Afghan President Hamid Karzai (C) attends the regional economic cooperation conference in Kabul December 4, 2005. Karzai called on the regional countries of the conference which was also attended by members of G8 countries, to unite in fighting narcotics as it was hampering legitimate drug growth in the region, but also posed threat for its stability and fed terrorism. Afghanistan is the worl's leading producer of heroin. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani

Afghanistan Hosts 2-Day Economic Meeting

Sunday December 4, By Steve Gutterman, Associated Press Writer - Afghanistan Hosts Regional Economic Conference to Enhance Security, Promote Development

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai opened a regional economic conference Sunday with a pitch for closer cooperation, casting his country's fragile new stability after decades of war as a crucial chance to boost trade and growth.

Greeting officials from 12 nearby nations at a two-day meeting co-chaired by Britain, Karzai expressed satisfaction "that Afghanistan now is peaceful and stable enough to host its neighbors and its friends and countries in the region."

"Afghanistan is privileged and happy to have the opportunity, after 30 years of suffering, to consider itself a partner, a contributor -- though in a very small way -- to the economic growth of the region," he said.

Karzai said political interests have dictated for decades other nations' relations with Afghanistan, whose people suffered as pawns in power games played by neighbors and outsiders, ranging from the Cold War superpowers to al-Qaida.

"Today, my appeal to you is to take a different look at Afghanistan, to take an economic look at Afghanistan," he said. "Afghanistan's roads, Afghanistan's airports, Afghanistan's borders are totally at your disposal for economic activity."

Karzai said neighboring countries have already enjoyed a peace dividend since the ouster of the hard-line Taliban in 2001 -- citing huge increases in their exports to Afghanistan, and calling for more.

The conference brought officials from the six nations bordering Afghanistan -- Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Pakistan and China -- as well as India, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

Karzai offered Afghanistan as a conduit for regional trade and a market for energy and skilled labor to fuel its reconstruction efforts. The country is buying electricity from several neighbors and will need to import it for at least a decade, he said.

British Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells said cooperation is crucial for the region. He said Afghanistan has made "dramatic progress" since 2001 and called the conference "a wonderful opportunity to put this part of the world back on the world map" -- but he warned that concrete plans and hard work are needed.

Afghanistan is still plagued by violence, with a Taliban-led insurgency that has left nearly 1,500 people dead this year. Political and border disputes have hampered relations in the region, and some countries have been slow to implement economic reforms.

Global capital is "looking for security, predictability and consistency, and we have to think about that at this conference," Howells said, suggesting the region's nations need to improve security and business climates.

He said foreign investment in Afghanistan has reached nearly $1 billion and is likely to keep rising, but that its "licit export remains fairly limited" despite resources including water and iron ore.

Afghanistan is the world's largest supplier of opium and heroin, its major exports. Both Howells and Karzai said battling the drug trade and other organized crime in the region is crucial to security and economic development.

• Newly elected Afghan MP killed in row between armed groups
• Jalalabad (AFP) - A newly elected Afghan parliamentarian has been killed when a row about a fire in a woodyard erupted into an armed clash that left four men dead, government officials said.

Esmatullah Muhabat, who won a seat in the lower house in parliament for eastern Laghman province, was the first MP to be killed since the September 18 election for Afghanistan's first national assembly in about three decades.

The fighting started after a businessman in Laghman captured one of Muhabat's men in connection with a blaze at his firewood outlet late Saturday, an interior ministry spokesman said. He handed the man to police, Yousuf Stanizai said. Muhabat led a band of his men to confront the businessman early Sunday.

"This morning at 7:00 am, as a result, fighting erupted between the two. Three of Esmatullah's guys were killed in the fighting and he himself was injured and later died," Stanizai told AFP.

"The fighting has ceased and the area has been sealed off by police," a spokesman for the provincial governor said. He had said earlier that two men had been killed and three wounded.

Muhabat was one of thousands of mujahedin (holy warriors) who fought against the Soviet occupation between 1979 and 1989. He was arrested by US forces last year for suspected links to the hardline Taliban regime that was removed from power in a US-led invasion in late 2001, and spent a year in detention at the main US base at Bagram.

He was released four months ago and surrendered some weapons as part of a UN-backed disarmament programme. Despite the completion of the programme, many militia groups linked to mujahedin still maintain private armies. A second phase is under way to persuade these groups to disband.

Muhabat took the third of four seats from Laghman for parliament's lower house. The province, which neighbours Kabul, is dominated by warlords and has seen some violence linked to a Taliban-led insurgency but not as much as other provinces in the east and south.

The September 18 election was hailed as a significant step in Afghanistan's quest for democracy after decades of war and occupation, and the ouster of the hardline Taliban government four years ago.

The first sitting is expected before the end of the year, with the date to be announced once President Hamid Karzai has made his choices for seats on the upper house.

Taliban loyalists, whose insurgency against the new US-backed government has become more deadly in recent months, had vowed to disrupt the election but the vote passed off with relatively little violence.

Analysts had expected a wave of violence after the results were finalised with the electoral law stating that a candidate who is not able to take their seat can be replaced by one with the next most votes.

Seven of the nearly 5,800 candidates were killed before election day, with some of the attacks claimed by the Taliban. One of the likely winners in northern Balkh province was killed before the results were announced. The insurgency by Taliban and other militants has claimed about 1,500 lives this year, making it the deadliest since the hardliners were removed.

Suicide Bomber in Kandahar Kills Civilian

Kandahar (AP) - A suicide bomber detonated explosives Sunday on a street in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, killing himself and a civilian and wounding two passers-by, a police official said.

The bombing took place on a main street after a U.S. military convoy had passed by, Kandahar deputy police chief Abdul Hungar said. He said it was possible the bomber was targeting the convoy.

Key al-Qaida Associate Killed in Pakistan

Islamabad (AP) - One of al-Qaida's top five leaders, said to be responsible for planning overseas strikes, was killed by Pakistani security forces in a rocket attack near the Afghan border with U.S. help, American and Pakistani officials said Saturday.

Hamza Rabia, a key associate of al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri, died Thursday in an explosion in the North Waziristan tribal area, and his remains were identified in DNA tests, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said.

Two U.S. counterterrorism officials, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because of the information's sensitivity, confirmed Rabia's death but would not elaborate on the circumstances.

The officials said Rabia was believed to be an Egyptian and head of al-Qaida's foreign operations, possibly as senior as the No. 3 official in the terrorist group. That would put him in a tier just below Osama bin Laden and al-Zawahri.

"He was al-Qaida's No. 5 and this is what we know," Ahmed told The Associated Press. Rabia filled the vacuum created this year by the capture of the previous operations chief, Abu Faraj al-Libbi, the two U.S. officials said.

As head of operations, Rabia would have been responsible for training, recruiting, networking and, most importantly, planning international terrorist activities outside the Afghan-Pakistan region.

One of the officials said Rabia also may have been involved in operations inside the region. He had a wide array of jihadist contacts, the other official said, and was believed to be trying to reinvigorate al-Qaida's terrorist operations.

The circumstances of Rabia's death were still not clear. NBC, citing anonymous officials, reported Saturday that the attack was launched by a U.S. drone. The Dawn newspaper, also citing sources it did not identify, reported that the attack on a mud-walled home near Miran Shah may have been launched from two pilotless planes.

A senior Pakistani intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media, said a missile attack on Thursday triggered a huge explosion in a stockpile of bomb-making materials, grenades and other munitions.

Miran Shah is a strategic tribal region where remnants of al-Qaida are believed to have been hiding and where Pakistani forces have launched several operations against them.

Assailants fired at least four rockets Saturday night at the town of Mir Ali, near where Rabia died, an intelligence official said Sunday on condition of anonymity because of the secretive nature of his job. One hit a power line, disrupting electricity to several villages, while the other three landed near an army base. No one was hurt, he said.

Authorities blame Islamic militants for rocket attacks and roadside bombings targeting security forces in North Waziristan.

Other Pakistani intelligence officials, also not identifying themselves for the same reason, said U.S. assistance played a critical role in tracking down Rabia and "eliminating the threat" that he posed.

Earlier, a top government administrator, Syed Zaheerul Islam, said Rabia died in an explosion while making bombs at a home near Miran Shah. Islam said the blast also killed four other people, including two local residents, and left two others injured, who have not been identified.

Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf confirmed Rabia had been killed. "Yes, indeed, 200 percent confirmed," Musharraf said in Kuwait at the start of a three-nation visit in the Middle East.

Al-Libbi twice tried to assassinate Musharraf for making the Islamic nation a key ally of the United States in its war on terrorism. Al-Libbi was captured in northwestern Pakistan on May 2 and later turned over to Washington for further investigation.

Military officials have said hundreds of Arab, Afghan and Central Asian militants are in North and South Waziristan. Pakistan has deployed thousands of troops in the area, fighting intense battles with militants and killing and capturing several of them. Officials have said they do not know the whereabouts of al-Zawahri or bin Laden.

Pakistan, Afghanistan re-open border, establish hot line - Islamabad, Dec 3, IRNA Pakistan-Afghan Border

Pakistan and Afghanistan reopened their border after three days on Saturday after successful negotiations between the border security authorities, a senior Pakistani security official said.

The border at Chaman was closed three days ago after Pakistan said Afghan border forces had taken one of its soldiers to the other side of the border.

Afghan authorities admitted their fault and regretted the incident in which the Afghan forces kidnapped a paramilitary soldier from Pakistani area along the Pak-Afghan border on Thursday last, Pakistan paramilitary Frontier Corps Commandant Col Nasrullah Niazi said.

"They have also assured us that no such incident would happen in future," Col. Niazi said. He said the border was reopened following assurance and regret by Afghan authorities over the incident.

He, however, said the security would remain tight along the border and only people with proper travel documents would be allowed to cross the border.
Those using non-traditional ways would be dealt with strictly, he warned.

Meanwhile TV reports said the two sides have agreed to establish a hot line between border officials. Thousands trapped in Afghan territory due to border closure were allowed on Saturday to enter in Pakistan as a goodwill gesture.

Pakistan officials signed an agreement with Afghans under which the two sides will be in contact on the hotline in case of such incident as kidnapping of a security official.

Afghan disabled storm UN event

Kabul (AFP) - Dozens of disabled Afghans stormed a ceremony attended by several ministers to mark world disabled day, sending delegates fleeing as they overturned furniture to protest government policy.

A man who lost a leg during Afghanistan's decades of war doused himself with petrol and threatened to torch himself, shouting he wanted to highlight "unjust" policy towards the country's thousands of disabled people.

He was stopped by fellow protestors and police. The demonstrators interrupted the ceremony as the first speeches were under way, up-ending chairs and tables and ripping up stage decorations. A journalist was lightly wounded in melee.

Ministers, high-ranking government officials and representatives of foreign countries and aid groups fled the hall and the event was called off.

The crowd shouted slogans against the US-backed government of President Hamid Karzai and the minister for the disabled, Sidiqa Balkhi, whom they said should be removed from her post. "Death to minister Balkhi, death to Karzai," they shouted.

The UN International Day of Disabled Persons event was held in a gaint tent that accommodated a 2002 conference of tribal chiefs and elders that approved the post-Taliban constitution which grants support for the disabled.

There are regular demonstrations in the capital Kabul by people disabled during Afghanistan's three decades of war who feel they have been neglected despite having fought for the country.

A UN human rights report published in September said there were about two million disabled people among Afghanistan's population of more than 28 million. Around quarter of them were disabled by war or landmines and more than 80 percent were believed to be unemployed, it said.

Karzai pledged after his election in October last year to boost public support for the disabled, including by raising their monthly grant of about 300 afghani (six dollars).

Deputy minister for the disabled, Sayed Mohammad Hadi Hadi, told AFP there were between 800,000 and two million disabled people in Afghanistan but only 70,000 had registered to receive the government grant.

The UN report said many of the disabilities in destitute Afghanistan were the result of prenatal complications, such as malnourishment and drug addiction.

Afghanistan must act now to prevent HIV/AIDS explosion, experts say

KABUL (AFP) - Afghanistan must act now to prevent an explosion of HIV and     AIDS fuelled by a potential hike in the number of drug users sharing needles, experts here have warned.

Health officials estimated in October there were only up to 1,500 cases of HIV/AIDS in the country but this could be pushed upwards by the some 7,000 people estimated to inject heroin, a drugs policy think-tank said.

"Many factors point to a situation which could get a lot worse," Emmanuel Reinert, executive director of the Paris-based Senlis Council think-tank, told a meeting of government officials, aid groups and other agencies Saturday.

These factors included the increasing return of refugees from     Iran and Pakistan, where many Afghans inject heroin for the first time, and a high degree of poverty.

"HIV in Afghanistan is not yet a pandemic but can become in the next five years a big pandemic," said Massimo Barra, chairman of the Development Commission of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

"You are in the best position to prevent suffering, death and economic problems."

Barra urged the government to open anti-drugs centres, begin methadone treatment to wean users off heroin and distribute clean needles and condoms.

Afghanistan must not repeat the mistakes of its neighbours, he said, citing the example of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan which had reported only between five and 10 HIV cases 10 years ago and now had about 50,000.

Barra downplayed a link between Afghanistan's opium production -- estimated to account for more than 80 percent of the world's supply -- and drug use, saying the international criminal network was efficient enough to provide drugs whereever there was a demand.

Afghanistan is trying to persuade thousands of poppy farmers, who produce the some 4,000 tonnes of illicit opium estimated to be smuggled out of the country every year, to switch to other crops.

The government says the area under cultivation dropped by about 20 percent last year, but output is believed to have been much the same because of a high yield.

The Senlis Council has recommended that the illicit crop is turning towards the production of legal opium-based painkillers but authorities say that would be difficult to police and confuse their messages against poppy cultivation.

US civil rights group to sue CIA – BBC

A US civil rights groups says it is taking the CIA to court to stop the transportation of terror suspects to countries outside US legal authority. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) says the intelligence agency has broken both US and international law.

It is acting for a man allegedly flown to a secret CIA prison in Afghanistan. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says she'll comment on recent reports of alleged CIA prisons abroad before starting a visit to Europe on Monday.

Ms Rice has said she will provide an answer to a EU letter expressing concern over reports last month alleging the US intelligence agency was using secret jails - particularly in eastern Europe.

"The lawsuit will charge that CIA officials at the highest level violated US and universal human rights laws when they authorised agents to abduct an innocent man, detain him incommunicado, beat him, drug and transport him to a secret CIA prison in Afghanistan," the ACLU said in a news release.

The release identified the jail as the "Salt Pit". The group did not provide the name or nationality of the plaintiff, saying only that he would appear at a news conference next week to reveal details of the lawsuit.

The ACLU also wants to name corporations which it accuses of owning and operating the aircraft used to transport detainees secretly from country to country.

The highly secretive process is known as "extraordinary rendition" whereby intelligence agencies move and interrogate terrorism suspects outside the US, where they have no American legal protection.

It has become extremely controversial, the BBC's Adam Brookes in Washington reports. Some individuals have claimed they were flown by the CIA to countries like Syria and Egypt, where they were tortured.

The US government and its intelligence agencies maintain that all their operations are conducted within the law and they will no doubt fight this case vigorously, our correspondent says.

He says they will not want to see US intelligence officers forced publicly to defend their actions and they will not want to see one of their most secret procedures laid bare in open court.

EU must come together on policy in Afghanistan – The Daily Star 12/3/05 - REPORT INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP

Editor's note: The following text was taken from the latest ICG report, titled, "Rebuilding the Afghan State: The European Union's Role." To view the full report, visit www.crisisgroup.org

Since the Taliban's fall in 2001, the European Union (EU) has been a major contributor to Afghanistan. A substantial European Commission (EC) delegation oversees an annual budget of some 200 million euros in development aid, and a Special Representative (EUSR) is in residence. Altogether the EC and member states pledged nearly a third of the money at the 2002 Tokyo and 2004 Berlin donor conferences and the latter contribute over two thirds of the peacekeeping troops as well as coalition forces battling anti-government insurgents. However, EU influence is less than it should be. As a new agenda is drawn up to succeed the Bonn process, the EU needs more internal coordination if it is to gain greater leverage and hold the Afghan government to higher standards of governance and democratic development.

While Europe is widely trusted by Afghans, few - even at high level - appreciate the full scale of EU commitments. This is partly due to the UN's coordinating role and the sheer scale of U.S. military and development involvement, but also to the complexity of EU foreign policy structures and lack of coherence among EU institutions and member states on and in Afghanistan. Too often development funds are used in place of collective political and military action.

The consequences of insufficient influence and insufficiently forceful policy were nowhere more apparent than during the National Assembly election process, the culmination of the Bonn process. Europe paid around 40 percent of the costs but failed to secure a satisfactory voting system. Likewise, it did little - and now looks set to do even less - to help build the political parties that are vital to ensure a stable and sustainable political system, despite the avowal of member state foreign ministers that party development is a top priority.

The individual national limitations placed on the peacekeepers provided under a NATO umbrella contribute to the lack of inter-operability between forces. The ad hoc manner in which the International Security Assistance Force has moved outside Kabul highlights this further, with each country-led Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) a fortress unto itself. Developing at least minimally agreed standards for military-civil cooperation is an area Europe, in concert with NATO, should prioritize. The same is true for coordination within and between the teams - hopefully those of all nationalities, but at the very least for EU member states. A "European" model could not only help strengthen coherence but also influence the wider debate on the role of PRTs.

International interest must not be allowed to lag with the conclusion of the Bonn process - the bedrock of international assistance to date - following the recent National Assembly elections. Gains remain perilously fragile. Even meeting recurring costs to keep the state running will require donor support for years to come. Afghanistan's social indicators are some of the lowest in the world, on a par with sub-Saharan Africa, and the insurgency in the south and east borderlands with Pakistan produced this year the bloodiest summer since the fall of the Taliban. Poppy cultivation - both a symptom and a major source of ongoing instability - is responsible for 90 percent of the heroin on the streets of Europe.

The EU role in rebuilding Afghanistan is not about altruism. Failed states are a danger to the world, and Afghanistan presents specific problems for Europe. It is a political project the ultimate aim of which is to bring this failed state back to the fold of nations so that it is no longer a danger. Reassembling the state apparatus has been, and must remain, central but emphasis should now shift from legitimizing the newly elected institutions to ensuring their effectiveness in providing services and security to citizens. The new "Kabul Agenda" must emphasize sustainability and be much more specific than the Bonn Agreement about what is to be achieved.

The EUSR needs to be retained but with a refocused mandate. Its good offices are required all the more as new legislators become demanding interlocutors for the international community. At a time when it appears large financial commitments will again be undertaken, the links between performance and payment need to be made more explicit. Europe's concerns over human rights issues should be translated into hard demands for good governance from an administration that has allowed a culture of impunity.

The EU should strive to produce more cohesive policy and effective action by agreeing both within itself and with the Afghan administration on common benchmarks and monitoring mechanisms. As well as simplifying and clarifying obligations on a fragile state, this would give more coherence to programs and save resources. Europe will punch at its true weight in Afghanistan only through better coordination, and using to maximum effect the full array of foreign policy tools at its disposal - diplomatic, development assistance and military.

RECOMMENDATIONS

To the European Union and its Member States:

1. Ensure that Afghanistan remains a priority in the post-Bonn period by:

(a) maintaining financial assistance at around present levels for the next five years, focusing on reconstruction and reducing the proportion available for recurring expenses;

(b) renewing the mandate of the EUSR in Kabul and reviewing the current practice of giving six-month mandates to EUSRs generally; and

(c) working to achieve substantially higher visibility for, and domestic and international recognition of, the EU's role in Afghanistan.

2. Achieve greater policy coherence and coordination of EU institutions and member states through:

(a) developing common benchmarks and monitoring mechanisms, starting with the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund and the National Solidarity Program;

(b) formalizing internal conflict indicators in the new Country Strategy Paper (CSP), monitoring them effectively, and taking them systematically into account in all areas of EU activity;

(c) instituting regular formal meetings, preferably weekly, of the EC head of delegation and the EUSR;

(d) seconding to the EUSR from the EC in Brussels an expert on development economics to facilitate reporting on reconstruction efforts;

(e) creating a common Electronic Bulletin Board for EU institutions and delegations in Afghanistan to improve communication and information-sharing; and

(f) maximizing cooperation and inter-linkages with EU programs in neighboring states, using the CSPs as the primary planning tool.

3. Continue and strengthen the EU's policy focus on democratization by:

(a) financially supporting voter registration and at least two more election cycles, subject to constitutional changes producing an acceptable electoral timetable and process;

(b) prioritizing support for political party development, a women's caucus within the National Assembly, civil society and the media; and

(c) emphasizing, within support for the capacity building of new legislators, training for female members to ensure that they can be active participants in the political process.

4. Continue to emphasize human rights and good governance by:

(a) making a long-term financial commitment to the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC);

(b) insisting that the Afghanistan Transitional Justice Plan be built into post-Bonn compacts;

(c) supporting the establishment of a high-level advisory panel, including female and minority representatives, acting with clear criteria and transparent process, to advise the president on senior Afghan appointments; and

(d) continuing to mainstream gender issues, while setting aside 5 percent of EC development funding specifically for women's projects.

5. Seek greater institutional linkages with NATO and involvement in the direction of Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) through:

(a) the EUSR taking a seat on the PRT Executive Steering Committee;

(b) helping drive wide-ranging discussion on agreed minimum standards for PRTs and future roles that emphasize security;

(c) backing a forum for member state political representatives and development agencies involved in PRTs to interact with each other better; and

(d) investigating the possibility of using European Security and Defense Policy civilian missions in the field of security sector reform across European PRTs for both long or short-term projects.

6. Harmonize the priorities of EU institutions and member states with those of the Afghan government by holding a high-level workshop after release of the Afghanistan National Development Strategy as well as annual high-level meetings in Kabul or Brussels on the state of implementation of post-Bonn compacts.

The International Crisis Group is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organization working through field-based analysis and high-level advocacy to prevent and resolve deadly conflict

Afghanistan facing trend of re-expatriation

KABUL, Dec 2, 2005 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- "I have come back to Afghanistan for about 3 years, but I still can't find a suitable job. Maybe I shall go back to Iran before I spend all the money I have earned," the 35-year-old Maazullah said.

Maazullah went to Iran in 1990 in order to escape the forced military service of the communist government. He stayed in Iran for 13 years and became a mason. After the collapse of Taliban in late 2001, more and more people returned to Afghanistan, and Maazullah decided to become one of them.

"Before I came back, I heard a lot about countless job opportunities in Afghanistan, but after I returned to my hometown in Faryab in 2003, I found it's different from I heard and imagined," Maazullah said.

He noted, "The reconstruction work is under way in my country, mainly in big cities, and heading for a big city for a job opportunity will cost greatly."

Maazullah got married after returned home and has not yet found any job. He is thinking about going back to Iran after using up all the money he had earned in that country.

Lack of housing and job opportunity force some Afghan returnees to leave the country once more, according to a spokesperson of Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation.

"Following the main trend of Afghan citizens returning home from other countries, some are leaving and plan to leave the country as a result of the current unstable situation and economic and social reasons," Mohammad Hafiz Nadeem told Xinhua.

He added, "Although Taliban collapsed four years ago, there are still many militants and the remained landmines threatening social security. Afghanistan still faces the problem of providing enough houses and job opportunities for its people. The lack of educational facilities and health care institutions in some remote areas also brings the backward direction or delay the return time of the returnees."

According to a research report, since the collapse of Taliban in late 2001, about 4.35 million returnees have come back to Afghanistan. Included were more than 2 million from Pakistan and about 2 million from Iran.

The process goes on well under the trilateral agreement signed by Afghanistan, UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) and the host countries for refugees in which the principle of gradualism and consciousness must be followed.

"During the returning process, UNHCR will provide the transportation and assistance, the host countries will offer returnees with convenient facilities, and Afghan government is responsible for sending refugees back home, and providing them with houses and jobs," Nadeem said.

The Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation has representatives in each province to take charge of the affairs of refugees. So far the ministry has provided 140,000 houses for returnees under the shelter program. There is a five-year plan implemented from the beginning of this year in which 50,000 pieces of land will be distributed to homeless returnees. Till now 30,000 pieces of land were distributed at the comparatively low price.

In Takhar province Wednesday, a clash between local persons and police led to two local persons killed, six including two police injured. The reason for the clash was that the government wanted to build a refugees town in the area, where local people were living.

The Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation announced Thursday that the government will provide houses for about 800 families living in the camps of the city.

"We have built 38 refugee towns in some 24 provinces, but it's still far from enough. We have applied for some development budget for next year and hope to settle more problems for returnees," Nadeem said.

Losing our way at an Afghan crossroads - Chris Mason , The Los Angeles Times

The roadmap for Afghanistan crafted by the international community in December 2001 has been followed to its end. A constitution is in place, and two elections have been held. Now comes the hard part.

But just as the real struggle for Afghanistan's future begins, the U.S. Army is strained to the breaking point by the war in Iraq and the Bush administration is reportedly planning to withdraw thousands of troops. It's hard to imagine a worse idea.

At the edge of the roadmap, Afghan President Hamid Karzai is facing terra cognita in the form of three old, intractable problems: drugs, thugs and insurgents. Opium, warlords and radical Islamism have plagued Afghanistan for decades. Now they are beginning to blend into a perfect storm.Opium production has grown exponentially since 2001, and by some estimates, as much as 60 percent of the country's GDP is either generated by or dependent on it. As many as 90 percent of Afghanistan's police chiefs reportedly are involved in or protecting the drug trade. Counter-narcotics efforts to date can be most kindly described as disappointing.

Politically, the good news is women won more seats in parliament in the September elections than the 25 percent mandated by a constitutional quota. The bad news is that at least half the seats will be held by the same old warlords, ex-communists and hard-line Islamists who helped complete the destruction of Afghanistan begun by the Soviets in 1979 by fighting one another in the 1990s.

Among them are Mawlawi Mohammed Islam Mohammedi, the former Taliban governor of Bamian who supervised the destruction of the ancient giant Buddhas; and Ustad Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, cited by Human Rights Watch as a war criminal. Most members of this rogues' gallery still maintain armed militias, often masquerading as police, and are involved in the drug trade. Few of them support Karzai, making a return of the acrimonious parliamentary gridlock of the 1990s likely.

Completing the sense of deja vu is the insurgency in the south. The Taliban is just the most recent incarnation of a century-old rift between a modernizing urban minority and a conservative, rural Islamist majority. U.S. pronouncements that the Taliban is finished, made annually for the last four years, ring increasingly hollow and demonstrate a profound lack of understanding of Afghanistan. Taliban attacks have grown in number and lethality every year since 2001.

Now, most alarmingly, evidence is growing of a deadly nexus of huge drug profits, the Taliban and a new, globalized jihad. Foreign fighters are appearing in Afghanistan. Afghans are going to Iraq for training, and Afghan drug money appears to be funding it.

What I saw as a State Department political officer in Washington and in the combat zone along the Pakistan border made it clear that the Taliban is waging not an "offensive" but a strategic defensive play. It is delaying meaningful development in the Pushtun tribal belt in the south by killing or frightening away development organizations.

Meanwhile, I heard every day of Taliban agents leaving "night letters" among the villages. The propaganda leaflets warned that the Americans would soon leave Afghanistan, and they threatened deadly reprisals against collaborators as soon as we are gone. So far, their strategy is largely working. Far less is being accomplished in the south than in the north.

Hope for Afghanistan's future begins with security in the rural areas and the gradual development of the rule of law outside the urban centers. The current level of 18,000 troops represents the lowest per-capita commitment of U.S. forces to a post-conflict mission since World War II. U.S. forces are already stretched too thin on the ground to provide the umbrella of reliable security that would foster development, enable counter-narcotics work, weed out the armed gangs, professionalize the police and defeat the insurgents.

There are only two companies of infantry and no helicopters in all of Paktika province, for example, an area the size of Vermont. I often saw our "quick reaction forces" in Humvees take four hours to traverse 30 miles of boulder-strewn trails to reach the scene of a Taliban attack.

NATO is scheduled to take over full military control in 2006, but it lacks the political will and the capability to conduct a counterinsurgency. Afghan security forces are 10 years from self-sufficiency.

The Pentagon has played a numbers game for three years with the fledgling Afghan army, which looks big on paper but has virtually no ability to move itself, sustain itself or fight by itself. In Paktika, Afghan soldiers were carted to operations in rented civilian trucks and quietly given MREs to keep them from going hungry.

Far from withdrawing troops, the United States needs to deploy at least another full brigade of infantry to the combat zone, together with far more helicopters. It needs to switch to a proven counterinsurgency strategy based on more frequent, less-invasive rural patrols, respect for the local culture, road paving, secure hamlets and rapid airborne response to guerrilla activity.

The uncharted road ahead will be harder and more dangerous than the road behind, and reducing U.S. troop levels any time soon would be disastrous.

(Chris Mason was an Afghanistan policy officer at the State Department from 2001-05 and is a senior fellow at the Center for Advanced Defense Studies.)

Details Emerge on a Brazen Escape in Afghanistan - By ERIC SCHMITT and TIM GOLDEN The New York Times Published: December 4, 2005

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 - The prisoners were considered some of the most dangerous men among the hundreds of terror suspects locked behind the walls of a secretive and secure American military detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan. Their escape, however, might as well have been a breakout from the county jail.

According to military officials familiar with the episode, the suspects are believed to have picked the lock on their cell, changed out of their bright orange uniforms and made their way through a heavily guarded military base under the cover of night. They then crawled over a faulty wall where a getaway vehicle was apparently waiting for them, the officials said.

"It is embarrassing and amazing at the same time," an American defense official said. "It was a disaster."

The fact of the escape was disclosed by the American authorities shortly after it set off an intense manhunt at Bagram, 40 miles north of Kabul, on the morning of July 11. But internal military documents and interviews with military and intelligence officials indicate it was a far more serious breach than the Defense Department has acknowledged.

One of the four suspects was identified as Al Qaeda's highest-ranking operative in Southeast Asia when he was captured in 2002, a fact that emerged only during an unrelated military trial last month. Another, a Saudi, was also described by intelligence officials as an important Qaeda operative in Afghanistan.

The detainees planned their breakout meticulously, United States officials said, apparently studying the guards' routines, getting themselves moved into a cell that was less visible to the guards and taking advantage of construction work that was intended to expand and improve security at the prison.

"Based upon the findings of the investigation, it appears that the detainees had a clear understanding of the operating procedures of the guards inside the facility," said the chief spokesman for United States military forces in Afghanistan, Col. James R. Yonts.

One American intelligence official said the prisoners also took advantage of "a perfect storm" of mistakes by the military guards. The escape is believed to have been the first from one of the detention centers established by the United States for people suspected of being terrorists after 9/11. Military officials, many of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the incident are classified, said there was still much they did not know about how the men escaped.

Although an American military police guard was initially suspected of having helped the prisoners, he was eventually cleared. Half a dozen other soldiers, including officers and sergeants, have received administrative punishments, a senior military official in Afghanistan said.

"It was bizarre to me," said Maj. Gen. Peter Gilchrist of Britain, who served at the time as the deputy commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan in Kabul. "I don't understand how it could happen."

Military officials have often cited the danger posed by the prisoners at Bagram and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as a reason for the extreme security measures and harsh conditions there. Prisoners are typically shackled by their hands and feet when outside their cells and rarely move without an escort of at least two guards. During interrogations, they have often been forced into uncomfortable "safety positions" or chained to a bolt on the floor.

The two prisoners believed to have led the escape, Omar al-Faruq, a Kuwaiti who was the former Qaeda operative in Southeast Asia, and Muhammad Jafar Jamal al-Kahtani, the Saudi, had for months been awaiting transfer to Guantánamo Bay, officials said. For reasons they have not explained, the military authorities gave different names for both men in announcing the escape last summer.

At the time of Mr. Faruq's arrest in Jakarta, Indonesia, in early June 2002, he was considered one of the most important Qaeda figures ever captured by the United States. Three months later, he told C.I.A. interrogators at Bagram that he had been sent to the region to plan large-scale attacks against American Embassies and other targets there.

Intelligence officials gave differing views on the importance of Mr. Kahtani. One official described him as having been responsible at one point for maintaining Al Qaeda's operational support structure in Afghanistan; another said he was an important Qaeda fighter, but not a senior-level operative.

According to a classified, one-page military report on the escape that was reviewed by The New York Times, those two detainees - along with a Syrian prisoner identified as Abdullah Hashimi and a Kuwaiti named Mahmoud Ahmad Muhammad - were being held with four other men in Cell 119, on the ground floor of the Bagram prison.

A senior military official said each of the prisoners who escaped was moved into the cell in the days before his escape after causing problems with other detainees. The main cells at Bagram are large wire cages that can be easily surveyed by guards patrolling the catwalks above them. Cell 119, by contrast, was somewhat apart and out of the way, officials said. Asked whether the prisoners might have fabricated the disturbances to be moved together into Cell 119, the senior official said, "The investigation revealed credible factors that support this theory."

After a head count of prisoners at 1:50 a.m. on July 11, the military report states, the sergeant of the guard on duty at the detention center, now called the Bagram Theater Internment Facility, reported all of them accounted for, the report states.

About two hours later, at 3:45 a.m., as the detainees were being roused for the morning prayer, the four detainees were discovered missing from their cell. The military police battalion on duty at the prison, Task Force Cerberus, immediately locked down the prison and began a search, the report said.

How the men got out of their cell remains a mystery, officials said. Two senior military officials said some equipment was temporarily moved beside the cell, partly obstructing the guards' view. One senior military official said investigators believe the prisoners managed to pick the lock with implements they had fashioned while detained.

There were also suspicions that one of the American military guards, who had had disciplinary problems, might have deliberately left the door open, two senior officials said. But those suspicions were eventually discounted and the guard was never charged, they said.

The four men escaped out the southeast door of the main prison building, the report said. Military and intelligence officials said the detainees left behind their bright orange prison uniforms, apparently changing into less conspicuous blue prison garb that they might have somehow hidden in their cells or knew where to find elsewhere.

At the time, several officials said, construction crews had been working to expand and reinforce the prison, a cavernous aircraft machine-shop built by the Soviet military during its occupation of Afghanistan and converted by the American military into its primary screening center for terror suspects captured overseas. The breakout took place only days before a series of tougher security measures, including surveillance cameras and brighter lighting, were to be put in place.

The American forces have released more than 250 Taliban and other prisoners from Bagram this year as part of an Afghan national reconciliation program. Still, they have had to refurbish the prison to hold the roughly 500 detainees who remain.

The escapees also appear to have taken advantage of the construction work to move through an exercise yard and out of the prison compound. Another indication that the four men might have received help in their escape, officials said, was the apparent speed with which they found their way through a maze of buildings and roads to a small, damaged section of the perimeter wall surrounding the vast Bagram Air Base.

Once they found the faulty section of the packed-dirt wall, officials said, the detainees were able to crawl beneath the concertina wire that topped the barrier and drop down on the other side in an area of agricultural fields and abandoned homes.

"There were three or four points where they could have been caught," one American intelligence official said. "The escapees got very lucky." Within minutes of the escape, American forces began fanning out across and outside the prison, concentrating on the area near the faulty section of the wall. As the base sirens blared an alert and Cobra and Black Hawk helicopters hovered overhead, American soldiers and Afghan policemen scoured fields and homes in the area.

The district police chief, Colonel Assadullah, said in an interview in Bagram that he was asked to have his men search for a yellow pickup truck, which was apparently seen leaving the area. The district governor, Kabir Ahmad, said the Afghan authorities set up checkpoints on the highway leading to Kabul and other roads in the area, but turned up nothing suspicious.

Military officials said American soldiers questioned laborers who had been working at the prison, as well as local Afghan officials. But no arrests were made, and neither Afghans working at the base nor American officials said they knew of any laborers fired as a result of the inquiry.

In a recent interview, a former Bagram prisoner, Moazzam Begg, said he had heard during his detention there that American intelligence officers had once proposed staging an escape to release a detainee whom they wanted to act as a double agent against Al Qaeda. He said he had no knowledge that any such scheme had been carried out, and several American officials strongly dismissed the idea that that had happened with Mr. Faruq and the others.

In a videotape delivered to the Pakistan bureau of the Arab-language satellite television station Al Arabiya, Mr. Kahtani boasted about the preparations for the escape, suggesting that they had been painstaking.

[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.]