Taliban vow to kill missing U.S. commando
By David Brunnstrom Thu Jul 7,

KABUL (Reuters) - The Taliban reiterated on Thursday they were had been holding a U.S. commando missing in Afghanistan for more than a week and vowed to kill him, but the U.S. military said it had no information to support the claim.

Taliban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi said the guerrillas did not need to provide evidence that they were holding the man.

"We don't need to do this because very soon we plan to execute him and then release his video to the world," he said from an undisclosed location.

"There is no way the soldier is going to be released. He will be executed."

The U.S. military says a four-man team of elite Navy SEAL commandos went missing during a clash with insurgents in the eastern province of Kunar, which borders Pakistan, on June 28.

It says two were found dead on Monday, while another has been rescued, but the fourth remains unaccounted for.

U.S. military spokeswoman Lieutenant Cindy Moore said a big search operation for the missing man was continuing.

"We are aggressively searching for him ... We don't have anything to support that," she said of the Taliban claim.

Hakimi first said last week video of a captured U.S. soldier would be provided to news organizations and photographs posted on a Taliban Web site -- www.alemarah.com -- but neither appears to have happened.

The Web site, which has been accessible only intermittently since he first made the claim, appeared blocked on Thursday.

More than 300 U.S. troops backed by aircraft and Afghan forces have been scouring mountains in Kunar since the squad went missing.

HELICOPTER CRASH
A U.S. helicopter sent to their aid was shot down that same day, killing all 16 troops aboard, the heaviest losses for U.S. forces in a single combat operation since they overthrew the Taliban in late 2001.

President Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, said on Tuesday it was a top priority to find the missing commando and the president had sought a briefing on the effort.

The capture of an American would be a major embarrassment for the United States, which is already suffering its bloodiest year in Afghanistan since invading to overthrow the Taliban in 2001.

Hundreds have died in stepped up militant activity in the run up to Sept. 18 elections, including 32 U.S. troops, although total casualties remain a fraction of those the United States has sufferred on its other front in Iraq.

Navy SEALs are trained to operate behind enemy lines and the one rescued evaded militants for five days. However, the military says the search has been hampered by rugged, wooded terrain and cloudy weather.

Hakimi denounced U.S. forces for killing "about 50" civilians during a bombing raid in Kunar last week.

Provincial Governor Assadullah Wafa said on Monday 17 civilians, including women and children, were killed in Friday's strike by a B-52 bomber which the U.S. military says was using "precision guided munitions."

U.S. spokesman Col. Jim Yonts said on Wednesday "numerous" militants were killed in the air strike on the compound of a "mid-level terrorist" but he did not have a figure for the number of civilians who died.

New presidential spokesman takes charge of office

KABUL, July 5 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Mohammad Karim Rahimi Tuesday took charge as new presidential spokesman, replacing Jawed Ludin.

Rahimi, son of Abdul Rahim Khan, was born in 1964 in Kabul and has done masters in International Relations from the University of Peshawar and Management from the US University of Preston.

Having a full grasp of English, Dari and Pashto languages, Rahimi was previously advisor to the Ministry for Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD). He has also held high positions in UNDCP and WFP offices in Kabul.

Jawed Ludin, serving as presidential spokesman for two years, now heads the president's office in line with Hamid Karzai's decree of June 28.

Born in Kabul 33 years back, Ludin obtained a masters degree in sociology from the London University in 2001.

Afghanistan says Al-Qaeda, Taliban leaders are in Pakistan

Wed Jul 6, Afghanistan said that senior Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders were hiding in Pakistan's tribal areas, the latest salvo in a row between the two neighbours over their success in the so-called "war on terror".

The comments by Interior Ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal came a day after Pakistan's interior minister was quoted as saying that Osama bin Laden and other key militants may be in southern Afghanistan.

"We believe that the senior Taliban and Al-Qaeda leaders are still hiding in the tribal belt of Pakistan's federally controlled tribal area," Mashal told AFP on Wednesday.

US and Afghan officials have long said they think bin Laden and other Al-Qaeda kingpins have been hiding out in the mountains on the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan since the Taliban were toppled in late 2001.

Islamabad and Kabul have recently traded accusations about whose side of the border the militants are on, and who is to blame for failing to find them.

Pakistan's interior minister Aftab Ahmed Sherpao reportedly told state media Tuesday that bin Laden, his deputy Ayman Al-Zawahiri and fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar might be in troubled southern Afghanistan, where the Taliban have stepped up attacks.

However on Wednesday, he said Pakistan did "not have any evidence about Osama's presence anywhere" and that he had been misquoted.

"I had said that there could be the possibility of his presence in areas under Taliban influence," he told the official Associated Press of Pakistan. "I had not particularly mentioned ... any specific area."

Islamabad, a key US ally, has deployed tens of thousands of troops in the lawless tribal regions along the Afghan border and detained some 700 Al-Qaeda-linked insurgents across the country.

More than 18,000 mainly US troops have scoured Afghanistan for bin Laden and Omar but without success.

Last week the Taliban scored one of their most significant victories against the US-led coalition, shooting down a US helicopter in eastern Afghanistan with the loss of all 16 on board.

Afghan media body urges Karzai to release detained reporters

KABUL (AFP) - A top Afghan media body has urged President Hamid Karzai to help secure the release of two journalists who were detained by authorities while covering US operations in eastern Afghanistan.

The two reporters working for Prague-based Radio Free Europe were seized last week in Kunar province, scene of an intense ongoing American offensive against Taliban insurgents, and have since been shifted to Kabul.

A two-member team from Associated Press television was also arrested but they were released Wednesday.

The chairman of the Afghanistan Independent Journalists' Association, Rahimullah Samander, in a letter to Karzai demanded that charges against the detained reporters should be made public.

"If the journalists have been arrested in connection with their professional duties, we ask that they be released immediately," said the letter, a copy of which was obtained by AFP.

"We ask that in accordance with the law, the charges be made public immediately so that the journalists can be provided with legal representation."

Intelligence officials declined to comment.

After a US-led offensive toppled the Taliban in late 2001 Afghanistan's media has seen dramatic progress, but their activities are still monitored by Afghan authorities.

C. Asia summit urges U.S. pullout Chinese, Russian-led group wants deadline set by Washington -CNN - Tuesday, July 5, 2005;

ASTANA, Kazakhstan (AP) -- A regional alliance led by China and Russia has called for the U.S. and its coalition allies in Afghanistan to set a date for withdrawing from several states in Central Asia, reflecting growing unease at America's military presence in the region.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which groups Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, on Tuesday urged a deadline be set for withdrawal of the foreign forces from its member states in light of what it said was a decline in active fighting in Afghanistan.

The alliance's move appeared to be an attempt to push the United States out of a region that Moscow regards as historically part of its sphere of influence and in which China seeks a dominant role because of its extensive energy resources.

The United States rejected the call for a deadline. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the U.S. military presence "is determined by the terms of our bilateral agreements, under which both countries have concluded that there is a benefit to both sides from our activities."

At the Defense Department, spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said that regarding U.S. bases in Uzbekistan, "it's a decision the Uzbek government has to make as to whether or not we would continue to operate from that."

U.S-led military forces have been deployed at air bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to back up the anti-terrorist campaign in neighboring Afghanistan.

According to the U.S military, Uzbekistan hosts at least 800 U.S. troops, while 1,200 U.S.-led troops are in Kyrgyzstan.

Tajikistan has allowed the French air force to use Dushanbe airport since 2001 as a base for logistical support to its troops in Afghanistan. Some 200 French air force personnel are based there.

"We support and will support the international coalition, which is carrying out an anti-terror campaign in Afghanistan, and we have taken note of the progress made in the effort to stabilize the situation," the SCO said in a declaration at a summit in the Kazakh capital.

"As the active military phase in the anti-terror operation in Afghanistan is nearing completion, the SCO would like the coalition's members to decide on the deadline for the use of the temporary infrastructure and for their military contingents' presence in those countries," it said.

A Kremlin foreign policy adviser, Sergei Prikhodko, said the group had not demanded an immediate withdrawal. But he added it was "important for the SCO members to know when the (U.S.) troops will go home."

The Kremlin did not object when Uzbeks and Kyrgyz agreed to host U.S. troops.

However, Moscow's suspicion of the West has increased recently amid speculation the United States is encouraging the overthrow of Central Asia's pro-Russian authoritarian governments.

Earlier Tuesday, SCO leaders accused unnamed outside forces of trying to destabilize Central Asia.

The summit followed the violently suppressed uprising in eastern Uzbekistan in May and turmoil in Kyrgyzstan in March when demonstrators stormed the administration's offices and sent the president fleeing into exile.

Chinese leader Hu Jintao said at the summit he believed "the fate of Central Asian countries is in their own hands and they are wise and capable enough to sort out their domestic problems on their own."
The leaders vowed to step up security cooperation in the region.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said "new regional threats are of a trans-border nature ... There are people who place orders and execute them. Our task is to find them and render them harmless and also to prevent their activity."

Islam Karimov, the president of Uzbekistan, said some outside forces were joining radical Islamists "to create instability and undermine the region economically in order to impose their own development model."

Uzbekistan was widely denounced abroad for the harsh suppression of the May uprising in the city of Andijan -- in which Uzbek authorities say 176 people died but rights activists say as many as 750 may have been killed.

Karimov put restrictions on the U.S air base in Uzbekistan after Washington joined calls by other Western nations for an international probe into the Andijan massacre.

However, Russia and China expressed support for Uzbek authorities at the time.

Iran, India and Pakistan joined the SCO Tuesday as observers. If they become fully fledged members, the group will represent half the world's population.

Russia in particular in recent years has pushed for what it calls a "multipolar" world, seeking to balance alleged U.S. domination of foreign policy issues.

US rejects SCO call for pullout from C. Asia

WASHINGTON – The Dawn, July 6: The US State Department has rejected the demand for withdrawing troops from Central Asia, saying that US troops in Afghanistan and neighbouring states would stay for as long as those countries want them to stay.

On Tuesday, Russia, China and some Central Asian states asked US-led troops to fix a date for their departure from military bases in the region that were set up to support operations in Afghanistan in 2001.

The United States operates military airbases in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan — two of the five former Soviet Central Asian republics that Russia still views as its backyard and where China, seeking oil and gas, is an increasingly vocal player.

The call was made at a meeting in Kazakhstan of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and against the backdrop of veiled criticism of Western influence in the Central Asian region. Founded in June 2001, the SCO includes China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Other states from the neighbouring regions, such as India, Pakistan and Iran, are also attending the SCO summit now being held in the new Kazakh capital, Astana.

Asked to comment on the demand for the withdrawal of US troops from Central Asia, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack acknowledged that the United States maintained military bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

He then pointed out that Afghanistan, where US troops and the official Afghan army were jointly fighting remnants of the Taliban and Al Qaeda movements, did not endorse the demand for the withdrawal of US forces from the region.

“I would note, however, there was a party from those discussions and from the signature line on the statement who’s missing, and it’s Afghanistan,â€? said Mr McCormack.

He said US and international forces were in Afghanistan at the request of the Afghan government and were using their facilities in an effort to aid the Afghan people build their democracy and greater prosperity.

The spokesman said that the US military presence in some of the countries mentioned in the SCO declaration was determined by the terms of our bilateral agreements under which both countries have concluded that there’s a benefit to both sides from our activities.

Commenting on the deaths of 17 Afghan civilians in a US air raid last week, Mr McCormack said the United States deeply regrets any loss of civilian life during military actions.

Our military is second to none in the care that it takes to target those who are fighting against US forces and avoid any civilian casualties or collateral damage, and that has been their policy, I think, throughout operations not only in Afghanistan but Iraq,� he added.

Canadians train for combat in Afghanistan as insurgency escalates in Kandahar Canadian Press ـJuly 6, 2005

OTTAWA (CP) - Canadian soldiers heading for Afghanistan are being prepared for direct combat with Taliban fighters as insurgents promise more - and more sophisticated - attacks on foreign troops.

The 250-strong provincial reconstruction team, or PRT, being deployed beginning in two weeks, has undergone heightened training, their commanders well aware of the recent dramatic increase in the threat of violence against them.

The troops, mainly from Edmonton, will take over patrols in and around Kandahar from a U.S. team that was attacked by a suicide bomber less than a month ago. Four soldier were injured.

Afghan and U.S. officials warn that such attacks will likely escalate in the coming weeks as the country prepares for elections scheduled Sept. 18.

"There is an increased (insurgent) activity level in the southern provinces, there's no doubt about that," says Col. Steve Noonan, who will take on the new role of commander of Canada's Joint Task Force Afghanistan in early August.

"There already is a surge of forces anticipating the higher risk."

The military doesn't want troops to be sitting ducks for would-be attackers.

Canada's provincial reconstruction team will be located halfway between Kandahar, a southern city that once was a stronghold of the Taliban, and the region's U.S.-controlled airfield.

"The provincial reconstruction team is smaller in size and it's also split in two locations," explains Noonan.

"So it becomes even smaller when it comes to force protection issues," he adds.

"As a result, there is more of a tactical level focus on security of both patrols and their own base."

The team is designed as a first real test of Canada's so-called "3-D" foreign policy - defence, diplomacy, development.

"Prior to the PRT, there was always a 3-D effort in Afghanistan," said Noonan. "But they weren't necessarily coalesced as closely as they will be within the PRT.

"In Kandahar, they're all living in the same compound. This is certainly the first time . . . where we see the Canadian strategic outlook of how to deal with failed states being a much more co-operative effort between the three departments."

There will, in fact, be four government departments involved - Defence, Foreign Affairs, the Canadian International Development Agency, or CIDA, and the RCMP.

Michael Callan, who will head the CIDA portion of the team, says he's worried about deteriorating security in Kandahar and whether it will hamper his work.

"The Taliban seemingly asserting itself of late is definitely a concern," said Callan.

In fact, security is so tenuous at this point that CIDA isn't making firm commitments to the Afghan government on which development projects can be completed.

"If it deteriorates further, it will certainly hinder our progress," warned Callan.

"But I don't think it will halt it altogether.

"We certainly wouldn't leave the country. Myself, I could draw back to Kabul, or even draw back to Kandahar airfield."

There are fears that Afghan insurgents are trying to mimic tactics used by suicide bombers in Iraq.
One Canadian military official, who didn't want to be identified, said many insurgents have adopted an insidious strategy to kill more soldiers.

"They're planting suspicious vehicles at roadsides, forcing patrols to stop well back and inspect," he explained. "(But) the bombs are being planted back where (the military convoys) stop."

In early June, five U.S. soldiers were killed in three separate attacks in Kandahar. Another suicide bomber blew himself up June 1 in a city mosque, killing 20 people at the funeral of an anti-Taliban cleric.

Should there be a large-scale attack, Canadian soldiers may be forced by circumstance to directly confront insurgent forces, said the official, although that is not the team's mandate.

"It's not to say they'll be hunting the Taliban," he said. "But if they are confronted, they will take deadly action."

NATO jets fly in tomorrow to secure Afghan elections

KABUL, July 6 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Four F-16 jets of the Dutch contingent within the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Afghanistan will arrive here on Thursday to help secure the upcoming parliamentary elections.

Lt. Col. Karen Tissot van Patot, spokesperson for the multinational force in Kabul, told a news conference here on Wednesday a 60-member unit would be deployed in the capital city to take care of the aircraft.

Some of the 2,000 additional troops to come from the Netherlands and Romania to maintain security for the September 17 polls in Kabul and the northern province of Mazar-i-Sharif have also arrived.

In spring this year, four more Dutch jets of the kind were sent to Afghanistan for the same mission - to ensure security ahead of the landmark first post-Taliban legislative vote.

In addition to the 8000-strong International Security Assistance Force, there are about 20,000 coalition troops and a 42,000 Afghan police force struggling to boost security for the elections.

Remnants of the ousted Taliban regime have warned to disrupt the polls, although their threat to scuttle last year's presidential ballot did not succeed.

Spain, US reaffirm good co-op in Afghanistan

MADRID, July 6 (Xinhuanet) -- Spain Defense Minister Jose Bono and US Ambassador Eduardo Aguirre on Wednesday reaffirmed the good cooperation between Madrid and Washington in Afghanistan, where Spain is to send more troops to boost security for the upcoming elections.

Bono described as "very cordial" his two-hour meeting with Aguirre at Buenavista Palace, the seat of the army headquarters. The US diplomat praised the important role Spain has played in the peace-keeping mission in Afghanistan.

The Spanish defense chief informed the US envoy that his country will send a battalion of 500 troops to prop up security during the elections slated for Sept. 18 in Afghanistan, where Spain leads a Logistic Support Unit and a Provincial Reconstruction Unit.

Relations between Madrid and Washington soured last year when Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero pulled out Spain's 1,300 troops from post-war Iraq after his party won the March general elections.

The Spanish parliament's foreign affairs commission approved a resolution in May, saying it had been proven that Iraq neither possessed nor was in a condition to possess any weapons of mass destruction when the United States launched the war. The two countries remain far apart on the issue of Iraq.

Taliban called copycats

Using Iraq terror tactics: U.S. BY RICHARD SISK DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON - Taliban fighters in Afghanistan have copied plans from Iraqi insurgents in recent attacks that killed at least 18 U.S. special-ops troops and left one missing, a top White House official said yesterday.

National security adviser Stephen Hadley said the Taliban were following a script by Iraqi terror chief Abu Musab al-Zarqawi by exploiting ethnic fault lines and Afghan-U.S. tensions as they strive to derail September elections.

In their bid for "another shot" at power, the Taliban and their Al Qaeda allies see new elections as "a real threat to them," Hadley said in a briefing aboard Air Force One taking President Bush to Europe.
"It's a problem, [and] we're going to have to deal with it," Hadley said, adding, "I think you're going to see some violence between now and September."

Hadley's comments marked the second time in the past week that U.S. security officials have remarked on similarities in the tactics of Afghan and Iraqi insurgents.

Last week, Marine Lt. Gen. James Conway said Afghan terrorists were increasingly using the roadside bombs favored by Iraqi insurgents.

Hadley also said President Bush was briefed during the flight on U.S. combat search and rescue efforts to find a missing Navy SEAL commando in the rugged terrain of eastern Afghanistan's Kunar Province.
The missing commando was part of a four-man SEAL patrol that lost radio contact on June 28. One SEAL was rescued last weekend, and the bodies of two others were recovered Monday.

An MH-47 helicopter carrying 16 special-ops troops was shot down in a rescue effort last week, killing all aboard.

Lt. Col. Jerry O'Hara, a U.S. military spokesman, said of the missing SEAL that "until you know otherwise, you have to assume he is alive."

The fighting near the Pakistani border also led to a rare rebuke for the U.S. from the Afghan government. Afghan leaders protested an incident last weekend in which a number of Afghan civilians were killed in a U.S. bombing raid on a suspected Taliban hideout.

Jawed Ludin, chief of staff for Afghan President Hamid Karzai, said Karzai was "extremely saddened and disturbed. It's not our people who should suffer."

Afghanistan's Alleged War Criminals Still Hold Top Offices - Report

Abid Aslam,
WASHINGTON, D.C., Jul 6 (OneWorld) - A leading rights watchdog is urging that alleged war criminals holding top posts in Afghanistan's government be brought to justice, and that steps be taken to bar human rights abusers from official positions.

Many high-level officials and advisors in Afghanistan's current government are implicated in major war crimes and human rights abuses that took place in the early 1990s, Human Rights Watch said in a new report to be released in Kabul Thursday.

The organization said it based its 133-page report, ''Blood-Stained Hands: Past Atrocities in Kabul and Afghanistan's Legacy of Impunity,'' on extensive research over the past two years. This included more than 150 interviews with witnesses, survivors, government officials, and combatants.

It documents war crimes and human rights abuses during a particularly bloody year in Afghanistan's civil war, from April 1992 to March 1993, following the collapse in Kabul of the Soviet-backed government of Mohammad Najibullah Ahmadzai.

Some of the perpetrators are dead or currently in hiding, Human Rights Watch said, but many leaders implicated in the abuses now serve as officials in Afghanistan's defense and interior ministries or are advisors to President Hamid Karzai.

Some are running for office in parliamentary and local elections scheduled for September 2005. Others operate as warlords or regional strongmen, directing subordinates in official positions, the report said.

''This report isn't just a history lesson,'' said Brad Adams, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division. ''These atrocities were among some of the gravest in Afghanistan's history, yet today many of the perpetrators still wield power.''

The period covered in the report, the Afghan year 1371, saw intense fighting between different mujahedeen and former government factions vying for power in the wake of the Najibullah government's collapse. As the year began, Kabul was largely unscathed by serious military conflict but as hostilities progressed, whole sections of the capital city were reduced to rubble, tens of thousands of civilians were killed and wounded, and at least half a million people were displaced.

Rival armed factions committed extensive human rights abuses and violations of the laws of war, illegally shelling and rocketing civilian areas, abducting and murdering civilians, and pillaging civilian areas, the report said.

The abuses were neither inevitable consequences of war nor unavoidable mistakes, it added. Rather, they were the results of illegal acts and omissions by factional leaders and commanders. Many commanders may be criminally culpable for their behavior during this period, according to Human Rights Watch.

The watchdog urged the Afghan government and international community to create a special court to try the alleged offenders. Independence and international fair trial standards could be ensured were the court to be made up of Afghan and international judges, with an international majority, and with an international prosecutor.

''Perpetrators of past abuses who go unpunished are more likely to commit new abuses and use violence to get their way,'' said Adams. ''They pose a continuing threat to Afghanistan's future.''

The report comes as the Karzai government struggles to extend its authority and to bring some sense of national purpose and unity to the country's disparate provinces, rival warlords, and intensely antagonistic political factions.

Dozens of mid-level officials from the Taliban, which eventually filled the post-Najibullah vacuum and ruled from 1996 until being ousted by U.S.-led troops in 2001, have agreed to cooperate with government programs to rebuild the war-ravaged country.

Despite such gains, however, the past three months have seen a marked upswing in Taliban attacks and U.S. retaliation across southern Afghanistan. More than 700 people on all sides have been killed in suicide bombings, assassinations, and extensive battles, according to U.S. and Afghan official estimates.

Even so, Karzai and other senior officials have continued to voice hope that dialogue can diminish, if not dismantle, Afghanistan's insurgency.

For its part the U.S. military, anxious to free troops for Iraq duty and to reduce its $10 billion annual bill in Afghanistan, supports the initiative and advocates pursuing 100 senior Taliban leaders while allowing lower ranks to return home under an amnesty, the San Francisco Chronicle reported from Afghanistan.

Adams, at Human Rights Watch, said national reconciliation should not come at the cost of justice.

''In Afghanistan today, alleged war criminals--Taliban, mujahedeen, communist--enjoy total impunity in the name of national reconciliation,'' he said. ''This is an insult to victims and an affront to justice.''
Human Rights Watch, in its report, said many Afghans still have terrible memories of the fighting in the early 1990s. These include incidents in which warring factions targeted women and children.

''Hundreds of people were wounded when they fought--every time they fought,'' the report quoted an Afghan nurse as saying. ''The hospital would be full of patients, overwhelmed. We couldn't treat everyone who was brought there. People were dying in the halls.'

U.S. medical team attacked, as Afghan government criticizes killing of civilians in air strike By DANIEL COONEY

KABUL, Afghanistan - (AP) Rebels attacked a U.S. military medical team as it was helping villagers in the same region of eastern Afghanistan where a U.S. airstrike that killed up to 17 civilians sparked sharp criticism from the government, the military said Wednesday.

No one was wounded in the assault Tuesday on the medical team near Asadabad town, Kunar province, a military statement said. U.S. forces used mortars to respond and the insurgents fled.

"It's incredible to us that the enemy would attack our forces while we are providing innocent Afghans with health care," U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Jerry O'Hara said.

The airstrike last Friday also was in Kunar and targeted a known terrorist base, the United States military said, but an Afghan government spokesman said the deaths of the civilians, including women and children, could not be justified.

It marked unusual criticism from the government of President Hamid Karzai, often viewed by critics as an American puppet. The United States provides security for the president as well as hundreds of millions of dollars a year in aid to Afghanistan.

The reprimand also highlighted Afghan government concern that deadly mistakes could erode public support for the U.S. presence here. In the past, Karzai's government has expressed interest in long-term U.S. military presence in the region as Afghanistan struggles to recover from nearly a quarter-century of war.

U.S. forces, meanwhile, spent an eighth day scouring mountains in Kunar searching for the final member of an elite four-man Navy SEAL commando team that went missing June 28.

One SEAL has been rescued, while the bodies of two others were recovered Monday and taken to the main U.S. base in Afghanistan, at Bagram, a U.S. military statement said. A transport helicopter sent in to rescue the four was shot down the day the team went missing, killing all 16 U.S. servicemen aboard.

O'Hara said rescuers searching for the final missing team member were "still hopeful," adding, "until you know otherwise, you have to assume he is alive."

A U.S. military statement said the sole rescued serviceman was receiving medical treatment for "non-life-threatening injuries" at the Bagram base.

The air strike that killed civilians targeted a house in the same area. The number of people killed was still unclear, but "roughly half" may have been civilians, while the rest were Taliban or al-Qaida fighters, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Tuesday.

U.S. forces described the house as "a known operating base for terrorist attacks ... as well as a base for a medium-level terrorist leader."

"We deeply regret any loss of civilian life in the course of military actions," U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said the U.S. military takes "great strides" in trying to be precise when targeting combatants.

"But these things do occur and we obviously regret when they do. And we'll investigate to be able to determine what may have happened and how it can be avoided in the future," he said.

Jawed Ludin, Karzai's chief of staff, said "there is no way ... the killing of civilians can be justified."

"The president is extremely saddened and disturbed," he said. "It's the terrorists we are fighting. It's not our people who should suffer."

An Afghan government team is on its way to the site to probe the bombing, a Defense Ministry statement said.

An initial U.S. air strike destroyed a house, and as villagers gathered to look at the damage, a U.S. warplane dropped a second bomb on the same target, killing 17 people, including three women and children, Kunar provincial Gov. Asadullah Wafa said.

He said it was unclear who was killed in the initial attack on the tiny village of Chechal.

Election candidate has links to al-Qaeda: Police

TALOQAN, July 5 (Pajhwok Afghan News): A candidate for parliamentary election from Takhar province, arrested on charges of banditry, has reportedly confessed to having links with the al-Qaeda terrorist network.

Police said on Tuesday Saeed Ibrahim was arrested following the recovery of stolen items from his residence. In the interrogation process, police claimed, the candidate admitted to involvement in a number of explosions, murders, kidnaps and robberies.

Takhar's deputy police chief General Ghulam Hazrat, in a chat with Pajhwok Afghan News, said: "Saeed Ibrahim has confessed to his involvement in thefts, killings, kidnappings, explosions and 18-month association with al-Qaeda."

He added bullets and a number of stolen items had been recovered from the candidate's house. Journalists seeking to obtain his comments were not allowed to meet the election candidate.

Joint Electoral Management Body's official in Takhar Saeed Yasin Dehzad said some people including provincial police had filed complaints against Saeed Ibrahim. The central election office in Kabul would decide the fate of the candidate, he informed.

Wali Ahmad (26), Ibrahim's neighbour, said: "I often saw mysterious people enter and leave his house. Some of his guests would come in vehicles with tinted glasses."

US Afghan tactics 'need rethink'

BBC News / Tuesday, 5 July, 2005 The Afghan government has called for a rethink in the US-led fight against the Taleban and their allies.

Seventeen people, including women and children were killed in a US bombing raid in the eastern province of Konar last week, the local governor says.

President Hamid Karzai is "extremely saddened" by the deaths, his spokesman told reporters on Tuesday.

The US military has now confirmed that it has found the bodies of two elite special soldiers missing in the region.

'Our people suffer' "The president is extremely saddened and distressed to hear the report that recent military operations in Konar by the coalition forces resulted in the death of civilians," Mr Karzai's spokesman, Jawed Ludin, told a press conference in the capital, Kabul.

"We cannot explain to our own people that they should suffer in our fight against terrorism."

He then went on to call for new ways of conducting the US-led fight against insurgents in Afghanistan.
"Together with our coalition partners, the government of Afghanistan would like to emphasise that we do need to rethink some of our strategies, especially those that can produce tragic results like the death of civilians."

Mr Ludin said the government had opened an investigation into the incident.

The US military has said it regrets that civilians were killed in the air strike but maintains that it struck a valid target, and that enemy "terrorists" were among those killed.

The bombing was part of an operation in Konar province in which US forces were attempting to rescue a number of colleagues stranded in inhospitable terrain where they had been under fire from militants.

A US Chinook helicopter was shot down in the operation, with all 16 soldiers on board killed. The Taleban say they brought it down.

It was the heaviest number of deaths US forces have suffered in a single incident in Afghanistan since toppling the Taleban in 2001.

'Whereabouts unknown'

On Tuesday the US military confirmed BBC reports from Monday that it had found the bodies of two of the special forces soldiers it had been trying to rescue.

A terse statement issued in Kabul said: "The whereabouts of one service member remains unknown."
On Sunday the US military said troops had rescued a fourth member of the team.

Recent months have seen an sharp rise in activity by the Taleban and their allies in south-eastern and eastern Afghanistan.

They have vowed to disrupt parliamentary elections due to be held in September.

Govt considering sending troops to Afghanistan: Downer

ABC - Tuesday, July 5, 2005.
Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer says the Federal Government will consider a request for troops to return to Afghanistan now that Australia's military presence has been reduced elsewhere.
Earlier today, Afghanistan's Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah confirmed that his country had asked for a return of Australian forces.

Dr Abdullah said a formal Australian diplomatic presence in Kabul would also be welcomed.

He said the provision of such support from the international community was crucial in the current climate, and that Afghan politicians were united in their desire for a renewed Australian presence.

Mr Downer says it is not the first time troops have been requested to return to Afghanistan.

He says a decision will be made in the next few weeks.

"Now we've wound down our contribution to the peacekeeping force in East Timor and we've wound back significantly our operation in Solomon Islands, we can have another look at this and we will," he said.

Australia to decide soon on troops for Afghanistan

Thursday July 7, 1:48 PM
SYDNEY (AFP) - Australia will soon decide whether to send a new military force to Afghanistan, Prime Minister John Howard said, as the United States came to terms with its worst single death toll there since the 2001 invasion.

The Afghan government had asked Australia, a close US ally, to send troops and the cabinet would most likely make a decision next week, Howard told a commercial radio station Thursday.

"There's been a standing request from the government of Afghanistan over quite a period of time to a lot of countries including Australia to send troops," he said.

"Now we are going to look at it. I don't want to pre-empt what cabinet might decide. But we are going to look at it and if we do take a decision it will be announced next week."

Australia, which deployed some 150 Special Air Service troops to Afghanistan to assist the US-led invasion, now has just one soldier there engaged in land mine clearance.

The United States, fighting remnants of the ousted Taliban regime and other insurgents, lost 16 soldiers when a helicopter was shot down last week in an operation to rescue four commandos in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan.

The entire operation has proved embarrassing for the United States, which expressed regret this week after an air strike in support of the rescue mission left up to 17 Afghan civilians dead.

Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah this week renewed a plea for Australia to send troops and the ambassador to Canberra, Mahmoud Saikal, said a further deployment of troops would provide stability as the country prepares for elections in September.

Australia already has about 900 troops with the US-led coalition in Iraq, and Howard indicated that any decision on Afghanistan would not affect this commitment.

"The two issues are quite separate and if we were to decide on Afghanistan it would be taken in isolation to our commitment to Iraq, and that commitment will remain until the job is finished," he said.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer indicated last week that there was a good chance Australia would make a new military commitment in Afghanistan.

The recent end of Australia's peacekeeping mission to East Timor and the success of law and order programmes in other areas of the Pacific had freed Australian troops for other regions, he said.

Pakistan sends more troops to seal Afghan border Thursday July 7,

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - The Pakistani army is sending reinforcements to seal its border with Afghanistan and ensure security for an Afghan general election on Sept. 18, a Pakistani commander said.
Afghan complaints that Pakistan was not stopping militants crossing into Afghanistan from Pakistan have recently strained relations between the neighbours, both important U.S. allies.

"We are well aware of our duties and will ensure that peace and tranquility prevail at the time of the upcoming local and parliamentary elections in Afghanistan," Lieutenant-General Safdar Hussain told a news conference in the city of Peshawar.

He said 4,000 more troops would be deployed along the border, joining 70,000 already operating on the rugged frontier hunting and battling al Qaeda-linked militants, the state-run APP news agency reported on Thursday.

Taliban and their militant allies have been blamed for a wave of violence in Afghanistan since the end of the winter in March. Afghan and some U.S. officials say the rebels are crossing in from Pakistan.

Pakistani officials say the remote and mountainous border can not be completely sealed off but they deny that large numbers of gunmen are moving in to Afghanistan.

Hundreds of people have been killed in clashes and blasts, most of them rebels but including dozens of police and soldiers, 32 U.S. troops and dozens of civilians.

Most of the violence has been in Afghanistan's south and east, along the Pakistani border.

Afghanistan says effective Pakistani sealing of their border helped ensure a peaceful voting day for a presidential election last October, and government officials have urged Pakistan to mount a similar effort for the September vote.

Hussain told the late Wednesday news conference his men would ensure the September vote was as peaceful as last October's.

In the latest violence on the Pakistani side of the border, six suspected al Qaeda militants were arrested on Wednesday after a shootout in which one Pakistani soldier was killed.

Afghanistan should fence its border with Pakistan: Gen Safdar Daily Times, Pakistan

PESHAWAR: Afghanistan should fence its border with Pakistan to end the alleged border infiltration, Lt Gen Safdar Hussain told reporters on Wednesday. He added that 4,000 more Pakistani troops would be sent there to ensure peaceful parliamentary elections in the neighbouring country.

Gen Safdar said that Afghanistan should fence its border the way India fenced its eastern border with Pakistan, adding, “The fencing will also help stop unwanted people from crossing over the border.” He called Afghan leaders’ statements that Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders were hiding in Pakistan “baseless,” but did not say whether he believed they were hiding in Afghanistan.

“The Afghan leaders’ statements pain me and prove a demoralising factor for my troops in the war on terror,” said Gen Safdar. He said Afghanistan had started “a blame game” and should stop because “people are infiltrating here from Afghanistan,” adding that weapons and drugs were coming from Afghanistan into Pakistan and being used against local security forces.

He said Kabul’s statements were attempts to cover its own failures and to shift the blame on Islamabad. He said certain “enemies of the country were fishing in troubled waters” and instability in Afghanistan was serving their interests, adding that Afghanistan’s instability was not in Pakistani interests. Asked which enemies he was referring to, he pointed out the Indian consulates in Jalalabad and Kandahar in Afghanistan. iqbal khattak

Khattak arrives in Kabul tomorrow at Karzai's invitation

By Wagma Saba Aamir
PESHAWAR, July 7 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Human Rights Commission of Pakistan's former chief Afrasiab Khattak is scheduled to arrive in Kabul on Friday along with his family on President Hamid Karzai's invitation.

An official at the Afghan Consulate in Peshawar told Pajhwok Afghan News President Karzai himself had invited Khattak to Kabul. But the former HRCP chairman, who now heads the Pak-Afghan Friendship Association, said it was a personal trip he planned earlier.

"This is our family's visit since my wife is an Afghan who will be meeting her parents after 15 years," Khattak said, adding many households on both sides of the divide had family relations.

Regarding the association established in 2001, Khattak said it was working to foster political relations between the two neighbouring nations. "We want to convince the two governments of the need for doing away with the passport formality, laying a rail track connecting the two countries and implementing the bus link agreement."

Afrasiab Khattak's spouse, Zahra Khattak, also was also happy over her visit to her homeland after a decade and a half. "I am so glad going back to my motherland and getting my children there to see my relatives."

The visit of the Pakistani human rights activist and politician comes at a time when relations between the neighbours have hit a new low, following high-level exchanges of harsh statements.

Afghanistan says first disarmament phase completed

KABUL (AFP) - Afghanistan said it had completed the first stage of a major UN-backed disarmament program aimed at collecting weapons including tanks and cannon from tens of thousands of former militiamen.

Since it was launched in October 2003, more than 60,000 people have been disarmed under the so-called Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration scheme, Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak said.

"No one can now exert power through the barrel of gun," the minister told a ceremony to mark the formal end of the program's initial phase, part of efforts to rebuild the shattered country after 25 years of war.

More than 52,000 of the former anti-Taliban and anti-Soviet fighters who gave up their guns have been reintegrated into civilian life, Wardak said.

He said some 34,727 small- and medium-range weapons and 9,085 heavy weapons, including tanks and artillery, have been collected from the private militia forces.

The total of weapons collected is less than the number of militiamen disarmed because in some cases private army units handed over a number of weapons and all their members were then considered as being nominally disarmed.

But the defense minister said an even greater number of illegal forces and weapons were still circulating in Afghanistan.

Wardak said the collection of arms from illegal militia groups will continue under the second phase of the program, known as the Disarm Illegal Armed Groups scheme, which was launched on June 11.

Most of those disarmed are former mujahideen fighters who fought the Soviet occupation in the 1980s and then helped the United States and other countries to oust the Taliban in late 2001.

But since the fall of the hardline Islamic regime many warlords have fought for control of their regions, leading to the death of scores of people including many civilians.

Afghanistan's fledgling national army, currently being trained by US-led forces, is designed to replace the disarmed militia forces. The army currently has more than 23,000 troops and is expected to reach 70,000.

Two Afghan women held with arms

LANDI KOTAL (Khyber Agency) – The Dawn July 6: Security guards arrested two Afghan women at the Torkhum border post on Wednesday and recovered eight Kalashnikovs from their possession. Burqa-clad Lal Mina and Bibi Hawa were intercepted by woman guards after they had crossed the border. Upon search, the guards recovered from their possession eight Kalashnikovs and 48 rounds, wrapped around their bodies.

The automatic weapons had been broken into pieces to avoid detection by border guards.

The political authorities took the women into custody with the confiscated arms, and kept them in a lock-up with male prisoners as there is no separate arrangement for detention of women in the area.—Correspondent

JEMB approves campaign regulations

Source: Government of the Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan 07 Jul 2005
Under electoral campaign regulations newly approved by the Joint Electoral Management Body, candidates for the September 18 Wolesi Jirga and Provincial Council elections may promote their political platforms and campaign for voters' support throughout the electoral process, subject to the laws of the Government of Afghanistan and restrictions on election advertising on radio and television.

However candidates may only broadcast campaign advertisements on television or radio during the Official Campaign Period from August 17 to September 15. During the 30-day Official Campaign Period, each Wolesi Jirga candidate will be two lots of 5 minutes of sponsored advertising time on radio, or around five minutes of sponsored advertising on television.

Each Provincial Council candidate will receive four minutes of air time on radio or around two minutes on television.

All campaigning must cease two days before polling day on September 18, in observation of the 48 hour "Campaign Silence Period" blackout.

Throughout the electoral process, approval for campaign rallies must be sought from police 48 hours in advance and public assets may not be used for campaign purposes, in accordance with Afghan law.

Armed forces personnel are prohibited from taking part in campaign rallies but may provide security as part of their official duties.

Candidates are prohibited from using JEMB or government symbols for campaign purposes.

Permission must be sought from the owners of private buildings or the authorities in charge of public buildings before posting campaign material on the buildings.

Campaign advertisements in the print media are prohibited throughout the electoral process.

"Candidates may campaign through rallies, leaflets and posters before the Official Campaign Period of August 17 to September 15," said JEMB Chairman Bissmillah Bissmil.

"The only campaigning which is prohibited before the Official Campaign Period is the broadcast of campaign advertisements on radio and television, while campaign advertisements in newspapers are prohibited throughout the electoral process."

Nomads Unhappy With Parliamentary Share

Institute for War & Peace Reporting / Afghan Recovery Report

The country’s poorest people, the nomadic Kuchis, feel they will not be adequately represented in the new legislature.

By Wahidullah Amani in Kabul (ARR No. 176, 01-Jul-05)

Kuchis, Afghanistan’s nomadic people, will go to the polls on September 18 to cast their ballot for the ten lawmakers who will represent them in the new parliament. But Kuchi voters and candidates alike say the small number of seats allotted to them in the new legislature represents just the latest action in a long history of government oppression.

The new parliament will be based on proportional representation, which means the Kuchis should be assigned a number of representatives commensurate with their population.

According to the last the census - conducted in the Seventies during the rule of President Daud Khan - there were 3.7 million Kuchis. A preliminary census conducted earlier this year, however, put their number at 1.5 million, according to officials at the census department.

Some Kuchi politicians claim their representation in parliament should be much higher than the ten seats they’ve been granted. Candidate Haji Mullah Tarakhel insists that they should have seven times that number.

“Both the government and the United Nations are responsible for this. The reason our rights are violated is because we are poor and we neither have artillery nor tanks to demand our rights by force,” he told IWPR.

Tarakhel said that he had repeatedly complained to President Hamed Karzai, the UN and the Joint Electoral Management Body, JEMB, but as yet he has received no response.

According to Sultan Ahmad Baheen, spokesman for the JEMB, the decision to assign ten seats to the Kuchis was made by the Afghan government, with no input from his organisation. “I have not been given a census report on the Kuchis,” he said.

The new parliament will have a 249-member lower house, the Wolesi Jirga, made up of representatives from the 34 provinces and the ten Kuchi legislators - at least three of the latter have to be women.

Parwin Mohmand Talwasa, who is running for one of the women’s seats, said that this is not the first time that Kuchis have been mistreated by their government.

“Kuchis have always been oppressed in our history. They are the poorest class of society. This allocation of so few seats in parliament is just another sign of that oppression,” she said.

The Kuchis may not be represented at all in the upper house, or Meshrano Jirga, which in part is chosen by provincial councils. Kucis do not qualify for seats in the latter because of their nomadic lifestyle.

Mohammad Nazir Ahmadzai, who is also running for office among the Kuchis, said that he too had submitted many complaints to the president, the UN and the electoral commission, all to no avail.

“The Kuchis do not want Afghanistan to turn into a battleground again, which is why they have complied with decisions made by the government and the electoral commission,” he said. “But once Kuchis get seats in parliament, they will raise their voices.”

There are 68 Kuchi candidates running, 61 men and seven women. Only Kuchis can vote for the designated candidates, who will run nationally rather than representing geographical constituencies.

Kuchi voters are incensed at what they see as the government’s refusal to address their concerns, and fear that under-representation in the new parliament will only aggravate their situation.

“The government has promised Kuchis that it will provide them with mobile schools for their children, with clinics and potable water. But it has done nothing,” said Haji Ahmad Shah Bakukhail, 60.

“No one is listening to the Kuchis’ voices,” said 45-year-old Gul Wali.

Wahidullah Amani is an IWPR staff reporter in Kabul.

Election Procedures Baffle Voters

Institute for War & Peace Reporting / Afghan Recovery Report

With the parliamentary vote scheduled for September, many still profess ignorance of how legislators will be chosen.

By Wahidullah Amani in Kabul (ARR No. 176, 01-Jul-05)

As Afghanistan’s first democratic parliamentary elections approaches, the push is on to educate the electorate both in the mechanics of the voting process and in how democracy works.

But given the convoluted process that the country has chosen for its legislative ballot, the job is proving a challenging one.

The Joint Electoral Management Body, JEMB, has begun the education campaign using a network of 1,600 advisers who will reach potential voters through schools, universities, mosques and other public places.

But political parties and parliamentary candidates say the commission’s efforts so far have been too little, too late.

Abdul Rahman Nesar, a high-ranking official in the National Solidarity Movement of Afghanistan, says that the commission is taking the same approach it used for last year’s presidential campaign.

“During the presidential elections people could easily choose among the 18 candidates,” he told IWPR. “But in the parliamentary and provincial council elections there will be a lot of nominees. People need a deeper understanding of the process.”

The election is complicated by any standard. On September 18, Afghanistan’s voters will choose 249 parliamentary deputies from the more than 3,000 candidates. In some provinces, up to 400 people will be competing for 20 or 30 seats in the Wolesi Jirga, or lower house.

In addition to this, voters will be electing provincial councils. More than 3,000 candidates will compete for 420 seats in these assemblies, with the numbers based on proportional representation. The councils will in turn choose one-third of the candidates for the national parliament’s upper house, the Meshrano Jirga.

With less than three months remaining before the ballot, a major information campaign is needed to familiarise the public with the system. But so far, say observers, there has been too little effort to get the message out.

“I live in Kabul, but I still haven’t heard anything about the general process, so I am sure that the people who live in provinces or remote areas do not know anything about the elections,” politician Nesar told IWPR. “If the people are not given enough information, I think a large number of them will not participate and a lot of votes will be lost.”

Soraya Parlika, the head of the Women’s Union and a parliamentary candidate, agrees. “The parliamentary election system is much more complicated than the presidential election,” she said.

And the problem is not limited to the voters, says Parlika.

“There are some candidates who have heard that deputies in parliament will be given a car and will be paid salaries in dollars, so they have nominated themselves for seats. But they don’t even know what a parliament is,” she said. “It is not just the voters who need to be trained. Candidates also need to understand the purpose of a legislature.”

According to Parlika, many of JEMB’s workers do not have a thorough enough knowledge of the system to be able to communicate it to the electorate.

In addition, she complained, the JEMB’s decision to assign visual symbols to candidates will make it even harder for voters.

“My own symbol is a lamp. But there may be another candidate whose symbol is two lamps. How are the voters going to remember who is who?” she said.

JEMB spokesman Sultan Ahmad Baheen defends his organisation’s activities, saying that the agency is using the media as well as its network of agents across the country to promote a better understanding of the parliamentary system.

“I am sure that people already know how to vote to some extent, and we will not have any problems in that regard,” Baheen told IWPR.

So far, however, ordinary voters in Kabul do not seem to have been engaged in the process.

Mohammad Aslam, 22, says he only knows elections are being held, but he still doesn’t know why, or how it will work.

“I don’t know what the Wolesi Jirga, the Meshrano Jirga and the provincial councils are, or how people are supposed to vote for them,” he said. “I have heard these names, that’s all.”

Aslam added that the information that does appear on television is too brief and does not convey enough.

Mohammad Ismael, 50, who runs a shop in the capital, said, “I don’t have any information about the elections and no one has given me any yet.”

Wahidullah Amani is an IWPR staff reporter in Kabul.

A dozen missiles fired at Khost security checkpoint
By Majid Arif

KHOST CITY, July 7 (Pajhwok Afghan News): A dozen missiles were fired at a security check-post in this southeastern city near the Pak-Afghan border by unidentified miscreants last night, officials said on Thursday.

Speaking to Pajhwok Afghan News, Khost's deputy intelligence chief Naqibullah Asmati said no damage or casualties resulted from the missile attack mounted by "Afghanistan's enemies."

The missiles landed close to the security checkpoint tucked away in jagged mountain near the tense Pak-Afghan frontier, Naqibullah added. On Tuesday night, the check-post came under a similar attack that caused no damage.

Voter registration centre looted: Unidentified gunmen looted a centre set up for registering voters from the Kochi tribe in Babrak Thana area, some 39 kilometers from the provincial capital city.

According to the deputy intelligence chief, the armed robbers tied security guards of the voter registration centre before decamping with valuables. Locals were responsible for guarding the centre, he pointed out.

In a chat with this news agency, Ramazan Kochi, an elder of the tribe, said the burglars struck at about 3.00am, tied the watchmen's hands and feet and thrashed them.

"The watchmen of the centre, 200 metres from a security check-post, were dwellers of the area," said Kochi, who believed the bandits might have crossed into Pakistan after looting the registration office.

Dr. Mohammad Hakim Zadran, JEMB official in the province, confirmed the looting of the office. However, he hastened to explain that they had rushed more equipment to the office, which continued with registration of voters from the Kochi tribe.

Fourteen Taliban surrender in Afghanistan: governor July 6, 2005

KHOST, Afghanistan (AFP) - Fourteen Taliban rebels linked to a commander who is on a US list of most wanted militants have surrendered as part of an Afghan government amnesty, a governor said.
The group surrendered in troubled Paktika province south of Kabul on Wednesday and promised to give up a secret stash of weapons and to support the government, provincial governor Mohammed Gulab Mangal told AFP on Wednesday.

"Fourteen Taliban who were actively fighting the government surrendered and joined us today," the governor said.

The rebels who gave themselves up were linked to Jalaludin Haqani, a powerful Taliban commander and the regime's former minister of frontiers and tribal affairs, officials said.

Haqani has a five-million-dollar price on his head on a list of Al-Qaeda and other militants wanted by the United States since the September 11 attacks and the fall of the Taliban in late 2001.

"They said they were missioned in Pakistan to torch schools, attack government institutions and coalition forces and since they did not want to destroy their country they gave up fighting," said the governor.

Afghanistan often accuses Pakistan of failing to crack down on insurgents based on its side of the long, rugged border between the two countries. Islamabad strongly denies the charge.

Dozens of former Taliban and other militants have surrendered under the amnesty scheme since it was offered by President Hamid Karzai in November.

Earlier this year 18 militant commanders linked to warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who is also wanted by the US, joined the government's side.

Officials are trumpeting the amnesty program's successes amid a renewed, post-winter Taliban campaign of violence against US and Afghan targets.

Pakistan assures uninterrupted cement exports to Afghanistan

By Pakhtun Sahar
ISLAMABAD, July 7 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The Pakistan government Thursday scotched speculation that it had halted cement exports to Afghanistan to bring down prices of the commodity.

Senior officials, while rejecting the rumours as groundless and misleading, assured cement supplies would continue uninterrupted as long as the neighbouring country required them.

Ibrar Ahmad, a senior official at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, told Pajhwok Afghan News that Islamabad had not yet taken any decision on stopping cement exports to Afghanistan.

"Now that Afghanistan is in the thick of the reconstruction effort, we won't stop supplies; rather we want to cooperate with it in a big way in other sectors as well," he remarked.

He alleged some elements were fueling rumours in a bid to create an atmosphere of disenchantment between the two countries. For its part, he assured, Islamabad would try to further expand trade cooperation with Kabul.

Cement prices have lately registered a sharp increase in Pakistan because of stepped-up supplies - both legal as well as illegal - to Afghanistan, where the rebuilding process is continuing apace.

Some days back, local newspapers reported the government had brought to a close cement exports to Afghanistan in an attempt to arrest the soaring rates of the commodity.

Domestic consumers have voiced serious concern at the incessant hike in cement price, urging the government take measures to bring it down.

An official at the Cherat Cement Factory also scoffed at media reports about a stop to Afghan exports. "There is no truth to these reports as we have not received any orders to the effect either from the government or cement manufacturers."

Rauf, in charge of the supply section, went on to point out they had dispatched the product to Afghanistan even on Wednesday. "And today's supplies too are ready for shipment," he concluded.

A Hot Afghan Summer

Washington Post - Wednesday, July 6, 2005; Page A16- THE DEATH of 16 U.S. Special Operations troops and at least two members of a reconnaissance team they were seeking to rescue last week in Afghanistan was the largest American combat loss in that country since the beginning of the U.S. intervention there in 2001. It was also a jarring reminder for anyone who has not been following developments in the smaller of the two ground wars the United States is fighting. As in Iraq, violence by local insurgents and foreign terrorists has been surging in Afghanistan this spring and summer, along with American casualties. And once again, confident declarations by senior U.S. officials that the enemy was nearly broken have proved premature.

In April the former senior U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. David Barno, described his opposition as a "small, hardcore remnant of the Taliban," and he predicted that most of it would collapse or join the Afghan political process within a year. Instead the Taliban has launched an offensive including near-daily attacks, some by well-armed units numbering in the scores. Senior Afghan officials concede they have been surprised by the scale of the campaign. In the past three months more than 45 U.S. service members, as well as hundreds of Afghan soldiers and civilians, have died. The insurgents have begun using the roadside bombs so common to Iraq; they may be getting help from other Afghan factions opposed to the U.S.-backed government of Hamid Karzai, as well as from al Qaeda and other foreign volunteers.

The bright side of this troubling picture is that the Taliban has not succeeded in gaining significant territory or public support, and so far seems unlikely to accomplish its evident aim of disrupting the next round of Afghan elections, planned for September. Despite the attacks, voter registration is proceeding, and some 6,000 candidates are competing for seats in a national parliament and 34 provincial councils. U.S. forces, together with an Afghan army numbering more than 20,000, have been winning lopsided battles against the enemy forces they encounter; they have reportedly killed more than 450 since March. With the heavier fighting, however, have come new reports of collateral civilian casualties. Yesterday the Afghan government criticized the U.S. military for a bombing raid near the site of last week's fighting that may have killed several civilians. To its credit, the Pentagon acknowledged civilian as well as enemy casualties from what it described as an attack on a terrorist base, and it promised to investigate.

In all, the danger is growing that Afghanistan could begin to look more like Iraq, with an entrenched insurgency that seriously disrupts reconstruction and becomes a magnet for Islamic extremists. To prevent that, the Bush administration needs to bring more pressure to bear on Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, a nominal ally who has pocketed billions in U.S. aid while allowing the Taliban to use Pakistan as a base for its Afghan operations. Afghan officials plausibly suspect that elements in Mr. Musharraf's army and government would like to see the coming elections disrupted. The administration must also continue to press its NATO allies to step up their deployments to Afghanistan, which currently amount to only 8,000 troops, compared with roughly 20,000 Americans. If the Taliban can be turned back before the elections, Afghanistan could take a major step toward stability. For now, the worry is that a turn in the other direction appears equally possible.
[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.]

[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.]