In this bulletin:

· President Karzai Meets With H.E. Jose Socrates, the Prime Minister of Portugal
· Portuguese PM make surprise visit to Afghanistan
· Arif Noorzai, Fozia Kofi elected deputy speakers of parliament
· Parliamentary Secretary and Deputy-Secretary Chosen
· Afghan ex-intelligence chief to go on trial
· Al Qaeda's Zawahri praises Taliban in audio tape-TV
· Armed and dangerous: Taliban gear up
· A Year of Peaks and Valleys
· Rocky maybe, but good
· Not Just a Pretty Face
· No School Today
· Spiraling Fuel Costs Hit Home
· Pakistan: Refugees help quake survivors come in from the cold
· Reed To Visit Iraq, Afghanistan

President Karzai Meets With H.E. Jose Socrates, the Prime Minister of Portugal - Date of Release: 24 December 2005

Arg, Kabul – H.E. Hamid Karzai, President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, met with H.E. Jose Socrates, the Prime Minister of Portugal this afternoon at the Gul Khana palace.

During this meeting, the President and Prime Minister Socrates discussed bilateral relations, Portugal’s assistance to the security of Afghanistan and the establishment of the parliament.

The President thanked Prime Minister Socrates for the significant contribution from Portuguese troops serving with International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which is responsible for security in Kabul.

The President said, “With the international community’s assistance and the Afghan people’s strong determination, we have made significant achievements during the past four years. Despite our achievements, we have a lot of challenges ahead of us and need the international community’s continued assistance.”

Prime Minister Socrates congratulated the President and the people of Afghanistan on establishment of the parliament and said, “I hope this parliament will lead Afghanistan towards greater stability and democracy.”

Released by the Office of the Spokesman to the President - Islamic Republic of Afghanistan

Portuguese PM make surprise visit to Afghanistan

LISBON, Dec. 24 (Xinhuanet) -- Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates made an unannounced visit to Afghanistan Saturday to meet Portugal's peacekeepers in the country, local media reports quoted a government official as saying.

Socrates was being accompanied by Defence Minister Luis Amado and top military officers on his first visit to the country, said the reports. He dined with Portuguese troops responsible for running Kabul's airport. Socrates is also scheduled to hold talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

The first batch of Portuguese troops arrived in the war-torn Asian country in 2002. Portugal currently has 156 troops with the 10,500-strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan.

Arif Noorzai, Fozia Kofi elected deputy speakers of parliament

KABUL (AIP) - The new Afghan parliament elected deputy speakers here on Thursday. Muhammad Arif Noorzai and Fozia Kofi were elected as deputy speakers of Wolesi Jirga by the parliament. A total of five candidates were in the run for the first seat of deputy speaker in which Engineer Muhammad Arif Noorzai secured 76 votes and won the seat while other candidates including Mustafa Kazmi bagged 59, Haji Muhammad Huhaqiq 40, Mirwais Yasini 49 and Muhammad Naeem Farahi 10.

For the second seat of deputy speaker of Wolesi Jirg ten aspirants were in the field but Fozia Kofi defeated all her nine rivals by securing 49 votes. Other candidates including Ahmad Farid 37, Asfi Shadab 26, Baidar Zai 22, Maulvi Attaullah Lodhin 31, Taj Muhammad Mujahid 19, Sibghatullah Zaki 16, Abdul Salam Qazizada 10, and another candidate gained 7 votes.

Elections for the speaker of Wolesi Jirga were held yesterday in which Muhammad Younus Qanooni was elected as speaker of Woelsi Jirga by securing 122 votes.

Parliamentary Secretary and Deputy-Secretary Chosen

The Lower House of the Afghan Parliament voted for Mohamad Rahman Oghali, deputy from Faryab province, in the post of Secretary, and for Saleh Mohamad Saljouki, an MP from Herat province as Deputy-Secretary of the House on Saturday. (BBC online)

Afghan ex-intelligence chief to go on trial – Xinhua 12/24/2005

KABUL - The Afghan government would try former intelligence chief Assadullah Sarwari on charge of systematic killing of opponents and violating human rights, a local newspaper reported on Saturday.

"The trial of Assadullah Sarwari would begin soon," the newspaper Arman-e-Millie reported.

Sarwari, who served as head of intelligence service during the then pro-Soviet Union regime in 1979, has been accused of arbitrary arresting, torturing and killing hundreds of the politician opponents during that period.

Sarwari was arrested last decade and being kept in custody since then. Two more former intelligence officials on similar charges have been tried and sentenced to prison in Holland last month.

Al Qaeda's Zawahri praises Taliban in audio tape-TV

Dubai (Reuters) - Al Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri praised the Taliban, saying the Islamic movement still controlled large parts of Afghanistan, according to an audio tape aired by Al Arabiya television on Saturday.

Al Arabiya said the date of the tape, which it said it had just obtained, could not be determined and made no mention of recent events.

The speaker on the tape, who sounded like earlier recordings attributed to Zawahri, said: "Muslims ... still control large parts of Eastern and Southern Afghanistan and are carrying out a consistent guerrilla warfare against the crusaders and the apostates."

The satellite television aired only a brief portion of the tape, which appeared to be of a poorer audio quality than other recordings attributed to Zawahri, Osama bin Laden's second-in-command.

Bin Laden and Zawahri have eluded capture since U.S.-led forces toppled Afghanistan's Taliban government in 2001 after the September 11 attacks on the United States blamed on al Qaeda.

They are believed to be hiding in the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Taliban fighters, waging an insurgency against the U.S.-backed Kabul government and U.S. forces, have recently stepped up attacks.

More than 1,100 people have been killed in violence in Afghanistan this year, including about 60 U.S. troops. In an audio tape posted on the Internet earlier this month, Zawahri praised Islamic militants in Iraq, saying they were forcing U.S. troops to look for a way out of the Arab country.

Armed and dangerous: Taliban gear up - By Syed Saleem Shahzad, Bureau Chief, Pakistan, Asia Times Online December 22, 2005

KARACHI - Any resistance movement is generally only as good as the weapons it uses, and that is something that has bedeviled the poorly-equipped Taliban-led anti-US forces in Afghanistan for a long time.

The resistance has steadily taken steps, though, to beef up its arsenal to include modern automatic weapons and ground-to-air missiles. This it has done in part by forging closer links with the resistance in Iraq, as well as with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka.

According to intelligence sources who spoke to Asia Times Online, al-Qaeda concluded that its attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000 was a failure, even though 17 American sailors were killed. As a result, al-Qaeda sent a team to the LTTE to gain expertise in maritime combat operations. The LTTE, as part of its longstanding battle against the Sri Lankan government, has developed a relatively sophisticated maritime wing.

The interaction was brief and inconclusive, and al-Qaeda subsequently rejected the idea of maritime combat, deciding instead to fight the United States on land. Nevertheless, the links established between the two groups were to prove useful in another way.

Pakistani intelligence sources say that al-Qaeda now works with the LTTE to get weapons, including automatic arms and ground-to-air missiles. The weapons are paid for in cash, as well as in drugs originating from Afghanistan, according to the sources. The drugs primarily are sent to Scandinavian countries and Thailand, the latter being a traditional base from which the LTTE has smuggled weapons.

"This is a perfect arrangement as resources are complemented - the Tigers get ideological support, while regular arms supplies on the other hand go to al-Qaeda, which ultimately feeds its fronts in Iraq and Afghanistan," said the source.

"The smuggling channels are the same that the Tamil Tigers have adopted for years [with international arms cartels]. The latest weapons originate through arm dealers, as well as those stolen from arms depots and shipped from South America and Lebanon. They are transferred from ship to ship and sometimes offloaded at small ports, and from there, using various channels, they reach the final destination," the source said.

In the mountains and on the plains of Afghanistan, the resistance operates in several ways, ranging from suicide bombings to attacking convoys and brief pitched battles.

"But an air defense system [ground-to-air missiles] can break the back [of the enemy] in low-intensity conflicts," a top Pakistani security official told Asia Times Online.

"The resistance movement in Afghanistan has now acquired that system in bulk. There are possibilities that some pieces will also have been supplied to Iraq. As soon as this system comes into full action, drastic results will come," he said.

After the Taliban retreated in the face of the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, the Afghan resistance was largely scattered. The Taliban did preserve some heavy weapons, but these could not be easily accessed due to the strong US military presence, and many caches were seized.

Furthermore, some of the armory, especially missiles, required special storage facilities to prevent exposure to harsh climatic conditions, but this was not possible, and the weapons were damaged.

Slowly, as the resistance took firmer root and with the help of money from foreign Arab fighters who had fled to the tribal areas of South and North Waziristan in Pakistan, the resistance acquired missiles, guns and ammunition from the indigenous home-made arms industry at Dara Adam Khel near Peshawar.

However, these arms were of poor quality and simply not good enough to take on the US-led forces in Afghanistan. For instance, the home-made M16 rifles were only semi-automatic and the G-3 rifles lacked the original specifications and accuracy which had made the original version of the weapon popular. Locally-made rockets did not fly properly and lacked sensors, which made them all but useless.

Authentic weapons are, of course, expensive. Now the Taliban has solved this problem by tapping into Afghanistan's - and the world's - richest cash crop, poppies. Using contacts among the warlords who control the drug trade, the Taliban are able to divert some of the money, which is then earmarked for weapons purchases.

With the drug money and the networks of the LTTE, the Afghan resistance is now well positioned to sufficiently arm itself to take its war with foreign forces in Afghanistan to a new level.

A Year of Peaks and Valleys - The Century Foundation 12/23/2005, Carl Robichaud

This year has been a turbulent one for Afghanistan, with both historic progress and daunting setbacks. On the positive side, the country's convened an elected parliament for the first time since 1973, its first female governor took office, and economic growth remained strong. Afghans remain optimistic about their future: according to a recent ABC News poll, 77 percent of Afghans believe their country is headed in the right direction (versus only 30 percent of Americans who feel the same way about their country). The majority of Afghans report better living conditions (85 percent) and improved freedom (80 percent) compared to the Taliban era. Yet Afghanistan took steps backward in several sectors, and fulfilling these expectations will be difficult.

State building - Efforts to fight corruption have stagnated and efforts to strengthen the state, especially in the provinces, have had mixed success. The country ranks among the world's poorest, and the government is incapable of providing even basic security or services—even with a billion dollars in international aid. As donor fatigue sets in, Afghanistan's window of opportunity closed another inch this year.

Security - The re-emergence of the Taliban made this the bloodiest year since 2001, and the insurgency's increased efficiency and brutality showed the influence of Iraqi tactics. Even if the Taliban never again become players on the national stage, their attacks, and those of foreign jihadists, raise the costs and complexity of development efforts.

Human rights - The United States came under fire this year for several troubling scandals. In March, M. Cherif Bassiouni, the United Nations independent expert on human rights in Afghanistan, concluded a year of research with a report that identified "arbitrary arrest, illegal detentions and abuses committed by the United States-led Coalition forces." Long before Condoleezza Rice faced accusations over U.S. secret prisons in Europe, Dana Priest revealed alleged human rights violations in 2002 and 2003 at the "Salt Pit," a U.S.-sponsored detention facility in Afghanistan. In mid-October, U.S. forces burned the corpses of two Taliban fighters and used them to taunt insurgents. While America's image is still positive among Afghans, with 83 percent favorable toward the United States, almost a third (30 percent) now report that attacks on U.S. military forces could be justified. A closer look at the best and worst moments of 2005:

Security

Highlight: NATO agrees to a larger role: NATO finally agreed to take a more assertive role in Afghanistan, expanding its operations next year to the southern provinces and adding an extra 6,000 soldiers. NATO currently deploys 9,000 troops in Afghanistan, the vast majority of them in low-conflict regions. While the exact mandate of the new forces remains unclear—these will be peacekeepers operating in areas where peace is not established—it's an encouraging sign of burden-sharing and should provide much-needed security to Afghan civilians.

Low point: Suicide bombing in Kandahar: A June 1 bomb in a Kandahar mosque that killed 19 and injured 52, mostly civilians, was the most lethal in a wave of almost twenty suicide attacks this year. There is evidence, direct and anecdotal, that indigenous Taliban and foreign insurgents have imported the tactics of Iraq into Afghanistan, a country where suicide attacks were once rare.

Afghan security: Because the U.S. military remains focused on counterterrorism, security has not dramatically improved for Afghan civilians, who continue to face coercion from militia leaders, strongmen, and drug lords.

Governance and Rule of Law

Highlight: Parliamentary Elections: The Afghan people made their voices heard at the polls, with 6.8 of 12 million registered voters showing up to vote for the national assembly and provincial councils. The electoral process was flawed and there were indications that voters felt disempowered. almost half (46 percent) of Afghans believed there was voter fraud and participation was down by 30 percent in Kabul compared to last year's presidential polls. Nevertheless, vote buying and intimidation were insufficient to deter optimism. three-quarters of Afghans report having faith in the new parliament.

Low point: Human rights abusers elected: The elections signaled the entry into official power of some of the country's worst war criminals. A prime example is Abdul Rabb Rasoul Sayyaf, an eloquent former jihadi, who came just five votes short of becoming Chairman of the Wolesi Jirga. Sayyaf's abuses have been extensively documented by Human Rights Watch. He is not alone, either. HRW estimates that 60 percent of the new representatives are linked to militias and many stand accused of abuses. Will elected office transform these leaders and make them more accountable? It's possible. But the first session of the assembly does not bode well. Malalai Joya, a female minister, was shouted down when she criticized human rights abusers in the parliament.

Economy
Highlight: IMF reports "strong" performance: A May IMF review described Afghanistan 's progress: "Output continued to grow steadily. Core inflation remained limited. Money growth and fiscal revenue were in line with program projections. All structural benchmarks but one were met. This performance bodes well for the long-term course of the economy." The IMF expects GDP to rise to 13 percent next year. Inaugural Development Data Released: For the first time, the UNDP released an Afghan Human Development Report. This data is indispensable: in its absence, it is virtually impossible to plan effective interventions and measure progress.

Low point: Failure to provide alternative livelihoods: In Nangahar, as in other regions, the international community failed to provide meaningful aid to farmers who gave up their only cash crop. As Barnett Rubin describes it, Afghans were enticed by roads, dams, electric power, and fertilizers; instead "USAID allocated $71 million to alternative livelihoods in Nangahar which means they gave $71 million dollars to two Washington-based consulting firms . . . they paid people to dig ditches they didn't need and paid them $3 a day to do it. I have photographs of these activities, actually. This was not what people thought was coming." The U.N. narcotics office has already stated that it expects poppy cultivation to increase next year. It's no surprise, given the broken promises to last year's growers.

Counterterrorism
Highlight: Killing of Hamza Rabia: In December, an unmanned predator drone launched a missile which killed Hamza Rabia, a key Al Qaeda operative who may have ranked as high as number three in the global network. Military success against the Taliban: The U.S.-led Coalition continues to defeat the Taliban in every engagement it fights. Yet long-term success or failure will hinge not on military success but on efforts to isolate insurgents, especially by cutting off support from Pakistan . The scope of recent fighting suggests that the Taliban and their allies have been able to replace their ranks and operate effectively even with the loss of over 200 fighters this year. So far, amnesty programs have had limited success.

Low point: Escape of four high-level al Qaeda operatives: In an embarrassing setback, four top terrorist suspects escaped from a U.S. detention facility in Bagram in July. The group included Omar al-Faruq, a Kuwaiti who headed operations in Southeast Asia and had been considered "one of the most important Qaeda figures ever captured by the United States." Increase in foreign jihadists in Afghanistan: More and more foreign fighters are appearing among the ranks of the insurgency, suggesting a failure to prevent the flow of arms, funds and militants across borders. The U.S. has not gained Pakistan's full cooperation in addressing the threat.

Carl Robichaud is a program officer at The Century Foundation.

Rocky maybe, but good – MichNews 12/23/2005 By J. Grant Swank, Jr.

It's looking good. Rocky maybe, but good. Afghanistan's lower house in parliament just chose a man who opposed Hamid Karzai. It once was Yonus Qanooni versus Hamid Karzai in last year's president race. Karzai won. Now Qanooni wins the lower house of the new assembly.

Karzai confronts working with powers shared with his heretofore main rival for national headship. That will work. That will work if both men keep their initial promises. There's a winner's chance that they will do just that.

"'I will not be in opposition to the government,' Qanooni said. 'What has happened in the past, we should forget that. We should think about the future of Afghanistan.'

"Karzai spokesman Karim Rahimi called Qanooni's selection a 'very positive step. . . . He is a very capable man, and we think in the future there will be very good cooperation between the cabinet and the parliament.'"

Both men are well educated and exhibited noble manners. Both seek the good of the country's future. Therefore, rocky maybe, but good.

The two men have their political hands full. The new democracy base has to find its balance. Yet if it looks at the US Congress for example, it may conclude that rocky most of the time is a good thing if the boat does not totally capsize.

Consequently, the free world needs to be extremely patient with Afghanistan's fresh parliament. Even the veterans in the US Congress have their rows aplenty. And the issues usually are complicated enough to keep tempers at high pitch.

Afghanistan officials now face their own issues: corruption, warlords power versus a democracy, opium poppy cultivation, legalistic Islamic pressure, and the place of the multinational forces in Afghanistan.
Yet, as US President George W. Bush has accented over and over, it is patience in time that wins the race. Anything worthwhile is not concluded in a day.

The press would have it so; but life will not have it so. The liberal media in particular would have perfection performed yesterday; but that's not reality. It's the same with the US Democratic Party. They would have the Bush administration performing perfectly yesterday; but they themselves cannot even get a workable, practical platform in place for America's future.

So on with the show in Afghanistan. Patience. Time. Cordiality. "Despite their differences, Karzai and Qanooni are well-educated political moderates in a country in which both Islamic scholars and communist figures have significant followings," according to The Washington Post's Griff Witte Foreign Service report.

"The voting was orderly, with officials publicly counting and recounting the votes during a process that took the entire day. "'It was very peaceful and there was transparency,' said the candidate defeated by Qanooni following his defeat. 'I congratulate Mr. Qanooni.'"

Not Just a Pretty Face – IWPR 12/23/2005 By Wahidullah Amani and Salima Ghafari in Kabul

The undisputed heroine of Afghanistan's recent parliamentary elections is a little-known businesswoman from the conservative western province of Herat.

Fawzia Gailani's success is little short of astounding in a country where, until just four years ago, women were not allowed to work or go to school. She came first out of 162 candidates in Herat – the only woman to take the top spot in any of Afghanistan's 34 provinces. And with close to 17,000 votes, she was, by a large margin, the country's top woman vote getter.

The female stars of the race, political heavyweights such as Kabul's Shukria Barakzai or Nangahar's Safia Seddiqi, received just a fraction of Gailani's impressive total. Seddiqi, a poet who rose to political prominence during the emergency Loya Jirga, came in third in Nangahar, with just over 9,000 votes. Barakzai, a political analyst and editor, came 24th in Kabul's race with approximately 2,200 votes.

Gailani, a diminutive 33-year-old mother of six, is convinced that it was her unstinting service to the province that secured her a seat. But many in Herat – both supporters and detractors – hint that her looks and her large and ubiquitous campaign posters secured the win. "Fawzia was not well-known in Herat," said Nahid Baqi, a student at the literature department at Herat University. "Certainly her posters had something to do with it."

Since her victory, Gailani has received a lot of media attention, and some of it has not been kind. Newspaper pieces hinting that her appearance, rather than her intellect or acuity, attracted voters make her angry.

"It is absolutely not true that people voted for me because of the posters," she said. "I established courses for women in Herat to teach them English, computer courses and the Holy Koran."

She also launched the city's first fitness centre for women – continuing a line of work she began as a refugee in Iran, where she spent 16 years during the wars and strife that have plagued Afghanistan's recent history.

But analysts believe that the real reason for Gailani's surprising success is her last name. The Gailani family is an illustrious one in Afghanistan, as bearers of a Sufi Muslim tradition. Family members played a prominent role among the mujahedin resistance to the Soviet invastion, and gained more kudos by staying out of the bloody internecine conflict that followed the collapse of communist rule in 1992.

"Gailani is a religious family," said Fazel Rahman Oria, a political analyst and editor of the monthly magazine Payam. "They command great respect, especially in Paktika, Herat, and Nangarhar."

In voting for Fawzia, people were giving voice to their trust in the Gailanis, he said, though added that she is accomplished in her own right. "Fawzia did things for people in Herat," said Oria. "That is why she got so many votes. But her family name certainly helped her."

Habubullah Rafi, political analyst and member of the Academy of Sciences, agrees that family connections helped. "The name Gailani is a bright one in Afghanistan. People respect them," he said.
Faiz Mohammad Gailani, Fawzia's husband, supported his wife throughout the campaign. He travelled with her on the stump, helping to ensure her safety in a country where women candidates were often intimidated, sometimes even attacked.

In a country where men have enjoyed undisputed dominance for centuries, this makes him quite unusual. "I am totally satisfied with my husband," said Gailani with a smile.

She will now sit shoulder-to-shoulder in parliament with some of the most notorious people in her country's history. The new legislature contains many who have been dubbed warlords or even criminals by domestic and international human rights bodies. But Gailani isn't fazed by the prospect.

"I am confident that the new parliament will work unanimously for the nation. I am not afraid," she said. "If there is a dispute in parliament, I will defend issues in the national interest."

She dismisses the widespread criticism of the elections, saying that overall the process was fair and well run. "There were some small frauds, but it wasn't enough to bring the entire process into question," she said.

Gailani is a high-school graduate in a country where up to 80 per cent of the population is illiterate. And with her fitness centre she is also a pioneer in business. But she acknowledges that Afghanistan may not be ready for women to take their place alongside men in public life.

"Women received many fewer votes than men," she said. "This is because of the security situation, because of fear and weakness among women themselves. It is a great accomplishment that women will have 68 seats in the [lower house of parliament], but women need more chances."

Gailani makes her own chances. According to student Nahid Baqi, it was also Fawzia's gutsy and aggressive campaign that convinced voters.

"She was always going to remote areas of Herat," said Baqi. "She was not afraid to go places where men congregated. She did not restrict her campaigning only to women. "Most of the people who voted for her were ordinary people, and that was because of her campaign."

No School Today - Girls in Kandahar are being denied an education because of tradition and security concerns. By Wahidullah Amani in Kandahar (ARR No. 198, 23-Dec-05) Institute for War & Peace Reporting

Wazhma is in the seventh grade at Zarghona Ana High School in Kandahar. This makes her an exception in this conservative southern province and Taleban stronghold, where, according to some estimates, less than one girl in ten receives even a primary education.

“There are 60 or 70 houses in my neighbourhood,” said the solemn 16-year-old. “But there is only one other girl who goes to school. Many of my friends want to go but their fathers won’t let them. Our neighbours make fun of us, of my family, and say that we are not good people because I’m going to school. I don’t listen to them.”

According to the Afghan constitution, education is a universal right and obligation. Parents are required to send both boys and girls to school up to the 12th grade. But in practice the law is almost universally flouted, and the government appears powerless to do anything about it.

“Yes, it is true that the constitution guarantees the right to education,” said Hayatullah Rafiqi, head of the department of education for Kandahar province. “But we cannot send soldiers to people’s houses to demand that fathers send their daughters to school. If we tried, nobody would send their children to school, because the government would be pushing them. It would be counterproductive.”

Under the Taleban, girls were banned from education, and girls’ schools were closed. Since the regime’s demise more than four years ago, the government has put money and effort into getting girls back into the classroom. Indeed, female school attendance is hailed as one of the new administration’s major accomplishments.

Rafiqi insists that Kandahar is doing well in this regard: According to his figures, 70 per cent of school-age girls in the provincial capital are attending school. Across the province, Rafiqi said 40 per cent are doing so.

“A lot more people are ready to let their daughters go to school than in the period before the Taleban,” said Rafiqi. “The department of education has programmes on television promoting female education, to convince parents that school is not a bad place. We have a lot of refugees returning from Pakistan and Iran – they saw educated women there, and are ready to let their daughters study.” But his numbers just do not add up, insist education workers.

“The government gives these numbers to show their success,” said Rangina Hamidi, head of Afghans for Civil Society, a non-government organisation. “But it is just not true.” Hamidi estimates that no more than ten per cent of girls in the provincial capital are in school, and that the numbers are far lower in rural areas.

Even Rafiqi acknowledges that only 24,000 of the 130,000 students in Kandahar’s schools are girls. There are only 12 girls’ schools in the entire province, compared with 328 for boys.

Abdul Wahed is principal of the Zarghona Ana school. He has 1,600 students and 60 teachers, three them men. Zarghona Ana is one of only four high schools in Kandahar that educates girls, and it caters for the daughters of government employees and businessmen.

“We are running out of room - we have some of our classes in tents,” said Wahed. “But we do not reject anyone. We provide transport for girls who live far away from the school. People are worried about security but we still are getting more and more girls every day.”

But the pull of tradition is strong in Kandahar, the area where the Taleban movement first took off, still a bastion of conservative Pashtun tradition.

Mahmad Omar, 35, has a small business selling gas. He has seven children - three boys and four girls. One son works with him, the other two are in school. But all his daughters are at home.

“School is not for girls,” he said. “I don’t let them go. Girls should be at home. If they go to school, people will see them on the street, and that would be very shameful for me.”

Omar is convinced that education runs contrary to Islamic tradition, “After they go to school, girls think that they can go anywhere, that they do not have to wear the hijab [head covering], and that they don’t have to hide their faces. Islam does not accept that.”

Asefa, 18, is one of the lucky few that are in school. But she has to run the gauntlet of condemning looks every day. “Men in the street laugh at me, and call me names,” she said. “They say, ‘Why are you going to school? You’re a girl and you don’t need this.’ But I begged my family for months to let me go, and they finally did.”

Many of her friends have dropped out of school, unable to face the stares and the jeers, she said. Even those who are theoretically in favour of female education are nervous about the security situation. Kandahar is unstable and, some say, getting worse, with a rise in suicide bombings and armed clashes between insurgents and the security forces. The Taleban may be gaining ground thanks to a rising tide of discontent with the foreign troop presence.

“I like school,” said Amanullah, 52. “I have five children, two girls and three boys. The boys are going to school, but the girls are not. “I’m uncertain about their security - I can’t allow something to happen to them in the streets or in school. I know that educated people are good and I want to educate my children, but not now. My daughters beg me every day to let them go to school. I say, ‘If the situation improves, I promise I will let you go.’”

That promise may not be realised soon. In the past year, 150 schools have closed throughout the province, said an education worker with a local non-government agency who asked not to be identified. One school principal has been killed and teachers have been threatened. In several districts “night letters” - covertly distributed pamphlets - have been distributed warning parents not to send their daughters to school and threatening violence to those who do not heed the warning. At least seven schools have been set on fire.

In one district, Maruf, all the schools have been closed for the last nine months following a campaign of intimidation. In others, such as Dand, Maiwand, and Panjuai, they are open only intermittently, depending on the security situation. Much of the strife is attributed to the Taleban. But, maintains Hamidi, the anti-education tradition predates the fundamentalist group.

“When my family were refugees in Quetta [Pakistan] 20 years ago, we received the same kind of warnings,” said Hamidi, who grew up and was educated in the United States. “My father had to take us out of school. There was no Taleban then.”

The only solution is for the government to get more serious about education, say observers. A concerted effort by officials, education professionals, and religious scholars is needed if female education in Kandahar is to make any headway. But these same observers say the government does not have the resolve to go against tradition and prejudice.

“The government does not care about education,” said one worker with a non-governmental agency who declined to be identified. “They could open the schools if they wanted to.”

Wahidullah Amani is an IWPR staff reporter in Kabul.

Spiraling Fuel Costs Hit Home

The rising price of fuel has left many Kabul residents angry with the government. By Abdul Baseer Saeed in Kabul (ARR No. 198, 23-Dec-05)

Institute for War & Peace Reporting

Abdul Jabar, 35, tries to provide for his family by selling vegetables from a street cart. But what his family has come to rely on most is the wooden boxes in which the produce is packed. No longer able to afford fuel to heat their home, they have taken to burning the boxes as their only source of heat.

“My three children all have bronchitis,” said Jabar, rubbing his hands to keep warm in the cold morning air. “They can’t sleep because of the cold. And it is not even winter yet.

“Is this democracy? Is this the free market? When there is no law, when people can sell things for ten times higher than they cost, when poor people die, and the rich enjoy life?”

The cost of most fuels used for heating and cooking have soared over the past year. A litre of diesel fuel, which used to cost about 40 US cents now sells at twice that price. A kilo of liquified gas has risen from 50 cents to more than one dollar, while firewood which last year cost about 50 dollars for just over half a tonne now costs 80 dollars.

Because electricity is available to most private homes for only a few hours every two or three days, fuel is essential to daily life in the capital.

Afghanistan has few domestic sources of energy and relies on neighbouring countries to meet most of its energy needs. Wood is the major source of fuel for many people, but deforestation over the past 30 years means that the supply has steadily decreased.

“We are almost out of wood in eastern and southern Afghanistan,” said Jamal Naser, a timber trader in Kabul. “These are our main sources of wood. So now timber is being brought in illegally from Pakistan.”

Because importing wood from Pakistan is illegal, traders say they often pay bribes to police and customs officials to bring the contraband into the country which, along with transportation costs, further drives up the price.

“Officials along the way charge us money, and we have to rent trucks,” said Naser. People used to use diesel to heat their homes during the winter, but now it has become so expensive that even taxi drivers are having a hard time making ends meet.

The price of diesel fuel has also risen sharply, not only making it more difficult for many to heat their homes but also threatening the livelihood of those who rely on the fuel to earn a living.

“I am tired of driving a cab,” complained Sayed Sharif. “Prices are now double what they were last year, and people are always fighting with us for overcharging.”

The fuel shortage had soured this taxi driver’s view of the current government, “I am tired of this regime. It was wrong of us to chase out the Russians. The socialist regime was humane. The worst regime is capitalism, in which a few rich people live well and the rest of the nation dies.”

The rise in the price of liquefied gas, which many people used for cooking, means that some have turned to other sources of fuel .

Gulab Shah, 40, who sells matches and toilet paper on the street, said that until last month he could afford liquefied gas for cooking but has now been forced to resort to charcoal.

“There is no government to control prices,” he fumed. “This is a city where everyone is irresponsible, and everyone can do as they please. Our businessmen are like dragons. When the Taleban were here, they could control these oppressors. No one would disobey the Taleban.”

Hamidullah Farooqi, head of the Afghan International Chamber of Commerce, ascribes the rise in local fuel prices to increases on the international market, the lack of proper fuel storage facilities in Afghanistan, and wrong-headed policies by oil-exporting countries.

“The policy of the fuel exporters has had a bad effect on the world economy. Afghanistan is linked into the world economy, so it has affected us as well,” he said. Abdul Baseer Saeed is an IWPR staff reporter in Kabul.

Pakistan: Refugees help quake survivors come in from the cold

BALAKOT/MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan, December 22 (UNHCR) – For Afghan men, Abdul Munaf and Dilawar Khan take an uncharacteristic interest in stoves. They go everywhere with one tucked under their arms and constantly adjust it to see how best to protect it.

But Abdul and Dilawar are no galloping gourmets. They are refugees from Afghanistan's Laghman province who are keen to share their stove skills with Pakistanis in need.

"When we first arrived in Pakistan in 1979, we lived in tents like this one," says Abdul, fingering a UNHCR tent in Hassa relief camp near Balakot in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province. "We had to find a way to keep warm in the winter, but stoves were not really safe because the tent could easily catch fire."

To minimise the risk, he built a fireplace – a mud and brick dome – inside the tent and placed a heating stove under it to keep the flames away from the tent's walls. He also made an exhaust pipe for the smoke. "It is much safer for the stove like this," he says.

The two refugees now live in mud houses in Mansehra's Barary camp and have little need for a firewall. But they are still building the fireplace, travelling from camp to camp to suggest to Pakistan's earthquake survivors how they, too, can stay warm in tents while minimizing the risk of fire.

As Abdul moulds the mud for the fireplace, Hassa camp's residents squat in a circle to see the work in progress. The women look on quietly, while the men poke at the structure and ask how it works. The audience has been invited by a camp management support team from Best, a Pakistani non-government organisation contracted by UNHCR to sensitise camp dwellers on hygiene, fire safety and other day-to-day issues in the camp.

Abdul has so far set up these demonstration tents in six camps in the Mansehra and Balakot areas. Fellow Afghan Dilawar is now in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, to build several more. Trained as a tailor in Barary camp, the 27-year-old is taking a break from his sewing shop in Mansehra to spread the word on the fireplace.

"I take two hours to make one," says Dilawar, whose own home was slightly damaged in the October 8 earthquake and who – in an unrelated decision – plans to return to Afghanistan with some 60 families from Barary camp next year.

Shaista, a community mobiliser with the Best team, notes: "The women seem really interested in the mud dome, they say they will use it if the men build it."

The "Afghan fireplace" is just one of several ideas being explored to help quake survivors better winterize themselves. Wary of tent fires, the Pakistan authorities have made other proposals, like designing a stove with a protective metal casing, using hot water bottles or heated platforms.

"No method is fool-proof," says UNHCR's acting emergency coordinator for earthquake relief, Indrika Ratwatte. "It's a matter of prioritising which risk is bigger – hypothermia or fire. Ultimately, it's the government's decision, and we'll try to support it as much as we can."

Regardless of the decision, families will likely continue lighting candles or stoves in tents as temperatures dip. To minimize the risk of tent fires, every military-run camp now has several "fire stops" in prominent places, with information on fire prevention, as well as fire extinguishers and pails filled with sand. Camp management support teams are educating people on the safe use of fire while UNHCR's site planners are encouraging more space between tents to contain fires should they break out.

UNHCR also recommends winterization techniques like pitching the tent in a pit about two feet deep to stay close to the warm ground, using plastic sheets as ground sheeting and to insulate the roof of the tent, and using mattresses and blankets for personal insulation.

The refugee agency is now in its latest round of distributing supplies for winterization, providing each person with three blankets and each tent with two plastic sheets and four mattresses. It has already distributed 20,855 tents, 59,236 plastic sheets, 391,759 blankets, 27,938 jerry cans, 22,453 kitchen sets and 12,519 mattresses in the initial phase, and will supplement these supplies with another 77,000 plastic sheets and 250,000 blankets in this round of distribution.

As lead agency of the camp management cluster, UNHCR is supporting the Pakistan authorities and non-government organisations in 36 planned camps. The agency is also improving living conditions in an increasing number of self-settled camps by sending its technical mobile teams to build latrines, communal kitchens and other infrastructure to provide basic services in these camps.

By Vivian Tan in Balakot, Babar Baloch in Muzaffarabad

Reed To Visit Iraq, Afghanistan - December 23, 2005

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Sen. Jack Reed will make a weeklong visit to Iraq and Afghanistan early next month to gauge progress in the two recovering countries.

The Rhode Island Democrat, who has been a vocal critic of President Bush's war policies, plans to visit government officials, military commanders, aid workers and Rhode Island troops during the trip, aides said Friday.

The trip will be Reed's sixth to Iraq. His last visit there was in October. It will be his fourth trip to Afghanistan. Reed plans to leave Jan. 2 and return seven days later.

In recent weeks, Senate Democratic leaders have asked Reed, who has a military background, to counter a string of major speeches by Bush and other administration officials aimed at rallying public support for the war.

Reed, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, delivered his party's response to President Bush's weekly Saturday radio address on Iraq two weeks ago. He has appeared at press conferences on Capitol Hill and Sunday news talk shows to respond to the White House.

The senator has called on Bush to articulate a clearer, more effective strategy for success in rebuilding Iraq. He has also urged the president to be more candid about what needs to be done to put Iraq on a smoother path to democracy.
Unlike some fellow Democrats, Reed does not support an immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.

The senator graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He is a former Army Ranger who served as a company commander in the 82nd Airborne Division.

[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.]