Afghan cleric survives Taliban bomb attack

Kabul (AFP – 8/23/05) - An Islamic cleric escaped unhurt after suspected Taliban militants bombed his house in the latest attack on religious leaders who back Afghanistan's US-friendly administration, officials said.

Mawlawi Rahmatullah, leader of the religious council of the southeastern province of Khost, was leaving his house when the blast happened, said interior ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal on Tuesday.

The attack was the sixth on pro-government Muslim clerics in the past three months. Mashal blamed it on "enemies of peace and stability" -- Afghan jargon for the Taliban and their allies.

On Sunday Taliban insurgents shot dead Mullah Abdullah Malang, deputy head of the religious council of the Panjwaey district in restive Kandahar province, and his companion.

In May Maulvi Abdullah Fayyaz, chief of the Islamic Council in the southern city and former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, was gunned down near his house. Twenty-one people died when a suicide bomber struck at his funeral on June 1.

Fayyaz had spoken out against one-eyed fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, who has been on the run since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan toppled the fundamentalist militia in late 2001. A month later another leading member of the Kandahar Islamic Council, Maulvi Mohammad Musbah, was ambushed and shot dead outside the city.

Taliban attacks in the south and east of the war-torn country have been on the rise in recent months. Nearly 1,000 people have died in political violence since the beginning of this year.

Roadside bombs kill four Afghan police

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Aug 22 (AFP) - Four policemen were killed and four were wounded in two separate roadside bomb attacks amid a spiralling insurgency in southern Afghanistan, officials said Monday.

Two police officers died and one was hurt on Sunday by a remote control device in Sia-sang, a village in restive Uruzgan province, provincial governor Jan Mohammed told AFP. "Their police jeep was hit by a roadside bomb in Sia-sang village of Charchino district," said Khan.

Separately, two policemen were killed and three were wounded by another roadside bomb on Sunday in Soray, a district of troubled Zabul province, district chief Rozy Khan told AFP.

The deaths came on the same day as four US soldiers were killed and three wounded by a similar attack in Zabul. Another two Americans suffered minor injuries when a roadside blast hit a US embassy car near Kabul, also on Sunday.

Roadside bombs are frequently used by militants from the ousted Taliban regime, who have stepped up attacks ahead of key parliamentary elections on September 18.

Armed men abduct four cops in Zabul - Pajhwok Afghan News 08/21/2005 - Sher Ahmad Haidar

KALAT - Unidentified gunmen Friday night attacked a police post in the restive Zabul province wounding three cops and abducting four others.

Confirming the attack, deputy chief of the highway police Colonel Abul Razaq said the armed men raided the Hasan Karez security post located on Kabul-Kandahar Highway in the Shah Joy district. He said exchange of fire continued for about 30 minutes.

Speaking to Pajhwok Afghan News, the official described the assailants as enemies of peace, adding a search operation had been launched to arrest them.

A fortnight earlier, unidentified gunmen attacked the Koti Ashro security post on the Maidan Wardak-Bamyan Highway killing a cop besides setting two vehicles alight.

Taliban steps up attacks as Afghan legislative polls drawing closer - by Abdul Haleem

KABUL, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Though the Taliban said not to target polling stations on the election day, the militants have begun intensifying their attacks against Afghan and US military interests as the date for the key Afghan parliamentary elections is drawing closer.

In a series of attacks on Sunday, remnants of the former fundamentalist regime executed six persons including four American soldiers and two Afghans including a pro-government religious leader and wounded five others in the troubled southern region.

Taliban's spokesman Mullah Abdul Latif Hakimi, according to local media reports, announced Sunday that keeping in mind common people, the movement's fighters would not raid polling stations on the voting day.

The surprising announcement was equally welcomed by Afghan and US military as Afghan ministries for defense and interior have termed it a positive step and hoped for a peaceful environment during the historic election.

"It is in the best interest of Afghan people if the election is held in a peaceful environment. A peaceful election is a success of the Afghan people," US military spokesperson Cindy Moore said in response to Taliban's unexpected announcement.

However, she in a tit-for-tat response emphasized that the coalition troops, "will take the fight to the enemy with the election and beyond." Earlier, Taliban's spokesman Hakimi asserted that the " Mujahideen or holy warriors would continue their holy war before election and beyond that until the US-dominated foreign troops withdraw from Afghanistan."

Their comments came amid increasing insurgency and bloody clashes between militants and US-Afghan troops in the volatile southern and eastern regions as over 100 rebels, according to US military, have been killed over the past couples of weeks.

"In the operations in the vicinity of Deh Chopan, Zabul province, approximately 65 enemy combatants were killed. Over 40 enemy combatants were killed in Kunar province as Afghan and coalition forces relentlessly sought out enemy combatants, US military spokesperson Cindy Moore told journalists Monday.

However, she declined to comment on Afghan and US soldiers' casualties. Taliban, who describes Afghans working for the American military or firms as a "legitimate target" shot dead a man on charge of spying for the US military in southern Ghazni province last weekend.

"Whoever spies for Americans will be sentenced this way," Taliban's spokesman Hakimi warned while accepting responsibility for the frightening attack. In a similar attack, the radical group eliminated two more men on the same charge in Ghazni province late last week.

The bloody incident followed the assassination of former Taliban commander Karim Qarabaghi, a candidate for the coming Afghan parliamentary polls on Friday.

Unknown assailants in a blood of pool killed Karim, who abandoned Taliban after the collapse of the regime, on broad daylight while the attackers have yet to be identified.

A bloody insurgency has been going over the past two months in the eastern Kunar province during which over 25 US servicemen have been killed. The militants also shot down a US military helicopter late last June and all 16 aboard were killed.

To wipe out the militants, the US and Afghan forces launched a big crackdown against militants in the Korengal valley of Kunar province 12 days ago but have yet to dislodge militants from the valley and establish control there.

Taliban who failed to derail the last year's Afghan presidential elections, in its attempt to sabotage the coming parliamentary polls in the post-Taliban central Asian state, has targeted eight voters registration sites besides killing and injuring two candidates and two elections workers over the past three months.

Taliban's chief Mullah Mohammad Omar, who termed the elections as a "toll to legitimize the US occupation of Afghanistan," has called upon his loyalists to disrupt the process by any possible means.

Afghans eligible to vote are going to elect their representatives to the 249-seat Parliament on Sept. 18 amid tight security provided by the Afghan government, NATO and US-led coalition forces.

Downplaying Taliban's threat, US ambassador to Afghanistan Ronald Neumann foresaw peaceful elections for the Afghans and urged the Afghan people to use their franchise widely.

"We have more Afghan police, more Afghan army, more American army, more international forces. I believe we will have a secure elections," ambassador Neumann emphasized.

Afghanistan: UN-Afghan monitors call for tighter security ahead of
Elections - U.N. News Service; 22 August 2005

22 August 2005 - Despite the positive impact of campaigning and voter registration ahead of Afghanistan's parliamentary and provincial elections, the joint United Nations-Afghan team is urging national and international security forces to respond quickly to keep the process on track, amid
escalating violence against candidates, election workers and others.

"Despite the fact that extremists have failed to derail the election process or to pressure candidates to withdraw, the possibility exists that the threat of violent attacks will have an impact on the campaign process and on Election Day, potentially disenfranchising large parts of the Pashtun population," says a joint report by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC). The Pashtuns live mainly in southern Afghanistan.

UNAMA and the AIHRC are verifying the exercise of political rights in Afghanistan to ensure free and fair elections on 18 September. That ballot, which will wrap up the war-torn country's political transition, is on track with 5,800 registered candidates and about 1.5 million newly registered voters.

"The overall impact was positive, particularly for women in conservative regions," says the report, which adds that the range of candidates does not support the view that the elections will be dominated by commanders and armed elements.

At the same time, verification team also indicated shortcomings in the environment and "worrying trends." The escalation of violent attacks against candidates, election staff, civic educators and community leaders is particularly alarming and poses the greatest threat to the election process, with the east, southeast and south being the areas of greatest concern, says the report.

"Concerted action will need to be taken by national and international security forces to respond to the security threats," the report says, adding: "While the establishment of the National Joint Election Operation Center is encouraging, much more will have to be done to ensure that the police, national army and international security forces work closely to address the security challenges ahead."

The report also says that efforts should also be undertaken by Afghan officials at the central and local level to create "security zones" in vulnerable areas to ensure that candidates can carry out campaign
activities without fear of violent attacks. And while the Ministry of Interior's orders instructing the chiefs of police to undertake measures to protect female candidates and voters is welcome, more specific measures must be adopted by authorities at the central and local level.

Worried Pak in Afghan shuffle - The Telegraph, Calcutta 08/22/2005

New Delhi - With less than a week left for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Afghanistan, Pakistan has decided to change its ambassador in Kabul.

Tariq Aziz-ud-din-Khan, the chief of protocol in Pakistan's foreign office, will replace Akbar Zaib Khan, who had taken charge as ambassador only last month. No reasons were given for replacing Khan, who served as Pakistan's deputy high commissioner in Delhi some years ago.

The sudden change of guard, which has raised questions, has come at a time when Islamabad is getting increasingly worried about Delhi's growing influence in Afghanistan.

It may be that Pakistan wants to put somebody in Afghanistan who would be "more effective" in countering India's influence and ensure that Islamabad does not get totally marginalised. Reports from Pakistan suggest that Khan has already returned to Islamabad.

Singh will be the first Indian Prime Minister in over 45 years to visit Afghanistan on an official visit. He is scheduled to be in Kabul between August 28 and 29.

Among other things, the Prime Minister, along with his host, President Hamid Karzai, will lay the foundation stone of Afghanistan's parliament building, which will be constructed by India's Central Public Works Department. The complex will have three blocks to house the upper and lower chambers of the parliament and the secretariat.

Sources said the parliament will depict Gandhara art to reflect the changes since the Taliban regime was ousted and also to make the point that secular ideals are in place, not the ones represented by the student militia that destroyed the centuries-old Bamiyan Buddha.

Singh's visit will also represent the growing closeness between the two countries since the US-led forces drove out the Taliban and al Qaida members from Kabul and other parts of Afghanistan.

In this situation, Pakistan's role in US efforts to stabilise the Karzai government is crucial. More so as a large number of Taliban and al Qaida members have regrouped and entered Afghanistan from Pakistan.

Relations between India and Pakistan have also improved considerably in the past two years since they engaged in serious negotiations to push the peace process ahead and resolve their differences through dialogue. As part of this, foreign secretary Shyam Saran will leave for Islamabad next week for talks with his Pakistani counterpart Riaz Mohammed Khan.

Saran, who will be in Islamabad from August 31 to September 2, will also meet foreign minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri. He could also call on President Pervez Musharraf. Indian foreign minister Natwar Singh and his Pakistani counterpart are scheduled to meet in Islamabad on October 4.

Indian prime minister to visit Afghanistan

NEW DELHI, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will pay a two-day visit to Afghanistan on Aug. 28-29, Foreign Office spokesperson Navtej Sarna announced Tuesday.

The visit, at the invitation of President Hamid Karzai, is the first one at the prime ministerial level in 29 years. The last visit to Kabul by an Indian prime minister was Indira Gandhi's visit in 1976.

Singh will hold talks with President Karzai and other leaders on India's assistance program to the war-ravaged country as well as situation in the region.

New Delhi has committed over 500 million US dollars as assistance to Kabul since 2002 and is helping it in areas as diverse as infrastructure, education, healthcare and social welfare.

Apart from official-level talks with Karzai, the Indian prime minister will also call on former king Zahir Shah, Sarna announced. Afghanistan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah and other Afghan dignitaries would also call on Singh, he said.

As part of the program, Zahir Shah would lay the foundation stone for the Afghan Parliament building, to be constructed with India's assistance, in the presence of Singh and Karzai.

The Indian prime minister and the Afghan president will jointly hand over the Habibia School, renovated under India's assistance program, to Afghan authorities, Sarna said.

Karzai has paid three official visits to India since he took over the reins of afghan government following the Bonn Agreement in December 2001. Indian External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh visited Kabul in February this year to review the progress in bilateral ties. He met Karzai, Shah and his Afghan counterpart. Enditem

'I Will Go to Do Jihad Again and Again' - Prisoner's Story Highlights Pakistan-Based Training Network for Insurgents By N.C. Aizenman - Washington Post, August 21, 2005

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The prisoner perched on a metal chair, hugging his knees to his chest and rocking slightly, like a nervous child. But his _expression relaxed into a blissful smile as he described what he would do if released from his cell in the headquarters of the national intelligence service.

"When I get the chance, I will stick to my promise," said Sher Ali, 28, a Pakistani man with cropped black hair and a long beard. "I will go to do jihad again and again."

Ali said he took his vow to wage holy war against U.S. forces in Afghanistan earlier this summer, just before embarking on what he described as a 20-day weapons training course at a secret mountain camp in northeastern Pakistan.

He was captured by Afghan police about three weeks ago, shortly after crossing into Afghanistan's rugged, northeastern Konar province. The area has been a haven for armed renegades from an assortment of groups, including al Qaeda, the Taliban and backers of former Afghan leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who is now a fugitive.

Over the last several months, insurgents have killed hundreds of people in Afghanistan, including aid workers, religious and tribal leaders, government officials, and Afghan and U.S. troops, many in ambushes and bombings apparently aimed at derailing parliamentary elections scheduled for Sept. 18.

American and Afghan forces have countered with an aggressive effort to flush the fighters from their remote mountain hideouts, killing several hundred in operations in border provinces from Konar in the north to Kandahar in the south. They have also taken several hundred suspected insurgents prisoner and allowed a few to speak to journalists.

Ali's story, which could not be verified independently, offered a glimpse of what Afghan authorities charge is a shadowy Pakistani network that continues to fuel the insurgency with fresh recruits as fast as U.S. and Afghan forces kill or capture their predecessors.

Ali spoke in the presence of an Afghan intelligence official, but he did not show signs of having been mistreated. Some details, such as the existence of jihadist training camps and the recruitment of Islamic fighters, have been reported separately in the Pakistani press or described by prisoners after their release.

"We know where a lot of these training camps are. We have their names. And we've given the Pakistanis all the information we have," said a senior Afghan intelligence official. "We're waiting for Pakistan to show the willingness to fight."

Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, has repeatedly pointed out that his government has captured or killed more than 700 suspected al Qaeda members in Pakistan since 2001. It also lost more than 250 soldiers last year in battles against al Qaeda bases in the largely lawless semiautonomous tribal regions along the Afghan border.

Officials from the two governments have recently exchanged pledges to collaborate closely on security. But they must still contend with the sympathy that many Pakistanis feel toward the Taliban, particularly in tribal border towns such as Miram Shah, where residents share the same Pashtun ethnicity as the Afghan militia.

It was in Miram Shah this summer, at the home of a friend, that Sher Ali said he met Zubair, an Afghan in his late twenties, who recruited him to fight in Afghanistan. Ali, who was visiting from his village, said Zubair did not initially admit to being an insurgent. "But from the way he talked, I could tell that he had been a fighter," Ali said during an hour-long interview in the intelligence headquarters.

Ali said Zubair told him and his companions that Western troops were bombing, arresting and torturing innocent Afghans. "He kept saying, 'It's our duty as Muslims to go there and help,' " said Ali.

That night, Ali recalled, Zubair turned to him and asked point-blank: "Do you want to join the jihad?"

The son of a truck driver, Ali said he had never belonged to any religious movement and had never attended any of the thousands of free religious schools that cater to impoverished Pakistani children. Instead he had dropped out of public school at 13 to take a series of odd jobs, most recently as a security guard.

During that pivotal evening in Miram Shah, Ali said he thought of his wife and 1-year-old son, who lived with his parents in a mud hut. But he also thought of how he had often seethed at the idea of U.S. troops in Muslim lands such as Afghanistan and Iraq and at the U.S. military's detention of Muslim prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"It was like Zubair had poured the petrol, lit the match and set fire to this issue of jihad for me," he said.

Several days later, Ali said he boarded a public bus for the four-hour journey from Peshawar, the city nearest his village, to the northeastern Pakistani mountain town of Mansehra. He carried only a backpack stuffed with three changes of clothes and a bar of soap. His ears rang with his mother's wails of protest at the news that he was setting off for jihad.

But as the bus sputtered through the flat, hot plain of his youth into hilly green terrain, Ali said his only concern was whether he would prove physically fit for the regimen ahead. Otherwise, he said, he felt deeply happy.

"I knew then that when I was killed in jihad, I would go directly to heaven," he said, smiling. On reaching the bus stop in Mansehra, Ali walked to a stand selling fried dumplings and looked for the contact Zubair had promised would be waiting.

"Salaam aleikum," peace be to you, he said tentatively to a middle-age man with a long beard. "Are you the person who has come from Peshawar?" the man asked.

Ali nodded, and the man quickly led him to another bus, this one far more dilapidated. They rode for an hour to a small town, then alighted and began a steep hike up into the hills, following no discernable path. For more than four hours they trekked in silence under a cool canopy of trees, taller than any Ali had ever seen.

Finally they reached a small camp of five white tents, where about 20 men were preparing to perform afternoon prayers. Ali was introduced to a soft-spoken Pakistani instructor who never gave his name, though Ali said he overheard others refer to him as Maksud.

Maksud never gave the name of the group that was training him, Ali said. However, the hills around Mansehra overlook Pakistan's border with Kashmir, a disputed Himalayan province that is split between Pakistan and India.

The area has long been a training ground for Kashmiri guerrillas, unofficially supported by Pakistan. In recent years, several Kashmiri groups have joined forces with al Qaeda or the Taliban to attack Western targets, but critics charge that the Pakistani military remains reluctant to defang them.

Every day, Ali said, the trainees awoke before dawn and did sprinting exercises for 20 minutes. They spent several hours learning how to assemble, aim and fire weapons, from Kalashnikov rifles to rocket-propelled grenade launchers, although Ali said there was only one rocket, so the trainees never actually fired it.

Despite the loud bangs emanating from the camp, Ali said, Maksud took pains to conceal it and warned the trainees not to wander too far away.

Shortly after Ali returned to Peshawar, he said, Zubair arrived and announced they would drive into Afghanistan the next morning. Ali said Zubair never told him whom they would be joining, but an Afghan intelligence investigator said Ali had confessed under interrogation that Zubair was working for a senior Taliban commander, Jalaluddin Haqqani.

Ali said Afghan border guards waved them into Konar, assuming they were Afghan. But some miles later, police stopped their taxi. When they discovered Ali did not have identity papers, they arrested him.

Ali complained that the Konar police kept him tied up for several days and threatened to hurt him. But he said that he was never beaten and added he had been pleasantly surprised by the extent to which Afghans appeared to be in charge of their country.

Still, the Pakistani prisoner remained skeptical and defiant. The interview over, Ali rose from his chair in the investigator's office and began to shuffle out of the room. Suddenly, he stopped and popped his head back through the door. "So," he demanded, "when are you taking me to Guantanamo?"

Terror cell's influence in Afghanistan - Brothers form Taliban group to derail plans for election - Phil Sands San Francisco Chronicle, August 21, 2005

Maidan Wardak, Afghanistan -- In the poor villages of Maidan Wardak province, southwest of Kabul, Afghanistan's capital city, two brothers have successfully set up a Taliban cell that has already launched a series of ambitious attacks against U.S. and government forces in the area, Afghan security forces say.

The emergence of a new fighting unit here, nearly four years after the United States initiated a war to oust the regime that had harbored terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, reflects an alarming trend across much of Afghanistan -- a resurgent Taliban determined to undermine government authority and destroy any hopes of establishing democracy in next month's parliamentary election.

With almost complete impunity, the brothers, whose identities have not been revealed by authorities, have found recruits to help them wage holy war on the Americans. According to Adbul Naeemi, the governor of Maidan Wardak, they moved about openly, carrying weapons.

"They are local fighters," he said. "I spoke to people in the villages, and they said they come from here. Their families live here, they are from the same villages. This makes it very difficult for us. ... They had money to buy equipment, and to buy influence. They would carry their AK-47s openly, as fighters, and they would talk to the people and ask them to join their fight, to help them."

The recruitment drive apparently worked.

According to a senior officer of Afghanistan's secret police, the NDS, the cell now comprises between 10 and 15 dedicated and capable guerrilla fighters. The officer, stationed in Maidan Wardak, said they are fanatical enough to carry out suicide attacks in order to derail Afghanistan's historic parliamentary election, due to take place on Sept. 18.

"This is a very dangerous group," the NDS officer said in an interview. "They are prepared to go to any level to disrupt the democratic process. They have people who are prepared to be suicide bombers. Local people are scared of them. This is why it's hard for us to track them and collect information -- no one will come forward to help us."

In recent weeks, the brothers' cell has carried out a number of strikes, including a successful raid Aug. 6 on a police station in the town of Kowl-e. In a well-planned night assault, they overran the building, wounding one police officer and causing the others to flee. They then escaped before reinforcements could arrive, taking 24 captured automatic rifles, ammunition and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

Lt. Col. David Anders, head of the 82nd Airborne Division's 1-325 infantry regiment now stationed in Wardak, said of the raid: "The attack hit three sides of the building simultaneously. ... They seemed to have very good intelligence on the layout of the building and strength of forces inside. It was quick, disciplined and well planned. The police retreated from the building in the face of overwhelming firepower."

A few days later, as darkness fell, the same militants attacked a convoy of 82nd Airborne paratroopers, according to Afghan police and the U.S. military. The trap was sprung on a major road and caught the soldiers so unaware they barely returned fire, instead pushing through to safety in their armored vehicles.

The ambush was meticulously planned: fighters armed with AK-47s and a heavy machine gun were stationed on each side of the route to maximize the effects of cross fire. A bomb, made using three mortar shells, was rigged to explode in the road. Rocket-propelled grenades were fired at the convoy.

Local traffic using the busy road had been deliberately stopped, in a move that kept fields of fire clear when the Americans passed and ensured there were no civilian casualties. U.S. officials insist the insurgents -- "enemies of Afghanistan" -- have no regard for innocent lives. However, Afghans questioned about the incident said the decision was deliberate: The guerrillas rely on the goodwill of surrounding villages and do not want to make enemies by killing local noncombatants.

No U.S. troops were killed or wounded, but the body of a young bearded man wearing a black mujahedeen-style uniform and turban -- apparently shot accidentally by his colleagues -- was later found at the ambush site. American intelligence officers hope its discovery will prove a crucial element in the militant group's undoing.

With the body in a Kabul morgue, the Wardak governor and 82nd Airborne chief Anders called a joint meeting with local village elder. They all insisted they could not identify the man, but word evidently spread and the fighter's family and friends came to claim the body for burial. That allowed Afghan security services to confirm his identity. His name was Islam, and he was one of three brothers. The other two had also lost their lives fighting for the Taliban.

Capt. Devin Hollingsworth, 27, an 82nd Airborne intelligence officer, said his units were working closely with Afghan forces to track and capture or kill the insurgents.

"We are learning how these people work, and we are closing in on them," he said. "It's difficult to get information, but we are succeeding, piece by piece. We'll find out where they are and when they're going to be there, and we'll get them in the end."

But the group remains at large, and it remains on the offensive -- even launching a rocket strike on the paratroops' base. Sgt. Ralph Porras, 35, of First Battalion's D Company, said the Afghan fighters were in many ways more formidable than their Iraqi counterparts.

"In Iraq, there was more open fighting, a greater willingness to attack," he said. "Here it's different. They know how to fight guerrilla war -- they grew up fighting the Russians. They're smart and they try to fight on their terms, not ours. We set up checkpoints, but they know to avoid them -- it's too easy, and we're being too clumsy. You've got to have some respect for the way they're doing it; it's pretty professional."

Porras is not the only paratrooper to express respect for the insurgents he has been sent to hunt and kill -- thus far unsuccessfully. Lt. K.D. Castro, a Special Forces veteran on deployment in Afghanistan, said his men had to adapt to new ways of fighting.

"It's frustrating out here, and you have to learn to be patient and methodical. We've got to get the locals on our side and show we are here to help support them. If we do that properly, we're more likely to pick up intelligence and the enemy will find it harder to hide. Then they'll make a mistake. They'll make the wrong attack at the wrong time, and we'll get them. We only need one chance."

Winning the political war for influence over suspicious tribal chiefs will be a key battleground for the Americans. Some villages in Wardak make no attempt to hide their contempt and hostility for U.S. troops. Others seem friendlier.

American officials insist the majority of Afghans are in favor of their presence, but the assertion is untested -- more a hypothesis than scientific fact. And despite a charm offensive backed by thousands of U.S. dollars -- soldiers are helping build walls and wells in the more hostile areas -- there is no real evidence of local allegiances shifting in favor of the NATO- led international coalition.

An experienced interpreter working with U.S. forces explained how difficult the task of winning hearts and minds was. "You must understand how important religious and family relationships are in Afghanistan," he said. "Blood is thicker than water, and much thicker than money. ... Afghanis are suspicious of foreigners, they've seen them come and go. They know in the end what is left are their own people. The Americans will go home one day, but the Taliban are home and will not leave. Even if a village likes the Americans, the Taliban will hold more influence over them, either through loyalty or fear, or a mix of both." Talking to regional National Police in Logar, 82nd Airborne's Anders made clear his frustration.

"A small and poorly equipped enemy has the initiative in this province," he said. "We are all reacting to an enemy. I've heard nothing of offensive operations or gathering intelligence, I've heard nothing of getting out and killing the enemy. We will start killing the enemy now."

Afghan refigees Unahppy about Forcible Evictions

PESHAWAR, August 22 (SANA) – Afghan refugees in different camps of Bajaur Agency in the norhtwest of the country have started returning to their homes in towns and villages in the neighbouring Afhanistan.

“As the government had set a deadline of August of 15 for the refugees to leave the country, there was a tremendous pressure on us and we have been left with no other option but to go back to our motherland,” quoting an unhappy elderly Afghan refugee, Khaleej Times reported on Monday. He said representatives of refugees from different camps discussed the situation and saught an extension of deadline by the end of current month.

The Afghan elder said that delegates who visited Kabul briefed the agency jirga (gathering of elders) about response of Afghan authorities and the situation in war-torn country. They said they considered the situation in Afghanistan was not yet fit enough for their repatriation.

More than 100 families have vacated their mud houses in Yousafabad refugee camp. The refugees, however, seemed unhappy with the decision of the Pakistani authorities. “No one can deny the fact that Pakistan and its people extended unprecedented hospitality to us but we feel to have been left in the lurch with the recent government decisions regarding our forcible repatriation from the area,” said an elderly Afghan refugee.

Spanish troops fly out to replace Afghanistan helicopter victims

Madrid (AFP) - A contingent of Spanish soldiers left for Afghanistan to replace 17 troops who were killed when their helicopter went down in the west of the country last week, the defence ministry said, adding that the crash was still being treated as an accident.

A total of 22 troops flew out of the Torrejon de Ardoz base near Madrid and will replace both the 17 killed in the aircraft that crashed and the five who were injured when a second helicopter made a crash landing nearby.

The ministry also said that investigators were still leaning towards an accident as the cause of the disaster. The most likely hypothesis was that the helicopter, which was on maneouvres, was hit by a powerful gust of wind as it was flying at very low altitude, it said on Monday.

There had been unconfirmed reports that the helicopter, which crashed near the city of Herat, had been shot down.

The second aircraft was reported to have made a crash landing after its crew saw the first one go down. Defence Minister Jose Bono is due to report on the crash before members of the Spanish parliament on Wednesday.

Afghan heroin hang-glider downed – BBC

Border guards in Tajikistan say they shot down a hang-glider carrying 20kg of heroin smuggled from Afghanistan. Border officials said the Afghan traffickers had been using the glider for three years and previous attempts to shoot it down had failed.

Other reports said the "glider" was a parachute powered by a small engine. Tajik officials said a manhunt was under way for the "pilot", who had managed to escape despite being injured on hitting the ground. The incident took place in the Shuroobod area.

Lt Gen Saidamir Zukhurov, commander of the Tajik border troops, said the trespasser had "little chance to escape" because the area had been tightly secured by reinforcements.

Tajikistan is a major transit route for drugs from Afghanistan destined for Europe. On Monday, Tajik border guards exchanged fire with Afghan smugglers, forcing them to flee and abandon their merchandise.

One of the traffickers may have been wounded in the gun battle, said Lt Gen Zukhurov. They abandoned sacks containing 20kg of heroin and 20 kg of cannabis. More than 800kg of Afghan heroin has been recovered in Tajikistan since the start of the year, according to official statistics. Afghanistan's growing opium and heroin trade accounts for an estimated 90% of the world's supply.

A Nomad Campaigns to Serve Her People in Afghanistan - By CARLOTTA GALL
The New York Times August 21, 2005

MAIDAN SHAHR, Afghanistan - Sitting on the floor of a nomad's tent on an August morning, out of the searing sun, an election candidate was making her pitch to a group of women, children and old men clustered around her.

"I want to serve you. I know the pain in your hearts, and if I do not serve you, I pray to God not to grant me success," she said. "I want schools. I want grazing lands for the Kuchis. I want mosques, clinics, we should have midwives and women doctors," she said, counting each item on her fingers. "I want you to have a peaceful life."

The candidate, Fareeda Kuchi Balkhi, is one of seven women campaigning to represent Afghanistan's nomadic tribes, known as the Kuchis, in the Parliament to be elected Sept. 18. Barely 4 feet 6 inches tall, with indigo tattoos marking her forehead and chin, and wearing a black veil and the traditional red and gold embroidered dress and baggy pants of the Kuchis, Mrs. Balkhi is undeniably a true representative.

Before the official opening on Aug. 17 of the election campaign, she traveled from her home in northern Afghanistan to campaign among the nomads who have pitched their tents on the dusty plains around Kabul, the capital.

"I am a Pashtun woman, a Kuchi," she told the people gathered here. "We can see that. You are one of us," Hajji Lal Gul, the elder of the group, assured her.

"The women should vote for me, and the men for Reis Ashraf," Mrs. Balkhi said, referring to the best-known male Kuchi leader. "And even if you don't vote for me, and I win, I will work for you," she said with determination.

Ten parliamentary seats have been allocated to the nomads, who are estimated to number 600,000 to one million. They are dispersed across Afghanistan's 34 provinces, and traditionally move with their herds to mountain pastures in summer and to the warmer lowlands in winter, so many have no permanent residence.

Three of the 10 seats are reserved for women under an electoral system that has allocated nearly a third of the seats in the lower house of Parliament and a sixth of those in the upper house to women.

Mrs. Balkhi may not seem typical parliamentary material. An illiterate widow and mother of four, she does not even know her age. "I am a Kuchi," she said in explanation, a reference to the nomads' largely illiterate, undocumented way of life.

Yet her life is a microcosm of the trials that Afghans have suffered in nearly three decades of conflict. And her fighting spirit has made her a well-known figure in Balkh, her home province.

Married at the age of 7, she bore her first child at 12 during the civil war in the 1990's, she said. She said she lost the child, a boy, just 20 days later when a rival ethnic faction raided their tented settlement. "Everyone just jumped in the cars and fled and did not think about the children," she said. "I left a 20-day-old baby and my sister a 5-month-old baby." The attackers killed the babies in their cribs and the shepherd boys, and looted their livestock and belongings, she said.

The family scraped a living through the decade of civil war and the Taliban era. What few animals the family managed to raise were lost in the most severe drought in memory in the late 1990's, she said. Her husband died of cancer, and she moved to a camp outside Mazar-i-Sharif, a town where 1,000 displaced families lived.

"There was nothing there," she said. "Sometimes there were seven deaths a day because of the drought and disease." In desperation, she registered everyone's names and sought assistance for them from the Taliban governor, Mullah Nurullah Nuri. But the Taliban guards would not let a woman meet with him.

She waited at the gates and leapt on his car when he drove out. "I fell off and broke my arm," she said. "My face was scratched, and he felt sorry for me and took the list."

The governor alerted international aid organizations, which began her career as an organizer of aid for her community. She was appointed director of the camp and reels off the names of international aid workers and agencies with whom she has worked.

When the Taliban fell, new insecurities arose and the Kuchis were repeatedly robbed and harassed by other ethnic groups. Once she was so scared that she hid from robbers in the tandoor, an underground clay oven in the yard, she said.

"And now I am a candidate to represent 34 provinces in Parliament," she said. She still faces threats, she said, but when asked about them, answered firmly, "I am not scared of anyone."

She has little money, and her campaign posters are cheap and monotone. Yet she has a good chance of winning a seat because she is the only female Kuchi candidate from northern Afghanistan. She has the backing of the tribal chiefs, which is most of the battle, because Kuchis usually vote as their elders advise.

She is campaigning nevertheless, undaunted by the social constraints on women in Afghanistan, traveling to find Kuchis wherever they pitch their tents.

When a male Kuchi candidate from the south arrived in Balkh Province and was reported to be buying votes from Kuchis, Mrs. Balkhi called the governor to complain. He sent three police cars to investigate. The candidate left town fast, she said.

Another candidate, a sophisticated woman from Kabul who is also seeking to represent the Kuchis, betrayed an attitude toward rural life unlikely to win her votes from Kuchis when she offered an unflattering observation about Mrs. Balkhi's personal hygiene.

Mrs. Balkhi was unfazed. "I said to her, 'You are going to represent people who are blowing on sticks to make a fire every day, and they all smell of smoke,' " she said.

She recounted the story to fellow Kuchis while campaigning, and the women expressed scorn for the rival candidate. "The women will vote for her," one woman said of Mrs. Balkhi. "She is one of us."

Outcome of war may depend on endurance - Contra Costa Times 08/21/2005 - Jonathan S. Landay

LANDING ZONE NORTH DAKOTA, Afghanistan - The Bush administration declared more than two years ago that major combat in Afghanistan was over. Tell that to the 60 young men of Battle Company.

For the past four months, the U.S. paratroopers and other American units have been fighting a war thousands of feet up in the sun-blasted peaks and boulder-strewn defiles of one of history's most grueling battlefields. They're facing guerrillas who were born here, hardened by poverty and backwardness, and steeped in a centuries-old tradition of resisting foreigners.

The guerrillas' aim is to impose another hard-line Islamic regime on Afghanistan, one that might make the country once again a sanctuary for Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida jihadis.

The Taliban have killed more than 40 U.S. soldiers and more than 800 Afghan officials, police, troops, aid workers and civilians since March in a campaign aimed at derailing Sept. 18 parliamentary and provincial elections and eroding confidence in President Hamid Karzai and his American-led backers.

Borrowing tactics from their counterparts in Iraq, they've beheaded alleged informers and staged two suicide bombings, a form of terrorism rarely seen in Afghanistan.

The fighters of the resurgent Taliban movement are no match in face-to-face clashes for highly trained U.S. troops, who are equipped to fight at night and are backed by helicopter gunships, jets, unmanned spy planes, Afghan soldiers and local intelligence officers.

But after suffering massive casualties in a series of major firefights, the Taliban have learned to avoid set-piece battles with the U.S. and Afghan troops who are trying to pen them up in the mountains so they can't sabotage the upcoming polls.

The war has evolved into a bloody game of cat and mouse, a classic guerrilla struggle with echoes of the much larger and far bloodier conflicts in Iraq, Chechnya and Vietnam. The outcome may well come down to which side can outlast the other.

The Taliban operate in small bands, staging hit-and-run attacks, assassinations and ambushes, laying mines and firing missiles and rocket-propelled grenades before melting back into local populations. U.S. intelligence reports indicate that Taliban leaders constantly change locations.

"One day, they could be firing at you and serving you chai (tea) the next," said Army Capt. Michael Kloepper, 29, of Caldwell, N.J., after a helicopter dropped him and some of his men on a boulder-strewn hilltop dubbed Landing Zone North Dakota on a two-day mission in a remote valley in southern Zabul province.

Kloepper commands Battle Company, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry, 173rd Airborne Brigade. Based in Vincenza, Italy, Battle Company belongs to a task force of some 900 U.S. troops and 800 soldiers of the newly minted Afghan army operating in Zabul province, one of the worst affected by the insurgency.

An area the size of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island combined, Zabul resembles the blighted moonscape and canine-sharp peaks of Mordor in J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings."

A Knight Ridder correspondent and a Fort Worth Star-Telegram photographer spent five days with Battle Company and several other U.S. units at the leading edge of the Bush administration's effort to stabilize a country ravaged by decades of civil war and overwhelmed by destitution, corruption, overpopulation, disease and despair.

The guerrillas stash their arms in the wheat stacks, wells, thick groves and the off-limits women's quarters of adobe compounds.

Their hiding places are scattered in the small oases of almond and apple trees in valleys wedged between mountains that seem to roll ever onward like immense, dun-colored tidal waves.

Hiding in mountaintop caves and crevices, the Taliban track U.S. troops and aircraft -- sometimes for scores of miles -- and pass intelligence to each other in coded-language via walkie-talkies that are extremely difficult to get a fix on.

"A lot of times, it's like chasing ghosts," said Kloepper's radio operator, Spc. Mark Cushman, 20, of Norman, Okla., during the patrol last week in the district of Deh Chopan, a Taliban stronghold.

Some locals are forced to feed and shelter the guerrillas. Others collaborate because they share the Taliban's harsh interpretation of Islam or are linked to fighters through tribe and family ties.

The Taliban also may be profiting from outrage at U.S. troops who inadvertently violate cultural taboos while searching compounds and from rising anger over the slow pace of U.S.-led reconstruction programs that seem focused mostly on urban centers.

Nearly four years after the U.S.-led intervention that drove the Taliban from power and made bin Laden the world's most hunted man, Afghanistan has effectively become two countries. In 24 provinces in the north, west and center, home to the main ethnic minorities, little major violence has been reported.

NATO-protected international reconstruction efforts are moving ahead, and there's optimism that the elections, a key point in Washington's efforts to push the country toward democracy and allow a withdrawal of U.S. forces, won't be disrupted.

But in Zabul and nine other southern and eastern provinces bordering Pakistan, the upsurge in Taliban violence has stalled international aid efforts and may impede the elections, which would be a serious blow to Karzai and the United States.

The north and south are the heartland of the Pashtuns, the ethnic majority from which the Taliban come. Pashtuns also dominate the lawless tribal belt on Pakistan's side of the border.

It's there that the Taliban, allies of Pakistan's Islamist political parties and former clients of its military intelligence service, are said to maintain havens, supply depots and training camps. Islamabad denies the allegation.

The commanders of the 18,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan have responded with a hard-hitting counterinsurgency campaign. They've also been reaching out to tribal elders and their people with humanitarian and medical assistance and pledges of better security to encourage them to turn in guerrillas and vote in the elections.

More than 400 guerrillas reportedly have been killed or captured. Still, U.S. commanders expect the bloodshed to escalate through election day. then comes winter, when snow blocks the mountain passes, and the Taliban, most of whose top leaders were never captured, can rest, regroup, re-arm and recruit new fighters.

[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.]