Mystery surrounds empty black box in Afghan air crash
Sun Apr 10, 9:28 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - US analysts found no information recorded on the black box on board the Afghan Kam Air Boeing 737 that crashed in February, killing all 104 passengers on board, officials said.

The flight data recorder was sent to the United States for analysis as Afghanistan lacks the technology to open and analyze the device.

"Due to technical errors the flight data recorder had nothing recorded," said Afghan defense ministry spokesman Mohammed Zahir Azimi on Sunday.

The second black box, the cockpit voice recorder, which records the conversation between the pilot and the air control tower, was never found.

Both the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder are designed to be resistant to the impact of a plane crash and to send out signals so they can be traced and found.

Afghan officials were unable to say what technical hitches had prevented the data recorder from working or why the cockpit voice recorder was never found.

"The device had no records on it 25 hours before the crash time and the reason for that is not known," said Qurban Mohammed Badakhshi, flight safety director at the Afghan Ministry of Transportation.

The examination of the device in the United States was completed on March 14 in the presence of Afghan officials, said Azimi.

The jet airliner was en route from the western city of Herat to Kabul when it hit a 3,300-metre (9,900-feet) mountain peak during a snowstorm on February 3. Twenty-four of the victims were foreigners.

Barrier is broken in Afghan province
Habiba Sorabi, the nation's 1st female governor, confronts varying expectations in Bamiyan region
By Kim Barker Chicago Tribune  April 10, 2005
BAMIYAN, Afghanistan -- The new governor sounds like a typical politician, promising paved roads, electricity, jobs and water, just like the last governor.

But the new governor of Bamiyan is anything but ordinary. Habiba Sorabi is a woman, the first female provincial governor in Afghanistan's tortured history. Her appointment by the president marks a step forward for Afghan women, oppressed even before the Taliban forced them to stop working and beat them for showing skin.

"Thank God a thousand times," said Massoma, a woman of about 40, who like many Afghans does not have a last name, as she sat near an unpaved road in Bamiyan, hoping that someone would give her a ride.

"Women are more powerful than men in this country," added her daughter, Marzia, 22. "If God wills it, they'll do better things."

Long way to go

Although the Taliban regime fell in late 2001, women still suffer in Afghanistan. Most, like Massoma and Marzia, are illiterate. Many die in childbirth. Teenage girls are still forced to marry old men. Many women are not allowed to work. One educated woman in Kabul recently complained to a visitor that her husband never let her leave home, even to visit family.

But the new constitution declares the sexes are equal, and several women in Kabul have been pushing for more rights.

In Kabul, women broadcast the news and run for political office. Three of the 30 Cabinet members are women, in charge of minor ministries.

"I want women to have confidence that they can have high positions in the government," said Sorabi, a former women's affairs minister. "Women in Afghanistan have been isolated. Men don't allow women to do things. Men want to have all the power."

Sorabi, 48, will be the first woman to leave relatively progressive Kabul to run the remote province to the west. She hails from the same ethnic Hazara minority as most of Bamiyan, but she still faces a huge challenge. She worries that some people will expect too much, believing that her international appeal will bring more aid to one of the poorest provinces in Afghanistan. She also faces problems from people who expect too little. They do not think she can do the job.

"You say women's rights are equal to men's," said Ziauddin, 25, a farmer in Watapor, a village in Bamiyan province. "But it's not happening outside the cities. Men are losing their skin to work hard. Women are just sitting at home."

"For men, it's shameful to see our women work," added Hafizullah, 26, another farmer.

If Sorabi does not deliver on her promises, this will have bigger implications than on her political career. Some people will blame any shortcoming on her sex.

After she was appointed, about 200 people showed up in the town of Bamiyan to protest her selection. Three Afghan newspapers ran editorials questioning whether the country was ready for a woman governor. One suggested that the government would be better off fighting violence against women than naming a token woman governor.

Why not a woman?

But Bamiyan province has been friendlier to women than most. A few days after the anti-Sorabi protest, a few hundred people rallied in support of her.

Almost half the Bamiyan voters in the presidential election last fall were women. A couple dozen women were seen walking on a recent afternoon on the main streets of Bamiyan town--many more than in other provinces. Some even wear simple head scarves, instead of the burqa, which covers a woman's face and is worn through much of the countryside.

Many men in Bamiyan also welcome the change. They complain about the past governor, a former militia commander who they say did nothing. These men are also practical, reasoning that the international community will be more likely to send money to the country's first female governor than to a minor warlord. Nothing else has worked--why not a woman?

"Women are very kind, very nice," said Mohamadullah, 50. "Maybe they can bring lasting peace."

Since the fall of the Taliban, this central province has been relatively peaceful, except for security problems with drug traffickers.

But the people demand a lot. Many like to say they have lost everything. Scores were killed by the Taliban and buried in mass graves. Even the giant Buddhas that once brought tourists here were destroyed.

The town of Bamiyan is nothing but dusty, bumpy roads, small beige homes and sleepy stores. Fields are plowed by cattle dragging large pieces of wood. Farmers travel on the backs of burros. Much of Bamiyan looks as if the 19th Century never arrived, let alone the 21st.

"Anything that people need to live, the people of Bamiyan do not have," said Abdulkhalegh Zaligh, the deputy governor. "We don't have roads. We don't have schools. We don't have electricity. We don't have doctors. We don't have engineers."

Sorabi will live in a modest home of three rooms, plus a room to wash herself, an outhouse and a guard house. There is no running water, no electricity. Many other provincial governors live in nice homes, even mansions, with manicured lawns.

She has spent only a week in Bamiyan since being named to the post early last month. Now, Sorabi is in Kabul, getting ready to move and waiting for her house to be finished.

Her two sons and husband will stay in Kabul. Her daughter is in college in India. "Gender equality," Sorabi said.

Hard times for Afghanistan's drug smugglers
Monday April 11, 12:03 PM  AFP
Rivers flooding, US soldiers at the border and corrupt militias losing their jobs and weapons -- life as a drug smuggler in southern Afghanistan isn't what it used to be for Ahmed Jan.

Getting convoys of 60 or 70 off-road vehicles, each filled with a ton of dry opium resin, through a day's drive from southern Kandahar city to the border with Iran has become complicated in recent months, he tells AFP.

"It is much more difficult to get stuff out of the country so it's only a few secret routes that are running, like rivers of drugs," says Jan, a rotund man in his 40s using a pseudonym.

His problems are an indication that Afghanistan's fight against narcotics is paying off. President Hamid Karzai came to office last year pledging to wage a 'jihad' or holy war on drugs, backed by the US and other western governments.

With between 40 to 60 percent of Afghanistan's economy generated by opium in 2004, both the US and the UN have warned that the country is tottering on the brink of becoming a "narco-state".

After three years of focusing on battling the Taliban as the Afghan opium industry spiralled, the US has pledged 780 million to battle narcotics in the country over the next year, and tightened security along the border.

Border checkpoints in Afghanistan, previously staffed by militia commanders in the pockets of the smuggling mafia, are now manned by US forces and American-trained soldiers from the fledgling Afghan army.

Opium prices have dropped sharply because traffickers can't move their vast stocks out of Afghanistan.

Last year, dry opium resin was selling for 142 dollars per kilo at the farm gate at harvest, according to UN figures.

Now it sells for around 100 dollars, according to Attatullah, an opium grower in Zhare district, about 30 minutes' drive outside Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban movement.

"The American soldiers are blocking the routes," 36-year-old Attatullah tells AFP, standing knee-deep in a field of poppies which are beginning to burst into flower.

Afghanistan's extreme weather has also helped stem the drug trade. After seven years of drought, the landlocked nation has finally seen rain and many smuggling routes which crossed dry riverbeds en route to Pakistan and Iran are now blocked by flowing water.

A third factor has been the disarmament of militias, which after fighting the Soviets and then joining the US against the Taliban have now been removed from their posts as part of a UN-backed drive.

"People who were disarmed had a very good business running checkpoints so now they will be compelled to find other forms of income like drug-running," Jan says.

"Because of disarmament it's much harder to get enough guns for our convoys."

The convoys are always heavily armed. Each of the 60 or so 4x4s travels with five to 10 people who are paid between 1,600 and 2,200 dollars each for the risk involved.

As a lower-ranking smuggler, Jan equips four or five vehicles to travel with the larger convoy while the bigger operators provide up to 10 vehicles each.

"There is over a ton of opium in each Land Cruiser, and we expect them to defend the cargo with their lives," said Jan.

But for all the inconveniences now facing smugglers and the corrupt officials who help them, it is farmers used to planting nothing but opium who stand to lose out most from the crackdown.

An internationally backed eradication team arrives in Kandahar province in mid-April to tackle the poppy fields.

According to a joint UN-Afghan government survey Kandahar is one of five provinces where opium cultivation has risen since the new year, despite plummeting production in the rest of the country.

New police chief Lieutenant General Mohammed Ayoub Salangi, installed by Karzai last month to stem the province's drug trade and growing lawlessness, said an eradication strategy was being worked out.

"We will have a meeting with government officials, the army and the eradication force to decide whether and how much to eradicate," he told AFP.

However the farmers will lose a year's income if their crops are wiped out, while a government strategy to provide them with alternative livelihoods is only in its infancy.

Smuggler Jan warned that widespread eradication could fuel support for the Taliban insurgency in the south.

"People can't rise up themselves if their fields are destroyed but they can lend support to the Taliban who are all still living in the suburbs of Kandahar," he said.

Security concerns halt Afghan bazaar
Rocket attacks on U.S. base force closure of weekly market
By Kent Harris, Stars and Stripes  Mideast edition, Sunday, April 10, 2005
BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan — A pair of rocket attacks last month caused only minor damage on base.

And no one was injured.

But the damage to the local economy might be a bit more severe: The weekly bazaar on Bagram Air Base has been canceled until the security situation improves.

“Security for the installation equates to economic stability for everyone around here,” said Col. Robert Algermissen, commander of Task Force Eagle, the equivalent of a base support battalion.

When a bazaar is canceled, a local village could lose about $200.

“If they don’t know who fired the rockets at us, they certainly ought to,” Algermissen said, noting the local culture revolves around tight-knit communities where everyone knows what everyone else is doing. And strangers stand out.

That’s true across the country.

So humanitarian assistance programs at Shindand in western Afghanistan have been temporarily shut down as well.

They’ll resume if local citizens help apprehend those who have been launching attacks on the base there.

Friday marked the third week in a row that the bazaar was canceled at Bagram.

So local merchants are out thousands of dollars and most local villages have lost money as well.

Villages normally receive the entry fee a merchant pays in order to participate in the bazaar. Each of the 100 or so villages near the base receives the money on a rotating basis. Village elders access the money after telling the local governor how they plan to spend it.

Algermissen said that when the bazaars operate, they benefit merchants, villages and servicemembers.

“There are some soldiers who don’t get off the base,” he said.

And many of those who do get off base don’t have the opportunity to shop for local goods.

Merchants offer a variety of products made from wood, stone, metal and fabric. Bootleg DVDs featuring American TV shows and groups of movies for only a few dollars, are also popular.

Algermissen said a determination would be made in a few days on whether the bazaar will be held next week.

A suspect for the first rocket attack has been identified.

And another village determined where the second attack occurred.

But he said if security concerns aren’t alleviated, the bazaar would still be on hold.

During a previous rotation, the bazaars were put on hold for more than three months.

So servicemembers might have to start rationing their DVDs.

“There are probably plenty of them to go around,” Algermissen said.

Stars and Stripes is a Department of Defense-authorized daily newspaper distributed overseas for the U.S. military community.

ANA Accepts Responsibility for Western Provinces
Combined Forces Command - Afghanistan Coalition Press Information Center (Public Affairs) April 10, 2005
HERAT, Afghanistan – In a ceremony held here Thursday, the remaining members of the Afghan Militia Force’s 4th Corps handed over official authority for the protection of Herat, Badghis, Farah and Ghor provinces to the 207th Regional Corps of the Afghan National Army.

The 207th Regional Corps was actually commissioned Sept. 28, 2004, and, as far as the Ministry of Defense is concerned, this exchange had happened months before, but, according to Maj. Michael Perry, an operations advisor to the 207th, it was an important ceremony nonetheless. “Basically, it was an acknowledgement by the AMF that they no longer exist,” Perry said.

During the ceremony, the commanders of both units exchanged flags, signifying the ANA’s acceptance of the responsibility for western Afghanistan. “The exchange of flags between the old army and the ANA was done very enthusiastically and very patriotically,” said Maj. Mohammad, a member of the regional command’s staff.

Sgt. Abdul Quduz, who returned from Pakistan to “take responsibility for (his) nation,” believes that the passing of the AMF serves as a sign of a new stability for Herat and all of Afghanistan. “Now we have a president who is the head of the new army and we are under the command of one person,” he said. “We will act according to the law and the rules.”

Capt. Mahboub Bullah, a former member of the AMF, said that the time had come for the nation to unify under a national authority and this handover was another sign that it was taking place.

The AMF, he said, had been too segregated—units were made up of single ethnic groups and fell under the control of warlords, acting at their whims. In fact, the first ANA soldiers to arrive in Herat Province were sent in August 2004 to quell fighting between AMF troops under the control of local commanders.

Bullah said this kind of fighting could not happen with a national army. “The new army, the ANA, is based on all Afghan ethnicities,” he said. “It belongs to all Afghans.”

American escapes kidnap attempt in Afghan capital
Monday April 11, 2:53 AM  AFP 
An American man narrowly escaped from kidnappers who had attacked him and bundled him into the back of a car in the heart of the Afghan capital's embassy district, officials said.

A spokesman for the Interior Ministry told AFP that "a group of unknown men attempted to kidnap him and put him in the trunk of a 2002 model white Toyota Corolla".

The unnamed American managed to prize open the trunk of the moving car and jump out onto the road, he said requesting anonymity.

"The car and the kidnappers managed to escape," the official added.

The US embassy confirmed that a US citizen had been abducted and had escaped but was unable to give further details about what the man was doing in Kabul.

"I can tell you that he was not here in an official US government capacity," embassy spokesman Jeff Raleigh said.

A western security source said the man had been staying at a house rented by humanitarian flight operator PACTEC.

"The man was punched and then thrown into the boot of the car where he found a wrench and managed to open the boot and get out in Wazir Akbar Khan," he added.

Bob Schauf, acting director of PACTEC, said the American national did not work for the organization.

"I can say that he was not an employee of PACTEC but I can't give you any other information," he told AFP.

Foreigners in Kabul have been on alert following a series of incidents that have raised fears that Afghanistan could be hit by a wave of Iraq-style kidnappings and killings.

Last month, British development worker Steve MacQueen was gunned down by men in two landcruisers as he drove home from the popular Elbow Room restaurant in a targetted hit that has yet to be solved by police.

MacQueen's murder reignited jitters which were sparked by the abduction of three foreign UN workers overseeing Afghanistan's first presidential election who were seized in Kabul on October 28 and held for 27 days before being released unharmed.

The abductions were thought to have been carried out by a criminal gang in league with Islamic militants.

In October 2004 an American woman and an Afghan girl were killed in a suicide bombing on a popular shopping strip which also injured three Icelandic peacekeepers and five locals.

The murder, suicide bombing and abductions sent shockwaves through the foreign community and led many aid agencies and companies to bolster security for their staff.

Taliban militants have been attacking mainly Western and Afghan targets since they were ousted in late 2001 by US-led forces for refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

Racy Afghan TV show hits a raw nerve
By Kim Barker Chicago Tribune foreign correspondent
The two men spend several minutes debating which came first, the chicken or the egg. They argue over whether people dream in color.

This hardly seems like the most controversial TV show in Afghanistan. But in between the polite chitchat, these men--the Afghan version of MTV veejays--play music videos, which sometimes feature heaving bosoms, dancing women and sexually suggestive lyrics.

Such videos have turned the show "Hop" into one of the most popular programs on the Afghan capital's most popular new television station, Tolo TV. They also have drawn the ire of the country's clerics and the scrutiny of the government.

"Watching a woman with half-naked breasts and a man and a woman sucking each other's lips on TV, like on Tolo, is not acceptable," said Abdul Malik Kamawi, spokesman for the country's Supreme Court.

The debate over programming on the five private TV stations in Kabul highlights a major difficulty facing the new Afghanistan: trying to balance democratic freedoms and a largely conservative Islamic society. The constitution protects freedom of expression and prohibits anything that is against Islam. That inevitably leads to conflict, because what is against Islam often depends on who is watching.

Several new stations are pushing the limits in the land where the Taliban once banned TV sets and forced women to be hidden. They are playing Indian movies, which mostly focus on love and sexy couples dancing and singing. Some have shown movies from the United States, such as "Conan the Barbarian," with sex scenes.

Tolo TV, which premiered in October, features women as veejays on "Hop" and as commentators on other programs. At some point, the women will take off their head scarves--shocking in a country where women still cover their hair with scarves or wear burqas, which cover everything, even a woman's eyes.

Even moderate government officials question the speed at which TV is moving.

"Our advice is, we need to be careful," presidential spokesman Jawed Ludin said. "Some media tend to take the radical route. It always pays to take it a step at a time."

On Tolo, people Rollerblade and fly kites at a New Year's celebration. Men and women talk to each other, even laugh together. Jennifer Lopez videos are shown frequently, and commercials tout the benefits of chicken bullion and dandruff shampoo. In many ways the station shows a vision of Kabul not as it necessarily is, but as many young people would like it to be.

A short makeover feature takes ordinary Afghans off the street and turns them into fashionable young people who would blend into any Western city. Think of it as "Hip Eye for the Traditional Afghan Guy." On one recent show, a young Afghan man with a beard, an uneven haircut and the typical Afghan knee-length shirt and matching pants got a shave, a haircut and a shower and was dressed in jeans and a modern shirt.

`Sense of hope' for young

Station director Saad Mohseni said Tolo TV--"tolo" means "dawn" in the Dari language of Afghanistan--offers something for everyone. He said Afghans, tired after 23 years of war, want change.

"It's important for us to provide young people with some sense of hope," said Mohseni, an Afghan-Australian. "At least, deceive them that things are going to get better."

But the mullahs are demanding change of a different kind. They want the TV stations to stop showing cleavage, women singing and dancing, and anything resembling sex.

The national Ulema Council, a government agency of religious scholars, recently issued a statement accusing Tolo TV and private station Afghan TV of "broadcasting music, naked dance and foreign films, which are against Islam and other national values of Afghanistan." The council asked the government to stop what it called immoral and un-Islamic broadcasts.

Mullahs also complained about "Hop" to the ministry responsible for licensing TV stations, said S.A.H. Sancharaky, deputy minister of information and culture.

"It has put a lot of pressure on us," he said. "But we have not censored or banned that program yet."

Instead the government is asking Tolo to "improve" the show. Sancharaky said the videos are too racy and the veejays talk too casually. In one episode, he said, a male veejay complimented a female veejay's shoes.

"He says, `Your shoes are very good. Can you hold up your legs so everybody can see how good your shoes are?'" Sancharaky recalled. "`Hold up your legs' has a very bad meaning in our language."

A government commission is investigating whether TV stations are complying with the country's laws. In February, members singled out "Hop" for criticism but took no action.

In reality, the clerics are trying to dam a river with a pencil. Satellite dishes are allowed in Afghanistan. Cable TV includes stations from India. There are pornographic DVDs and messages sent on mobile phones featuring cartoon couples having sex.

Post-Taliban backlash

After living under the Taliban, many Afghans are tired of being told how to live.

"We should not see Islam through the hole of a needle," said Daulat Khan Abidi, 32, who helps run a perfume shop in Kabul. "Islam is a big religion."

In Kabul, the generation gap is visible in fashion. Older people often wear traditional dress. Many young men wear jeans. A good number of young women wear jeans or black, flared pants, knee-length coats and head scarves. They wear makeup. They even send text messages by mobile phone to Shakeb Isaar, one of the "Hop" veejays, proclaiming, "I love u my dear" and "Will you marry me?"

Isaar, 22, is the closest thing to a celebrity in Kabul. He frequently is mobbed by fans. He believes the mullahs are his enemies and taunts them.

"Why shouldn't we be like this and have all the freedom like other people in other countries?" asked Isaar, sporting spiky hair, a German soccer T-shirt and jeans.

Most people on the street say Tolo TV is their favorite Afghan station. They like the news and the investigative reporting--new to Afghanistan. They like "Moments," a prank program similar to "Candid Camera." But most people, young and old, say their favorite show on Tolo is "Hop," which features videos from India, Iran, Turkey, the U.S. and Afghanistan.

"It's a good program," said Walid Shahbaz, 22, who was out shopping. "Mullahs are usually talking about things that are against Islam. But I don't think `Hop' is against Islam."

The TV station is planning to air a new program, one that station workers are certain will be a hit. It shows just how much the clerics are up against, and how much Afghanistan has changed since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001.

That show, modeled on a popular U.S. program, will feature men and women singing their way to fame. "Afghan Idol" will start shooting in a few weeks.

Afghanistan tourism promotes its virgin peaks to climbers
Sunday Herald, UK
Despite the landmines and bandits, mountaineers are eager to conquer the Hindu Kush, writes Nick Meo in Kabul

Afghanistan’s mountain ranges are littered with landmines, wrecked tanks and helicopters … and the bones of foreign soldiers who came to fight its guerrilla armies.
Soon the mountains will be subject to a new, and this time peaceful, invasion: from mountaineers in search of adventure among the world’s last unclimbed peaks.

The formidable spine of towering ranges that make up the Hindu Kush across the country’s centre and the icy Pamirs in the far north represent the last frontier for climbers bored with the Alps or the Himalayas and craving new challenges.

Last year, a European team supported by Sir Chris Bonington scaled Afghanistan’s highest mountain, the first major expedition to venture into the country since the Soviet invasion in 1979, and a few brave adventurers set out on small-scale DIY climbs.

Afghanistan’s new tourism minister has promised the dawn of a new age. Professor Nasrullah Stanakzai wants to develop the country’s mountaineering potential by setting up a school for training guides and providing armed escorts against the threat of bandits.

He said: “We have fantastic mountains in Afghanistan, and we are ready to accept anybody who wants to come.

“If they are nervous about security, they shouldn’t worry. We will provide them with an armed police escort.”

The tourism ministry, which for years operated out of an old shed near the airport, is helping to set up an Italian-funded mountaineering centre and training 12 former guerrilla fighters to become alpine guides.

It even plans to open a camp for curious tourists and adventurers near Osama bin Laden’s old headquarters at Tora Bora, in the Spin Ghar mountains.

Stanakzai insisted the Taliban-wracked area near the Pakistan border was also safe for mountaineers, despite the cat-and-mouse conflicts between al-Qaeda fighters and US Special Forces. The minister has also promised to ensure that development is environmentally sensitive and wants to learn from mistakes in areas of Nepal where too many trekkers have wrecked once-pristine areas.

Campaign group Mountain Wilderness International launched the first big expedition last year up Afghanistan’s highest peak Noshaq, a 7492-metre giant of rock and ice on the border with Tajikistan.

Afghanistan offers hundreds of virgin peaks for climbers wanting to be first to the summit. Unlike Nepal, India and Pakistan, there is no expensive licence system for expeditions yet, cutting expenses considerably to attract climbers.

Sir Chris Bonington said: “Provided it is safe, people will certainly want to go. Afghan istan has some wonderful mountains.

“There are lots of unclimbed peaks around 6000 metres, and for young climbers in Britain that is very exciting. If they can ensure security, things could really take off.”

One of the country’s great draws is Mir Samir, made famous by travel writer Eric Newby’s failed attempt to climb it, and memorably described in Newby’s travel classic A Short Walk In The Hindu Kush. Newby recorded his colourful experiences as a novice mountaineer dealing with the locals and the harsh environment, reading how-to books about mountain climbing while making the ascent.

Australian climber Ash Sweeting and British Everest veteran Mark James last year reached a virgin summit above the Panjshir valley, north of Kabul and once the scene of epic battles with the Soviets.

Sweeting said: “You do worry about landmines, but we checked with a landmine clearance agency in Kabul and with villagers and the route seemed OK.

“You have to stay away from the old smugglers’ trails. That’s where the Soviet helicopters dropped lots of mines. We thought about going armed but decided not to. We had a letter from a local leader and that was enough protection.

“It was tough going but the mountains are truly fantastic. There is a real buzz in getting to the top – you’re somewhere reached by no other mountaineers and there’s hardly anywhere else in the world you can say that now.”

Mountain climbing is not the only adventure activity on offer.

Some of Kabul’s expat aid workers and entrepreneurs have experimented with off-piste skiing and snowboarding near the Salang Pass north of Kabul, in the 1970s the site of Afghanistan’s only ski resort.

British telecommunications worker James Howlett said: “It’s a fantastic way to blow off some steam after a hard week of working in Kabul.

“We’re on areas that have hopefully been cleared of landmines. But the powder is several feet thick so you should be OK if you skim over the top of one.”

More conventional tourism also looks set to take off, with a trickle of backpackers already making their way to Kabul where they stay in the Mustapha Hotel, made famous for its association with US bounty hunter Jack Idema.

Apart from seeing the sights – or the ruins of the sights – they can enjoy Kabul’s crazy nightlife in the Elbow Room bar, where tourists rub shoulders with South African security men and veteran aid workers and drink Tora Bora Sunrise cocktails.

Some backpackers have even tried to hitchhike on Afghanistan’s risky roads. A stark reminder of the dangers of Afghanistan came last year when two young Europeans were found murdered in Kabul, apparently after being tricked by criminals over a gems deal. A young Briton who attempted a horseback adventure in the mountainous northeast was given up for lost when he failed to appear back in Kabul for weeks. He finally turned up and explained that he was robbed at gunpoint, then his horse ran off leaving him to trudge all the way back to the capital.

But most adventures seem to pass successfully. Briton Matthew Leeming runs tour parties to the desolate Wakhan Corridor in the far north on the China border. Last year many of his enterprising guests were elderly folk. Leeming said: “I thought it would attract rich yuppies looking for bragging rights at dinner parties.

“But most of them are people who are seriously interested in Afghanistan’s culture. They want to see somewhere truly unique.”
10 April 2005

If the moon could talk, Intelligence Deception since Afghanistan!
by Maher osseiran NYC Independent Media Center, NY  09 Apr 2005 
Investigative article that sheds new light on the confession of Osama Bin Laden on tape to 9/11 and supports the possibility that it was produced by western intelligence. It also vindicates those who coined the term "Synthetic Terrorism". 
While the controversy in England about the advice of the Attorney General on the legality of the Iraq war rages on and fuels requests for its publication in full, in America, George W. Bush is luckier and has survived the Valerie Plame issue, WMD’s, and the scathing report on the failure of intelligence prior to 9/11, the question is, how would both deal with the issue brought up in this article that potentially dwarfs all other issues.

The issue is Bin Laden confessionals to his guilt of 9/11 on video tapes; yes plural, it is not a typo. One British supposedly acquired through intelligence, and one American explained as the product of an amateur videographer. Could those two tapes be just one and could it be as reported by the Observer the “result of a sophisticated sting operation”?

We have all seen the “American video”, a video tape acquired by US soldiers in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, and, provided by the Pentagon to the media and the general public in its raw form after intelligence services dissected it, analyzed it, and authenticated it. On the tape aired Dec 13, 2001, Osama Bin Laden, through a conversation with a visiting sheikh, later identified as Khaled al-Harbi, admits to 9/11, or in the least shows prior knowledge of it.

Many of you might have forgotten or never even heard that there is also a “British video”. On On Nov. 14, 2001, Tony Blair addressed parliament and informed the audience that the British Government published transcript excerpts of the “video” in which it says Bin Laden admitted taking his campaign to the United States. The article quotes bin Laden as saying: "It is what we instigated for a while, in self-defence. If avenging the killing of our people is terrorism, let history be a witness that we are terrorists. The battle has been moved inside America, and we shall continue until we win this battle, or die in the cause and meet our maker."

Now since Jalalabad fell on Nov. 14, the same day Mr. Blair uttered that quote in parliament, and, the president of the United States first exposure to the “American video” recovered in Jalalabad was not until Nov. 29, one has to assume that the “video” Mr. Blair is referring to is a different “video”. After all, if it is the same “video”, how could Mr. Blair have knowledge of something that has not yet existed?

On Nov 11, The British video makes it debut introduce by David Bamber of the Sunday Telegraph in London. Mr. Bamber informs us that the Telegraph had access to it and reports it this way: "The footage, to which the Telegraph obtained access in the Middle East yesterday, was not made for public release via the al-Jazeera television network used by bin Laden for propaganda purposes in the past. It is believed to be intended as a rallying call to al-Qa'eda members. He also tells us: “The video will form the centrepiece of Britain and America's new evidence against bin Laden, to be released this Wednesday.”

On Nov 14, three days later, the tape commits a disappearing act and this is how T.R. Reid, the Washington Post Foreign Service correspondent, reports from London on its official introduction in Parliament by Tony Blair; he writes: "The British government did not release the video or a full transcript, saying it does not have a copy of the video but has information about it from intelligence sources." In the same article, he also reports that there was an interviewer on the tape.

Now you see it, now you don't !!!

This is how the Washington Post describes on Dec. 9 Mr. Blair’s video in the article that unveiled the “American video” and I quote: “The new videotape is not the one described last month by British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Intelligence sources had obtained only a transcript of that tape, not the actual video.”

It is a fact that the “British video” Tony Blair referred to on Nov 14, has never been provided to the public and his quotes of Nov 14, which are hearsay, are nowhere in the transcript of the “American video” recovered in Jalalabad and aired on Dec. 13, 2001. It is also a fact that through the various newspaper reports, we are asked to believe that only the Telegraph had access to the video while British and American intelligence had no chance to see it, vet it, or authenticate its transcript. Also, we are asked to believe that there are two “videos”, and that confessionals by “video” are a standard Osama Bin Laden business practice with copies distributed to heads of state.

Logic dictates that we not believe, and dictates that we ask Tony Blair and the Telegraph, to release the video immediately. Also, since the analysis that follows increases the credibility of a report that the tape is the result of a sophisticated sting operation run by intelligence services, urgency is warranted.

The following came to light while I was researching inconsistencies in intelligence that sent us to war in Iraq. The “American video” released by the Pentagon, even though not specifically related to the war in Iraq, stayed in my mind ever since it was aired and warranted a revisit as part of my research.

While viewing the “American video”, both historic and technical inconsistencies were found. Granted, the tape is the most analyzed tape in the world, still, most of the analysis was centered on the looks of Bin Laden, his voice quality, his words, and none reported an investigative analysis that considered post-taping edits. Due to limited technical capabilities, we could only report that the tape was a fourth generation edit (copy or otherwise), that there are both VHS and digital drops on the tape, which is unusual, and that there was unwarranted editing that might have happened post-taping. Also, and most importantly, that certain camera angles and motions seemed too similar to a hat camera that football umpires wear. Those who are better equipped to conduct further evaluation are encouraged to do so. (click here for hints to those interested in conducting further technical analysis)

In terms of the historic inconsistencies, the timeline inconsistencies that follow are of a serious nature and clear enough that the Pentagon analysts should have easily picked them out. The failure to detect them and report them should weigh negatively against those who released the video.

The first anchor for the timeline analysis is what Ari Fliescher, the White House press secretary, informed us through his press briefings. Mr. Fliescher told us that the tape was found in Jalalabad, in an abandoned house, that the tape did not seem to be planted, and that the occupiers of the house seem to have left in a hurry. Mr. Fleischer also tells us that the tape seems to have been made on November 9, 2001, since that is what the time stamp on it is. He also goes on to say in one of his answers: “I can tell you, the President was first informed of it on November 29th. He first viewed portions of it on November 30th.” Again, for the record, Jalalabad fell on Nov. 14.

Now let us use the transcript of the tape that the Pentagon provided.

In the transcript, the visiting sheikh to whom Bin Laden confessed is reported to have said: “We came from Kabul….. We asked the driver to take us, it was a night with a full moon, thanks be to Allah.” On the tape itself, the sheikh actually infers prominent moon, which I interpret as 3 to 4 days before and after a full moon. He is later reported to have said: “Allah has bestowed on us...honor on us...and he will give us blessing and more victory during this holy month of Ramadan.” In the tape he never uses the word Ramadan, he actually says: ”…….victory during this Moubarak (meaning blessed) month and the month after.” The translators decided to interpret “Moubarak month” as Ramadan since the word Moubarak is usually used to describe the month of Ramadan and totally omitted the fact that he said: “and the month after”.

If Ramadan were the month the taping took place, Ramadan in 2001 starts like every other Ramadan with a new moon, as black as the night can get, and was on Nov. 16, while a full moon is not until Nov. 30, which means a prominent moon is between Nov. 26 and Dec. 4. The taping could not have happened during a prominent moon in the month of Ramadan since Kabul, the town the sheikh traveled through, had fallen on Nov. 12, Jalalabad, where it was found, on Nov.14, and Kandahar, where supposedly it was taped, was surrounded by anti-Taliban forces during that period and fell towards the end of it.

Now that we have established that the taping could not have taken place during Ramadan and that the reported date stamp of Nov. 9 on the tape could have been a programming error on the part of the camera operator, we need to go back in time and examine the previous periods of a prominent moon which are: Oct. 27 through Nov. 4, and, Sept. 28 through Oct. 6.

Going back to the transcript released by the Pentagon we find no mention of carpet bombings, coalition operations, or travel difficulties due to the military operations that officially started on Oct 6, 2001. I find it incredible that, over a period of 40 minutes of tape, there was no mention of military activities by the coalition or their effects on travel, considering the magnitude of such activities and the chattiness of the sheikh, which puts the period of Oct. 27 through Nov. 4 in doubt.

The second anchors for the timeline analysis are statements by Tony Blair, that of Nov. 14 and the following two:

On Oct 4, 2001, in a speech, he states that a Government document is to be released and I quote the document: “There is evidence of a very specific nature relating to the guilt of Bin Laden and his associates that is too sensitive to release.” The operative words are “very specific”.

On Sept. 30, 2001, in a BBC interview, Tony Blair states that he has evidence from intelligence services of Bin Laden’s guilt and that the evidence was "powerful and incontrovertible". I had to look up incontrovertible in the dictionary, it means; not open to question or dispute; indisputable, as in, absolute and incontrovertible truth. This was only 4 days prior to Oct. 4, is he talking about the same “very specific” evidence. Very likely as it takes governments about 4 days to vet and publish.

When we combine all three statements, we can deduce that the incontrovertible evidence was available as early as Sept. 30, that it was acquired by intelligence, and that it is a “video” since the only incontrovertible evidence, even though hearsay, Blair put forth was his quote of Nov. 14.

Again, logic dictates that we ask Tony Blair to release his video.

Going back to the timeline analysis. If we now take the period of Sept. 28 through Oct. 6, into consideration, we have to consider a fact that strongly favors this period, it is the fact that the visiting sheikh is a paraplegic and needs considerable help during travel. I would think a handicapped person would travel into Afghanistan during the relative calm of this period while he could still get the support and cooperation of the Taliban in his trek to locate and meet Bin Laden. Oddly enough, this time period also fits perfectly with Tony Blair’s statements of Sept. 30 and Oct. 4 and begs the conclusion that the video was produced around Sept. 28.

The only inconsistency with the Sept. 28 through Oct. 6 period is where Ramadan is deduced by the translators but never mentioned by name by the sheikh. Again, let us review what the sheikh said: “…….victory during this Moubarak month and the month after.” One can wonder if his usage of the word Moubarak was strictly out of piety, if it is, then there is no inconsistency. But, since the mention of the prominent moon in the video was a normal statement and stating a fact that should be known to all present, giving it more prominence as the truth, and the use of the word Moubarak is not only proven out of chronological context but would also have raised eye brows if he had not followed it with “and the month after”, one has to consider the possibility that the word Moubarak was inserted intentionally, which adds credibility to the following paragraph.

Ed Voliami and Jason Burke reported in the Observer on December 16, 2001 and I quote: “This weekend, as the debate the tape has provoked continued across the Islamic world, several intelligence sources have suggested to The Observer that the tape, although absolutely genuine, is the result of a sophisticated sting operation run by the CIA through a second intelligence service, possibly Saudi or Pakistani.”

If Voliami and Burke are correct in their reporting, and our timeline on target, the sting operation that did the taping of the video could have been the sting operation that did the capturing or elimination of Bin Laden which would also have averted the Afghanistan war and significantly contained terrorism, not to mention preventing the loss of life on both sides.

Another very serious consequence of airing a tape that is a product of a sting operation is the effect it would have on its subject, Bin Laden, when viewing it. By airing it, the producers of the tape tipped their hand and exposed the fact that they were mere feet from him; his paranoia and security concerns could only have increased and made him harder to locate.

Considering all these serious questions that have been raised, strictly through the use of logic and public domain information, it is imperative that we ask Tony Blair and the Telegraph to release their tape.

The implications that arise if both tapes, American and British, are the same are beyond comprehension, and the words needed to comfort those who have lost loved ones in 9/11 and in the war or terror are beyond imagination.

If only the moon could talk! 

AFGHANISTAN: Country facing health disaster worse than the tsunami - minister
KABUL, 8 Apr 2005 (IRIN) - As Afghanistan marked World Health Day on Thursday, the country’s health minister, Dr Sayed Mohammad Amin Fatimi, said it was facing a disaster worse than the tsunami that hit Indian Ocean nations late in 2004 and killed more than 300,000 people.

“We are currently being faced with a silent emergency which is heartbreaking and a big tragedy, it is worse than the tsunami disaster,” Fatimi told IRIN in the capital Kabul.

The minister estimates that around 700 children under the age of five die every day in Afghanistan due to preventable diseases and one women dies every 20 minutes due to complications in pregnancy and childbirth.

Lack of resources and trained medical personnel, along with low levels of awareness and cultural factors, were the main reasons for the alarming figures in a country still recovering from nearly three decades of conflict and international isolation.

“Traditionally in rural areas people won’t let women to be checked by male doctors,” he said, adding that of just 3,000 doctors in the entire country, only one in six was female. “We need nearly 10,000 midwives and at the same time up to 10,000 female health workers,” the minister said.

“To stand by and allow a preventable disaster from occurring is unconscionable…. The long-term consequences for Afghanistan will overturn much of the progress made in recent years,” Ameerah Haq, the deputy Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General said.

According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Afghanistan has the fourth highest under five-mortality rate in the world. Diarrhoeal diseases are recognised as the main killer of children, caused by limited access to safe water, sanitation and poor hygiene practices.

“It is a very serious situation not only in terms of health but also because of its impact on socio-economic and development issues,” Edward Carwardine, a spokesman for UNICEF, told IRIN.

But despite the current problems, UNICEF believes considerable progress has been made. Reported cases of measles among children have fallen from more than 8,700 in 2001 to less than 500 in 2004.

“Nearly every province in the country now has a functioning emergency obstetric care facility and new programmes to train midwives and other female health workers are under way across the country,” Carwardine said.

The health ministry estimates that the country needs US $255 million to address health issues in 2005. “We are lacking $110 million and if that is not immediately covered, the country will face a more severe health crisis,” the minister noted.

AFGHANISTAN: Reduced flood risk - UN
KABUL, 8 Apr 2005 (IRIN) - After serious flooding in southern Afghanistan in March, humanitarian workers in Kabul have told IRIN the worst is now over. “Most of the snow melt which we anticipated would cause flooding has now gone so the emergency that we thought might happen is less probable,” John Odea of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) told IRIN on Thursday.

After a very cold winter that killed hundreds of people unprepared for the severe weather, Afghanistan faced two serious floods last month, affecting thousands of people in the southern provinces of Ghazni, Oruzgan, Nimruz and Kandahar.

The most recent flood was in Ghazni when the Band Sultan dam burst due to a huge inflow of water from melted snow, killing at least 20 people, destroying hundreds of houses and displacing thousands.

The Afghan government, the United Nations and US-led coalition forces responded to the emergency by providing, food, shelter medical aid and evacuation by helicopter.

“The water has now decreased significantly and the situation [in Ghazni] is under control,” Ariane Qauentier a senior public information officer at UNAMA, told IRIN.

According to UNAMA, a number of working groups have been established to set up a coordination mechanism, identify high-risk areas and organise the pre-positioning of supplies in regions prone to flooding.

“Right now it is rather good news. We have not had any major floods since the flooding in Ghazni,” she noted, adding that a joint operation centre made up of members of the government and international organisations was in place.

However, there is concern that the Ghazni dam disaster could be replicated, given how old and poorly maintained many dams in Afghanistan are. “The possible risk of widespread flooding is still there, from another dam breach, for example,” Odea added.

UK Offers to Host Donor Meeting in June
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
7 April 2006 -- United Kingdom has offered to host a meeting in London in order to enhance donors' policies as well as "firm up and increase commitments" to the Government of Afghanistan trust funds, according to the ADF UK statement.

The proposed date of the meeting is 22 June, the day before the G8 Foreign Minister’s meeting in London.

Hillary Benn, a Secretary of State for International Development, officially extended this invitation by sending official letter to Afghan finance minister Anwar Al-Haq Ahadi.

One of the purposes of the meeting in London is to “focus on increasing donor commitments, preferable multi-year commitments.”

The agenda of the meeting also reflects the efforts of the Afghan Government to strengthen its role in the reconstruction projects and development process as well as to increase government “systems and capacity” and be able to “reduce the transaction costs of a large number of bilateral projects,” the statement reads.

Prosperous Afghanistan vital to regional stability: PM
Daily Times, Pakistan
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said on Friday that a strong, stable and prosperous Afghanistan is not only in the interest of its people but also vital for the stability of the region.

Aziz was talking to an Afghan media delegation, who called on him at the Prime Minister’s House. Pakistan and Afghanistan are brotherly Muslim countries tied in religious, cultural, historic, trade and economic relations, he said. The prime minister said Pakistan had and would always stand by the people of Afghanistan as it was a sincere and true friend.

Pakistan, the prime minister said, had provided $100 million to Afghanistan to rebuild its infrastructure. Pakistan is interested in expanding road and air links with Afghanistan and is ready to extend technical training for its human resource development free of cost. He said that Pakistan had provided transit facility to landlocked Afghanistan for its exports and imports. App

Rape of Afghanistan's forests bodes disaster
09.04.05 by Nick Meo The New Zealand Herald - Apr 08 10:07 AM
Before the outbreak of war in 1979, Afghanistan was famous for its unspoiled woodlands filled with wildlife. An unbroken belt of natural pistachio forest stretched across the north, giant 300-year-old cedars filled the mountain valleys of the east, and even the arid hills of the south were well-timbered.

Twenty-five years of war later, the extent of the country's environmental disaster is becoming frighteningly clear.

In 1977 satellite imaging found 55 per cent of Badghis Province was covered with woodlands. Now almost nothing shows up.

Desperate villagers stripped the mountainsides bare of trees to survive and, with no government authority to stop them, warlords found lumbering high-value trees such as walnut and cedar almost as profitable as the drugs trade.

Forestry experts believe the country has suffered an environmental disaster that has hardly been noticed by the outside world but is grimly apparent to villagers who are increasingly seeing their livelihoods destroyed by desertification.

The forests of the north - once famous throughout Asia for the pistachios they produced for export - have almost disappeared.

Sayed Bahram Saeedi, director of forestry at the agricultural ministry, estimates that half of Afghanistan's forestlands have been destroyed during the last 25 years of war and drought. In the east the figure may be higher than 70 per cent.

With government authority non-existent in many areas, the rape of the forests continues unchecked, and may even have been stepped up in the past three years as the end of fighting made it easier for timber mafias to operate.

Along the Pakistan border, huge areas of forest have been levelled. High-quality wood is exported to Pakistan's carpenters, who turn it into furniture for export to the Gulf. The rest is sold as firewood in Afghanistan - the dusty road from the border town of Khost to Kabul is constantly choked with convoys of trucks filled with wood.

In Kunar, a lawless province famous for giant 300-year-old trees, it is not the Taleban but the timber mafias who are blamed by United States troops for the majority of assaults on them. Warlords want to keep out the Afghan Government and its US supporters for fear that logging may be stopped.

Belatedly, some efforts are being made to slow the rate of destruction.

Reforestation projects are starting, such as one to re-plant pistachios - run by Afghan entrepreneurs in Samangan in the north.

American agro-forester Eddie Keturakis said that without tree cover to protect the land, gullies and canyons have been cut into the soil.

"Villagers are desperate to see the forest replaced, even though it takes eight years before pistachio nuts can be harvested," he said. "They cut most of the trees down to sell the wood to survive, and now they recognise what a terrible mistake that was."

A "Green Division" of 300 forest rangers is being trained and armed by the Afghan Government to try to protect what is left. They are to be stationed in the border provinces of Kunar, Paktia and Nuristan with plans to increase them to a force of 2000 by the end of the year.

Few think they will be a match for timber mafias armed with rocket-propelled grenades and machine-guns.

The warlords employ hundreds of men with dozens of chainsaws, bribing local officials to turn a blind eye and relying on giant camel caravans to move the wood over the mountains to Pakistan.

In the lower valleys of Kunar they have stripped mountainsides bare, leaving stumps where magnificent forests once grew.

Faqir Mohammed, a 70-year-old villager in the spectacular Yachina alpine valley, said the trade began about a decade ago when Pakistani merchants arrived with chainsaws. The trade had brought prosperity to his village, he said.

"It used to take a team of men two days to cut a tree with a handsaw," he said. "Now it can be done by one man in an hour with a chainsaw." Villages in the area had clubbed together to build a rough road into the mountains to truck the timber out. The surrounding mountainsides are still well-wooded.

But the old man admitted: "There are fewer trees than there were. I don't think there will be forests here for my great-grandchildren."

Japan, Netherlands agree on need to help Afghanistan
Friday April 8, 2:41 PM
(Kyodo) _ The foreign ministers of Japan and the Netherlands agreed Friday on the need to help reconstruct Afghanistan while remaining apart over U.N. Security Council reforms, a Japanese official said.
Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura told Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot that it is important to help Afghanistan hold elections planned for September.

Bot responded by saying that relevant countries should keep pace with each other in helping the country.

Japan is leading a project to promote disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of armed factions in Afghanistan, while the Netherlands is involved in the operation of the International Security Assistance Force.

Machimura also told Bot that Japan supports one of the reform plans presented by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to increase the number of permanent members on the U.N. Security Council to 11 from the current five, and that of nonpermanent members to 13 from 10.

Japan is seeking to win a permanent seat through the reforms.
 
But Bot told Machimura the Netherlands does not support any of Annan's reform plans.

Bot was also quoted as saying that the possibility of the European Union gaining permanent membership on the council should not be ruled out.

The Dutch foreign minister is currently in Japan on a four-day visit through Saturday.

Meeting called to discuss gas pipeline security
By Khaleeq Kiani Dawn
ISLAMABAD, April 8: A three-nation ministerial steering committee on gas pipelines project will meet here on April 12-13 to discuss security situation in Afghanistan , underground gas storage capacity in Pakistan and certification of gas reserves in Turkmenistan's Daulatabad gas field.

A petroleum ministry official told Dawn on Friday that the meeting would be given four presentations relating to the construction of pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan and India.

The Turkmenistan government would give a presentation on the certification of Daulatabad gas field reserves. The steering committee involving Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan would then discuss the certification in detail.

Representatives of the Asian Development Bank would also attend the meeting. M/s Penspen, the consultant appointed by the ADB, would give a presentation on the project's feasibility study covering its technical, economic and legal aspects.

The Afghan representative would brief the participants about the security situation in his country in general and the pipeline's route areas in particular. The fourth presentation would be given by Sohfer gas, appointed by the government of Pakistan, on the prospects of utilizing the country's depleted underground storages to ensure uninterrupted supply in winter.

The sources said that gas supplies in summer were usually surplus and could be stored in strategic reserves in the old gas fields which had been depleted over the years.
The Daulatabad gas reserves certification and its authenticity would determine whether or not the $3 billion project is feasible. The committee has not met for the past 11 months owing to non-availability of this certification, though it is required to meet on a quarterly basis. Pakistan has been insisting for the past 20 months that certified reserves were a must for the progress of the project.

Sources said the gas pipeline politics had taken a new turn following advice by the United States to India not to pursue gas import plans from Iran. Following these statements by the US officials, Pakistan has started pursuing alternative gas import options from Turkmenistan and Qatar.

An official delegation would visit Doha on April 24-25 to attend a technical committee meeting with Qatar and Sharjah-based Crescent Petroleum to pursue the Qatar-Pakistan pipeline project. Pakistan has been asking Qatar to increase its throughput from 1.6 billion cubic feet (BCF) to 2BCF, but Doha has not given a commitment to this effect yet.

Iranian president slams US use of violence
April 8, 2005
ROME (AFP) - Iranian President Mohammad Khatami accused the United States of resorting to violence and military strength to impose its will and criticized the US principle of "pre-emptive strikes".

"Unfortunately, the current US leaders, more than their predecessors, resort to violence, to military means, to impose their own will," Khatami told Italian daily Corriere della Sera in an interview.

"They believe in a principle that is absolutely dangerous which generates terrorism: the pre-emptive strike which provides a simple pretext to launch a military intervention," he said.

"In Iraq, there was the excuse of weapons of mass destruction: never found," he said.

"We are certainly not looking for a conflict with the United States. We are making efforts not to give (them) any reason. But we are making preparations on the political, military and economic level, based on our public opinion," Khatami warned.

"Iran is not Iraq or Afghanistan. Given what happened in Iraq, I would be surprised if the United States lacked wisdom and put itself in an even more complicated situation," the Iranian leader said.

Khatami meanwhile hailed European policy towards Tehran.

"We have welcomed very favourably the European proposal to open a dialogue with us. The progress has been slow but not disappointing," he said.

He reiterated that Tehran's nuclear programme -- a bone of contention with the United States and the European Union -- was not aimed at developing atomic weapons, but accused Israel of posing a threat to the Middle East.

"The entire region feels threatened by Israel which has the biggest nuclear arsenal in the region," he said.

Khatami, in Rome for the funeral Friday of Pope John Paul II, also paid tribute to the late pontiff.

"For me, it is very important to pay a full tribute to a John Paul II. He was a man of spirituality, ethics, justice. I hope that the road he paved will be pursued in the future," he said.

[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.]