Afghanistan Seeks to Become Master of Its Own Aid
By Sayed Salahuddin

KABUL (Reuters) - An annual meeting of donor countries contributing billions of dollars to Afghanistan's reconstruction opened on Monday with a plea from President Hamid Karzai to let his three-month-old government take a leading role.

A fierce debate is raging over slow progress in making Afghans' everyday life easier. On Sunday Karzai accused non-government organizations (NGOs) of squandering funds channeled through them.

Karzai skirted the NGO controversy at the outset of the Afghan Development Forum on Monday, and instead pitched for more control over the way money is spent.
"The Afghan Government, as the ultimate body accountable to the Afghan people, must also be better informed about, and play its due role in, steering the development process," Karzai told an audience including representatives from some 40 donor countries.

"The Government must become the anchor for a more integrated, transparent and accountable development effort," said Karzai, who had led an interim government for three years before winning a presidential election in October.

Finance Minister Anwar-ul-Haq Ahady, one of the new ministers chosen by Karzai in December, was more categorical.

"I urge all of you to channel most of your resources through our budget ...," said Ahady, adding that the government was ready to try and meet the international community's concerns over transparency and accountability.

This forum, due to end on Wednesday, is very much focused on strategy rather than raising money. Pledges of $8.3 billion covering two to three years were made at last year's forum in Berlin, so there is no need to top up funds until next year. In addition, the United States hopes to double this year's assistance to Afghanistan to over $5 billion once Congress approves a supplemental budget plan. Washington also spends $10 billion on military operations in Afghanistan.

"We hope that others would also expand their support because a sustained commitment is the foundations upon which all other efforts must be built," U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said.

EMPHASIS ON INFRASTRUCTURE
Up to now, the government has been allowed to make proposals, but feels it has little input in the final say over projects.

Aid money put emergency and humanitarian needs first in the three years since U.S.-backed forces ousted the Taliban for sheltering al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden following the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

Absorbing over 3 million returning refugees and helping 500,000 internally displaced people go home was another priority for a nation emerging from a quarter-century of conflict.

And assembling a new army and police, while demobilizing private militias, was crucial to restoring security, with Taliban insurgents active, and warlords controlling regional fiefdoms.

The government's priority now is to speed up economic reconstruction, building infrastructure, nurturing a private sector, reducing poverty, and promoting the country's potential role as a land-bridge between energy-rich Central Asian states and fast growing economies in South Asia.

It also needs to expedite irrigation programs and other rural development projects to give farmers a chance of overcoming years of drought and dissuade them from growing poppies for a narcotics trade that accounts for over half of the Afghan economy.

Economic growth was estimated at 29 percent last year, and 16 percent the year before. It will need to keep up this pace if Karzai is to fulfil an election promise to raise Afghanistan's income per capita from $200 to at least $500 within five years.

One of the government's arguments against funds being channeled through NGOs is that it is stunting Afghan firms.

The government believes some NGOs abuse their status, which gives them tax and customs exemptions, to make money, and has drafted a law to bar them from bidding in construction tenders.

Established agencies, with proven track records in relief and aid, say the government is in danger of treating all NGOs alike, and fear the aid community in Afghanistan is being made a fall guy for the slow progress. The government and donor countries have set up a task force to examine policy toward NGOs.

Afghanistan announces 4.75 bln dollar budget
Mon Apr 4, 1:54 AM ET   South Asia - AFP
KABUL (AFP) - Afghanistan's finance minister announced a 4.75 billion dollar budget for 2005 to be funded mostly by international donors.

Some 93 percent of total budget will come from international assistance, of which more than three-quarters will go to development projects to be directly managed by donors, Finance Minister Anwar-ul-Haq Ahady said on Sunday.

The Afghan government is only committing 333 million dollars to the budget, he said.

"With government budget, we can only pay wages and finance existing programs, because most of international aid is managed by the international community itself, and we cannot control it," said Adib Farhadi, director for development services with the Ministry of Reconstruction.

The budget was announced a day before the opening of a development forum in the capital Kabul to discuss the distribution of international assistance for the country, devastated by decades of war and now battling a Islamic insurgency carried out in part by members of the ousted Taliban regime.

The forum comes as the Afghan government presses for more control over its own budget.

"With this forum, we have the opportunity to tell the world that although there are still important humanitarian needs, we, Afghans, would like to participate more in the reconstruction of our country," Farhadi said.

"We've come a tremendous way over the last three years. We built the basic capacity for accountability and transparency. Due to this, we'd like more money to go through government channels, and be able to finance national development projects," he said.

Japan's prime minister, NATO chief agree to cooperate in rebuilding Afghanistan
Monday April 4, 5:14 PM AP
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and the head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization agreed Monday to cooperate in Afghanistan's reconstruction, but Tokyo stressed that its military probably would not be dispatched to help, an official said.

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told Koizumi he hoped the two sides' closer ties would bring stability to Afghanistan, said Norio Maruyama, a ministry official in charge of European affairs.

Japan has been working with other countries to disarm and demobilize militant factions in Afghanistan.

But in a separate meeting with the NATO chief, Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura said it was unlikely Japan's military would be dispatched to support NATO's International Security Assistance Force in the war-torn country, the ministry official said.

Tokyo would instead consider how it can contribute to private sector projects, Machimura said.

De Hoop Scheffer told Machimura he understood that Japan's pacifist post-World War II constitution would limit a military dispatch to a non-combat mission. Japan currently has non-combat troops in southern Iraq helping with reconstruction.
 
ISAF was established under British command to support and protect the fledgling Afghan government after U.S. forces and the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance drove the hardline Islamic militia from power in late 2001.

During a speech earlier Monday, the NATO chief called on Tokyo to contribute troops to the operations.

Though Japan's constitution has been interpreted as restricting Tokyo to offers of economic aid, "this interpretation no longer corresponds to reality," he said, according to Kyodo News. "The greatest service that we _ Japan and the NATO allies _ can render to peace and stability is active engagement."

De Hoop Scheffer, who arrived in Tokyo Sunday for talks on international security and defense, also said NATO wasn't taking sides on the debate over whether to end a European arms embargo on China.

France and Germany want to end a 16-year-old European arms embargo imposed after China's military crushed pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Tokyo and its ally, Washington, have been wary of such a move amid a military buildup by Beijing.

Japanese FM to visit Pakistan, Afghanistan on Monday
Pakistan Link,
TOKYO April 03: Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura will make a five-day trip to Pakistan and Afghanistan from Monday to observe reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan and participate in an Asian foreign ministerial forum in Islamabad.

On the sidelines of the Asia Cooperation Dialogue forum, Machimura is seeking to meet with South Korean Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Ban Ki Moon, who canceled a trip to Japan last month after a territorial row erupted anew, according to Machimura.

Machimura is scheduled to arrive in Kabul on Tuesday and meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah as well as members of Japanese nongovernmental organizations involved in reconstruction of the country, Kyodo quoted Foreign Ministry officials as saying.

Machimura will then travel to Islamabad the same day and attend the ACD forum, which gets down to business Tuesday evening.

Representatives from the ACD's 26 member states are expected to focus on how to strengthen mutual cooperation in Asia and a Pakistan-proposed initiative on economic cooperation, the officials said.

Machimura hopes to take advantage of the trip to improve relations with South Korea, which have recently deteriorated, due to rekindled territorial and historical disputes, one Japanese official suggested.

On March 26, Japan's Shimane Prefecture declared Feb. 22 as a commemorative day for a Sea of Japan island controlled by South Korea but claimed also by Japan, a move that sparked an angry reaction from South Korea.

Ban canceled a trip to Japan originally planned for March to protest Shimane's move. The prefecture's assembly enacted an ordinance to establish the commemorative day for the island, which is called Takeshima in Japan and Tokto in South Korea.

Chinese FM reaffirms support to Afghanistan
KABUL, April 4 (Xinhua) -- Visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing reaffirmed China's support for Afghanistan's economic recovery when delivering a speech at the opening of the third Afghanistan Development Forum (ADF) here on Monday.

"With peace dawning and development burgeoning, Afghanistan today is at a crucial juncture, moving from chaos to order. While the government and people of Afghanistan are sparing no efforts to rebuild the economy, the international community shares the common responsibility and obligation to support and help Afghanistan with its reconstruction," Li said.

The three-day ADF will discuss how to accelerate economic development in Afghanistan with international donors. The theme of the forum this year is "accelerating economic development."

"As the trend of our times is to pursue development through cooperation for a win-win result of mutual benefit, we are actually helping ourselves when we help Afghanistan in its rejuvenation and development," Li stressed.

The Chinese minister also pointed out four key factors for Afghanistan's reconstruction: a stable domestic environment, a full-fledged state structure, sound cooperation with its surrounding countries, and continuous international assistance.

Li reaffirmed that China hopes to see long-term stability in Afghanistan. "We support the Afghan government under the leadership of President Karzai in its efforts to maintain stability and stand ready to strengthen bilateral cooperation in policing, the training of police and anti-drug officers and counter-terrorism."

"The Chinese government is delivering on its 150 million US dollar pledges to Afghanistan," said Li. "The dredging of the Parwan irrigation projects will be completed by the end of this month. The construction of a new Republic Hospital building in Kabul will break ground very soon."

The Chinese government will encourage competitive and well-established Chinese enterprises to come to Afghanistan for investment and trade, he added.

After the opening of ADF, Afghan First Vice President Ahmad ZiaMasoud and Second Vice President Abdul Kalim Khalili met with Li respectively.

Both leaders appreciated the generous assistance the Chinese government offered to the post-Taliban Afghanistan, and hoped to further promote the bilateral cooperation between the two countries.

Li expressed the willingness of the Chinese government to help Afghanistan rebuild its shattered economy through multiple forms of cooperation based on the mutual interest.

"We hope to maintain the relationship of good fiend, good neighbor and good partner in the future," Li noted.

After the talks with Afghan leaders during his two-day visit, Li wrapped up his visit to Afghanistan and left for Pakistan on Monday afternoon.

Karzai appoints committee to study controversial NGO law
Mon Apr 4, 1:24 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai appointed a committee of locals and foreign representatives to study draft legislation aimed at controlling aid agencies after some raised concerns over the bill.

Officials announced Friday that they had drafted the legislation, a move which followed a government probe into the activities of some non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and amid the perception by many Afghans that the groups are squandering international aid money.

Economy minister Mir Mohammad Amin Farhang has said that under the new law his administration would control the activities of thousands of NGOs, raising concerns among some organisations that it could limit their efforts to rebuild the shattered country.

"The president reiterated his commitment to fight corruption and the misuse of public money both within and outside the government," a government statement issued after Sunday's meeting said.

"The president and the gathered representatives of the donor countries agreed to establish a joint task-force to examine the issue," it said.

"Under this law NGOs would not be allowed to receive government contracts," Paul Barker, country director of Care, said earlier.

"So it would prohibit NGOs from being involved in a wide range of activities in the country."

Another western NGO official said on condition of anonymity: "This law is providing tools for the regulation of NGOs. But it brings a lot of restriction, and it's pretty negative for the NGO community."

Karzai's spokesman said Friday the law had been drafted and approved by cabinet but needed Karzai's approval which would likely come within a few weeks.

Sunday's statement said the new committee is to submit its recommendations with a month.

A conference of major donors was set to begin Monday in Kabul with the aim of dispensing billions of dollars worth of pledges to the country.

International force to take charge of west sector of Afghanistan
By Kent Harris, Stars and Stripes Mideast edition, Sunday, April 3, 2005
HERAT, Afghanistan — The 38-nation International Security Assistance Force is preparing to assume responsibility for another chunk of Afghanistan from the United States.

The ISAF, which has been in charge of the northern sector of Afghanistan for about 20 months, is to take over the west of the country early this summer.

That will leave the United States with the southern and eastern sectors — at least for a while.

Col. Phil Bookert hopes to give up command of Regional Command West in early June. He said Thursday that everything is going according to plan so far. ISAF began the process of moving into the west with the Italians taking over the provincial reconstruction team from the United States in Herat on Thursday.

“In the last eight months, the security situation has improved and it’s much more stable than it was before,” Bookert said of the four provinces he supervises in west Afghanistan.

He said his biggest concerns are criminal activity and narcotics. The two may be connected in a country known as one of the world’s top opium suppliers.

Bookert said that crime has declined, though. He credits that to an active Afghan police force and a new willingness by citizens to report criminal activities to the authorities.

Maj. Joseph Bowman, an ISAF spokesman, said there have been few problems in the north of the country since ISAF took over.

“Overall, it’s been a very smooth transition, and that’s what we expect in the west, too,” he said.

Bowman, one of fewer than 100 Americans working for ISAF, said Phase 3 would include an ISAF takeover of the south. Phase 4 — the east — would complete the handover from the United States to an international force.

“There’s no timetable for Phases 3 and 4,” Bowman said.

Currently, there are about 8,200 ISAF troops in Afghanistan. Through early January, that included a high of 2,294 troops from Germany to a low of three from Austria. Other large contributors include France (906), Canada (842), Belgium (633) and Spain (561).

“We do expect the number of troops to increase as we take over more territory,” Bowman said.

Asked if that takeover is dependent on conditions and events, or simply a hesitancy of countries to contribute troops, Bookert went for a third option.

“I think it’s both,” he said. “I think it’s conditions first. And we have improved conditions in most of the country.”

But are countries unwilling to send troops to areas considered high risk?

“That’s a political question,” Bookert said. “I can’t answer that.”

Bowman said he wasn’t “aware of any instances of nations refusing to participate.” But he said a definitive answer to that question would have to come from the countries themselves — or someone at least a few pay grades higher than his at NATO headquarters.

LAURA'S NEW MISSION: AFGHAN TEACHING HOSP
By DEBORAH ORIN  New York Post, NY

April 4, 2005 -- WASHINGTON — First Lady Laura Bush came home from her trip to Afghanistan struck by the desperate need to create a teaching hospital .

The idea was born when Mrs. Bush met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai's wife, Zinat, a gynecologist, and comes as the first lady looks to play a bigger role in international women's issues.
"Mrs. Karzai told her, 'I'm a health professional, and this is something we desperately need here,' " said Susan Whitson, the first lady's press secretary.

"They so much want a teaching hospital for women's and children's care. They need it to train doctors and midwives to go out into the rural areas."

Afghanistan has horrific infant and maternal mortality rates — 257 out of every 1,000 children die before age 5, compared to 7 out of 1,000 in the United States.

Mrs. Bush wants to explore, with the U.S.-Afghan Women's Council, ways that private groups can help create a teaching hospital for women, aides say.

She was a driving force behind the creation of an Afghan institute to train female teachers — which she visited last week on a six-hour trip with gun-toting soldiers on her helicopter.

Persian New Year Celebrations Unite Afghans
Animosities Forgotten During Nowruz Holiday

By N.C. Aizenman Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, April 4, 2005; Page A17

MAZAR-E SHARIF, Afghanistan -- "Looking at the audience, I see that you are all Kandaharis," the singer said into the microphone as he surveyed a sea of heads sporting the sparkly caps and long-tailed turbans common to that southern city. "But my Pashto is not strong, so I hope you will enjoy our music in Dari."

The tourists crowded into the Ahmadi Supermarket and Restaurant applauded encouragingly.

This northern city might seem an odd destination for travelers from Kandahar, which, after all, is the ethnic Pashtun stronghold where the repressive Taliban movement originated. Mazar-e Sharif, a city dominated by ethnic Uzbeks and Tajiks, was one of the last holdouts against the Taliban. During the violent struggle for control of the city, which the Taliban held from 1998 to 2001, members of both sides engaged in massacres of the other.

But the Taliban is gone now. And when it comes to ringing in the Persian New Year in Afghanistan, even people from Kandahar will admit that Mazar-e Sharif has no equal.

"This is the place to celebrate, so of course I wanted to come," said Abdul Rezek, 28, an auto parts salesman who had taken the 18-hour bus ride from Kandahar with 12 of his friends several days earlier.

"Definitely people here know where I am from," he added. "But they say, 'You are as a guest here. We welcome you.' "

It has been a recurring theme of this year's festivities in Mazar-e Sharif.

The holiday, known as Nowruz, or new day, began on March 21 with the raising of a religious banner, or janda, in the courtyard of the city's magnificent blue-domed shrine. That is where, according to Afghan tradition, Ali, cousin and son-in-law of the prophet Muhammad and the fourth caliph of Islam, is buried. For several weeks, until the janda is taken down in a second ceremony on the 13th day of the new year, the city will host tens of thousands of visitors from across Afghanistan.

Their reasons for journeying north are as varied as the provinces from which the pilgrims hail. There are giddy young men, who come to dance in the streets or listen to concerts. There are the devout, who come to pay solemn homage to Ali. And there are parents of disabled children, who come to beg him for a miraculous cure.

Within each group, Afghans from vastly different provinces are mingling with a degree of ease that is notable in a nation still struggling to forge a national identity after years of regional conflict.

That sense of community was one of the few uplifting aspects of the Chila Khana.

A large, fenced-off outdoor nook in the Mazar-e Sharif shrine's western wall, the Chila Khana -- or House of Forty -- is reserved for the most seriously ill and disabled of worshipers. According to tradition, those who sleep here each night until the janda is taken down will be cured of whatever ails them.

A few days into Nowruz, more than 100 pilgrims were huddled there in a tableau of human misery.

On the men's side, an adolescent with wild hair and bloodshot eyes wailed incoherently. Nearby, Qurban Haiderboi, an elderly pilgrim who had traveled from the western Afghan city of Herat to help out in the Chila Khana, was touting the miraculous recovery of Askar Hamid, a 25-year-old with rolling eyes and crumpled limbs from the northern province of Kunduz.

"Before, he could not speak a single word," Haiderboi shouted as he propped up Hamid against the railing to show him off to a gathering crowd. "But last night I sat with him and told him to say the kalima" -- the Muslim holy prayer. "Now he is saying the kalima for everybody."

On the women's side, a middle-aged mother named Jamila looked on sadly as she cradled her sickly looking 4-year-old son.

Yet her frown turned to a pleasant smile as she described the friendship that had sprung up between her and a 20-year-old woman with a mangled hand. "I didn't know anyone when I came here," said Jamila, who like many Afghans uses only one name. "Now she and I have become like mother and sister even though we are from different provinces. When it is time for me to go to the mosque and pray, I even leave my son with her."

Several miles away, on the dusty plain where a buzkashi match was underway, the fans crowding the stands displayed a similar lack of regional prejudice.

A wild and dangerous game in which dozens of galloping horsemen race each other across the Central Asian steppe while fighting to grab hold of a headless goat carcass, buzkashi is said to date from the time of Genghis Khan. With their Asiatic features, high-heeled boots and quilted jackets and sashes, the professional players looked as though they had stepped out of another era. But they had also accessorized their outfits with a few touches from Afghanistan's more recent past -- including olive-green Soviet tanker's helmets from the 1980s and black plastic knee pads that would have fit in with the rollerbladers in Rock Creek Park.

Every few minutes, the scrum of horsemen whooshed by in a blur of clattering hoofs, rearing horses and cracking whips. Then the announcer would call out the name of the player judged to have gained possession of the carcass -- never an obvious choice -- and the winner would ride up to receive a fistful of cash from the sponsor of that round.

In another time, fans might have rooted for players from their ethnic group or province. But the crowd favorite, known as Malang, appeared to be popular mainly because he usually wins the most rounds in a tournament.

Isakhan, a 42-year-old language teacher from the nearby city of Samangan, confided that it didn't hurt that Malang was a fellow ethnic Uzbek. "I do feel happy when an Uzbek wins," he said.

Others in the crowd immediately interjected that Malang was actually a Turkmen. "No, he's a Tajik!" said another man.

"Okay," Isakhan said finally, "we are all Afghans."

Not that the Nowruz tourists were always tolerant of differences.

At the university auditorium, where a multi-day music festival was held in honor of the holiday, the young men in the audience greeted an Iranian troupe with disappointed jeers when it launched into a slow, funereal chant.

Robert Kluyver, a Dutch consultant with the foundation that sponsored the festival, jumped up and asked the emcee to lecture the audience on the importance of appreciating "fine music" from other cultures.

Afterward, the audience listened politely for a few moments, then broke into rowdy cheers as the music picked up a notch.

"I guess they didn't get the message," Kluyver said with a shake of his head.

Back at the hotel where musicians from the festival had been put up for the night, the Singing Mullah of Shebergan said he was sure he would enjoy a warmer reception when he played at the auditorium the following night.

"I am famous around here," said the 62-year-old, whose real name is Taj Mohammed, as he leaned back on his thin hotel mattress with a confident grin.

Certainly, he had the most interesting stage name, although technically he had given up his job as an Islamic preacher four decades ago. Now, Mohammed works as a supervisor at a natural gas mine by day and an entertainer by night.

Mostly his band plays weddings. But perhaps his most memorable concert was in the early 1990s, when the band traveled to the front lines of the battle then raging between Abdurrashid Dostum, the pro-communist, ethnic Uzbek general, and Islamic guerrilla groups. "Suddenly we came under fire from Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled grenades," said Mohammed, an Uzbek. "But we kept on playing for Dostum."

A powerful militia leader who switched sides multiple times during Afghanistan's various wars and whose troops are widely believed to have brutally massacred hundreds of Taliban prisoners in 2001, Dostum remains a controversial figure.

But Mohammed said he was unaware of those charges and had only fond memories of the period in the mid-1990s when Dostum ruled several northern areas, including Mazar-e Sharif, as his fiefdom.

Still, Mohammed added that he had always been committed to national unity. Back in the days of civil war, he said, he frequently sang a song of his own composition called "We Love Our Homeland." Its message was that Afghans should stop fighting each other.

Now the band was working on a new song, meant to encourage countrymen to make use of Afghanistan's natural resources.

"It is for the reconstruction of Afghanistan," Mohammed said as his band mates picked up traditional Uzbek instruments for an impromptu performance.

Insurgents kill 11, wound eight in renewed violence in Afghanistan
Sunday April 3, 4:45 AM AFP
Eleven people were killed and eight wounded in four separate incidents in Afghanistan, marking a surge in an anticipated Taliban offensive against the US-led coalition, Afghan forces and police, the interior ministry said.

Suspected Taliban insurgents attacked government district offices in the southeastern province of Helmand Saturday, killing four policemen and injuring three others, officials said.

Dozens of suspected insurgents from the country's ousted Taliban regime stormed the Disho district office during the attack, provincial intelligence chief Dad Mohammad told AFP.

Saturday's attack followed three other deadly incidents on Friday, and came in the wake of several rebel strikes during the past two weeks.

A bomb planted on a tractor trolley killed two people and injured five in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif while a roadside bomb blast in southern Kandahar province killed two teenagers.

A three-truck convoy was ambushed in the town of Spin Boldak near the Pakistani border on the route taken by drivers to carry fuel to the US forces, Kandahar police chief Mohammad Ayoob Salangi told AFP.

Three truck drivers including two Pakistanis were killed in the attack and the insurgents burned their vehicle, Salangi said.

Authorities said they had no immediate clues on who carried out Friday's attacks but such incidents have previously been linked to Taliban insurgents.

"We don't know who was behind the attacks," interior ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal Mashal said, adding that police were investigating the two blasts.

Spin Boldak, five kilometers (three miles) from the southwestern Pakistani town of Chaman, is considered a stronghold of remnants of the Taliban regime which was ousted from power in late 2001 by US-led forces.

After an unusually harsh winter, the coming of Spring has brought a surge in attacks on the US-led coalition and Afghan forces.

Bombs have caused carnage in Kandahar, Kabul and eastern Jalalabad and there have been several other attacks targeting Afghan soldiers, police and US-led coalition forces in the past two weeks.

"The number and severity of attacks against Afghan and coalition forces has increased compared to the winter," US military spokeswoman Lieutenant Cindy Moore said in a statement Saturday.

Coalition and Afghan forces have seized a number of improvised explosive devices in the past few days, Moore said.

"This shows that some in the Taliban or other anti-government insurgents will continue to try to destabilize Afghanistan through violent acts," she said.

The commander of US forces in the country, Lieutenant General David Barno, told AFP this week that Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network was making fresh efforts to engineer a comeback by the Taliban and regain a foothold of its own in Afghanistan.

Last weekend a roadside bomb was detonated in the Afghan capital, Kabul, injuring a Canadian and three Afghans.

On Thursday two suspected insurgents were killed by a bomb which they were laying on a road to target a government official in Kandahar's neighboring province of Urzgan, another stronghold of the ousted Taliban.

In addition to a 18,000-strong coalition forces under the command of the United States some 8,000 NATO soldiers are stationed in Kabul and some northern and western provinces to maintain security.

Taliban militants storm government building, killing nine Afghan soldiers
April 3, 2005
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) - Taliban militants stormed a government building in southern Afghanistan and killed nine Afghan soldiers in a two-hour gunbattle before fleeing, officials said.

The militants were in control of on Helmand province's Deshu district headquarters, 700 kilometres (437 miles) south of the capital Kabul, throughout the exchange before being forced out, they said on Sunday.

"A group of Taliban attacked the district headquarters of Deshu Sunday morning and in the exchange of fire nine Afghan soldiers were killed and three were injured," district commissioner Haji Mohamed Rahim told AFP.

"Taliban were in control of the district (headquarters) for two hours and then we managed to force them out."

There was no word on the militants' casualties.

A Western security source in Kandahar linked the attack to an ongoing counter-narcotics drive in Helmand province and said security was deteriorating there.

"There is a lot of unrest in Helmand province at the moment because of drugs eradication," he said on condition of anonymity.

Violence has surged in recent weeks after the bitterest winter in a decade reduced attacks to a minimum, with a rise in Taliban-related violence in southern, southeastern and eastern Afghanistan.

More than 18,000 US-led coalition forces and Afghanistan's newly trained national army and national police are fighting remnants of the former Taliban regime, which was toppled from power in a US-led coalition in late 2001.

Opium poppy cultivation has soared since the ousting of the hardline Islamists and Afghanistan now produces 90 percent of the world's heroin.

Muslims praise Pope
Sun Apr 3, 2005 8:57 AM BST By Clarence Fernandez
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Muslims around the world have praised Pope John Paul's drive to build bridges with Islam, saying his compassion and leadership have forever changed their view of the Catholic Church.

The Pope, the first to officially set foot in a mosque, during a visit to Syria in 2001, led a campaign over the past two decades to help turn conflict into cooperation between the world's 1.1 billion Catholics and 1.2 billion Muslims.

Palestinian and Afghan leaders commended his support of their people's desire for freedom, and clerics in Indonesia, Malaysia and Bangladesh hoped his successor would build on the Pope's efforts to strengthen ties of understanding with Islam.

Palestinian President Mamoud Abbas called the Pope "a great religious figure who devoted his life to defending the values of peace, freedom, justice and equality for all races and religions, as well as our people's right to independence".

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said, "We remember that during the years of Afghanistan's occupation by the Soviet Union, the Pope raised his voice of support to the Afghan people.

"He also urged the Afghan people build peace during the dark years of factional conflict and interference in Afghanistan," Karzai said in a statement.

Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said the Pope had commanded the three paths of religious learning, philosophical thought and poetic and artistic creativity.

The first non-Italian Pope in 455 years, John Paul II threw off many of the formalities of his office, travelling widely, writing five books and putting together a CD of religious music.

Officials in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, where Muslims number 85 percent of a population of 220 million, recalled his dedication to peace.

"We...certainly feel sorrow for the passing away of the Pope because he has dedicated himself all his life to humanitarian and peace efforts," said Hasyim Muzadi, leader of Nahdlatul Ulama, the country's biggest Muslim group, with 40 million members.

Many Muslims hope the Pope's successor will continue to tread the path of understanding between the two religions that he chalked out. A key event along this route was the Pope's 1986 invitation to Muslims and adherents of other faiths to pray together at Assisi for world peace.

"BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN FAITH"
In Kuala Lumpur, Azizan Razak, a cleric and senior leader of the opposition Parti Islam-se Malaysia, said, "We hope his successor will follow his footsteps to increase understanding between Muslims and Christians."

In Bangladesh, home to nearly 140 million Muslims, Moulana Obaidul Haque of the Baitul Mokarram national mosque, said the world had lost a great religious leader. "We hope his successor will also work for world peace," the cleric added.

The Pope's vigorous opposition to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 was widely appreciated in the Islamic world, Malaysian political analyst Chandra Muzaffar said.

"He was also right at the forefront of the protest against the war on Iraq," Chandra said."That showed he was committed to global justice and peace."

In Pakistan, Hafiz Hussain Ahmed of the Islamist Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal alliance said the world had lost a man of peace.

"(U.S. President) George Bush's talk of a Crusader war was a clear negation of Pope John Paul's efforts to promote interfaith dialogue and harmony," said.

In the largely Catholic Philippines, one leader of an influential group of Islamic clerics said John Paul served as a "bridge of understanding" between Christians and Muslims.

"I was touched by his gesture to pardon a Muslim who tried to assassinate him," said Sharif Julabbi of the Ulama League.

The Pope survived an attempt on his life by a Turkish gunman, Mehmet Ali Agca, in May 1981.

But some in the Arab world had only disdain for the Pope.

"He meant nothing to me," said Abdul Rahman al-Mashari, an engineer in Riyadh. "He was not even as important as a hair on my head."

80 US, Afghan soldiers enter Pakistani territory
By Pazeer Gul Dawn (Pakistan) April 3, 2005 issue
MIRAMSHAH, April 2: About 80 soldiers of the US and Afghan forces entered the Pakistani territory near Lawara Mandi border point and carried out patrolling up to two kilometres in the agency on Saturday.

The allied troops returned to their area of operation across the border after they were requested by the paramilitary forces to go back. The American soldiers said "sorry" to the Pakistan security forces when they were reminded that they had entered the Waziristan tribal agency.

Two helicopters were also witnessed to be providing air cover to the allied soldiers during their incursion into the Pakistan tribal territory.

According to reports, the US forces have recruited about five tribal Maliks, who have been asked to bring at least 1000 tribal youths for joining the allied forces.

The US forces have also offered attractive incentives to the new recruits.

Tribesmen have been asked to join the allied forces in return for special incentives, including education, power generators, tractors and other facilities.

Meanwhile, pamphlets and handbills were distributed in different areas of the agency, threatening the tribesmen with dire consequences in case they worked for the allied forces.

The tribesmen were also warned against supplying food items for the allied forces.

It is to be mentioned here that about 50 army trucks have reached the Lawara Mandi area to seal the border and keep watch on the cross-border movement.

[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.]