leaders will go back to their provinces and with the help and coordination of local Mullahs, a nationwide campaign of preaching on drug demand reduction will be launched," the minister explained.

As the world's leading poppy cultivating country - providing more than 80 percent of the world's illicit opium trade in 2004 -the effort is particularly timely.

Exact figures are not available on the level of drug abuse within the country, but in early 2003 the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimated, using a methodology of key informants, that the number of drug users in Kabul city was at least 63,000. The same study showed that hashish was the top drug used, with opium, heroin, pharmaceuticals and alcohol following.

But officials at the newly established counter-narcotics ministry believe drug abuse is increasing and that even women in rural areas were becoming addicted to certain illicit drugs.

"If we have 63,000 [drug addicts] among a population of three to four million in Kabul, it means that there are more than half a million drug addicts in the estimated 25 million population of Afghanistan," Mohammad Zafar, head of drug demand reduction at the counter-narcotics ministry, said, adding results of a new nationwide survey on drug abuse would be released in the autumn.

Meanwhile, a senior representative of Nejat, an NGO running rehabilitation centres and community outreach facilities in Kabul and other provinces, suggested there were between 30,000-60,000 addicts, but cautioned against trying to define the problem with data that were not reliable in a society where few will admit to using drugs - considered unclean and forbidden by Islam.

To cut drug abuse, Kabul is trying to use a spiritual anti-drug campaign this time. In Afghanistan, religious leaders are very influential and their messages are particularly powerful in rural areas - Tay Bian How, head of the Colombo Plan Secretariat, a prime mover in drug prevention and control programmes in the Asia-Pacific region since 1973, which is supporting the Kabul symposium, said.

"The Colombo Plan's Drug Advisory Programme believes that religious leaders, if trained and empowered, can take up vital leadership. They do have a role in assisting not just the community but also the government in fighting the drug problem," How said, adding that those affiliated with a religion were less likely to abuse drugs than individuals who were not.

Through its Drug Advisory Programme, the Colombo Plan has over the past three years been developing a faith-based approach to combating drug addiction. The Colombo Plan, which gets the majority of its funding from the US government, has been working in Indonesia, Malaysia, southern Philippines and Pakistan.

The Kabul symposium came after a 40-member Afghan religious leaders group visited Malaysia and another 40 were trained in Kabul in 2004.

"This is the biggest gathering of religious leaders that the Colombo Plan through its Drug Advisory Programme has ever organised for its member countries," How noted.

News Agency Says Taliban Launch Fund-Raising Campaign - Kabul Pajhwok News

Peshawar, July 26: The Taleban movement has embarked on a fund-raising campaign in border areas of eastern Afghan provinces and this NWFP [North West Frontier Province of Pakistan] capital city.

Receipt slips distributed by Taleban, whose copy was made available to Pajhwok Afghan News on Tuesday, openly demands funds from individuals and groups to finance their guerrilla activities and meet other requirements.

Senior Taleban figure Mawlawi Abdol Rahman Deobandi, in a telephonic contact with this reporter from an undisclosed location, acknowledged the fund-raising drive.

Rahman observed the insurgents, battling the US military in Afghanistan, needed generous financial support from the masses. He argued the fighters required public assistance in the war on a redoubtable military force.

"Despite Taleban's unflinching belief in Allah's help, they are also reliant on people's support for resolving their cash problems," said Rahman, who admitted they had distributed contribution receipt slips in different parts of the country.

Lal Jan Momand, a shopkeeper in Lalpura district of Nangarhar Province, said such receipts were recently dropped at night in front of his shop.

"The receipt seeks backing for militia in the form of contributions from the general public," confirmed Momand, unaware as to who had distributed the slips and who should be given the funds.

Likewise, a dweller of Nazian district, Haji Tor Shah Shinwari, also corroborated the distribution of the contribution receipt slips in his area. However, he added people were no longer willing to extend financial assistance to the militants.

Afghanistan officially seeks more facilities for transit trade from Pakistan govt - Gulf Times, Qatar 27 July, 2005

ISLAMABAD: Afghanistan has asked Pakistan to allow the licensed private “bonded carriers” in addition to Pakistan Railways to transport Afghan cargo from Karachi ports and Chaman.

According to the minutes of the fifth session of Pakistan-Afghan Joint Economic Commission held on July 23-24 in Kabul, the Afghan government sought a number of facilities from Pakistan under bilateral trade and Afghan Transit Trade Agreement.

The Pakistani side at the meeting, led by Secretary Economic Affairs Division Khalid Saeed, assured to sympathetically look into the fresh requests of the Afghan government.

In some cases, the requests of the Karzai government on various issues were instantly accepted. The Afghan side was led by Deputy Minister of Finance Asad Sakhi Farhad.

Currently, the Afghan side said, only Pakistan Railways was transporting Afghan transit cargo from the ports of Karachi to Peshawar and Chaman. However, due to increasing volume of workload, Pakistan Railways was finding it difficult to effectively handle the transportation.

Therefore, the Afghan side requested Pakistan government to also allow the private sector to lift cargo from Karachi ports. Farhad requested that arrangements should be made for clearance of Afghan transit goods at Karachi ports round the clock and seven days a week.

The Afghan representative stated that a lot of Afghan commercial and non-commercial cargo comprising food, medicines, chemicals and other perishable items were offloaded at Port Qasim, where no proper storage facilities are available for such goods.

Farhad requested that warehouses/sheds should be constructed at Port Qasim for perishable goods imported under the ATT. Khalid Saeed agreed to the proposal and said that he would work out the details of the issue by taking up the matter with the relevant authorities in Pakistan.

The Afghan side further requested that the customs stations at Torkham and Spin Boldak should be electronically linked with the central computers at Karachi, Peshawar and Quetta for retrieving Afghan transit data and also data of exports made to Afghanistan. Asad Sakhi Farhad appreciated that the customs examination of Afghan cargo had been discontinued at Karachi.

However, he said, it would be further appreciated if similar arrangements were made at Peshawar dry port and Chaman and the Afghan cargo is exempt from customs examinations at these places.

ccording to him, this measure would reduce the dwelling time and would also save the goods from being damaged.

The Afghan delegation also proposed that suitable amendment be made through the good offices of the ministries of commerce of both the countries, in the Pak-Afghan Transit Trade Agreement 1965 for abolishing Afghan Transit Trade Invoice.

The Afghan side said that after the introduction of the customs of ‘goods declaration’ in Pakistan for clearance of Afghan transit cargo at Karachi, the need for Afghan Transit Trade Invoice no longer exists.

The Pakistani side agreed that they would refer the matter to the Ministry of Commerce for vetting and necessary action in consultation with the Afghan Ministry of Commerce.

The Afghan delegation said that the Afghan trucks should be allowed on reciprocal basis to free pass through the territory of Pakistan, as Pakistani trucks were allowed within Afghanistan. – Internews

Britain may be left to hold the fort in Afghanistan - The Guardian, UK 07/27/2005 y Simon Tisdall

Parliamentary elections this September in Afghanistan are intended to provide the next showcase moment for the US-led "global war on terror". But according to new independent assessments, security surrounding the polls is threatened by a new wave of insurgent attacks and the stability of the country remains on a knife-edge.

British defence officials are concerned the US could prematurely declare "mission accomplished" once the national assembly and provincial council votes are over.

The worry is that Pentagon pressure to cut US troop levels could leave Britain holding the baby when it assumes command of Nato's security assistance force next spring.

A report this week by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington questioned whether current US military and financial commitments would endure beyond the polls.

Afghanistan had reached "a pivotal moment", the study said, but its problems were immense. "Three years of steady reconstruction progress have yet to jumpstart the country's ability to function without significant international involvement.

"Warlords continue to play a destabilising role ... Taliban attacks persist, many refugees and internally displaced lack shelter, and only the early foundations of political, economic, and social infrastructure have been established."

A report by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, entitled Endgame or New Beginning? criticised a "lack of strategic planning" by the UN and Kabul in the electoral process.

Human rights abusers would be able to stand for office and the failure to extend "robust" peacekeeping operations to many parts of the country had allowed warlords to entrench power.

"Little groundwork has been laid for legislative or locally devolved bodies. Instead all the eggs of state have been put in the basket of one man, President Hamid Karzai," the group said.

"International security forces will have a particularly crucial role before, during and after the elections ... The international community must not regard the polls simply as a convenient exit strategy," it warned.

Elizabeth Winter, an Afghanistan specialist writing in Chatham House's World Today, said Afghans needed more time to secure their country's recovery after a quarter of century of conflict and natural disaster.

"They hope the international community will stay the course but fear it does not know how to help a country make this transition or does not have the will to do so." Security was deteriorating due to "a combination of criminality and insurgency", she added.

But US commanders have taken a rosier view. General Jason Kamiya, the US operational chief, said the insurgency was in its death throes, despite a rise in armed attacks, suicide bombings and kidnappings of poll workers. "The Taliban and al-Qaida feel this is their final chance to impede Afghanistan's progress to becoming a nation," he said.

The possibility the US may declare a democratic triumph in September even if the polls are flawed, and begin withdrawing troops, is worrying for Afghans, the UN and NGOs.

But Tony Blair, who is set to send an extra 4,000 British troops to Afghanistan next year, seemed to have no misgivings about being left in the lurch by Washington when he hosted Mr Karzai at Downing Street last week and pledged open-ended support.

The government simultaneously published figures revealing the UK had spent more than £1bn on Afghanistan since 2001, including £405m in military and security support. The new troop deployment and ongoing nation-building assistance will add further. Even as Mr Bush may be backing off, Mr Blair seems determined to charge ahead.

Tajikistan reaffirms support for US forces - Jul 26

DUSHANBE (AFP) - Tajikistan reaffirmed its commitment to support US and other international forces operating in Afghanistan, telling visiting US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld the troops could continue to use its airspace and facilities.

Rumsfeld met with President Emomali Rakhmonov after arriving here from Bishkek, where he received similar assurances from the newly elected leaders of Kyrgyzstan.

Noting that Tajikistan had extended overflight and refueling privileges to US and French forces, Foreign Minister Talbak Nazarov said: "Tajikistan has been and will continue to observe all these international commitments."

"Our two countries are solid partners in the global struggle against extremism and in promoting peace and stability in Afghanistan," Rumsfeld said at a news conference with Nazarov.

Earlier this month, Tajikistan joined three other Central Asian countries, China and Russia in calling for a timetable for the withdrawal of US forces from air bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan on grounds that conditions in Afghanistan were more stable.

Rumsfeld said the declaration by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a regional security grouping, did not come up in his talks here. He said the US forces that toppled the Taliban regime had helped put Afghanistan on a path to democracy.

Speaking through an interpreter, Nazarov said Tajikistan deeply appreciated the role played by US and other coalition forces in ousting the Taliban, which he said "posed a threat to the whole Central Asian region."

"Great importance was given to the issue of establishing peace and stability in Afghanistan and the continued fight against the remnants of the terrorist organizations," Nazarov said.
Rumsfeld said the two sides had also discussed counter-narcotics, counter-proliferation and regional economic growth.

He highlighted a bridge linking Tajikistan and Afghanistan that is being built with US aid, as well as US help in training Tajik border guards to curb the flow of opium and heroin from Afghanistan to Russia and western Europe.

Unknown fate of missing jihad fighters - By Haroon Rashid BBC News, Peshawar

In late November 2001, as US-led forces bombed Taleban targets in northern Afghanistan, more than 1,000 Pakistanis took refuge in a girls' school in the city of Mazar-e-Sharif. They had gone to Afghanistan to fight the Americans.

The coalition forces bombed the school extensively, leaving nearly 200 dead, while the rest were taken prisoner. They are among thousands of Pakistanis still unaccounted for. Now, for the first time in almost four years, the Red Cross is helping relatives of at least 200 Pakistanis identify their dead through photographs and other belongings.

Most of the people barricaded in Mazar's Razia Sultana school were believed to be from the remote mountainous district of Dir in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province. "They all went in their thousands to Afghanistan on the appeal of a local religious leader, Maulana Sufi Mohammad, who promised them jihad [holy war]," recalls Dost Mohammad from Lal Qila, in lower Dir district.

"A hundred people from our village are still unaccounted for." Maulana Sufi Mohammad is now in a Pakistani jail, while his Tehrik Nifaze Shariat Mohammadi organisation has been disbanded.

The families of the missing Pakistanis have had no information about the whereabouts of their loved ones - or whether they are alive or dead. Sitting in his small grocery shop in Lal Qila, Dost Mohammad is waiting for a miracle - the return of his younger brother.

"He, too, heeded Maulana Sufi's call and left for Afghanistan. We don't know what happened to him since then." The uncertainty about the fate of the men has created huge social problems.

"According to our traditions a woman cannot enter into another marriage until her husband is dead. If he is alive, she would have to wait for him for 100 years," says Dost Mohammad. Some of the relatives of the missing people are fighting over assets and properties.

To try to end the uncertainty, relatives have been constantly knocking on the doors of government and the Red Cross. The government has provided little help but the Red Cross recently began a process to identify those who died in the school.

"This identification process has been initiated to help these families," Red Cross spokesman in Islamabad, Raza Hamdani, told the BBC. Other details could only be shared with the relatives of the deceased, he said.

However, interviews with relatives revealed that every week a small group is brought to Islamabad to identify the dead from around 200 photographs and some belongings. All this is being done in silence, away from the media spotlight.

"They show us photographs. Of these 200 pictures, 10 or 12 dead are very difficult to make out because of their mutilated faces," said Dost Mohammad, who himself was brought to Islamabad to identify his lost brother, Ghulam Razaq.

"My brother was not there," he said. "I will not rest until I know where he is or what happened to him. I'm ready to go to Afghanistan if I'm sure I will get information about him."

He said so far villagers could only identify five dead. "The relatives of these dead are now relieved and content. They now know their fate and that they won't have to run after them from pillar to post," said village elder, Gul Wali.

Many here believe this is a small but welcome first step in locating Pakistanis missing in Afghanistan's war. But they feel this should not be restricted to Razia Sultana school.

Pakistanis are still in the dark about the fate of those held or killed in the notorious Qila Jhangi and other jails in Afghanistan. A comprehensive study of the missing could be of great help to the waiting relatives.

Open season for jihadis - By Syed Saleem Shahzad - Asia Times Online July 27, 2005

KARACHI - Sophisticated terror attacks using the minimum possible resources to target civilians are the issue of the day, whether it be in Egypt, the United Kingdom or Spain.

Invariably, Pakistan is linked to the attacks. In the case of the July 7 suicide attacks in London, three of the bombers were of Pakistani descent and had visited madrassas (Islamic schools) in Pakistan. Pakistanis are being sought in connection with the weekend's attacks in Egypt.

Pakistan, simply, is widely reckoned as the premier breeding ground for jihadis, fueled by the Afghan resistance to the Soviets in the 1980s, the on-going troubles in Kashmir and the current Taliban-led resistance to foreign forces in Afghanistan.

The root of the "evil", as much of the West sees it, is the madrassa system - the many thousands of schools that teach the Koran and little else, and which mostly attract underprivileged, marginalized youth highly susceptible to the extreme teachings - and militancy - that some of the madrassas offer.
Under US and British pressure, therefore, in the wake of the London bombings, hundreds of madrassa teachers and students, along with militants, have been rounded up in the past two weeks. Yet maybe this is a classic case of not been able to see the wood for the trees.

Pakistan's leading monthly magazine, Herald, has published a detailed eyewitness account backed with photographs on how youths are trained in militant camps in the central region of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), Mansehra. The story was so accurate that the government could not deny it, although it issued orders to "fix" the publisher.

"Until 2001, thousands of fighters trained here for operations in Kashmir and Afghanistan ... after the 9/11 attacks in America, though, the militants' activities dwindled, and last year the camp was abandoned following an unequivocal warning from the government. But all major militant organizations began regrouping in April this year by renovating training facilities that were deserted last year," the cover story of Herald maintained.

According to a manager of the training camp, the report said, all the major militant organizations, including Hizbul Mujahideen, al-Badr Mujahideen, Harkat ul-Mujahideen and others, began regrouping in April.

The Herald report says that at least 13 major camps in the Mansehra region were revived during the first week of May. As the camps reopen, managers claim trained militants as well as new aspirants are flocking to enlist for jihad.

As one militant leader put it, the organizations are now under a "regime of controlled freedom". The story is a severe embarrassment for the government of Pakistan as many US officials are already skeptical of its integrity in the "war on terror".

Asia Times Online security contacts say that the US had become aware of the main Mansehra camp, but it was assured by Pakistani officials that the camp had not been in operation in the past few months.

Meanwhile, in the mountains … The mountainous terrain between Afghanistan and Pakistan is another area where neither Pakistan nor Afghanistan have been able to eliminate training camps. The area is a rugged no-man's-land that spans the border.

This is the hub of the Taliban resistance, where many top commanders, including Jalaluddin Haqqani, visit, and it's a perfect training center of the Afghan and global resistance. The Afghan resistance plots its hit-and-run attacks within Afghanistan from here.

... and in the tribal areas - Asia Times Online sources in the North Waziristan tribal area say that there were as many as 40 attacks in a single day on various army posts on Monday.

"The purpose of the attacks was not to kill anybody but just to remind the Pakistani army what happened to them last year when they tried to conduct operations in South Waziristan," commented a tribal source from Waziristan on the telephone.

Last year, under immense US pressure, the Pakistani government launched several military operations in South Waziristan to track down al-Qaeda suspects and foreign militants. They encountered fierce resistance from tribespeople, who cherish their virtual independence from the central government.

Trouble on the border - Conflict between the Pakistan army and Islamist militants along the Afghan border has led security analysts to talk of a full-fledged insurgency that poses a grave threat to the country, reports M B Naqvi of Inter Press Service (IPS).

"Frequent, bloody gun battles, heavy casualties, ambushes, attacks on military outposts and killing of informers and army collaborators are not ordinary crimes. Make no mistake. It is an insurgency," said A R Siddiqui, commentator on military affairs and a former brigadier in the Pakistan army.

Siddiqui told IPS that he saw the conflict as an "offshoot or even a continuation" of the "war against terror" prosecuted by the US against Taliban-ruled Afghanistan immediately after September 11, 2001.

US-led coalition forces across the border in Afghanistan are coordinating operations with the Pakistani army in both North and South Waziristan as part of the efforts to capture al-Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The high levels of civilian "collateral damage" in recent weeks has caused outrage which has resulted in further alienation of the Pashtun tribes that dominate Waziristan and which form the backbone of the Taliban movement.

"This is inexcusable," said Siddiqui. "Either Pakistan's intelligence has failed or wrong information was fed by the coalition's military sources in Afghanistan. It is going to intensify the insurgency in all the tribal areas and will mean many more recruits to the Taliban and other militant outfits in both countries."

The Pakistan army first began operations against al-Qaeda elements holing up in Waziristan in July 2002, but quickly became bogged down in a war with fiercely independent Pashtun tribes that saw the expeditions - the first in more than half-a-century - as an attempt to subjugate them.

Pashtun tribes are spread across the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), in which Waziristan falls, the NWFP and on the other side of the Durand Line (border) in Afghanistan.

Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf has said he is particularly concerned about Pakistan's image as a hotbed for Islamist extremism, militancy of various shades and as a support base for the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Last week, he charged two Pakistan-based militant organizations, the Jaish-i-Mohammed and the Sipah-i-Sabah, which he had ordered banned, with being "responsible for indoctrinating some of the London bombers".

Musharraf also said he believed that some of the madrassas were "dabbling in the military training of their students and preparing jihadis".

Now it is up to him to stop it, provided he does not get lost in the trees. Syed Saleem Shahzad, Bureau Chief, Pakistan, Asia Times Online.

COMMENT: The madrassa industry - Ishtiaq Ahmed - Daily Times (Pakistan) - July 27, 2005

The international jihad recruited idealist young Muslim men from all over the world for the Afghan war. Some of them went to the madrassas. This industry has now gone bust. Those who needed its products for fighting Communism are now selling off their shares. The Pakistani investors should watch out
The bomb blasts of July 7, 2005 have been connected to religious schools known as madrassas in Pakistan which, according to the British police, three of the four suicide bombers visited recently. Their families have also confirmed that the visits did take place. For once the market for conspiracy theories about a Jewish-Hindu-Christian diabolical plot to defame Islam and Muslims may have a short life-span, although I have already received a barrage of emails, denying with amazing bull-headed obstinacy that the suicide bombers were British Muslims of Pakistani origin. Some totally wacky theories suggest that the three men of Pakistani-origin worked for the British intelligence which orchestrated the attacks to create a scare of Muslim terrorism.

One of the suicide bombers, Muhammad Siddiq Khan, left behind a 14-month old daughter and a young wife. There is little doubt in my mind that Siddiq and his three younger comrades were idealists who had been brainwashed to believe that their faith and the ummah needed their supreme sacrifice. Whereas their mentors have yet not been traced and the entire network has not been uncovered, the fact remains that the jihadi factories (called madrassas) churning out a nihilistic worldview are still in business in Pakistan.

We were told by no less than President Pervez Musharraf in January 2002 when he first publicly announced his about-turn on jihad that the madrassas had been doing useful work, providing shelter, food and religious education to children from poor families who had no means of supporting themselves. Consequently he did not plan to dismantle them, but that those which preached extremism and terrorism would be closed down.

On the surface, such a description sounded sympathetic. Of course the general and his buddies never thought that it is not written in the stars that millions of Pakistani families should continue to remain poor and destitute so that they can only turn to the madrassas for help.

Neither did he mention that until the Afghan jihad was taken up by Pakistan, there were few madrassas in Pakistan and they took in only as many pupils as were needed by the mosques. Caring for the poor was not their agenda. The madrassas corresponded roughly to the number of mosques under the control of different sub-sects of Deobandis, Barelwis, Ahl-e-Hadith, Shia and so on. In 1956 there were only 244 madrassas in Pakistan. Recent estimates range from 13,000 to 15,000 with an enrolment of 1.5 to two million (unpublished report by Dr Saleem Ali, Islamic Education and Conflict: Understanding the Madrassahs of Pakistan).

The syllabi taught in those traditional madrassas was woefully archaic since much of it was based on assumptions that the earth was flat and the sun and moon rotated around it, while the stars were fixed lights in the seven-tier heaven. The laws and moral values taught also corresponded to a static worldview that made any notion of progress beyond the severely segregated societies of the 7th to 12th centuries impossible to grasp, much less accept.

But in all honesty such madrassas produced generally decent, hardworking and frugal prayer leaders and minor and major scholars of Islam. I remember that the Maulvi Sahib in our immediate Deobandi mosque was a thorough gentleman and a good human being. The Barelwi maulvi a little further down the road was also a wonderful man. Their silly rivalries provided much amusement and both had a sense of humour.

But things were never the same once the Afghan jihad started. The joint CIA-Saudi initiative resulted in a proliferation of madrassas, regardless of the genuine need for maulvis. Thanks to the CIA’s 51 million US dollar grant to the University of Nebraska to produce pictorial textbooks glorifying jihad, killing, maiming and bombing other human beings was made sufficiently entertaining. Sadism could now be cultivated as a virtue. That was when madrassa doors were opened to the mass of the poor.
The new “education” they received was to hate the Russians, later generalised to include any non-Muslim. Jews, Hindus and Christians figured prominently and out of it came the expression of a Yahud-Hunud-Nasara conspiracy against Islam. The phrase had never existed previously but because of its Arabic sounds, it went readily to the hearts and minds of the Islamists. The Buddhists did not fit into the Yahud-Hunud-Nasara formula. But the Taliban by destroying the Buddha statues at Bamiyan indicated that even Buddhists were against Islam and therefore their symbolic presence in Islamic Afghanistan had to be annihilated.

Until then, the children of the poor were deliberately kept poor so landlords had a regular supply of rural workers whose labour and sweat could be exploited for a pittance. That’s why establishing regular secular schools in the rural areas was strongly resisted. The urban poor also never got to school, ending up either as cheap industrial workers or as lumpen elements doing odd tasks in the informal sector of urban economies.

The need for warriors against the Soviets in Afghanistan meant that a portion of the cheap but plentiful labour force of young men could easily be converted into fodder for jihad in Afghanistan or, later in the Indian-administered Kashmir or used against other targets in India and against religious and ethnic minorities in Pakistan.

The poor are fodder for war and jihad anywhere in the world though they need leadership and education, technical and otherwise. So, the international jihad also recruited idealist young Muslim men from all over the world for the Afghan war. Some of them went to the madrassas and were trained to hate anyone who did not fit into a narrow and regimented worldview. This industry has now gone bust. Those who needed its products for fighting Communism are now selling off their shares. The Pakistani investors should also watch out.

Some naïve scholars believe that dismantling the madrassas is undemocratic since it violates the freedoms of association and speech and expression. I wonder if the Ku Klux Klan cannot invoke this democratic right to propagate its ideology all over the USA and establish racist madrassas. The absurdity of such arguments need not be stressed.

Instead, people should demand that all Pakistani children should receive free and compulsory education based on human rights and all the literary and technical skills needed to create a humane, just and progressive Pakistan. Reformed syllabi based on both rationalist and sacred sciences monitored by the state should be taught in a reasonable number of religious seminaries. It would be best to bring all mosques and madrassas under direct state supervision.

The author is an associate professor of political science at Stockholm University. He is the author of two books.

Great Game Reloaded - Ahmed Rashid YaleGlobal, 26 July 2005

LAHORE: : In a major twist to the continuing Great Game on Central Asia’s landmass, Russia and China are attempting to reclaim the dominant role in the region that they ceded to the US in the aftermath of 9/11. Though their ham-handed attempt to expel American bases from the region has been foiled for the moment, the jockeying for power, influence and resources in this neuralgic region, put on hold until now, is back in full force. Beneficiaries in the latest phase of the Great Game may well be the small countries in the region if they can deftly play one against the other.

The latest act of the game was played out in the open when US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld flew into Bishkek on July 25 to foil the Russian-Chinese attempt. Kyrgyz Defense Minister Ismail Isakov, standing with Rumsfeld, assured him that the Americans would not leave in a hurry. “The presence of the US base fully depends on the situation in Afghanistan,” Isakov said and added: “Today the minister (Rumsfeld) noted that the situation in Afghanistan has not finally got back to normal.”

The first move in the game of diplomatic chess came on July 5 when Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao, while meeting with the four Central Asian Republics at a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Astana, Kazakhstan, made an unprecedented demand for the withdrawal of US troops from the region. The SCO statement said that as stability returns to Afghanistan, foreign troops are no longer needed in Central Asia.

“As the active military phase in the anti-terror operation in Afghanistan is nearing completion” the statement said, it was time “to decide on the deadline for the use of the temporary infrastructure and for their military contingents presence” in member countries. The July 5 demands – first of their kind by the SCO - reconfigure the organization as a major alliance in the Central Asian region, firmly in the hands of Russia and China and a major challenger to NATO’s Partnership for Peace program in Central Asia.

In subsequent statements by Moscow designed to put pressure on the Central Asian states to act quickly, it was evident that Russia was prepared to live with the threats still emanating from Afghanistan, in order to drive the Americans out of Central Asia. China, which has always been apprehensive of US troops based close to its borders, was keen to voice its demands through an international organization, rather than pick an individual fight with the US.

However, the SCO demand rested on the flimsy grounds that Afghanistan is secure, which contradicts Russia’s lamentations of the failure of President Hamid Karzai and US forces to stabilize the situation there and assertion that the Afghans are giving sanctuary to Islamic extremists accused of stirring up trouble in Uzbekistan and Chechnya. Just between March 1 and July 25, 700 people were killed due to Taliban resurgence as the country prepared to hold parliamentary elections on September 18.

The US has rebuffed the SCO demand and said it would hold talks with each individual state. Rumsfeld’s Bishkek meeting was the first. In the aftermath of 9/11 the US established two major bases in the region: the first at Karshi-Khanabad, or K2, in southern Uzbekistan, and the other at Manas International Airport in Kyrgyzstan’s capital Bishkek. Both have serviced US troops and aircraft in Afghanistan. Presently 800 US troops are stationed in Uzbekistan and 1000 in Kyrgyzstan. France and NATO set up air bases in Tajikistan at Dushanbe and Kuliob in the south. Russia has military and air bases in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, but there is no SCO demand for their withdrawal.

The Pentagon maintains that these bases are primarily important for its Afghan operation. But they are also critical to wider US ambitions in the region. Further goals include controlling oil supplies from the Caspian Basin – especially now that a wholly owned Western pipeline transporting oil from Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan to the Mediterranean via Turkey is in operation – and Rumsfeld’s plan to set up “lily-pads,” or small bases around the world that can be activated in a hurry to provide access to US troops.

In fact, the trigger to change the position of Russia and China has been their fear that the recent dramatic events in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan may have increased US influence in the region. In the spring, Kyrgyzstan’s long term President Askar Akayev was swept from power and replaced by an interim government headed by Kumanbek Bakiyev, who on July 10 won the first free and fair presidential elections held in Central Asia.

Both China and Russia have thrown their weight behind the region’s autocratic rulers in order to prevent further regime change or moves towards greater democracy.

The role played by US-funded NGOs and events in Kyrgyzstan, although far from the democratic revolutions that swept Georgia and Ukraine, angered Russia and China. Moscow especially felt that the loss of its former communist satraps in Central Asia would weaken its influence and usher in pro-US leaders.

In Uzbekistan, however, the Pentagon faces a far more difficult task. The massacre of protestors by President Islam Karimov’s security forces in Andijan on May 13, sparked worldwide outrage against the regime. The killings of an estimated 700 innocent people led to widespread condemnation by the US, the UN and the European Union and a demand for an independent enquiry into the massacre, which Karimov refused.

Since the Andijan massacre, Karimov has been assiduously courted by Russia and China. He has visited both countries and enlisted their support in rejecting calls for an independent enquiry. Russia, which has had an on and off relationship with Karimov in the past now cemented its relationship, while China had extracted oil and gas concessions from Uzbekistan.

Since the SCO summit all three Central Asian states with Western bases have themselves called on the US to review base agreements, although as Kyrgyz leaders made clear, they were being forced to do so by Russia. As General Richard Myers, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, put it: "It looks to me like two very large countries were trying to bully some smaller countries."

Although Uzbekistan has not yet agreed to the continued base facility, it is unlikely to seriously want the Americans out. They were happy to become US partners after 9/11 in order to receive greater US aid, but also to keep the demands of Russia and China at a distance and balance out all three superpowers in the region.

None of the Central Asian countries can afford to antagonize the US to the extent that Russia wants them to, while they value good relations with the West. They are just as keen to keep Russia at a distance. Ultimately they will reassure the Americans about base agreements, albeit charging greater fees. They will then have to appease Russia and China, possibly by granting Russia additional basing rights.

When Secretary Rumsfeld returns home this week he will have won the first skirmish in the battle for the control of Central Asia, but maintenance of the US bases and political influence will now require closer and constant attention. The Great Game that once preoccupied Czarist Russia and the British Empire has just been revived, and the stakes are higher than ever.

Ahmed Rashid is the author of "Taliban" and "Jihad" and is a correspondent for The Daily Telegraph for Pakistan, Central Asia and Afghanistan.

Yale Global July 27 2005. Central Asia has historically been a stage for strategic power games involving Russia and Europe. Russia and China, who have inherited the mantle of earlier imperial powers, conceded the US a foothold in the wake of the September 11 attacks when the US needed Central Asian bases for its operation in Afghanistan. But nearly four years later, with the Afghan government still in turmoil and no end to American occupation in sight, Moscow and Beijing are now anxious to regain influence in Central Asia. The early stirrings of democratic aspirations in the region and fear of the emergence of anti-Russian and anti-Chinese governments have added urgency to their desire to see an early American withdrawal. The first sign of their impatience with America’s presence emerged when they convinced the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), four members of which are Central Asian Republics, to ask the US to provide a deadline for withdrawal of its military bases from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Underlying the Russian- and Chinese-backed request were also concerns that US energy interests have emerged as an important motivating factor in the base agreements. Their call for withdrawal, while the situation in Afghanistan remains unstable, has been read by the US for what it is – a powerplay by Russia and China. The US response has come in the form of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s visit to the region in a bid to persuade them that the US presence is still vital to regional interests. His appeals are likely to find receptive audiences among countries that are not fond of Russia or China, but would like to play large powers off one another and benefit from both sides. – YaleGlobal-----

"Great Game" defies U.S. interests in C. Asia – Reuters 07/27/2005

By Shamil Baigin TASHKENT - The United States has won assurances it can keep its base in Kyrgyzstan, but it may face new challenges as play resumes in the centuries-old "Great Game" for influence in strategic Central Asia.

In 2001, Washington won an earlier round when it secured tacit consent of former colonial ruler Russia and stationed troops in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan -- once Moscow's imperial backyard -- to back its military operations in Afghanistan.

But Moscow is back in the game, now exploiting suspicion among the region's veteran leaders that Washington -- associated with a series of "velvet revolutions" in ex-Soviet countries -- may be out to unseat them too.

"There is a lot of suspicion about U.S. long-term intentions," said a senior U.S diplomat. This diplomat added it was tied to the mistaken belief Washington was trying to stir up new revolutions in Central Asia.

At stake for Washington is influence in a region that is a narcotics crossroads, a vital launching pad for the U.S. campaign to round up the remnants of the Taliban, and home to some of the world's largest oil finds in the last few decades.

Displaying a new coolness to Washington, four of five of Central Asia's ex-Soviet states issued a declaration in the Kazakh capital Astana earlier this month asking when the United States would withdraw its troops.

Visiting U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Tuesday Kyrgyzstan had agreed to let U.S troops stay. But the invitation was not open-ended while a second base in neighbouring Uzbekistan remains in doubt.

VELVET REVOLUTIONS - In the past 20 months, popular revolutions triggered by disputed elections have unseated long-serving leaders in ex-Soviet Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.
In March, Kyrgyz veteran leader Askar Akayev fled to Russia amid violent protests sparked by flawed parliamentary elections.

These "people's revolutions" have unnerved Moscow struggling to keep control over its former colonies and sent jitters through Central Asia's authoritarian rulers who brook no dissent.

Washington denies any role in instigating these revolutions. But it has not hidden its satisfaction -- or its enthusiasm -- for more of the same.

"Many countries think the Americans do not increase stability when they come to a region but increase instability," Andranik Migranian, professor at the Moscow State International Affairs Institute, told Radio Rossiya.

"It's not at Moscow or Beijing's initiative that they are ... countering the United States. They are doing it on their own initiative," he said.

NEW "GREAT GAME"? - Washington's tug-of-war with Moscow for control over Central Asia brings back historic memories of the 19th century "Great Game" rivalry between the Russian and British empires. Beijing seems to be ready now to join the game, too.

Uzbekistan, under fire from the West and human rights bodies for indiscriminate use of force by troops who reportedly killed some 500 civilians in an uprising in the city of Andizhan, is now being embraced by Russia and China.

Following Washington's demands to hold an independent inquiry into the May bloodshed, Uzbekistan reminded the United States that its stay at its air base was only temporary.

But Uzbek President Islam Karimov's flirtation with Moscow and Beijing may turn out to be a short one. And the autocratic ruler may well weather Western criticism and mend its close ties with Washington soon, diplomats say.

"We see a new 'Great Game' unfolding after Astana," said a Western diplomat working in Tashkent. "Obviously, the Uzbek leadership feels offended by Western criticism over Andizhan."

"But should Karimov openly call America an enemy, his regime won't last for long. The issue of possible economic sanctions against Karimov is on everybody's lips now, and the Americans are clearly in possession of all this leverage."

Kazakhstan, the region's most economically advanced state, signed the Astana declaration. But it seems pragmatically to prefer seeing large Western investments rather than hear calls for U.S. base withdrawals from its neighbours.

U.S. interests in Kazakhstan include stakes held by ChevronTexaco <CVX.N>, ExxonMobil <XOM.N> and ConocoPhillips <COP.N> in consortia developing onshore and offshore oil riches. (Additional reporting by Christian Lowe in Moscow, Raushan Nurshayeva is Astana and Dmitry Solovyov in Almaty)

[Disclaimer: The content of this news bulletin does not necessarily reflect the view or policy of the Afghan Government, unless specifically stated as such. The collection of articles and commentaries from Afghan and international news sources is provided for informational purposes, and accuracy of the news is the responsibility of the original source.]