Police Blame al-Qaida for Blasts in Kabul

Kabul (AP) - Police Tuesday blamed al-Qaida for twin suicide bombings against NATO peacekeepers in the Afghan capital. The death toll rose to eight after more bodies were found in a ditch, and security forces searched houses for more suspected attackers.

Suicide bombers rammed cars filled with explosives into NATO peacekeepers in two attacks in the Afghan capital Monday — the first major assault on foreign troops in Kabul in more than a year. Troops thwarted a suspected third bombing by shooting dead three people in a car racing toward the scene of the blasts.

Police commander Gen. Mohammed Akbar said "only al-Qaida has the capability" to pull off such a coordinated attack. “Al-Qaida is definitely behind this," he told The Associated Press. Such seemingly coordinated attacks are unprecedented in Afghanistan, and reinforced fears that Taliban insurgents are copying tactics used in Iraq.

The bombings occurred within 90 minutes of each other on a 500-yard stretch of road near the headquarters of Afghan-U.N. election organizers. In each case, the attackers rammed their cars into NATO vehicles.

Akbar said police scouring the scene of the second suicide car bombing found six more burned bodies lying in a ditch, raising the toll from two on Monday. A spokesman for NATO's peacekeeping force, Maj. Andrew Elmes, said the bodies were believed to be those of Afghans.

An Afghan child was also killed in the second bombing. In the initial blast, a German peacekeeper died. The new deaths brought the toll to eight, in addition to the deaths of the two suicide attackers.

The blasts underscore the challenges facing the U.S.-backed president, Hamid Karzai, as he struggles to shore up his nation's fledgling democracy. The attacks came two days after officials released results from legislative elections in September, showing a win for Karzai's supporters.

Kabul, home to about 3,000 foreigners and patrolled by thousands of NATO peacekeepers, had been regarded as one of the country's safest places despite a flurry of kidnappings over the past year.

Senior Afghan officials have spoken in recent months of al-Qaida operatives entering the country to stage assaults, mostly from neighboring Pakistan. In the past two months, there have been eight suicide bombings nationwide, the deadliest in September outside an army training center in Kabul. Previously, such assaults were far less frequent.

A purported Taliban spokesman, Mullah Hanif, claimed responsibility for Monday's attacks and warned of more suicide bombings. "We will fight with every means to defeat the foreign forces," he said by satellite telephone from an undisclosed location.

Purported Taliban spokesmen often claim responsibility for attacks using information that later proves exaggerated or untrue. Hanif's exact link to the Taliban leadership was not clear.

Germany Defense Minister Peter Struck said the attack showed "there is not a stable, quiet situation in Afghanistan" and that the NATO force is still needed. "We are dealing with a permanent threat," Struck said in Berlin.

ISAF has about 12,000 soldiers from 36 nations in Afghanistan and is responsible for security in Kabul as well as northern and western regions of the country. A separate 20,000-strong U.S.-led coalition is in volatile eastern and southern parts of the country.

While 86 U.S. troops have been killed this year, 24 ISAF soldiers have died, 17 of them Spanish military personnel killed when their helicopter crashed in an accident.

The first explosion Monday wounded two German soldiers in addition to killing the third, said Capt. Michele Chortese, spokesman for the NATO-led force, known as the International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF. Five Afghans, including two police officers, were also wounded, he said. The second bombing set fire to a Greek military jeep and wounded three ISAF troops, said Maj. Andrew Elmes, another ISAF spokesman.

Afghan state television showed pictures of a peacekeeper carrying an Afghan man whose legs had been blown off toward an ambulance. Another man lay motionless on the ground, naked and covered in blood. Two Afghan journalists working for the U.S.-sponsored Radio Liberty were slightly wounded in the blast, said Nada Farat, one of their colleagues at the station.

Police stopped a vehicle carrying three men near the area, but the driver suddenly accelerated toward British troops nearby. The soldiers quickly opened fire, killing the three. The vehicle then careered off the road and stopped. Security forces cordoned off the area fearing the car would explode. A local police commander, Pashtun, who uses only one name, said the troops had believed the car was laden with explosives. He said authorities were investigating.

The last major attack on the peacekeepers in the capital was in October 2004, when a militant detonated grenades strapped to his body on a shopping street, wounding three Icelandic security personnel and killing an American translator and an Afghan girl. That came two months after a car bomb tore through the office of a U.S. contractor providing security for Karzai, killing 10 people. The Taliban claimed responsibility.

Invasions destroyed Afghan tradition of tolerance, says Karzai dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH; 15 November 2005

Vienna (dpa) - Foreign intervention and invasions destroyed the centuries-old Afghan tradition of tolerance and striving for development, said President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday at an international conference on "Islam in a Pluralistic World".

Particularly the invasion of Soviet troops in 1979 had caused millions of deaths and millions of refugees, he said in Vienna. Through the subsequent "radicalization and fragmentation of society", Afghanistan had "fallen into the hands of terrorists", Karzai said, adding: "Instead of helping us, the world forgot us."

However, the past four years had shown that "cooperation can replace interference". Much had been achieved in his country. The "progressive constitution" on the basis of Islam guaranteed the same human rights for all, recognized the social and linguistic multiplicity in Afghanistan, and had led to 71 of the 249 Afghan Members of Parliament being women.

The emergence of a civilian society in Afghanistan was also shown by the diversity of the media, and the founding of human rights organizations. Karzai said that historically, Islam had always been a tolerant religion which recognized other cultures. From the beginning on, Moslems had been "very cosmopolitan" and that "Science, literature and art flourished".

Today, parts of the Moslem world suffer from violence and failure of state institutions. But the blame should not be placed on "faith and culture" if society did not succeed in guaranteeing tolerance and plurality.

Today, globalization was bringing peoples and cultures closer to each other, and the world was "shrinking", Karzai said. It was all the more important to recognize the moral values and principles enshrined in the U.N. Charter and human rights conventions, and to regard the joint struggle against terrorism and violence as fundamental to humanity, the Afghan president said. AP-NY-11-15-05 0546EST

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs Strongly Condemns the Terrorist Attack in Pakistan

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs strongly condemns the terrorist attack that took place in Karachi and conveys its heartfelt condolences to the people, the Government of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the families of the victims.

H.E Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, the Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, strongly condemned the terrorist attack in the brotherly neighboring country.

The Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan once again reaffirms that terrorism is a common enemy of both countries; therefore, the two neighboring countries should enhance mutual cooperation and increase bilateral efforts in fighting terrorism in the region.

Released by the Office of the Spokesperson Ministry of Foreign Affairs Kabul, Afghanistan November 15th, 2005

UNAMA CONDEMNS ATTACKS AGAINST ISAF IN KABUL

UNAMA, Kabul – The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) condemns the suicide attacks that were carried out today against soldiers of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), on Jalalabad road in Kabul.

While the full toll of the attacks is yet to be determined, Afghan and German authorities have confirmed the death of one German soldier. The United Nations extends its sympathies to the soldier’s family and to all those – Afghans and foreigners – harmed in these attacks.

The United Nations takes this opportunity to pay tribute to the international forces that are present in Afghanistan to help ensure peace and security.

Kabul, 14 th November 2005

Britain seeks counter-insurgency coalition for Afghanistan

London (AFP) - Britain is looking to create a coalition to combat growing Al-Qaeda and Taliban insurgency in southern Afghanistan following the partial withdrawal of US troops.

Talks to create a counter-insurgency force were taking place with a number of countries, including Australia, Canada and New Zealand, ahead of a scheduled meeting of NATO members in Brussels next month, The Guardian said.

British Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram told parliament Monday that elite paratroopers and attack helicopter units were to begin training in readiness for possible operations in the lawless southern province of Helmand.

Logistics specialists will also be going to the region in the coming weeks to prepare the ground for a possible deployment next year, he added. Ingram stopped short of committing to a figure, however, and insisted: "These necessary measures are prudent military preparations for a possible future deployment. They do not mean that these units or capabilities will be committed to southern Afghanistan in 2006.

"No final decisions have yet been made." But The Guardian said as many as 2,000 extra British troops were expected to be sent to Afghanistan in early 2006, boosting the country's contingent there to about 4,800.

Discussions about a counter-insurgency coalition were part of the preparations, it added. "The debate is not whether, but to what extent these troops will get into counter-insurgency and counter-narcotics," an unnamed military source was reported as saying.

"We are not talking war fighting. But there is potential for armed conflict in some areas. The reality is that there are warlords, drug traffickers, Al-Qaida, Al-Qaida wannabes and Taliban," the source added.

Britain takes over NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan in May next year. Defence Secretary John Reid said earlier this year that he was looking into establishing a Britain-led provincial reconstruction team in Helmand.

According to The Guardian, the talks are aimed at resolving the overall size of the force, where they will operate and their mandate. Critics, however, said that in the face of growing insurgency, Britain should seek an exit strategy from Afghanistan and expressed concern at Reid's comments Monday that there was "no question" of withdrawal in the near future.

In the latest round of violence, one German soldier and three Afghans, including a woman and a child, were killed Monday in two suicide car bombings apparently targeting ISAF troops. Labour member of Parliament Bob Marshall-Andrews told the Independent: "Afghanistan could present a longer-term than Iraq -- it's slipping back into anarchy. "We're in very great danger of being mired for the long term in a country that must resolve its own affairs."

No overland access to Afghanistan for India: Aziz - Daily Times (Pakistan) / November 14, 2005

ON BOARD PM’S PLANE: Despite Afghanistan’s entry into SAARC, Pakistan will continue with its policy of denying India overland access to Afghanistan because that policy is linked to the broad matrix of India-Pakistan relations, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz told the media on his return flight from Dhaka. “India can send goods via Karachi; that facility already exists. But the overland route needs progress on certain core issue,” he said.

Afghanistan can, however, use the overland route to send goods to India, which it is already doing. At his bilateral meeting with Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, Mr Aziz proposed some concrete steps that could indicate progress on the issue of Kashmir. These included demilitarisation in the region, a soft Line of Control and self-government for the Kashmiris in Jammu and Kashmir. As Mr Aziz repeatedly stated to the media during the conference, these steps would show progress on Kashmir.

When Daily Times asked him if the linkage of issues with Kashmir meant that Pakistan was going back to its original position of an integrated dialogue rather than the composite framework that had been the basis of the process since the January 6, 2004, Islamabad Declaration, Mr Aziz said the linkage was only to the extent of full trade ties with India, the issue of transit facility and investment.

“Pakistan remains committed to the composite process on all other issues that make up the various baskets under the Islamabad Declaration,” he said. When Daily Times approached some senior officials of the Foreign Office to find out whether this crystallised position on Kashmir being pivotal for movement on trade transit and investment indicated a hardening of the Pakistani stance, they said this was in keeping with what Pakistan had been expecting since the normalisation process began. On the Indian side, Singh and earlier Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran made clear that India would not even think of demilitarising until it faced the prospect of terrorism. Indian officials told Daily Times that the issue of self-government was already taken care of and there had been elections in Kashmir. ejaz haider

PORTUGUESE DEFENCE MINISTER VISITS AFGHANISTAN

NATO/ISAF UNCLASSIFIED – Headquarters International Security Assistance Force, Kabul, Afghanistan - NEWS RELEASE - 14 Nov 05 KABUL, Afghanistan - The Portuguese Minister of National Defence, Dr. Luís Filipe Marques Amado, arrived in Kabul today as part of his 2-day visit to Afghanistan and the Portuguese contribution to NATO's priority mission, the International Security Assistance Force.

During his visit, Dr Amado met ISAF Commander General Mauro Del Vecchio And during an office call at the NATO mission's Headquarters he reaffirmed that nation's commitment to the UN-mandated security assistance mission.

At Kabul International Airport (KAIA) Dr Amado met the Portuguese Contingent and the Commanding Officer of ISAF's military airport component, Colonel Luis Ruivo. Portugal assumed the lead nation for operations at KAIA in August 2005 and is due to hand responsibility to Greece on 01 December 2005.

The Minister, accompanied by Army Chief of Staff General Luis Vasco Valença Pinto and Air Force Chief of Staff General Manuel José Taveira Martins, also visited the Portuguese Company that forms ISAF's Central Quick Reaction Force within the Kabul Multinational Brigade.

The force has recently completed an exercise, in the West of the country, to demonstrate Its ability to reinforce ISAF's security presence in extending the authority of the Afghan Government. Portugal has contributed troops and equipment to the ISAF mission since Its creation in 2001, and currently has around 200 troops in the country.

Woman editor wants to head Afghan parliament – Reuters 11/14/2005 Sayed Salahuddin

KABUL - Having won a seat in Afghanistan's new parliament, Shukria Barakzai says she now aims to lead it. The 33-year-old mother of three girls campaigned for the legislative elections in September saying women should try to change the country's male-dominated Muslim society by stepping out of the shadows to fight for their rights.

Results announced over the weekend confirmed Barakzai, a women's magazine editor, had secured one of the 68 seats reserved for women in the 249-seat lower house of parliament, the Wolesi Jirga.

"I want to create a cultural revolution in Afghanistan by trying to become the chairperson of the parliament," Barakzai, who ran a secret school for girls in her Kabul home during the Taliban rule, said in an interview.

The hardline Taliban government, which forced women to live in virtual segregation, was overthrown by U.S.-led forces in 2001 after its leaders refused to hand over al Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, the architect of Sept. 11 attacks on U.S. cities.

However admirable her ambition, Barakzai's chances of chairing the new assembly, when it convenes for the first time next month, appear slim.

She could well be up against former president Burhanuddin Rabbani, Yunus Qanuni, who was runner up to President Hamid Karzai in last year's presidential election, and Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq, a former commander who has the support of Afghanistan's ethnic Shi'ite Hazara minority.

Although the elections were fought on a non-party basis, analysts reckon those three heavy-hitters between them control some 100 seats in the assembly. Several former commanders of military factions, three former Taliban officials and several ex-communists were among those who won seats in the new parliament, besides a clutch of women activists.

If she got the job, Barakzai, whose magazine is called "Women's Mirror", says she would forego all privileges. Her trump card, Barakzai said, was that unlike the men she is untainted by involvement in years of civil war, when tens of thousands of Afghans were killed after the fall of communist regime in the 1990s.

"I have the confidence that I will win for my good reputation, record and good understanding of the society," she said. "If a woman becomes the chairperson of the parliament that will show the good aspect of change in Afghanistan."

Barakzai says she will work for national unity in a country riven by tribal and ethnic divisions, its reconstruction and for the rights of people, particularly women. Articulate and educated, Barakzai speaks the country's two main languages, Pashto and Dari.

But she also speaks English, French, Russian and Urdu and unlike most Afghans, she is aware of international and local laws. Another woman ready to take on the men in parliament will be Malalai Joya, a young activist who rose to prominence during a 2003 constitutional conference when she stood up and denounced old faction commanders as war criminals who should be tried.

The best-known woman in government is Masooda Jalal, who ran against Karzai in last October's presidential race, before being chosen by him as minister for women's affairs.

Warlords and women in uneasy mix - By Andrew North BBC News, Kabul

It should be no surprise that Afghanistan's first parliament in more than 30 years looks set to be one of the world's more colourful and controversial assemblies.

Former mujahideen commanders, alleged opium barons and ex-Taleban figures, including Mullah Rocketi, famed for his past fighting skills, will sit alongside large numbers of women politicians, one of whom says many of her fellow MPs should be on trial for war crimes.

It looks like a combustible mix. And one many Afghans are not happy about. "I do not trust them. Most of them are warlords and drugs dealers," said Ghafour Ahmad, a shopkeeper in central Kabul.

He voted for Ramazan Bashardost, a former minister whose outspoken campaign against what he says is widespread misspending by international organisations won him third place in Kabul, beating many established political figures.

Mr Bashardost struck a chord among Afghans frustrated at the slow pace of change. He is one to watch in the new assembly. But with the release of the last results from September's elections over the weekend, delayed by checking fraud allegations, many Afghan political watchers and diplomats here say the parliament that's emerged is what President Hamid Karzai wanted.

Despite their varied backgrounds, it is thought a clear majority of the new MPs back President Karzai. That matters because he will have to get their approval for his legislation and ministerial appointments.

Many who won seats in the 249-member lower house are President Karzai's fellow Pashtuns, Afghanistan's largest ethnic group. They are also likely to dominate the 102-seat upper house (Meshrano Jirga) when that is formed. Ethnic and tribal affiliations remain key here.

Large numbers of the former Mujahideen commanders who are MPs are Karzai supporters, among them Abdul Rassoul Sayyaf, who human rights groups say should face war crimes charges.

A staunch Islamic conservative, he is thought to be planning a bid to become parliamentary speaker. Former Taleban figure Abdul Salaam Rocketi, who has reconciled with the government, is also in the Karzai camp.

By contrast, "the proportion of MPs who are anti-Karzai and anti-system is low," said one western official, who followed the election process closely but cannot speak publicly. Another reason why many say the situation suits Mr Karzai is that political parties are weak in the new body.

Afghanistan's history of factional fighting has left him deeply suspicious of party formations. He deliberately chose a voting system for the 18 September elections that worked against them.

Most candidates ran as independents, although many still received undeclared backing from party factions. But no one can tell how things will work when the parliament sits for the first time next month. It could be a very fractious body.

There are fears among many Afghan intellectuals and liberals that the parliament has an inbuilt conservative Islamic majority and that this will lead to greater restrictions on the media and in other areas.

But standing against them, many Afghans hope, will be 68 women MPs. They give Afghanistan one of the highest proportions of female parliamentarians in the world. Many men said they voted for female candidates because they regarded them as being untainted by the past.

One of the more outspoken is Malalai Joya, who won in the western province of Farah province. She was already famous after speaking out against the alleged crimes of mujahideen leaders at the 2003 meeting that decided on Afghanistan's constitution. Now she will be sitting with these same people.

But she is sticking to her position. "Criminals are criminals," she told the BBC. "Communists, mujahideen or Taleban, if they killed our people, they should be on trial." She says she is concerned that many of those who have won seats are "hiding under the flag of democracy, but they don't believe in it."

Although there is much scepticism about this new parliament, both within and without, some still argue that it could surprise. It is under pressure to do what parliaments are supposed to do. "The mood out there is much more anti-government," said one diplomat. "The new parliament will have to be seen to be listening to that."

Déjà vu in Kabul - Los Angeles Times 11/14/2005 Chris Mason

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

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

At the edge of the Bonn roadmap, President Hamid Karzai is facing terra cognita in the form of three old, intractable problems: drugs, thugs and insurgents. Opium, warlords and radical Islamism have plagued Afghanistan for decades. Now they are beginning to blend into a perfect storm.

Opium production has grown exponentially since 2001, and by some estimates, as much as 60% of the country's GDP is either generated by or dependent on it. As many as 90% of Afghanistan's police chiefs are reportedly involved in or protecting the drug trade. Counter-narcotics efforts to date can be most kindly described as disappointing.

Politically, the good news is women won more seats in parliament in the September elections than the 25% mandated by a constitutional quota. The bad news is that at least half the seats will be held by the same old warlords, ex-communists and hard-line Islamists who helped complete the destruction of Afghanistan begun by the Soviets in 1979 by fighting one another in the 1990s. Among them are Mawlawi Mohammed Islam Mohammedi, the former Taliban governor of Bamian who supervised the destruction of the ancient giant Buddhas; and Ustad Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, cited by Human Rights Watch as a war criminal. Most members of this rogues' gallery still maintain armed militias, often masquerading as police, and are involved in the drug trade. Few of them support Karzai, making a return of the acrimonious parliamentary gridlock of the 1990s likely.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Next Step in Afghan Democracy: Legislating - The Los Angeles Times 11/14/2005 By Henry Chu - The building is nearly ready, but lawmakers still must figure out the parliamentary system

KABUL — Bloodstains still marred the basement walls last year when construction crews began renovating the building tapped to be this nation's temporary parliament house.

A former government structure most recently used as a prison, the building in west Kabul has borne witness to decades of tyranny and ruthless civil war. Soon, it will inaugurate a new chapter in Afghanistan's history when the country's first elected parliament convenes its maiden session.

But as workers scramble to hammer the final nails in place and install chairs and microphones, the site stands as a concrete reminder that democracies aren't built in a day. Beyond the physical trappings of the new parliament, officials are grappling with how to organize and run a body that their country has not seen before.

Who will sit where in the slightly cramped chamber? What rules will govern the conduct of a fair and orderly debate? Where will the government house the many representatives who come from outside the capital? How much will members be paid?

In such rudimentary matters as these, Afghans have no history to guide them. "We have no idea, no experience of what a parliament is," said Haseeb Noori, the institution's spokesman.

No one can even say with certainty when the opening session will take place. Different officials and organizers have cited different dates; President Hamid Karzai's spokesman said last week that the legislature would convene in the third week of December, but Afghans are placing no bets on the decisions of a government that had promised to call parliament a week after election results were certified. That would have meant a grand kickoff this month — not possible now given the preparations still to be made.

"Do you remember anything happening on time in Afghanistan?" said Taher Hashemi, a political analyst at the University of Kabul. "That's why we say 'inshallah' when we say we'll do something — 'God willing.' "

What's clear is that September's parliamentary election, widely deemed a success despite a lower-than-hoped-for turnout, was merely a first step in the formidable challenge of building a democracy from the ground up.

The task now is to establish the myriad rules, protocols and infrastructure that keep a parliament functioning and then, perhaps more difficult, to teach the 249 new lawmakers how the system works.

Among them will be numerous former warlords more accustomed to settling disputes with a gun on the battlefield than through polite discourse at wooden desks. Some of the members also are likely to be illiterate — unsurprising in a nation where about two-thirds of the population cannot read or write, but a handicap in a job entailing reams of proposals, reports and other paperwork.

Organizers are trying to put together a training session, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, for representatives before parliament opens. But Ramazan Bashardost, a former government minister and one of the few intellectuals and professionals to be elected to the body, is skeptical.

"I am sure we cannot educate a person in two weeks or two months to be a good representative," Bashardost said. "The new generation arriving in this parliament — they haven't any real knowledge about parliament, about the procedures of parliament, about what the parliament's job is."

Because of the lack of training and general education, and because memories of war and conflict here remain fresh, analysts expect this inaugural parliament — and possibly the next two or three — to function as a forum for factional fighting and fiery rhetoric rather than a deliberative, technical, legislative assembly.

The various parties will take time to align themselves, and democratic values and culture will need time to take root. Experts emphasize that Afghanistan is still a society in transition, making this a fragile political experiment requiring strong outside support — most notably from the United States — and patience.

But though the new parliament may struggle with the process of drafting and enacting laws, Hashemi said, it still could flex its political muscle by blocking the agenda of Karzai's administration. Among the chamber's first duties will be deciding whether to ratify policies Karzai has put in place and to approve his Cabinet, which could inspire plenty of political jockeying.

A few key figures elected to parliament have pledged allegiance to Karzai, but his opponents have won seats as well.

The extent of the new parliamentarians' popular support is open to question. Observers point out that the relatively low voter turnout of 53%, coupled with rules allowing Afghans to cast their ballots for just one candidate from a slate of hundreds, meant that winners were elected with just a fraction of the overall tally. In Kabul, with 1.2 million registered voters, the top finisher was former warlord Mohammed Mohaqiq, who got 52,586 votes. Another successful candidate toward the bottom of the list will enter parliament on the strength of about 2,000 votes.

"We are confident of the integrity of the results and that the results are an accurate reflection of the will of the electorate," said Richard Atwood, chief of operations for the U.N.-Afghan body overseeing elections. "We urge candidates, and in particular losing candidates, to accept the results and move on with the process."

The west Kabul building where the winners will convene once served as the headquarters of the rubber-stamp council set up under Mohammad Zaher Shah, the king who was overthrown in 1973. It sits along a sandy stretch of road where vendors sell impossibly large pumpkins and a few shepherds corral their flocks, on the edge of a gracious residential neighborhood wrecked by bullets and rockets.

Officials decided last year to return the structure to its former use as a government assembly hall, a $3-million project to rescue the site from its more macabre recent past as a prison.

"When we entered the building, it seemed as though there were ghosts inside," said Said Sharif Hossainy, deputy minister for urban development and housing. "It was strange."

Walls have been ripped out to widen spaces, especially for the semi-circular parliament chamber with tiered seating. A media gallery has been added. But don't look for such features as an electronic voting board, phones and Internet access at each desk, or even individual offices and staffs for the representatives.

"Afghanistan has a lot of economic problems, so we didn't spend a lot of money on this," said Ghulam Hassan Gran, general director of parliamentary affairs for the Secretariat of the National Assembly.

Dignitaries have erected an official marker down the street at the site designated as the parliament's eventual permanent home, hard against a Canadian military encampment. Funded by $25 million from the Indian government, officials say the new parliament building will be ready in three years — inshallah.

Afghan picked as top invention in 2005 - Science & Tech 11/14/2005

Snuppy, the first cloned dog, is the most amazing invention of 2005, Time magazine said on Sunday. The puppy, a five-month-old Afghan hound, was cloned at Seoul National University in Korea by a 45-person team led by Professor Woo Suk Hwang.

Snuppy's genes are derived from a single cell taken from the ear of an adult Afghan, rather than the egg and sperm of a mother and father, Time said. The technique used to create Snuppy, somatic nuclear cell transfer, was the same technique British researchers used to create Dolly the sheep, the world's first cloned mammal.

South Korea launched an ambitious project last month to become a global hub for stem-cell storage and research, hoping to cement its status at the forefront of cloning research. Stem cells are master cells in the body that can develop into any cell type.

Time's technology, science and health writers select inventions each year they believe may have a huge impact. Other inventions featured in the magazine, due on newsstands on November 14, include a bicycle with a hydrogen-powered fuel-cell engine, a one-time use video camcorder, and a robotic cat that recognises speech commands.

Same Old Song Over National Anthem

Even the author of the lyrics intended to unify the country admits they may be divisive. By Wahidullah Amani in Kabul (ARR No. 194, 13-Nov-05)
Institute for War & Peace Reporting

Abdul Bari Jahani does not like the words to Afghanistan’s new national anthem, as he fears they could accentuate political and ethnic fault-lines and sow discord. Jahani should know - he wrote the lyrics.

Jahani, an Afghan American now working for the Pashto service of Voice of America in Washington, is the latest in a string of writers who have tried to satisfy the constitutional prescription for the national anthem.

According to the constitution , the anthem must be in the Pashto language, must contain the words “Allahu Akbar” (God is great) and should list the country’s major ethnic groups. Each of these points is a political landmine.

The language issue almost derailed the Constitutional Loya Jirga in 2003. A compromise was eventually reached. and a commission instituted to begin the search for a proper text. President Hamed Karzai approved one version early in 2005 only to reject it a few weeks later. Then the whole process went back to the drawing board.

Now a new version is under consideration, even though its author says he is dissatisfied with it. "To be frank, I think it’s a problem with the constitution,” said Jahani. “When a government calls itself an Islamic republic, then it should respect Islamic virtues. The words ‘Allahu Akbar’ belong in mosques, not accompanied by music and trumpets.”

The requirement that major ethnic groups should be listed is also wrong-headed, he insisted. Afghanistan is an uneasy mix of peoples with historical and religious differences that run close to the bone. Pashtuns are in the majority, but share power and position with Tajiks, Hazara, Uzbeks, Turkmen and a host of other, smaller groups, each with their own concerns and grievances.

The constitution lists 14 major ethnic groups, all of which had to find a place in the new anthem. “I originally submitted a poem with nine ethnic groups in it,” said Jahani. “They asked me to add five more, and I did so. This is in fact not a poem, but a list of tribes.”

But even this long list is likely to irritate those who feel their group has been left out. Afghanistan’s small Hindu community, for example, do not get a mention. Anarkali, who represented the Hindus at the Constitutional Loya Jirga, protested that they were being ignored.

"If the national anthem is approved and the names of the other peoples are in it, but not the Hindus and Sikhs, we will not accept it. But we are sure it will be imposed on us anyway,” she told IWPR. “This is religious sectarianism.”

Not so, said Shah Zaman Wraiz Stanikzai, head of the publications department at the Ministry of Information and Culture and a member of the 45-person commission tasked with choosing the text for the new anthem. According to Stanikzai, Hindus and Sikhs are not included in the anthem because they are not mentioned in the constitution.

No matter what new objections are raised, Stanikzai believes this final version of the anthem will pass muster. “There can be no more changes,” he insisted. “We have finished our work and the minister of information and culture has given instructions to the group charged with composing the music.”

Some suspect that all the bickering is actually a deliberate ploy to prevent the country from ever approving a new anthem.

According to Jahani, the present national anthem, which dates from the presidency of Berhanuddin Rabban in the early Nineties, is popular with the mujahedin commanders who fought against the Soviets. Its lyrics are in Dari and refer back to the anti-communist jihad, glorifying the contribution the commanders made to keeping Afghanistan free.

Many of these warlords are now discredited in the country, and are blamed by a large swathe of the population for the violence and destruction of the civil war years that followed the end of communist rule in 1992. But they still wield a great deal of power, as witnessed by their success in Afghanistan’s recent parliamentary elections.

Jahani, along with Habibullah Rafi, the author of the previously rejected version, says it is the influence of these strongmen that is keeping the old anthem in place.

Mohammad Hassan Wolesmal, the editor of the weekly Jarida-ye-Milli-ye-Afghan (Afghan National Magazine), said the recurring drama over the anthem is just another sign that the Karzai administration is incapable of making decisions. "Wasting excessive amounts of time on the composition of the national anthem indicates the weakness of President Karzai's government," he said. Wahidullah Amani is an IWPR reporter in Kabul.

Cannabis Next Target in War on Drugs

Farmers in the north are up in arms over a government programme to stamp out marijuana. By Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi in Mazar-e-Sharif (ARR No. 194, 13-Nov-05)
Institute for War & Peace Reporting

Marijuana-growing is an old and venerable occupation in the northern province of Balkh. The province is famous for “shirak”, a high-quality hashish made by experts and marketed inside Afghanistan. Friday nights are traditional shirak-party nights, where relaxing with a pipe or a bong and some local is a normal pastime. The drug is illegal, but its use is so widespread that the authorities have traditionally turned a blind eye.

Now all of that is changing, in the face of a determined government effort to stamp out narcotics.

Since the fall of the Taleban in 2001, surging cultivation of opium poppies, from which heroin is produced, has led western governments to warn that Afghanistan is in danger of becoming a narco-state. According to a United Nations report released last year, some 90 per cent of the world’s heroin originates in Afghanistan.

To combat drug production, the international community has been generously funding major eradication programmes. The United States alone has pledged 780 million US dollars to the counter-narcotics effort in Afghanistan, and other countries, most prominently Britain, are contributing funds and troops to assist in the campaign.

The campaign has so far yielded modest results. While a great deal of land has been taken out of poppy cultivation in some provinces, higher yields in other regions have kept production fairly steady, according to international studies.

One of the provinces where production has risen is Balkh. Officials estimate that poppy production here has tripled in recent years, and the regional administration is under pressure to show some results. That has led to the all-out war against all illicit drugs, including the cannabis plant.

"We are taking action as a sign to farmers that we have started our campaign, and that in future the cultivation of poppies and marijuana will be prohibited in this province,” said Shair Jan Durrani, spokesman for the police headquarters in Balkh.

Responsibility for the eradication campaign, he said, has been given to the local police force, “Our police have been given the equipment necessary to completely wipe out poppy and marijuana farmlands.”

Marijuana is an easy target for officials determined to show their commitment to drug eradication. Since poppies are not now in season, zealous counter-narcotics forces can expend their energy on cannabis, which is harvested from October to December.

Farmers say cultivating cannabis has several advantages over opium poppies. It is easier to grow and store than the poppy plant, which is labour intensive and requires a trained workforce. Cannabis has a shorter growing season, and compressed hashish is quite compact and can be easily shipped. Cannabis also uses less irrigation water, an important consideration in Afghanistan’s drought-plagued climate.

It is also easier to gather. “When it’s time to harvest marijuana, we just cut the plants and store them in a dry place. After that, we shake the plants so the seeds fall off,” said Mohammad Nazar, a farmer in Balkh. “We don’t need to hire workers, like we do for poppies, so marijuana is much cheaper.”

Although they earn only one-quarter of what they would make growing poppies, some farmers have until now preferred to cultivate cannabis not only because of lower labour costs, but also because they believed they ran less risk of being prosecuted.

“We didn’t think it was illegal,” claims Mohammad Jan, 55, a farmer in Balkh province whose cannabis fields have been destroyed. “The government was only eradicating poppies in past years.”

Particularly irksome to Mohammad Jan and other farmers is the fact that the government waited until October, when they were harvesting, to start destroying the plant.

“We’ve lost a year’s work,” complained Mohammad Jan. “If the government had given us warning, we wouldn’t have planted marijuana. This has completely destroyed our lives.” Farmers say they cannot support their families if they grow legitimate crops.

“If I take my annual yield of wheat to market and sell it, I make barely enough for one week’s outgoings,” said Fazel Rahman, a farmer in the Chahar Bolak district of Balkh. “We are not allowed to plant poppies or cannabis, but the government is not helping us find other seeds to plant. So we have to leave the country in order to earn our bread.

“I have never planted poppies, because I’m afraid to - the government is destroying the poppy fields. So I planted marijuana on one or two acres instead. The money I make is enough to support my family and me for a year. Now the government has destroyed our marijuana fields, and winter is coming. We have no income to live on.”

General Mohammad Daoud, the deputy interior minister who is the senior police officer in charge of counter-narcotics work, said the government will not tolerate the cultivation of any narcotic plants. Daoud took a trip to Balkh in mid-October, presumably to signal the government’s renewed commitment to drug eradication in the province.

“The government is determined to prohibit the sowing of seeds for poppy or marijuana plants as a first step,” he said. “If anyone does cultivate these plants, his fields will be destroyed. Finally, the government is going to stop the trafficking of narcotics.”

According to Counter-Narcotics Minister Habibullah Qaderi, Balkh follows close behind Kandahar and Helmand for poppy cultivation, so the government in Kabul is going to bring increased pressure to bear on local officials.

"Due to the increased poppy cultivation in Balkh, the government is going to send a team to talk to the provincial governor so as to draw a plant to put a stop to it,” he said.

But Qaderi insisted that the government is also sensitive to the plight of farmers, “This team has financial and technical resources, and in addition to eradication they will take note of the needs of farmers and will act to solve their problems.” Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi is an IWPR reporter in Mazar-e-Sharif.

Quake orphans ‘adopted’ for jihad - The Sunday Times Nov. 13 2005

CHILDREN orphaned by the Kashmir earthquake are being “adopted” by terrorist groups that hope to train them to fight in the jihad, or holy war, writes Dean Nelson.

Pakistan’s leading human rights organisation, the Ansar Burney Welfare Trust, said jihadi groups fighting the Indian government were taking orphans off the streets and putting them in training camps. The organisation said it also had evidence that sympathetic government officials were passing children on to the jihadis to be looked after.

The popularity of the Islamic militants has risen sharply since the earthquake struck on October 8, killing more than 87,000 people.

The militants were among the first to arrive with aid at some of the worst affected villages. Their organisation and ability to commandeer lifting equipment and tents have generated significant new support. But according to human rights campaigners they are using their new popularity to smuggle weapons and recruit the young and vulnerable.

“We have heard from very reliable sources and seen with our own eyes that orphaned and lost children are being taken by jihadi organisations in northern Pakistan to be trained,” said Fahad Burney, of the trust.

Jamaat-ud Dawa, one of the largest jihadi groups in Pakistan, has called openly for orphans to be handed over for an “Islamic education”. Pakistan moved quickly following the quake to ban adoptions after aid agencies warned of child trafficking.

[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.]