President Karzai Is Disturbed by and Strongly Condemns Killing of Mullah Abdul Fayaz - Date of Release: - 29 May 2005

Presidential Palace, Kabul – H.E. Hamid Karzai, President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, strongly condemns the killing this afternoon of Mullah Abdul Fayaz, Head of the Ulemas Council of Kandahar, who was shot in his office in Kandahar.

In his reaction to the news, the President said: "I am deeply disturbed by this crime, which is an attack on Islam and on the Ulemas. I strongly condemn the killing of Mullah Abdul Fayaz, who was a person devoted to Islam and at the service of the Afghan people".

The President urged the relevant authorities to investigate the crime and to bring the culprits to justice as soon as possible. The President also presents his heartfelt condolences to the family of Mullah Abdul Fayaz.

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

Leading Afghan cleric shot dead – BBC 05/29/05

Gunmen have killed a leading cleric and opponent of the Taleban in southern Afghanistan, police said. Mawlavi Abdullah Fayaz was attacked by gunmen on a motorcycle as he left his office in the city of Kandahar.

Last week Mr Fayaz, a key supporter of President Hamid Karzai, had given a strong speech denouncing Taleban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar. Taleban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi told AFP it carried out the killing but this was not independently confirmed.

Mr Hakimi said in a telephone call that Mr Fayaz was "preaching against the Taleban under the name of Islam". An aide to Mr Fayez said the cleric had died on the way to hospital. Mr Fayez was head of the government-appointed Islamic scholar's council and had condemned the Taleban last week at a meeting in Kandahar of about 500 clerics. He said Taleban fighters were killing innocent civilians and the government should be supported for trying to rebuild the country.

Taleban insurgents have become more active since a lull over the winter. Scores of militants and a number of Afghan and US-led coalition troops have been killed in the past two months.

Earlier this month, Mullah Omar said he would reject any offer of amnesty from the Afghan government. Kandahar is a former stronghold of the Taleban regime that was ousted by US-led troops in late 2001.

The US-led international force has about 18,000 troops hunting Taleban and al-Qaeda figures, mainly in the south and east of the country. On Friday, at least 11 civilians were killed in an ambush in Kunar province, 170km (106 miles) east of Kabul.

Mohammed Faqir and his relatives and friends were killed when their vehicle was attacked with small arms fire. The motive for the attack was not clear, but a provincial official told the Associated Press it may have been the result of a private feud.

Kidnapped Italian shown in video – BBC 05/29/05

A video showing an Italian aid worker being held hostage in Afghanistan has been aired by a private TV channel. Officials said they believed it was Clementina Cantoni, 32, in apparently good health on the video.

But there was some confusion over the timing of tape as she said: "Today is May 28, Sunday," Reuters reported. Ms Cantoni, who works for Care International, was abducted on 16 May by gunmen who forced her out of her car in central Kabul.

She has been in Afghanistan since September 2003, and manages a programme to support more than 10,000 widows and their children. The brief video showed Ms Cantoni wrapped in a blanket, sitting on the floor between two gunmen with weapons pointed at her head.

Italian foreign ministry spokesman Pasquale Terracciano said the video was "reliable". "Thus it's reassuring that it shows that Cantoni is in good health," he told the Associated Press news agency.

Earlier this week, the Afghan government criticised the Italian embassy in Kabul for trying to negotiate Ms Cantoni's release with her alleged kidnappers. "We believe these kind of contacts are not helpful for the negotiations and the safe release of Clementina," interior ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal told the AFP news agency.

But Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Saturday said he was confident the hostage would be freed. "Many people are working on it," he said. The private TV channel that aired the video, Tolo TV, did not say how it got the tape, Reuters said.

Eleven civilians killed in shooting in Afghanistan, officials say

KABUL, Afghanistan - (AP) Gunmen fired at a vehicle in eastern Afghanistan, killing 11 civilians in what was believed to be a personal dispute, officials said Sunday.

The shooting occurred in Kunar province on Friday, said Dad Mohammed Rasa, an official at the Ministry of Interior in the capital, Kabul. He said police were investigating the killing and no one had been arrested.

A senior official in the province, speaking on condition of anonymity, said investigators believed the murders were sparked by a personal feud. He did not elaborate.

Fighting stemming from personal disputes is relatively common in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Afghan forces and U.S.-led coalition troops captured a regional Taliban commander, Mullah Abdul Bari, in a raid on a house in Uruzgan province last week, Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammed Zaher Azimi.

The head of the Afghan National Army in the region, Gen. Muslim Amed, said Bari was caught with two other members of the former hardline regime. "We have been chasing Mullah Abdul Bari for a long time. We got intelligence that he was hiding in a home and ANA and coalition forces raided the home and caught him," he said. There have been a spate of attacks by Taliban-led rebels in Uruzgan and neighboring provinces since the end of a winter lull in fighting.

US bases threatens no country: Afghanistan

KABUL, May 28 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The Karzai government, stoutly defending a recent accord on strategic partnership with the United States as a major gain, assured on Saturday it posed no threat to its neighbours.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Naveed Ahmad Maiz, speaking to Pajhwok Afghan News, rejected as unfounded Iran's concern that permanent US bases in Afghanistan would threaten peace in the region.
Maiz was commenting on the statement of Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Aseffi, who feared that long-term American military presence in Afghanistan could impinge on the stability of neighbouring countries.

"Permanent US bases here are part of the strategic partnership agreement we have inked with America, which we urge to extend us multidimensional cooperation - in economic, defence, security and political spheres," Maiz added.

He reiterated no country should view such cooperation as a threat, because the strategic partnership was aimed at bolstering Afghanistan's internal security and economy hit by a quarter-century of war.
The spokesman maintained the presence of American and coalition forces was badly needed for restoring peace to Afghanistan "until our security forces become self-reliant."

While counting the advantages of stepped-up relations with the world's sole superpower, Maiz claimed a series of pacts President Karzai concluded with his American counterpart would stone-wall foreign meddling in the country.

Kabul eyes more aid as London moot delayed

KABUL, May 28 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Finance Minister Anwarul Haq Ahadi hoped on Saturday Afghanistan would receive up to 200 million dollars for the ongoing reconstruction effort.

Addressing a news conference here, the minister pointed about the $200 million would be in addition to the 360 million dollars already pledged for the rebuilding of the war-battered country.

The total reconstruction aid amount would become clear at the London donor moot to be held in December, he said, adding the World Bank would keep an eye on how the money was expended.

The London moot, originally scheduled for next June 21, has now been pushed back to December. Ahadi took the decision after consultations with his colleagues and the international community.

Ahadi told a questioner the aid would be spent on financing government servants' salaries and reconstruction projects. He asserted the Afghan government enjoyed ample say in using the money on plans it deemed worth executing.

It will be pertinent to recall the third international conference on Afghanistan's uplift was held in Kabul two months back, with more than 50 donors attending it.

Direct payments to the Afghan government were the main issue that generated quite a bit of heat at the conference. The Afghan president and his finance minister had then voiced strong aversion to payments via NGOs, arguing such assistance was often delayed inordinately.

Asked why the London conference had been delayed, Ahadi replied the commerce ministry was busy devising an overall national development strategy spelling out uplift priorities. "That's the reason why the conference has been delayed," he argued.

Road construction, resolution of civil problems, electricity supply and training government employees were the main targets outlined by the Afghan government at the Kabul moot, he recalled. "We are seeking improvements in various sectors of the economy so as to strengthen government control over donations made to Afghanistan," Ahadi concluded.

Afghan narcotic traders wooed clergy - Washington Times

Washington, DC, May. 28 (UPI) -- Afghan narcotics criminals attempted to form an alliance with the country's Islamic clergy but were rejected, Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah said.

Abdullah, who was meeting with journalists and foreign policy specialists while visiting Washington this week, said Afghan drug lords had hoped that by giving money to the Islamic hierarchy they could buy the clerics' support and protection.

But the clergy ruled that the country's vast narcotics operation was sinful and refused their offer, according to Abdullah.

The dapper foreign minister said the government is winning the uphill battle to halt Afghanistan's narcotics production, which is based on the poppy crop and is worth an estimated $3 billion. The narcotics trade accounts for more than half of Afghanistan's gross domestic product.

The official position is that 20 percent of the opium-producing poppy harvest has been eradicated, mainly by persuading farmers to switch to other crops such as pomegranates. Afghanistan's poppy harvest will be halted in six years, according to the Afghan government officials. However, anti-narcotics experts are sceptical of these estimates.

Hekmatyar calls Afghan-US strategic pact a sell-out

PESHAWAR, May 29 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Afghanistan's former prime minister and Hezb-i-Islami chief Gulbadin Hekmatyar Sunday denounced the long-term strategic agreement signed with the United States.

Dead-set against foreign military presence in the landlocked country and seen as America's implacable foe, Hekmatyar likened the pact to selling Afghanistan to the United States.

In a letter bearing his signature, the one-time Afghan strongman demanded of the US and its allies to leave the country forthwith and let Afghans resolve their disputes in line with their own traditions.

Pajhwok Afghan News obtained a copy of the letter - written in Pashto and apparently delivered from inside Afghanistan - in Peshawar, NWFP. "Afghanistan is home to a brave people and foreigners should stop thinking of occupying it for a long time," he observed, asking aliens to learn a lesson from the former Soviet Union's misadventure.

In hiding to dodge arrest at the hands of US-led coalition forces, Hekmatyar insisted Afghans alone had the right to enter strategic agreements with the rest of the world. The Hezb leader claimed he still enjoyed widespread support of the Afghan people. Urging his compatriots to launch a struggle against 'occupation forces,' he remarked the country was passing through a critical phase of its existence.

His letter comes at a time when a number of Hezb-i-Islami commanders in southern and southeastern provinces have accepted the government's offer to join the reconciliation process. President Hamid Karzai, during his visit to the United States last week, signed the long-term strategic agreement with his American counterpart.

Nearly 3,000 Afghans to compete for parliament

KABUL, May 29 (Reuters) - Nearly 3,000 Afghans have registered to stand in a historic Sept. 18 parliamentary election, the country's election commission said on Sunday.

More than 3,000 people have signed up to stand in elections for provincial councils, to be held on the same day as the general election.

"This is a very positive outcome, achieved in a short time frame and under challenging security conditions," Najla Ayubi of the Joint Electoral Management Body told a news conference, referring to the April 3-May 26 registration period.

Of the approximately 2,915 people who have registered to run for the 249-seat lower house of parliament, known as the Wolesi Jirga, 347 of them are women. There are 279 women among the 3,170 nominations for provincial councils, the commission said.

"The turnout of women, who make up slightly more than 10 percent of candidates, is extremely favourable," Ayubi said. The figures were preliminary and might be amended after cross-checking. Preliminary candidate lists and final nomination figures would be issued on June 4, she said.

The election will require a major security operation to prevent violence by Taliban rebels and intimidation by regional strongmen vying for power in Afghanistan's fledgling democracy as it emerges from 25 years of conflict.

The parliamentary election and the provincial polls follow a successful October presidential election won by U.S.-backed Hamid Karzai, when Taliban rebel threats to disrupt the vote failed to materialise.
The parliamentary poll was to have taken place at the same time as the presidential vote but has been delayed several times. Technical hitches such as problems with census data and the drawing of district boundaries have been blamed for the delay, but there are also serious security worries.

Report: Austria to deploy 100 soldiers to Afghanistan

VIENNA, Austria - (AP) Austria plans to send 100 soldiers to Afghanistan for three months to help with security during September parliamentary elections, a newspaper reported Saturday.

Defense Minister Guenther Platter said the soldiers would be part of international efforts to ensure a peaceful vote, according to the daily newspaper, Die Presse.

"We want to send up to 100 soldiers _ primarily infantrymen _ to Afghanistan for three months around (the time of) the parliamentary elections on Sept. 18 so that the elections can be held free of conflict," he was quoted as saying by Die Presse.

The deployment follows talks earlier this year with Germany about expanding Austria's presence in the 8,000-strong International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. Germany has 2,200 troops in the security force, while Austria has 10 staff officers.

The security force was established to support the Afghan government after American troops and their allies in the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance ousted the hardline regime from power in late 2001.

The NATO-led force is separate from the 16,500-strong U.S.-led coalition fighting Taliban and al-Qaida holdouts in Afghanistan. Austria is not a member of NATO, but has contributed to peacekeeping missions, particularly in the Balkans.

British Troops Could Be In Afghanistan 'For Generation' - Sunday, May 29

Hundreds of British soldiers are to be sent to fight the Taliban in their heartland of southern Afghanistan under plans drawn up by military chiefs to bolster the authority of President Hamid Karzai's fledgling government.

At least 1,000 soldiers will be deployed to help restore order across five of Afghanistan's most lawless provinces as part of an expansion of Nato operations. At the same time, Britain's commanding officer in Afghanistan admitted that it will be "years", possibly "a generation", before Britain will be able to leave the country.

The provinces include Uruzgan, home of Taliban leader Mullah Omar, and Kandahar, the former Taliban stronghold. The area is where resistance to the West and the government in Kabul remains a threat and where only last weekend a U.S. soldier was killed and three injured in a Taliban attack.

The deployment, which will take place next spring, will mark a significant extension of Britain's role in Afghanistan and prompt concerns over the level of U.K. military commitments overseas, especially while the conflict in Iraq continues.

So far British troops have been deployed principally in the capital, Kabul, and in the largely peaceful northern cities of Mazar-e-Sharif and Meymaneh.

The south, by contrast, has remained largely beyond the control of Karzai's government and has been patrolled only sporadically by U.S. troops seeking Taliban and al-Qaeda remnants. There have been a number of clashes, leading to American fatalities, as well as attacks on aid workers, who now regard much of the region as a "no-go" area.

Although an official announcement of the plan to send British troops to the south has yet to be made, Colonel James Denny, commander of British forces in Afghanistan, told The Observer that a decision would be announced next month. He said the move would require British troops to engage in "peace-enforcing rather than peace-keeping".

"We are looking at a series of options," Col. Denny said at the British headquarters in Kabul. "We are looking at moving into the southern region - Nimruz, Helmand, Kandahar and Zabul provinces. The threat from the Taliban and al-Qaeda is higher there than in the north, so we may have to change our rules of engagement - to move to a more aggressive posture."

Denny said the provinces posed numerous challenges. There is only one metalled road, communications were difficult and the heat in the summer was more intense than in the north. The area is populated largely by Pashtun tribes - the Taliban's principal supporters - whose beliefs, codes of honor and general way of life differ significantly from those of the population in the areas where British troops operate now.

"It's going to be challenging and an interesting environment, but it is certainly possible to achieve success," he added. "We've achieved success in the north and there's no reason why we shouldn't be successful in the south."

Denny also warned that there was no swift exit for Britain from Afghanistan, despite last year's election of Karzai and the growing capabilities of the Afghan forces.

"Afghanistan has a history as being difficult to govern. There has always been a degree of lawlessness, not just for the past 30 years but for 300 or 400 years. What we have to do is to build the capability of the Afghan forces to deal with that and allow Nato and coalition forces to withdraw. It could be a generation," he said.

Colonel Huw Lawford, a British officer working for NATO, said the coming mission would be vital: "You will not be going out in Land Rovers, you will be going out in armed Warrior vehicles, and you will not be walking around in a beret, you will be going out in a tin hat, with a rifle and body armor."

Intellpuke: "British troops could be in Afghanistan for up to a generation? That's about 30 years. It means a British soldier could return from Afghanistan 8 to 10 years from now, get married and have a son who could end up serving in the same unit in the same conflict in the same country as his dad. by Martin Bentham, reporting from Kabul for The Observer.

Al-Qaida militants eliminated in Pakistani tribal region, senior Pakistani commander says - Associated Press May 28, 2005

A senior Pakistan army commander said Saturday that al-Qaida-linked militants have been eliminated in the country's South Waziristan tribal region, after months of gunbattles around this peak and in nearby mountains last year.

Maj. Gen. Niaz Khattak, who is leading the troops hunting militants in South Waziristan, told a group of journalists at the Karavan Manza mountain top army bunker that between 500 and 600 al-Qaida linked militants were present in the region last year. "According to our intelligence reports, now we think there is absolutely none in South Waziristan," Khattak said.

On Saturday, two Pakistan army helicopters landed at Karavan Manza peak _ about 2,100 meters (7,000 feet) high _ with a stone-built army bunker, taking the journalists on a conducted tour of the area.

In a briefing at the army post, Khattak said the mountain was at the center of fighting with militants where they had their bases. Soldiers fought militants "for several months" and captured their bases and destroyed their communication system in Karavan Manza, he said.

Last year, the army twice failed to arrange a trip for journalists to this area because of intense fighting between the troops and al-Qaida. On Saturday, two helicopters carrying journalists and senior army officials hovered over a training facility of al-Qaida and terror suspects' hide-outs which were dismantled in June 2004 in a bloody operation.

Standing at mountain post with his soldiers, and pointing toward destroyed al-Qaida hide-outs across a ridge, Khattak said "today, you are seeing peace, but we have achieved it by sacrificing 250 soldiers and officers."

He said now the army was constructing roads, schools and hospitals in the long-neglected region. The government has allocated 440 million rupees (US$7.4 million) for this purpose, he said.

Pakistan is a key ally of the United States in the war against terrorism and it has deployed thousands of troops to its tribal regions, along Afghanistan, to track down militants. Asked about whether al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden was in the area, Khattak said "there is no sign of his presence in South Waziristan."

"We never got any information on his whereabouts in South Waziristan. Al-Qaida is no more able to operate here. Their sanctuaries have been destroyed here," he said.

He said fewer than 100 militants are believed hiding in small bands in the neighboring North Waziristan region. But another official denied suggestions that Pakistan was preparing to launch an operation against the fighters in North Waziristan.

"Pakistan army knows better when or where an operation needs to be conducted. So far no such operation is planned or in the offing (in North Waziristan)," said Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, the top army spokesman who traveled with the journalists from Rawalpindi, a city near the capital Islamabad where the army is headquartered.

A total of 52 operations have been conducted against al-Qaida-linked terrorists and their local supporters in South Waziristan during which 306 terrorists were killed, including 100 foreigners, many of them Central Asians, Sultan said at the briefing jointly with Khattak.

An Uzbek militant leader, Tahir Yaldash, who was believed to have been injured in fighting with security forces in South Waziristan last year, "is not here and there is a possibility that he has crossed over to Afghanistan with some of his supporters," Sultan said.

Khattak said Abdullah Mehsud, a former prisoner in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was still alive and hiding in the tribal region.

"Abdullah Mehsud is still alive he has not been killed," Khattak said of the one-legged fugitive militant who is wanted for the kidnapping of two Chinese engineers in Waziristan in October last year.

One of the Chinese was killed while the other was rescued alive in an operation by Pakistani commandos. There had been unconfirmed reports earlier this year that Mehsud may have been killed in a clash with troops in the region.

Zakir Khan, 18, a 10th grade student in the nearby village of Shakai, said there were several clashes between the army and al-Qaida militants that left innocent women and children killed.

"It created a wave of anger and hate against the army," he said. "But later the army told us that they feel sorrow over the human losses and they gave compensation to them."

US senior official visits tribal areas on Pakistan-Afghan border Islamabad - May 28, IRNA

The United States Assistant Secretary of State, Christina Rocca, has quietly visited Waziristan and tribal areas close to Pakistan-Afghan border, a local publication wrote Saturday.

"The local commanders and officials concerned gave her a briefing about actions taken against terrorists belonging to various outfits, promoting terror in the region and previously hiding here, The News reported.

Rocca, accompanied by US Ambassador to Pakistan, Ryan C Crocker, discussed the planned huge industrialization for the area to alleviate poverty, according to the report.

After the 9/11 events and the US-led military operation in Afghanistan, Pakistan's security forces, led by the army carried out a series of operations to wipe out foreign militants from the area. Tens of such elements are said to have taken shelter in Waziristan and tribal localities and carry out attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Rocca arrived in Pakistan Wednesday and held meetings with President General Pervez Musharraf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, and other high-ranking government officials.

Afghans face income tax for first time

KABUL, May 29 (Reuters) - Afghans and foreigners working in the country are soon going to have to start paying tax on their incomes as the aid-dependent government strives to increase its revenue.

The wage tax is being imposed on all businesses with two or more employees from Sept. 23, finance ministry officials said at the weekend. "This involves government employees, those who work for foreign companies and foreigners working in Afghanistan," said ministry spokesman Aziz Shams.

The aim is to boost the government budget, half of which is being paid by foreign donors, he said. The International Monetary Fund and World Bank are advising Afghanistan how to start a tax regime after a quarter century of conflict and chaos but some business people already say they are facing a tax regime that hinders growth.

The new tax will be set at a rate of 10 percent on income over 12,500 afghanis ($250) a month. Income over 100,000 afghanis ($2,000) a month will be taxed 20 percent, said the ministry's director of revenue, Abdul Malik Rahmani.

Afghanistan gets half of its more than $600 million annual budget from donor nations and they are keen to see the government start developing sustainable revenue streams.
But those business people who do pay tax say the tax base is far too narrow and they are already burdened by a list of taxes including a 20 percent corporate tax and a 12.5 percent tax on gross receipts.
The average basic salary of a government employee is 1,250 afghanis ($25) a month so the new tax is largely aimed at foreigners and Afghans working for foreign companies and aid groups. More than 2,000 foreigners are living in the capital, Kabul, many of them working for aid agencies.

Royal Palaces: Public or Personal Property? Editorial Daily Outlook Afghanistan

In the early days far from the civilization, people were ruled by those who were the most powerful among them. With the passage of time, the concept of the government and administration developed and before the emergence of democracy the world was again divided among the powerful kingdoms and empires. The kings and emperors used to live in luxurious palaces, surrounded by hundreds of pretty maids and servants. Again, the palaces were usually surrounded by the strong castles to protect the king and his associates.

Nowadays, there are only few countries left with that outdated monarchy systems. Some monarchies completely changed their nature and are preserved as the symbol of the ancient days and all the executive powers have shifted to the representative governments. The people respect the descendents of the royal family as part of their history.

Afghanistan had also had a monarchy system until July 18, 1973 when the king, Mohammad Zaher, was toppled by his own first cousin and brother in law, Mohammad Doud Khan. He announced the end of monarchy in Afghanistan and subsequently the king abdicated his throne.

In almost every part of the world the palaces and the castles are public properties and turned into museums or visiting places of tourists which bring revenues to public coffer. Our neighboring countries are full of the monuments left behind by their kings and emperors. The famous castles and the palaces of the Mughals in India and Pakistan and those of Iran and Turkey are testimony to the solemnity the dynasty of their era. They treat all those monuments as the important part of their cultural heritage. The point here is not to dwell the history of monarchies, rather it is something more interesting which is the fait of the Royal palaces in Afghanistan.

Are those places the personal properties of once kings and princes? Or like the other part of the world, here too those palaces should be counted among the public properties? Let us discuss some of the shocking facts, explored by Tolo TV.

Tolo TV which is proven to be the top TV channel for Kabulis is now extended its broadcast to some other cities too. No doubt that Tolo TV will flag the series of its successes in other provinces of Afghanistan as well. Tolo TV has a famous program known as Guzarish-e Shash-o Nim (Report of 18:30). This program is famous for its straightforward analyses and investigative reporting.

On Monday, May 16, 2005, they had a reportage about the royal palaces being sold to individuals. The news was as shocking as preposterous. The report says that the royal family is selling those properties randomly. It was told that famous Afghan industrialist has bought some of those properties worth millions of US dollars. Is it right to do so?

Are those places the property of the royal family? Does the royal family have the right to sell those properties? If not, then why is the government keeping silent? Let us first see the background of those palaces.

All the palaces of Afghanistan like other parts of the world were built by the state resources, therefore, they are counted among the pubic properties. Is it possible that one of the descendents of last Mughal Emperor of India, Bahadur Shah Zafar, would come forward and claim all the properties of his or her ancestors like Taj Mahal, Red Fort etc.? If not, then how on earth, is it happening in Afghanistan?

The palaces are built on government property. Tolo TV quoted two important witnesses regarding this matter: Asif Frozan who was the deputy head of the Intelligence Department and Abdullah Brishna one of the engineers involved in the construction of the royal palaces. Mr. Frozan says that the construction works of the palaces ended during the PDPA rule and the construction expenses were paid by the Intelligence Department. The palaces were used as guesthouses until the end of the PDPD rule. Mr. Brishna corroborated the story.

Three efficient journalists of Tolo TV Hussain Nekzad, Hamayoun Danishyar and Masoud Qiyam followed the story of the fait of the royal palaces. The program was very interesting and drew the attention of almost everyone who watched that reportage. The report invited the attention of the people to this bizarre issue. It created the question in the minds of a huge number of people about the ownership of the royal palaces. Another unconfirmed rumor says that palace number one where president Karzai himself stays as the legitimate and elected president of Afghanistan is also sold and the president is paying huge sum of money every month as the house rent to the man who bought it.

We pray to almighty God that at least this part of the story to be wrong. Otherwise, soon nothing will be left including "Haram Sara" and all the public properties because once the whole Afghanistan belonged to the royal family.

After the reportage telecast, some unknown caller threatened one of the above mentioned Tolo TV journalist and asked them to cancel the program otherwise they will face grave consequences. The three journalists received the threat when just two days earlier an anchorwoman of the same TV channel "Shaima Rezayee" was brutally murdered. The murderers are not yet arrested. Now the threat to these three journalists is a matter of concern for all other journalists. If it is not taken seriously, none of the journalists will explore any truth and that would be the end of investigative journalism. It is yet to be proved whether the caller who threatened the journalists belongs to the royal family or to the buyers of the palaces.

Does the Father of the Nation ex-king His Majesty Mohammad Zahir know about this? If he does not, why not? If he does, then why does he keep silent? Does he, God forbid, approve of these sales?

Now, what is the government's stand on this? Does the government object to these sales, or does it also think those palaces are the personal property of royal family?

We can only say that the Afghan nation is seriously concerned about this issue and wishes that the status of the royal palaces should be clearly and transparently explained. This matter should be dealt with utmost serious by the concerned authorities. We further, stress that for the sake of transparency and objectivity the freedom of press and media be preserved as the pillar of democracy.

The Lure of Opium Wealth Is a Potent Force in Afghanistan By Paul Watson

Los Angeles Times May 28, 2005

Kunduz, Afghanistan. Like a frustrated hunter, the head of the local anti-drug squad keeps snapshots of the ones who got away. One photo shows a prisoner wearing a flat, round pakol hat, standing in front of 10 pounds of opium packaged in plastic bags laid out on a table. Lt. Nyamatullah Nyamat took the picture on the February day he arrested the suspect. Hours later, the man was freed.

The stocky, plain-spoken cop glumly tossed another photo onto a desk in his basement office as if playing a losing hand of cards. In this one, a man in a white pillbox cap is handcuffed to a police officer and standing next to 62 pounds of opium. A local judge sentenced him to 10 years in prison. A higher court ordered his release.

One of Nyamat's biggest catches, arrested with 114 pounds of heroin, a derivative of opium, hadn't even appeared in court when the local prosecutor let him go in late March. Nyamat said that was normal in Kunduz, a hub on one of the world's busiest drug-smuggling routes.

Three and a half years after the United States led an invasion of Afghanistan to oust the Taliban regime, the United Nations and the U.S. government warn that the country is in danger of becoming a narco-state controlled by traffickers. The State Department recently called the Afghan drug trade "an enormous threat to world stability." The United Nations estimates that Afghanistan produces 87% of the world's opium.

For decades, poor farmers trying to make a living in Afghanistan's mountain valleys have harvested the opium poppies that feed the world's drug pipeline. Now the trade is booming, partly the result of the U.S. strategy for overthrowing the Taliban and stabilizing the country after two decades of war.

U.S. troops forged alliances with warlords, who provided ground forces in the battle against the Taliban. Some of those allies are suspected of being among Afghanistan's biggest drug traffickers, controlling networks that include producers, criminal gangs and even members of the counter-narcotics police force. They are willing to make deals with remnants of the Taliban if the price is right.

The U.S.-backed Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, has brought some of those warlords into his popularly elected government, a recognition of their political clout and a calculated risk that keeping them close might make it easier to control them.

"Drug money is absolutely supporting terrorist groups," said Alexandre Schmidt, deputy head of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime in Afghanistan. And regardless of their allegiance, Schmidt said, most suspects are released within 48 hours because of intervention by higher authorities.

Kunduz, in northeastern Afghanistan, is one of the front lines in what Karzai calls a holy war on drugs. It is just a 90-minute drive from the border with Tajikistan, where low-grade smack starts the next leg of its journey to the streets of Europe.

Nyamat says that as fast as he and his men can catch the smugglers, corrupt officials spring them. Many others are untouchable because they have important friends.

Nyamat carries a handwritten list, four neatly folded pages held together with a pin, to record his losing score. Reading it recently, he shook his head in disgust. Only three of 17 suspects arrested this year were still in prison.

"We have the complete ID list of all smugglers ... but we cannot arrest them because they have the power now, not us," he said. The list of those suspected of involvement in the drug trade reaches high into Karzai's government.

Nyamat and an Afghan trafficker singled out Gen. Mohammed Daoud, a former warlord who is Afghanistan's deputy interior minister in charge of the anti-drug effort.

An official of a human rights commission in eastern Afghanistan said police in Nangarhar province routinely ignore drug traffickers and other well-connected criminals, even though they take a strict stand against poppy growing. The provincial police are under the command of Hazrat Ali, a warlord who provided the bulk of the Afghan ground force that aided U.S. soldiers in the attempt to capture Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora in late 2001.

Daoud and Ali deny the charges. U.S. allies are not the only ones reaping the drug bonanza. Taliban guerrillas also have a share in the opium and heroin trade, which the United Nations estimates is worth $3 billion a year. Warlords who once fought them collect a tax on drug shipments heading to Iran, Pakistan or Tajikistan. As long as the Taliban pay cash, they are pleased to let bygones be bygones, said police and two drug traffickers who claimed to have done business with the militants.

Some drug barons have changed their ways because they have already made millions of dollars and now see their self-interest in reform and politics, said a senior Western official involved in the anti-drug effort.

"Others are still involved in drug trafficking and today are part — at the highest level — of government," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "The idea is not to leave them in the provinces anymore, but to bring them on board in official positions in order to better control them."

But the official said he doubted the strategy would work.

Still, the U.N. and the Afghan government predict that this year's opium harvest will be at least 30% smaller than the record 4,200 tons in 2004, partly because of a more aggressive eradication effort. The law of supply and demand has helped too. A glut has driven down prices and profits. But this year's smaller harvest is expected to push prices back up and encourage more planting and trafficking.

It is crucial for the Afghan government and foreign donors to deliver hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to farmers before the next planting season this year to make it unnecessary for them to grow opium poppies, said Schmidt, the U.N. official. Sufficient money has been pledged, but some governments have failed to make good on their promises, he said. And continuing insecurity in large parts of the country makes development work difficult. Schmidt said he was certain that the poppy crop this year would be smaller than last year's. "But the question is 2006."

More than 2,000 years ago, much of Kunduz was a swamp. Alexander the Great stopped here for fresh horses as he pressed south in 329 BC in his conquest of much of the known world. Today it's a dust-blown smugglers' paradise.

As they have for generations, horses decorated with small pompoms and bells clip-clop through the city, pulling carts that are used as taxis. The police chief of Kunduz province, former militia commander Gen. Mutaleb Baig, is also a throwback to the old Afghanistan. Instead of a police uniform, he prefers a green quilted coat, which he drapes over his shoulders like a chieftain's cloak.

In late 2001, U.S. Special Forces and Central Intelligence Agency operatives worked with the Northern Alliance rebel group to besiege thousands of Taliban soldiers in Kunduz. The fight to take the city helped form close ties between U.S. forces and warlord Daoud, who had been finance secretary to Ahmed Shah Massoud, the Northern Alliance leader who was assassinated two days before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Before the attacks and the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, State Department officials had often cited Northern Alliance drug trafficking as one reason the U.S. should not publicly support the anti-Taliban militia.

But police and traffickers interviewed in Kunduz said Daoud did more than use narcotics to help fund the fight against the Taliban: He made drug smuggling a family business. They said he continued to profit from the opium and heroin trade even after Karzai brought him into the central government last August.

Nyamat, a former intelligence agent who has been on the police force for 25 years, accused Daoud's brother, Haji Agha, of handling the family drug business for Daoud, and he said that when his men arrested small-scale smugglers, the deputy minister had them released.

Nyamat, whose almond-shaped eyes are reminiscent of Genghis Khan's Mongols, who swept through Afghanistan in the 13th century, said four of his own officers moonlight for drug traffickers. Even counting them, his unit is 15 officers short of full strength.

He got up from his desk in a basement office of the Kunduz police station, closed two small windows, and lowered his voice. He said he couldn't trust anyone, least of all provincial chief Baig, a former deputy to Daoud.

Nyamat alleged that Baig's officers had undermined his efforts by rationing gas and refusing to provide armed backup during drug raids. Baig has fired him four times. The commander of the anti-drug force in Kabul keeps reinstating him.

Nyamat said he had reported his suspicions several times to his superiors, and in November he approached American officials working with the counter-narcotics police in Kabul. When nothing resulted from the discussions, he sent a trusted deputy to the Afghan capital to complain again in late February. Daoud denied involvement in the drug trade but said other senior government officials, police and militia commanders were guilty of it.

He said in an interview that he and his brother had never had anything to do with opium or heroin, and said no Northern Alliance commander had ever trafficked narcotics, because Massoud did not tolerate it. He accused enemies of spreading lies about him. "If there is even one [drug] case that I'm involved in, I am ready to be punished," Daoud said.

Western officials involved in the anti-drug effort said privately that Daoud was once a trafficker but that they now trusted him as a committed leader in the fight against narcotics. "Gen. Daoud is absolutely a key element in the eradication effort," said Schmidt, the U.N. official.

The United Nations estimates that Afghan opium, morphine and heroin feed the habits of 10 million addicts, or two-thirds of the world's opiate abusers. Afghan narcotics kill about 10,000 people a year, it says. Europe is the most lucrative market.

Until last year, Afghanistan was known as an opium exporter, not a major heroin producer. But with the poppy boom, and post-Taliban instability, small heroin labs sprang up in hundreds of villages. Even if police find them, they are easily replaced.

One Kunduz trafficker, a man in his late 20s with a wool hat resting high on his head, said an average lab had 10 barrels, a pressing machine, cotton filters and acetic anhydride, an acid, to refine opium paste into heroin powder.

The trafficker estimated that there was enough opium stashed in village wells and other hiding places to keep labs and smugglers working for 10 to 15 years, even if poppy cultivation stopped entirely. Schmidt said that was probably an underestimation.

Early last year, Karzai set up the paramilitary Special Narcotics Force, which answers only to him and his interior minister. Officials refused to provide details on its size and capabilities.

The Interior Ministry says the force carried out 12 operations in three of the country's 34 provinces last year, destroying 70 labs and 88 tons of opiates — about 2% of Afghanistan's production.

In late February, Afghan forces and American advisors from the Drug Enforcement Administration delivered 1.5 tons of heroin, opium and hashish to the counter-narcotics police headquarters in Kabul. The drugs were seized from homes and shops during three months of raids in southern Helmand province, said Muhibullah Ludin, a senior official in the newly formed Counter-Narcotics Ministry.

"It wasn't very well hidden because it's so common there," he said. "Right now they're trying to make it a bit more secret because so many people are being detained."

In the lobby of the police station, officers laid out a long row of burlap and plastic sacks, several stained with gooey black opium gum, and weighed each sack on a freight scale in the corner. They also spilled out individual plastic bags packed with almost pure heroin, an off-white powder that looks like flour, to count them on the floor. There were 559 one-kilo bags — more than 1,200 pounds.

It seemed an impressive haul, but DEA advisors watched the count skeptically. "Trying to get rid of drugs in Afghanistan is like trying to clear sand from a beach with a bucket," said an American counter-narcotics agent.

The three-month operation resulted in charges against only one trafficker, Ludin said. A Western diplomat involved in the effort said that the special force had not gone after the people behind the drug networks yet because the justice system was too weak.

"We find it difficult to get any successful prosecutions of any significant traffickers, basically because people pay bribes," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

With foreign assistance, the Afghan government is setting up special courts to try traffickers, with added security to protect investigators, prosecutors and judges. They will start with low-level cases and gradually move up the drug trafficking chain as they gain confidence, the Western official said.

Judges are easily bribed because they earn only about $100 a month, Schmidt said. "We'll be monitoring it very, very carefully in order to respond to any problems in the prosecution of these cases," he said. "But I cannot tell you today that everything will be utterly beautiful and perfect."

The Kunduz trafficker said he wasn't worried. He counts Daoud as one of his connections. Late in the summer of 2003, he said, Daoud helped him retrieve heroin worth $200,000 that had been seized at the Salang Tunnel, a link between southern and northern Afghanistan that is 11,000 feet up in the Hindu Kush mountains. Daoud denied this, saying drugs were never seized at the tunnel and that the trafficker was lying.

The trafficker also said he had sold a large consignment of heroin last year that had yet to be smuggled into Iran from the southwestern province of Nimroz. Premium Afghan heroin going to the West through Iran fetches a higher price and is less likely to be seized.

He predicted that the government crackdown would be good for business. Increased arrests and interdiction would cut competition and reduce the glut that forced down prices by two-thirds last year.

"The more restrictions, the more the business will boom," the trafficker said. "The price will go high, the number of dealers will go down, and my income will go up. The professional businessmen will remain. They have good connections. Whoever works hard in a business wins."

No matter where Afghan narcotics are headed, most of them pass through Kabul, a transit point on the main route linking poppy fields and labs in east and north to border smuggling routes.

Each day, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., police set up checkpoints on the edge of the capital. They ask drivers the "Seven Golden Questions," taught by British advisors, which include where are they coming from, where are they going and who owns the vehicle. They try to form a hunch about whether they should conduct a search.

A sniffer dog named Warsola, a German shepherd trained in Kazakhstan to take commands in Pashto, stands by in a cage, eager to root out hidden drugs. The police also have a camera probe, a long black hose with a tiny lens on the tip, which allows them to peer into gas tanks and radiators.

But at the end of the day, the outmatched police, paid $60 a month, lock up their weapons, go home and wait for death threats. They worry about their families.

"When I leave my house I tell my children, 'Please don't go out.' And I tell them, 'If you need anything, please tell me. I will bring it to you,' " Mohammed Nazir said. "We are afraid.

"Even if a cat jumps into my house, I get scared and I think that there is somebody in the house to kill me."

Nazir's 13-member team has arrested more than 30 suspected drug traffickers since it started work nine months ago. The team's first bust was of uniformed police officers armed with hand grenades and guns. They were caught with 24 pounds of opium in a knapsack in a civilian car. They said they had no idea that the drugs were there, Nazir said.

One of the unit's most dangerous arrests was last summer, when it discovered more than 400 pounds of opium concealed in the cabin of a gas tanker coming from northern Afghanistan. The smuggler had tried to mask the musky opium smell with piles of melons.

When police confronted the driver, he used his cellphone to call for help. Then he offered a bribe, and when that didn't work, he invoked the name of Gen. Haji Mohammed Almas, a Northern Alliance warlord, whose forces are suspected in many robberies and killings in the capital.

On the way to jail with their suspects, the police noticed that they were being followed by two SUVs full of gunmen. They kept their distance when the drug squad officers pulled into the jail, said Shamsuddin, a member of Nazir's unit. Like many Afghans, he uses only one name.

That night, about 1 a.m., a phone call woke him. Lying next to his wife, Shamsuddin began sweating in anger as a voice on the phone threatened him, he recalled.

"I was sweating just because he wasn't next to me," the cop snarled. "Otherwise I would have beaten him to death." A few days later, when Shamsuddin was sitting with other officers at the drug squad's headquarters, the same man called and repeated the threat.

Nazir said traffickers had no trouble finding phone numbers to harangue counter-narcotics police at any hour. "All of these people have friends inside the government," he said.

A week after their arrest, the truck driver and his assistant walked free and drove off in their tanker. Almas, the warlord, denied that he trafficked in drugs and declared that the police were hopelessly corrupt.

"In reality, the police are very sleepy in Kabul," he said. "And that is because all the thieves and criminals have joined the National Police. Whenever they commit a crime ... they name a [militia] commander and say that his men did this."

Like many in the front-line drug squad, Shamsuddin, a 23-year police veteran, is angry that warlords with a long record of crimes and abuses in the country's wars have been promoted to top police positions, putting uniformed officers at their mercy.

"I can only trust these 12 people in my team," he said. "Our government is not a real government. I pray and hope for a day that we have a foreigner as a boss, and he is standing over our heads and controlling us. There is no management in our government and there is no authority from the Afghans."

East of Kabul, in one of Afghanistan's oldest opium-producing regions, Karzai has tried to resolve the police-warlord conflict by melding the two in the person of Hazrat Ali.

Western officials praise the Nangarhar police chief for his strict stand against poppy growing. Cultivation has been cut drastically in a region where spring usually brings fields full of red and white opium poppy flowers.

But Jandad Spin Ghar, who leads the eastern regional office of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, said Ali's police routinely arrested innocent people and committed other serious abuses while letting drug traffickers and other well-connected criminals go free.

"He only stopped the cultivation and he has done nothing to stop the trafficking," Spin Ghar said. "I don't understand why the U.S. and the central government are supporting him."

Daoud, the deputy interior minister, said he had summoned Ali to Kabul to answer such allegations, and was satisfied that they were false. Ali accused enemies of spreading lies about him.

"I told him, 'Look, General, I have never been in the drug business my whole life,' " Ali recalled. "I hate drugs more than anything else and neither I nor my men are involved in the drug business."

Part of the solution to Afghanistan's drug problem may lie in the soft petals and sweet scent of the Bulgarian rose. A German aid group has persuaded a dozen farmers in one Nangarhar village to grow them to see whether they can provide the essence for fine French perfumes.

Janaan Khan, a village leader in Dara-e-Noor, planted 150 rose seedlings on half an acre. They poke just a few inches out of the wet soil, which once provided bumper harvests of premium red opium. He earned about $4,000 from his last poppy crop in 2002, a fortune in a country where per capita income in 2003 was about $200, putting it among the bottom 20 nations.

It's more difficult to produce high-quality rose oil than high-grade opium, and German experts told Khan that it would take three years to find out what, if anything, their Bulgarian roses are worth.

A stiff wind can bruise the blossoms, rendering them worthless. At harvest time, farmers have just one day to gently pluck the flowers and process them into rose oil, Khan said. At most, he expects to earn a quarter of what he did from opium. But he says that would be enough for an honest living.

"I told the farmers that if this thing succeeds, then Afghanistan will be famous for flowers and perfumes, not for war and opium, and Dara-e-Noor will be as famous as Paris," Khan said, his eyes lighting up with the dream.

"I told them that these flowers will have great smell and foreigners will come from all over the world for a picnic. And they will enjoy being here. And everywhere you look there will be foreigners, and we will build guest houses and take money from the foreigners who stay here. And we will all be rich."

Despite his outward confidence, Khan acknowledged that he was worried he might be wrong. The German aid group has promised a small cash subsidy to tide the farmers over, but Khan said it was far less than the thousands of dollars they were used to earning. They probably will wait only a year or two before they start growing opium poppies again, he said.

It's easy to see why. The village doesn't have electricity, running water or a proper school. The only road is a dirt track dotted with sharp rocks. There are too many people living on too little land; most of the farmers are sharecroppers who rent small parcels from a few wealthy landlords.

"Name a problem and these people have it," said Khan, who supports two wives and four children. "Our lives have not moved forward. They have gone backward because no matter how much aid money they have spent, we don't have any money now."

In villages across Afghanistan, powerless people such as Khan say they want to be rid of the warlords once and for all, and they wonder why Karzai is giving them more power.

"Democracy means freedom and people's government," he said. "But in Afghanistan, if you tell a [militia] commander, 'You have made these mistakes. Please quit your job,' the commander will take out a gun and kill you."

Khan's neighbor Sayyed Alam Khan lost his 6-month-old daughter, Najeda, in late February. Like many of the area's children, she lived with her family in a mud-brick house with a leaky ceiling that dripped cold water day and night. A simple cold proved fatal. Six feet of snow closed off the valley, so Khan couldn't get her to the nearest hospital in Jalalabad.

She wasn't the first of Khan's children to die. He has lost two other daughters and a son. And he has seven children left, ages 2 to 13. They huddled next to him in the smoky half-light beside a cooking fire, trying to keep warm on a cold dirt floor.

Three years ago, after his oldest son died at age 6, Khan borrowed about $5,000 from relatives. He planned to pay it back with the profit from the next year's opium harvest. But when their poppies were nearly ready, police came and ordered Khan and other villagers to destroy the plants. They were paid $5 for a day's work that wiped out their livelihood, and any hope Khan had of paying his creditors.

He has no interest in planting roses. "I will die by the time the flowers bloom," said Khan, 61. He is trying to support his family by selling firewood, but he is not earning enough to keep his creditors at bay. According to local custom, they can soon claim his eldest daughter as compensation.
Musharraf denies Iran bomb remark - BBC

Pakistan has denied that President Pervez Musharraf told a German magazine that Iran was "very anxious" to have a nuclear bomb. Iran demanded an urgent clarification after the comments were carried in Der Spiegel magazine on Saturday.

Pakistan's foreign office spokesman, Jalil Abbas Jilani, said the president had been misquoted. Iran, under an international nuclear investigation for two years, says its industry is for peaceful purposes. In the magazine article, President Musharraf said he did not know how to stop Iran from developing a military nuclear programme.

Mr Jilani confirmed this, but the magazine also quoted President Musharraf as saying: "They are very anxious to have the bomb." Mr Jilani said the president had not made the remark. The interview had brought a quick reaction from Iran.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, Hamid Reza Asefi, told the AFP news agency on Sunday he thought it "very unlikely that [President] Musharraf said such a thing, because he knows better".

[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.]