Karzai hails poppy eradication strategy

KABUL, August 9 (Pajhwok Afghan News): President Hamid Karzai Tuesday appreciated the new strategy adopted by the Counter Narcotics Ministry to discourage poppy cultivation in the country.

Chairing a high level meeting attended by ministers and donors, Karzai said the strategy bore fruits as poppy cultivation had considerably reduced during the current year.

The new strategy focuses on alternative livelihood for poppy growers, launching public awareness campaigns, setting up of criminal justice task force and rehabilitating the drug addicts across the country.

Talking to Pajhwok Afghan News, spokesman for the Counter Narcotics Ministry Sayed Azam said a survey by he UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) was to be released next month which would show progress of the plan.

A survey jointly conducted by the UNODC and the Afghan government in March this year showed poppy cultivation had recorded considerable decrease in all provinces.

Taleban kill Afghan woman after spying charge - (Reuters) 10 August 2005

KANDAHAR - Taleban guerrillas have executed an Afghan woman after accusing her of spying for US-led forces, officials said on Wednesday.

The unidentified woman was shot dead in her house on Tuesday night in the southern district of Zabul, district chief Haji Mohammad Younus said, adding Taleban fighters also kidnapped the brother and father of the victim.

Abdul Latif Hakimi, a spokesman for the Taleban, confirmed the report and said the Taleban had killed the woman because ”she was a spy for the Americans”.

Ousted from power by US-led forces in 2001, the Taleban have executed several men in the past after accusing them of being American spies. But Tuesday’s execution was the first of a woman by the hardline Islamic group.

It comes amid an increase in attacks by the Taleban, who are active in southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan where hundreds of people, including at least 38 American soldiers, have died in violence this year, the worst since Taleban’s fall.

The Taleban have vowed to derail next month’s parliamentary polls, drive out foreign forces from Afghanistan and topple President Hamid Karzai’s government.

NATO pledges 2,000 more troops to secure Afghan polls

KABUL, August 10 (Pajhwok Afghan News): NATO will deploy around 2,000 additional peacekeepers to Afghanistan to secure the upcoming parliamentary elections.

A spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) told a news conference here on Wednesday 10 member states of the alliance had pledged contributions to the Election Support Force to ensure security for the landmark polls scheduled for September 18.

Andrew Elmes said air support had also been assured by some of the 10 nations of NATO, which had earlier promised to jack up the number of the multinational force to 10,000 before the vote. Thus its total strength will go up to around 12,000 by election day.

In line with their fresh commitments, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Sweden and the United States will be sending more troops to different parts of Afghanistan including Kabul, Kunduz, Herat, Ghor and northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

For providing air support to Afghan and coalition troops in ensuring security for the polls, France has offered to send in six Mirage fighter jets currently based in Dushanbe. France will also contribute two refueling aircraft to the force from the Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan.

Germany will base two CH-47 helicopters in Termez to augment NATO presence in the northern region. Similarly, Italy will send three Chinook CH-47 helicopters to be based in Herat to aid security operations in the western region while the Netherlands will contribute a copter to be based in Mazar-i-Sharif.

Sweden has already committed one Hercules C-130, based in Termez and Belgium has agreed to extend the stay of a similar chopper in Kabul to help meet the poll-related security challenge.

In addition to the ISAF and US-led coalition forces, the Afghan national army and police force - both are yet to be completed and trained - will help protect the elections which Taliban have vowed to disrupt.

6 Taliban killed, 3 US soldiers wounded in Paktika clash

KABUL, August 10 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Six Taliban were killed while three US soldiers and their Afghan interpreter wounded during a clash near Wazikhwa in the southern Paktika province on Tuesday.

The clash occurred when the US-led coalition forces were carrying out a search operation in Wazikhwa to scuttle the enemy activity, said Lieutenant Colonel Jerry O’Hara, spokesman for the Combined Task Force-76.

In a statement released from the US Bagram airbase on Wednesday evening, the spokesman said on seeing the coalition forces, the enemy took refuge in a cave complex. The Afghan and US forces chased them and killed one fighter. Three US soldiers and their interpreter also injured in exchange of fire.

The US forces went on combing the area in search of the hiding insurgents for several hours. In their pursuit, they came across another group of fighters and gunned down 5 more of them in the hours long battle.

The injured soldiers were evacuated to a nearby US base for medical treatment where their condition is stated to be out of danger. O'Hara said the US forces would continue their operation till the elimination of the militants and their safe havens from Afghanistan.

1 U.S. service member dies after IED attack near Ghanzi - August 10, 2005 Combined Forces Command – Afghanistan Coalition Press Information Center (Public Affairs)

Kabul , Afghanistan – One U.S. service member has died as a result of an improvised explosive device attack Aug. 9 near Ghazni.

Two service members were initially reported wounded and both were evacuated to Bagram Airfield for treatment. The service member died of his wounds shortly after arrival. The other service member wounded in the attack is listed in stable condition.

The unit was conducting operations designed to disrupt enemy activity in the region at the time of the attack. The name of the deceased is being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

Taliban spokesman?

In a commentary titled "Who Is The Taliban Spokesman?" in early August, the government-owned Kabul daily "Anis" questioned how the militants opposing the Afghan government can have a specific spokesman who is seemingly able to communicate with the media with ease from Pakistan. Calling the "freedom of action accredited" to the spokesman "a controversial matter," "Anis" asked why he has not been silenced.

Death Of The Taliban, Rise Of The Neo-Taliban

Since the demise of the Taliban regime in December 2001, remnants and loyalists of that regime, disenchanted Pashtuns, religious conservatives, and increasingly criminals involved in Afghanistan's flourishing narcotics business joined forces to terrorize parts of southern and eastern Afghanistan. This loose coalition -- the neo-Taliban -- has its bases of operation in the tribal areas of Afghanistan and in neighboring Pakistan. And according to Kabul, they continue to receive assistance from elements within the Pakistani military, intelligence, and religious establishments.

The neo-Taliban began their disruptive activities against the Afghan government and its foreign backers in 2002 in a rather disorganized fashion and without any announced structural cohesion.

It was not until early in 2003 that the neo-Taliban issued a public statement of their intentions. In February 2003, the Peshawar-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) cited a fatwa signed by "Amir al-Mo'menin, the Servant of Islam, Mullah Mohammad Omar Mujahed" saying that some 1,600 "prominent scholars from around Afghanistan" adopted two common articles.

The first article stipulated that it was every Muslim's duty to wage jihad "at a time when America has invaded Islam's limits and the Muslim and oppressed nation of Afghanistan." The second article warned that anyone who "helps the aggressive infidels and joins their ranks under any name or task" deserved death.

The statement requested the "Muslim people of Afghanistan" to either wage jihad against the U.S. forces or, if they were unable to join in the struggle, to separate themselves from the Americans, "their allies and their puppet government...so that Muslims are differentiated from Christians."

Finally, the statement warned that after the issuance of the fatwa, people working with the coalition or the Afghan administration headed by Hamid Karzai would "be considered Christians by God and [by] the Muslims," and they would face punishment "in accordance with human society and by the mujahedin of Islam and the scholars."

In June, Mohammad Mokhtar Mojahed, who purported be the spokesman for the neo-Taliban, announced the formation of a 10-member leadership council. Three months later, Hamed Agha again reported the establishment of a 10-member leadership council under the chairmanship of Mullah Omar and claimed that he had been appointed as the neo-Taliban spokesman.

Since then, several people have claimed to be speaking on behalf of the neo-Taliban, often in contradictory terms. The list of people who have purported to speak on behalf of the neo-Taliban includes, in addition to Mojahed and Hamed Agha: Mullah Abdul Samad, Mohammad Amin, Saif al-Adl, Ustad Mohammad Yasir, and the person mentioned by "Anis," Mufti Latifullah Hakimi.

In February 2004, refuting some comments made by Saif al-Adl, the neo-Taliban faxed a statement to several news organizations naming Hamed Agha as the movement's only authorized spokesman (see "RFE/RL Afghanistan Report," 4 March 2004). Increasingly in 2004, Hakimi emerged as the person speaking for the neo-Taliban and unlike Hamed Agha, who usually faxed his statements to news organizations, Hakimi began giving telephone interviews, beginning with Pakistan-based news organizations and then to other outlets, including Western and Kabul-based media.

In December 2004, AIP quoted Hakimi as saying that Mohammad Yasir "has replaced Hamed Agha as the head of the Taliban cultural council." According to "Islam," a jihadist daily published in Karachi, in January 2005 Mohammad Yasir was appointed the chief spokesman for the neo-Taliban while Hakimi was made his assistant. Whereas Mohammad Yasir has appeared on an Arabic television network, Hakimi has been the main voice of the neo-Taliban since the latter half of 2004.

Who Is The Neo-Taliban Spokesman?

Hakimi -- whose first names have appeared in various sources as "Latif," "Abdul Latif," and "Latifullah," and who has been given the religious titles of "mufti," "mawlawi" and "mullah" -- is not an unknown figure. In early 1999, Shari'a Zhagh (Voice of Shari'a) -- the Kabul government radio station during Taliban rule -- mentioned Hakimi as the head of the justice department in the western Herat Province. Later in 1999 and in 2000, Taliban-run media referred to Hakimi as the head of the information and culture department in Herat. In all early references available, Hakimi has been identified as Mufti Latifullah.

The fact that Hakimi was a known personality in the ousted Taliban regime was one of the complaints that "Anis" presented and also one with which the Afghan government has been uncomfortable. In June, Jawed Ludin, who was then spokesman for Afghan President Karzai, called on Islamabad to curb the activities of the neo-Taliban, including their media access. Ludin charged that Hakimi had lived in the Pakistani city of Quetta. In its commentary, "Anis" goes further, charging that Hakimi maintains an office with a "specific" telephone number in Quetta.

Neo-Taliban Media Campaign

Recently the neo-Taliban have not only managed to increase their terrorist and disruptive activities, but have also become bolder in their use of the media.

In April, residents of the southern Afghan city of Kandahar were once again able to hear Shari'a Zhagh from what Hakimi claimed were mobile transmitters (see "RFE/RL Afghanistan Report," 9 May 2005). Although the radio was no longer detected after a few broadcasts, the fact that the neo-Taliban dared to transmit radio waves, even for few hours, was seen by their supporters as an accomplishment.

The neo-Taliban also flirted with a website in July, though it is no longer accessible.

The area where the neo-Taliban have made great strides is in using outside media to portray themselves as a legitimate opposition group in Afghanistan, not a as a terrorist group set on destroying the government. Hakimi seems to have no fear of being found through his telephone number and gives almost daily and lengthy interviews to an array of news organizations.

As "Anis" asks with some surprise, with the available technology to trace the location of telephone calls, why has Hakimi not yet been arrested?

Pakistan rules out sealing of border with Afghanistan

ISLAMABAD, August 10 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Pakistan Wednesday ruled out sealing its border with Afghanistan. "No such decision has been taken to close our border with Afghanistan next month, neither we have any such intentions," clarified Pakistan's military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan.

Some newspapers quoting unnamed sources claimed Pakistan was planning to seal the Torkham and Chaman border crossings with Afghanistan from next month.

In a chat with Pajhwok Afghan News, Sultan said they were keeping vigilance on terrorists and illegal migrants, but there was no question of closing the border for common Afghans.

About cross border infiltration, he said Pakistani border force was equipped with the most modern and sophisticated armoury, while joint border patrol had also been enhanced to stop miscreants from crossing into the landlocked country.

To a question, the spokesman said 450 people had been arrested during recent operation in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. Of these, he added, 245 were foreigners.

He said his country had deployed thousands of personnel along its border with Afghanistan to block the terrorists from entering that country. However, said Sultan, the proportion of Afghan border forces was very low.

Transportation of ballot papers to provinces starts

KABUL, August 10 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Transportation of ballot papers and other poll-related materials to polling stations across Afghanistan has been launched, announced the Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB) here on Wednesday.

Addressing a press conference, JEMB's logistic section in charge Jamgs Grierson said the distribution of the polling material was a tougher than a similar exercise carried out during last year's presidential elections.

"The challenges we face in distribution of ballot papers are ten times bigger than last year and five times more complicated," Grierson said while referring to the delivery of 40 million ballot papers, 135,000 ballot boxes and 140,000 bottles of ink to 26,000 polling stations across the country.

Badakhshan was the first province to receive the ballot papers delivered for the parliamentary and provincial council polls slated for September 18.

The distribution plan includes the use of cargo planes, helicopters and trucks, and in remote regions the use of donkeys. In some places, JEMB's staff will be required to walk for several days in order to deliver material to remote polling centres, the official said. Grierson added the material would be sent to the regional election offices for onward transportation to provinces and districts.

Afghan stone in PM kitty - The Telegraph, Calcutta 08/10/2005

New Delhi - Manmohan Singh will lay the foundation stone for Afghanistan's Parliament building, a gesture more than symbolic for the two nations.

That the Prime Minister of the world's largest democracy will be asked to do the honours seems natural, but Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai's choice also shows the distance the two nations have travelled in recent times.

The fact that the task of building the Afghan parliament has fallen on India's Central Public Works Department may also be another reason why Singh will be asked to lay the foundation stone.

Singh is scheduled to be in Afghanistan between August 27 and 29. The visit itself will make history of sorts as Singh will be the first Indian Prime Minister in almost four decades to travel to Afghanistan. Indira Gandhi had last gone there in 1969.

The political uncertainties in Afghanistan had almost put an unofficial ban on any high-level visit from India. In the recent past, though, a number of foreign ministers from Delhi have visited Afghanistan. It began with Jaswant Singh, followed by Yashwant Sinha and, early this year, by K. Natwar Singh.

Karzai and almost all the key figures in his cabinet have come to India several times in the past few years. Apart from Kabul, Singh may also visit Jalalabad. But it will be finalised at the last minute depending on the security situation.

For India, regaining a foothold in Afghanistan is important. Not only because Delhi and Kabul have had strong historical and cultural links but also because it helps both sides to send out a strong political message, particularly to Pakistan. The role Islamabad played in the past to aid jihadis and help the Taliban take control of the country is a lesson that neither Karzai nor the Indian leadership will forget in a hurry.

When the Taliban was in power in Kabul, India had sided with the Panjsheri-dominated Northern Alliance. In the months after the 9/11 attack and the US-backed military action, India was one of the first countries to move in to help Karzai rebuild the war-ravaged country.

India has committed more than half a billion dollars in Afghanistan. It has also trained Afghan diplomats, policemen and other staff members on running an efficient government.

Security issues, especially the regrouping of the Taliban and al Qaida along Afghanistan's border with Pakistan, are likely to be discussed during Singh's visit.

Afghan bombings heighten suspicions of Pakistan influence
Military denies helping Taliban, allies fight U.S.-led coalition

LOS ANGELES TIMES - AUGUST 10, 2005

ASADABAD, Afghanistan - Telephone and power lines haven't reached the villages clinging to the craggy mountainsides of Kunar province. Digital phones and computer chips are even further beyond the shepherds' reach. So when sophisticated bombs detonated by long-range cordless phones began blowing up under U.S. and Afghan military vehicles on mountain tracks, investigators knew they had to search elsewhere for the masterminds.

Afghan officials immediately focused on nearby Pakistan and its military, whose Inter-Services Intelligence agency helped create the Taliban in the early 1990s and provided training and equipment to help the Muslim extremists win control over most of the country.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf joined the Bush administration's war on terrorism and publicly turned against the Taliban immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks. But Afghan officials allege that Taliban and allied fighters who fled to Pakistan after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001 are learning new, more-lethal tactics from the Pakistani military at numerous training bases.

"Pakistan is lying," said Lt. Sayed Anwar, acting head of Afghanistan's counterterrorism department. "We have very correct reports from their areas. We have our intelligence agents inside Pakistan's border as well.

"If Pakistan tells the truth, the problems will stop in Afghanistan. They say they are friends of Americans, and yet they order these people to kill Americans."

At least 38 U.S. troops have died from hostile fire in Afghanistan this year, higher than the annual combat death toll for any year since the invasion. Musharraf has denied that his military supports the Taliban or any other Afghan insurgents, and the Bush administration and U.S. military spokesmen continue to praise Pakistan's role in combating terrorism.

Pakistan's army recently added 4,000 troops to the 70,000 soldiers patrolling the rugged, nearly 1,500-mile border between the countries in what it says is a determined effort to stop infiltrations of Afghanistan.

Pakistani Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, a military spokesman, said it was ridiculous to suggest that Pakistan had a secret operation to train insurgents to build complex electronic bombs. "This is just a figment of some absurd mind, nothing else," Sultan said.

High-tech bombs similar to those being found in Afghanistan have killed Pakistani soldiers too, he said. More than 250 Pakistani troops have died in border operations in the past year, Sultan said.

Despite the Pakistani military's assertions, increasing numbers of guerrillas are crossing into eastern and southern Afghanistan, Anwar and other Afghan officials said.

"Last year, the enemy wasn't able to attack our checkpoints or plant so many mines," said Anwar, the Afghan official who has worked in intelligence for 27 years. "This year, they have become very strong."
Anwar said reports from intelligence agents across the border and 50 captured prisoners describe an extensive network of militant training camps in areas of Pakistan's federally administered North Waziristan tribal area where government forces are firmly in control.

Tauda China, a village in the area, which is home to Pashtun tribes, is the site of one camp where Inter-Services Intelligence agents trained militants, Anwar said. He alleged that there were as many as six other camps in the surrounding valley, which is closed to outsiders and guarded by Pakistani troops and armed Afghans.

"Our agents have been there," Anwar said. "They tried to enter the valley and the soldiers didn't allow them." Zulfiqar Ali, a Pakistani journalist, recently reported that at least some training camps that were closed on Musharraf's orders have been reopened.

The government denies that there are training camps. But Ali, who also writes for the Pakistani magazine Herald, visited one camp and found armed militants with recruits as young as 13 undergoing 18-day "ideological orientation" and weapons training.

The reported reopening of militant training camps in Pakistan coincides with the discovery of the high-tech bombs in Afghanistan.

Two months ago, Afghan security forces discovered six such bombs in the town of Sarowbi, east of Kabul, the Afghan capital. The triggers consisted of long-range cordless phones attached with black electrical tape to electronic boxes, which Anwar believes convert the ringing phone's signal into an electrical charge, detonating the explosives.

Since March, when heavy winter snow in the insurgents' hide-outs began to melt, the Taliban and its allies have been intensifying attacks on military and civilian targets in Afghanistan.

In addition to the rising number of U.S. deaths, about 700 people, including Afghan civilians, soldiers and insurgents, have died in the escalated fighting.

Lt. Naqibullah Nooristani, operations commander for Afghan troops fighting alongside U.S. forces in Kunar, said the Taliban and its allies were proving so resilient because they were receiving improved training and equipment just across the border in Pakistan.

The lieutenant estimated there were 300 Taliban fighters just in the Pec valley northwest of Asadabad, the provincial capital. Thousands more are fighting in several other border provinces in eastern and southern Afghanistan, Afghan officials said.

Police recently found four remote-controlled bombs in the luggage of an Afghan taxi passenger traveling on the main road from Jalalabad, near the Pakistani border, said Anwar, the Afghan counterterrorism chief. The detonators were small, silver-colored explosive capsules that were made in Pakistan, he said.

The man transporting the bomb components, Sanaullah Khan, was from Parwan province, north of Kabul, the capital. Under interrogation, Khan said he had entered Afghanistan with four Pakistani men after receiving training at a camp in Shamshatu, near Peshawar, Pakistan, Anwar said, reading from an interrogator's report.

Shamshatu is the site of a large United Nations camp for Afghan refugees. As recently as this spring, Pakistani newspaper reports said 90 percent of the camp's residents were loyal to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former prime minister and warlord whose Hizb-i-Islami militia is allied with the Taliban. The Los Angeles Times is a Tribune Publishing newspaper.

Musharraf's double game unravels - Ahmed Rashid International Herald Tribune AUGUST 10, 2005

LAHORE, Pakistan Since the July 7 bombings in London, Pakistan's military ruler, President Pervez Musharraf, has again come under severe international pressure to clamp down on local extremist groups linked to Al Qaeda, bring extremist religious schools under control and stop the Taliban from using Pakistan as a base for attacks in Afghanistan. As a result, serious cracks are developing in the 35-year alliance between Pakistan's army, its intelligence services and Islamic fundamentalist parties.
Musharraf has parried international criticism of Pakistan by accusing Prime Minister Tony Blair of allowing Islamic extremism to flourish in Britain, but since July 7 he has arrested 800 militants and is expelling 1,400 foreign students studying in the religious schools, or madrasas.

For decades, Islamic fundamentalist parties in Pakistan have provided manpower and ideological support for the military intelligence services' forays in Afghanistan and Indian Kashmir. Under outside pressure, however, the inherent contradictions in this relationship are coming to the fore.

In an unprecedented broadside on Sunday, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the head of an alliance of six Islamic fundamentalist parties and leader of the opposition in the National Assembly, accused the army of helping militants to attack Afghanistan, supporting "jihadi" training camps in Pakistan and deceiving the West in its commitment to combat terrorism. ''We will have to openly tell the world whether we want to support jihadis or crack down on them - we cannot afford to be hypocritical any more," he said.

For nearly two decades, Maulana Rehman has been one of the strongest Islamic leaders in the country. He heads Jamiat-e-Ullema Islam, or JUI, the most powerful fundamentalist party in the Pashtun tribal belt bordering Afghanistan. Since the 2002 elections, the JUI has dominated the provincial governments of North West Frontier Province and Baluchistan.

Working closely with the intelligence services the JUI has spawned numerous virulently anti-Western, violence-prone extremist groups who now work for Al Qaeda. In the 1990s, the JUI helped the army provide arms and manpower to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, JUI mullahs have allowed Taliban leaders to recruit Afghan and Pakistani students from JUI-run madrasas.

Now there are severe tensions between the army and the JUI. Under considerable American pressure to explain the Taliban resurgence, Lieutenant General Safdar Hussain, the Corps Commander in Peshawar, said on July 25 that the Taliban "are getting public support in Pakistan, especially from some Pakistani religious parties." He was clearly pointing the finger at the JUI and Maulana Rehman was furious.

On Aug. 1, Maulana was detained in Dubai International Airport while on his way home from Libya and promptly deported, with officials in the United Arab Emirates hinting that he was on a terrorist list. Maulana Rehman accused the Pakistan government of not doing enough to save him from humiliation.

Musharraf's declaration that he would send home foreign students was seen as another attack on the JUI, who control the largest number of madrasas. Rehman and other leaders from his six-party alliance mounted a tirade against Musharraf and have threatened to start a campaign to unseat the government.

The fundamentalist leaders don't like Musharraf's liberal stance and are determined to protect their parties and institutions. But they are also furious with the army for trying to make them a scapegoat for all of Pakistan's ills, when they have only been a junior partner to the army's own past policies that have encouraged Islamic extremism to flourish.

Rehman is now defying the army by declaring that it bears responsibility for the fruits of its past policies, and that it should not seek to parry American pressure by blaming Pakistan's Islamic parties.
At one level, such statements are part of the kind of political wheeling and dealing that can be expected before local council elections later this month and general elections scheduled for 2007, when Musharraf wants to get himself elected as president. The fundamentalist parties feel threatened because they know that Musharraf may be trying to reduce their influence. But the danger is that Rehman and others could divulge more details of the intelligence services' links, which might diminish the military's credibility at home and abroad.

Musharraf is in a difficult position. Since Sept. 11 he has successfully ridden two horses, placating the West with promises of reform and crackdowns on extremists while pandering to the Islamic parties in order to retain their support. But now that Pakistan's political system is in danger of slowly unraveling as he loses support across the political spectrum, Musharraf could fall off altogether.

Ahmed Rashid is the author of ''Taliban'' and, most recently, ''Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia.''

'Pakistan still exporting terror' CHIDANAND RAJGHATTA / THE TIMES OF INDIA / WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 10, 2005

WASHINGTON: A prominent Pakistani leader has embarrassed both Washington and Islamabad by disclosing that Pakistan's military government continues to run terrorist training camps and is infiltrating militants into Afghanistan despite professing to be a US ally in the war on terrorism.

"The rulers are not only trying to deceive the US and the West, but also hoodwinking the entire nation. They must give the nation the identities of the men being moved from Waziristan to militant camps in Mansehra. This is hypocrisy," the Pakistani media quoted Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) Secretary General Maulana Fazlur Rehman as saying on Sunday.

Mansehra is the site of one of the alleged terrorist training camps which India claims is being run by the Pakistani establishment. It's existence has also been reported in the Pakistani media. Terror suspects arrested in the west in recent weeks have also disclosed they attended militant training camps in Mansehra, which Pakistan's military government says does not exist.

But the Maulana has said not only does the military run camps but it is also transporting extremists from Waziristan in private vehicles and supervising their trouble-free entry into Afghanistan. Afghan and US officials have spoken in recent times about well-armed and trained militants reappearing on Afghanistan's borders with Pakistan and inflicting heavy casualties.

US administration officials have privately begun to express doubts about Pakistan's cooperation in the war on terrorism although the White House and the State Department publicly continue to certify Gen. Musharraf's bonafides on this count. But American media and analysts have become more skeptical.

"Gen Musharraf seems to invest far more energy in explaining his government's tolerance of Taliban activities than he does in trying to shut them down... (His) aid has been frustratingly selective. He has been an intermittent collaborator in the fight against international terrorism rather than a fully committed ally," the New York Times observed in an editorial last week.

The spurt in extremist infiltration into Afghanistan has also coincided with the spike in terrorists crossing the LoC into Jammu and Kashmir. State department officials did not respond to calls seeking comments on the Maulana's disclosures.

The Maulana's decision to rat on Musharraf appears to be the result of the widening rift in the so-called Military-Mullah alliance that has underpinned Pakistani politics for several years. Under pressure from the U.S and U.K, Musharraf has begun to crack down on Islamic extremists who form the support base of the religious parties, even as the west as put the skids on their travels.

Maulana Fazlur himself was recently deported unceremoniously from UAE with the Pakistan government unable to anything about it. Some months back another prominent politico-religious figure Maulana Samiul Haq was sent packing from Belgium even though he was leading a Pakistani parliamentary delegation.

The result seems to be a public schism between the mullahs and the military, evident in Fazlur Rehman's suggestion that the military is still using terrorism as a state policy while trying to hang the same chanrges on the religious right. "We will have to openly tell the world whether we want to support jihadis or crack down on them. We can't afford to be hypocritical anymore," he said.

Struggling to survive in Afghanistan - ByJill McGivering / BBC News, Afghanistan / Wednesday, 10 August 2005

About an hour's drive north of the Afghan capital Kabul, the mountains give way to the Shomali Plain. Traditionally it is a highly fertile farming region but it became a battleline in fighting between the Taleban and the Northern Alliance in the late 1990s.

About a quarter of a million people fled the region in the late 1990s, many to Pakistan. We drove down a dirt track to find Anwar Shah, a middle aged man, slowly mixing mud in the family's yard. He was rebuilding the family's small mud-brick house, now shared by three generations.

He brought his wife and children back to the area three years ago after three years in Pakistan. But although he was glad to be back in Afghanistan, he said it was a struggle to survive.

"Life is hard here," he told me. "If we have food in the morning we don't have any in the evening. "It's worse here than when we were in Pakistan. When we were there life was better. Better because there was work. There's no work in Afghanistan."

On the rare occasions he did find work as an unskilled labourer, he said, he earned just two US dollars a day, barely enough to feed the family. Although food is scarce, Anwar Shah's family did at least have land.

About three and a half million people have now returned to Afghanistan, many coming back without land, competing for shelter in a country in ruins. Many people are coming back to a shortage of jobs, of shelter and of basic infrastructure, like schools and clinics.

The desperate need for work has brought a flood of refugees to the capital, Kabul. The city is overwhelmed and rapidly expanding. In west Kabul, families who have returned with enough money to buy land are building their own houses here on newly released plots, mud brick by brick.

We found the Hideri family - father, mother and daughters - labouring together in the stifling heat. They came back last year after 25 years in Iran. The land they have bought has no water and no electricity. The family's sons have already returned to Iran after failing to find work.

Zohara, the daughter, was a toddler when the family fled and grown up longing to return. Now, though, she is bitterly disappointed. "In Iran, we had electricity around the clock and a refrigerator," she said.

"But not here. If we have left-over food it goes rotten and makes the children ill. The doctor is far away and it's hard for us to get to him." She's also shocked by local attitudes. In Iran, she had much more freedom, she said. Men didn't harass young women. "Here men are different," she said, her voice rising with anger.

"A while ago a man was rude to me and when I confronted him I was told 'you're not in Iran now, this is Afghanistan'." But perhaps the worst off are those who come back to Afghanistan with no means of buying land or supporting themselves.

We visited a fly-blown shanty town of mud shacks and tents, by the side of a busy main road in Kabul. About 60 families live here in squalid, desperate conditions, without clean water or sanitation.

They receive occasional handouts, they said, but very little. In one tiny bare room we found Afghan Gul and some of the nine children who share it with her. Her husband didn't survive the last hard winter.

The children all worked in the local market, she told me, but no matter how hungry they were, she always made sure they went to school. She was illiterate herself, she said, and thought education was crucial.

Community representative Raz Mahamat expressed the mood of anger and despair. "This is our own country and our own government," he said. "But when we were in Pakistan, we had access to water and everything. Here we're completely ignored and treated like animals. Why should we live here?"

We put his concerns to Afghanistan's minister of returnees and refugees, Dr Mohammad Azam Dotfarr. He agreed that about 40% of returnees are very vulnerable.

The government had started a major land distribution programme, he told me, but resources were very limited. He was well aware of the mood of impatience and frustration - but called on people not to despair. "This is a transitional time for Afghanistan," he said. "We're struggling between hope and hopelessness. That is the reality."

Forces Fortify Afghan Base

(CP) - KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN -- Soldiers are fortifying the compound that is home to Canada's new provincial reconstruction team in Afghanistan, braving the Kandahar heat to further prevent attacks from Taliban and al-Qaeda insurgents.

Military engineers erected razor wire around the PRT compound's inner perimeter yesterday as steel-mesh security barriers were filled with sand and rock inside the camp's walls.

Most of the work has been done in the early morning hours to take advantage of slightly cooler temperatures. By lunch hour, the sun bakes the compound, with the heat reaching 45 degrees or higher.

An American team, also known as a PRT, has used the compound since late 2002, but focused more on protecting people travelling outside the camp, said Lieutenant Andrew Bone, one of the Canadian Forces members responsible for providing security.

"[The Americans] had a smaller contingent here with a different mission," he said. "They didn't have the manpower to go out and startputting up the wire. "We're doing it because we can, and that gives us more security in this location."

American forces did have some protective measures in place, and U.S. officials said they felt relatively secure within the compound walls. But Canada's military wanted more, said Captain Kerri Iwanonkiw, an engineer with the PRT.

"They did have barbed wire on top of the walls," she said. "We just wanted to make it a little more stable and more secure."

The U.S. team, which has mostly departed, consisted of fewer than 100 people at its peak. Canada's PRT has 250 soldiers, and will soon include members of the RCMP, the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Canadian International Development Agency.

The PRT represents Canada's newest foray into southern Afghanistan's volatile Kandahar region, with an aim of improving security in the region and helping to rebuild local and national government infrastructure.

The added security measures for the camp might reassure soldiers inside, but their biggest worry lies on the other side of the wire. A major threat comes from the use of improvised explosive devices, which the military refers to as IEDs. "That's the biggest fear," Lt. Bone said.

Such devices can be made from just about anything, but largely consist of old mortars, grenades or other types of explosives that are modified for use as homemade bombs.

One IED exploded in March just outside the gates of the compound, injuring one of four U.S. soldiers who were out on patrol.

Afghan National Police provide added security around the compound, and the Canadian soldiers rely on them to gather information from local residents about any suspect activity so that threats are detected before they can reach the camp.

"There's been reports to the [Afghan National Police], to the people at the front gate" about people planting explosive devices, Lt. Bone said.

"People have come up and told them that there's stuff out there. Obviously it's a danger to the local populace as well if something goes off."

The Canadians have no intention of wiring the compound shut from the outside world. Local residents, once past stringent security checks, work within its walls.

One local man operates a garden inside the perimeter. In that section, soldiers worked yesterday around goats and turkeys that are owned by the farmer, who has been working the land in the area for more than 30 years.

The history of the camp suggests the threat of a direct attack against it is low. There has not been an incident in about two years. Still, the Canadians are not taking chances.

"There's no reason to be lackadaisical about it," Lt. Bone said. "We take the measures that we think are necessary as Canadians for our force protection within this compound."

Army officer among four detained for freeing kidnapper

KABUL, August 9 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The Defence Ministry Tuesday announced the arrest of four Afghan soldiers including a senior officer involved in last week's release of a man linked to the kidnap of an Italian aid worker.

Defence Ministry spokesman Zahir Azemi said Lieutenant Colonel Abdul Qadir, commander of the army's rapid reaction battalion, two soldiers and a driver were arrested after they released Timor Shah, who allegedly held hostage for 24 days in May-June CARE International's humanitarian worker Clementina Cantoni

Clementine Cantoni, kidnapped from a posh locality of Kabul on May 16, was released on June 9 in the wake of a deal brokered by a former governor of the eastern Kunar province between the government and Timor Shah.

Azemi told a news conference police arrested Timor Shah on Friday from Chahar Maghza neighbourhood of Northern Salang, on the highway north of Kabul. But he was set free when the four soldiers intervened.

He added Lt Col. Qadir and his men in plainclothes rushed to clash with the policemen to have them disarmed and secure the release of Timor Shah. As a result of the bust-up, Azemi claimed, the abductor was allowed to go scot-free.

The spokesman quoted Qadir as saying the boy held by police was hardly 18 years of age while Timor Shah was more than 35. And that was why the soldiers intervened to free the detainee, Qadir reasoned according to the spokesman.

An official of the 17th Police District in Kabul told Pajhwok Afghan News on condition of anonymity: "One of our colleagues, a former friend of Timor Shah, had unmistakably recognized the detainee was none other than the alleged abductor."

The source charged the soldiers had received a bribe of $8,000 for releasing Timor Shah, whose car had since been impounded by police.

New Afghan law hikes rate of tax on airport use

KABUL, August 9 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Afghanistan expects to earn 1.8 million dollars annually in taxes on use of its airports and air-space under a new law approved last week by the Karzai cabinet.

Coming into force at once, the law imposing taxes on airports as well as domestic and international flights has been framed jointly by the transport and justice ministries.

Ayyamuddin, senior official at the justice ministry, told Pajhwok Afghan News on Tuesday every aircraft using Afghanistan's air-space would have to pay the government a tax of $300.

By the same token, he added, an airplane staying at an Afghan airport for 24 hours would be required to pay 3,000 afghanis - a tax rate much higher than what was charged previously in accordance with the 1984 rules and regulations.

Deputy Transport Minister Engineer Raz Mohammad Elmi explained 150 aircraft of 35 different airlines flew every 24 hours through Afghanistan's air-space.

In all, the country has eight air routes - mostly used by planes of South Asian and East European countries. The transport ministry regulated the tax on the aircraft using the Afghan air-space, he said, adding the levy would be paid to the country's representative in Geneva.

12,000 tons of fruits ready for export to India, UAE

KANDAHAR CITY, August 9 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The government is airlifting for the first time 12,000 tons of fresh fruits to India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from the southern Kandahar province.

Officials said Tuesday 6,000 tons of grapes would be exported to India and the UAE each on Wednesday via the air route to save the commodity from going rotten.

Afghanistan's fresh fruits are in great demand in India, Pakistan, the UAE and Gulf states, but decades of conflict have left the government with little ability to arrange speedy shipment of the produce.

Abdur Raziq Rafiqi, chairman of the Kandahar Chamber of Commerce, said fruits were airlifted abroad for the first time in the history of the province.

In a chat with Pajhwok Afghan News, he informed three storages had been constructed in the province to preserve fresh and dry fruits throughout the year. Two of these have been built with financial assistance from the US while the third will be completed soon with the help of India.

The two storages, he added, had the capacity for storing 44,000 tons of fruits. "At present, 22,000 tons have been placed there."

About Afghanistan's fruit exports to India, Rafiqi said 35,000 tons had been dispatched to that country under the transit trade via Pakistan last year while a target of 20,000 had been set for the current year. He said construction of the three storages had enabled them to keep fresh fruits till their demand shot up in the international market.

Haji Lal Mohammad, a resident of the Arghandab district, having grape orchards in the area, said the exports to India and the UAE via air routes would earn growers a reasonable price. It is pertinent to recall that 85,000 tons of fruits were exported to Pakistan, India and England from the Kandahar province last year.

Facts About Afghan Buddhas Laser Project - Associated Press Aug 8

Facts about artist Hiro Yamagata's plan to "re-create" ancient Buddhas destroyed in 2001 by the Taliban as laser figures projected onto the cliffs of Afghanistan's Bamiyan Valley:

Laser images: 14 laser systems projecting 140 overlapping "statue" images in neon green, pink, orange, white and blue. Each image will continuously change color and pattern.

Image height: Up to 175 feet; as tall as the original Buddhas. Display width: Four miles. Beam length: Six to eight miles projected across the valley from clay shelters built to blend with the terrain.

Laser strength: Up to 100 watts per image. Power source: 46 4,000-kilowatt windmills wrapped with solar paneling, and up to 100 more to provide electricity to Bamiyan and surrounding villages.

Project cost: Between $7 million-$9 million. Co-sponsors: Mercedes-Benz, with others to be determined. Project completion: June 2007.

Display schedule: Sunday nights for four hours on an indefinite basis.

[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.]