Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan after armoured vehicle rolls over

OTTAWA (CP) - A Canadian soldier was killed and four others injured Thursday when their armoured vehicle rolled over in southern Afghanistan.

No explosive devices nor enemy action were involved in the accident, which occurred during a routine patrol on the main highway 45 kilometres northeast of Kandahar, said Lt-Gen. Marc Dumais, deputy chief of the defence staff, . The dead soldier was identified as Pte. Braun Scott Woodfield, 24, of Victoria.

The injured soldiers were identified as: Sgt. Tony Nelson McIver, 31, of Fredericton; Cpl. James Edward McDonald, 32, of Pembroke, Ont.; Cpl. Shane Dean Jones, 30, of White Rock, B.C., and Pte. Paul Shavo, 24, of London, Ont.

All were members of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment, which is based in Gagetown, N.B. Members of Parliament stopped debate Wednesday afternoon and held a minute's silence for the dead soldier.

The accident involved a LAV-3 armoured personnel carrier. The military said three of the soldiers suffered serious but not life-threatening injuries. Two were flown by American helicopter to the main U.S. military base in Baghram, north of Kabul.

Woodfield is the eighth Canadian to die in Afghanistan since Canada first sent soldiers into the southwest Asian country in 2002. Four died by friendly fire, two by anti-tank mines and one at the hand of a suicide bomber.

The Canadians have been running convoys on the same highway between Kabul and Kandahar in recent weeks as they move headquarters to the country's volatile southern region from the capital.

Earlier this month, a Canadian soldier was sent home with a broken leg after a collision between two military vehicles in Kabul. Four others were treated for cuts and bruises and released.

In September, two Canadian soldiers suffered minor injuries when a roadside bomb exploded next to their armoured patrol in Kabul. Also in September, Pte. Patrick Dessureault, 24, of Alma, Que., died on an exercise when soft earth gave way near a river in Wainwright, Alta., sending his light armoured vehicle rolling into the water. The crash broke his neck.

Dessureault was on night manoeuvres with the 2nd Battalion, Royal 22nd Regiment at the time. Two other members of the Valcartier, Que.-based regiment, known as the Vandoos, were injured.

Swede killed in Afghan attack

KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- One Swedish soldier with the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan was killed and three others were wounded, including one critically, in a bomb attack on their vehicle, the Swedish Defense Ministry said Saturday.

The soldier died early Saturday at a hospital in Kabul that is run by the International Security Assistance Force, the NATO peacekeeping force in Afghanistan. Another soldier remained in critical condition at that hospital, and two others were in stable condition at a separate facility, the ministry said.

The attack happened around 3:40 p.m. (11:10 a.m. GMT) Friday when a roadside bomb detonated near their vehicle on the outskirts of the city of Mazar-e-Sharif, in northern Afghanistan, according to the ministry.

The two most seriously wounded were flown to the hospital in Kabul for treatment. An investigation into the explosion has been launched, and the Afghan National Police have been cooperating in that effort, the ministry said.

Sweden has about 85 troops participating in the roughly 10,000-member ISAF force, mainly participating in reconstruction efforts in the Mazar-e-Sharif area.

Four Afghan policemen abducted – BBC

Militants in Afghanistan have abducted four policemen after an attack on a police station in Logar province, just south of Kabul, officials say. No-one has claimed responsibility for the attack. Logar's deputy police chief Abdul Rasoul told the BBC that the Taleban were behind the attack.

But an intelligence official accused Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hizb-e Islami group of carrying out the attack. Logar is thought to be a stronghold of the Hezb-e-Islami.

Eyewitnesses told the BBC that a gun battle involving machine-gun fire continued for nearly an hour. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is a former mujahideen leader, who fought against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

He fled Kabul when the Taleban came to power in 1996, but is now reported to be engaged in the struggle against US- and Nato-led forces in Afghanistan. In a separate incident, a Swedish soldier had died as a result of injuries caused by a roadside bomb blast in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif on Friday.

Another soldier is in a "very serious" condition, the Swedish Armed Forces said in a statement. Two other soldiers were injured in the explosion. There are about 100 Swedish troops in the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) in Afghanistan. More than 1,200 people have been killed in violence linked to militancy in Afghanistan this year.

GIs Face Discipline for Burning Taliban

The U.S. military on Saturday denied its troops committed any criminal wrongdoing in the burning of two Taliban rebels' bodies, claiming they did so for hygienic reasons, but said four soldiers face disciplinary action over the incident.

The military held a news conference to release the findings of an inquiry into TV footage last month that showed U.S. soldiers using the cremation to taunt other Islamic militants — an act that sparked outrage in Afghanistan. Islam bans cremation, and the video images were compared here to photographs of U.S. troops abusing prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

The U.S.-led coalition's operational commander, Maj. Gen. Jason Kamiya, said two junior officers who ordered the bodies to be burned would be officially reprimanded for showing a lack of cultural and religious understanding, but said the men were unaware that what they were doing was wrong.

Kamiya also said two noncommissioned officers would be reprimanded for using loudspeakers to taunt Taliban rebels who were believed to still be lingering in a nearby village after a clash with the troops. The men also would face non-judicial punishments, which could include a loss of pay or demotion in rank.

"Our investigation found there was no intent to desecrate the remains, but only to dispose of them for hygienic reasons," Kamiya said.

Hekmatyar’s Hezb-i-Islami rejects Kabul’s peace offer

Says no deal possible with puppets of the US -he News International (Pakistan) - Bureau report November 25, 2005

PESHAWAR: Rejecting the offer of peace and reconciliation made by a pro-government commission in Kabul to its opponents, former Afghan mujahideen leader Gulbaddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-i-Islami said there was no question of accepting the appeal of those who were puppets of the US and had paved the way for the American occupation of Afghanistan.

A two-page Pashto statement made available on behalf of Hezb-i-Islami to reporters and newspaper offices in Peshawar angrily rejected the offer and predicted victory for Afghans fighting the US and it’s allies in Afghanistan. It said those making the offer would taste defeat the moment the US forces withdrew from Afghanistan and Iraq. "We would then march into Kabul with green Islamic flags and all those traitors now siding with the US would be put on trial and punished," it warned.

Though the name of Professor Sebghatullah Mojadeddi and his peace and reconciliation commission wasn’t mentioned in the statement, it was obvious that he was the real target of the criticism by Hezb-i-Islami when it recalled that his elders were brought by the British colonialists to Afghanistan to implement their agenda. The statement reminded that members of this family promised amnesty to former Afghan ruler Habibullah Kalakani on the Holy Quran only to lure him to Kabul and have him executed along with his men. The statement said those making offers of peace were powerless and were acting on the orders of the US. "Who are you to offer us peace or talk about putting mujahideen on trial? You are puppets and have no respect and credibility among the Afghan people," it declared.

The Hezb-i-Islami statement also made fun of the peace commission’s allegation that some of Afghanistan’s neighbours were supporting opponents of the Kabul regime. It reminded that all neighbouring countries from day one had supported the US invasion of Afghanistan and captured and delivered anti-US fighters to America. He argued that the US-led crusader forces would never have captured Afghanistan without the support of neighbouring states.

"Those who aided and abetted the killing of innocent Afghans were being made to pay the price for this injustice by Allah. Pakistan suffered earthquake on the same day on which four years ago it backed the US invasion of Afghanistan that led to the killing of 50,000 innocent Afghans. And the aftershocks of the quake would continue until the day the US bombed Afghanistan," the statement said. It reminded that the argument given by Pakistani rulers for supporting the US had also proved wrong because America is siding with India on Kashmir and had forced Pakistan to stop supporting Kashmiri freedom fighters. The statement said Pakistan would have benefited had it sought help from Allah rather than America.

NATO tries to allay Afghan security fears - BRUSSELS (Reuters)

NATO allies are in intensive talks to allay security concerns among nations key to a plan to expand peacekeeping in Afghanistan amid growing violence there, alliance sources said on Friday.

The Netherlands, one of three nations earmarked to lead the expansion into the more dangerous southern region in the first half of next year, has raised questions over whether NATO will have sufficient forces to handle serious trouble, they said.

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer is due on Monday to meet New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, who insists she will not transfer to NATO a 120-strong reconstruction team in Bamiyan province unless the alliance guarantees robust support.

"The Dutch want reassurance. If things go wrong, they want to be sure that there are others out there who can help them," said one NATO source who requested anonymity.

"The Dutch are in daily contact with allies and we shall see how this goes," said a NATO official. "The secretary-general is fully aware of the discussion taking place in the Netherlands."

A spokesman said Dutch Defense Minister Henk Kamp was still weighing up security and other considerations. A decision to deploy 1,100 Dutch troops to southern Afghanistan would require parliamentary approval, he added.

The NATO-led ISAF mission currently has some 9,000 troops in the capital Kabul and the relatively calm north and west. The move to the south will raise troop numbers to 15,000 and allow the U.S.-led coalition to cut the size of its force there.

Britain, Canada and the Netherlands have expressed a desire to share the lead in the expansion. Aside from New Zealand, there are also talks with non-NATO nations including Australia.

Recent weeks have seen a rise in violence, including attacks aimed at ISAF troops and evidence that Taliban insurgents are resorting to suicide bomb attacks in their campaign to drive foreign troops out of the country.

Four Spanish ISAF soldiers were wounded on Friday when a mine blast hit their convoy on the outskirts of the northern town of Mazar-i-Sharif. It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack but suspicion fell on Taliban guerrillas.

NATO officials are relatively happy with the response to an initial call for nations to contribute more troops and materiel to the ISAF force but acknowledge they still face shortages of helicopters and other key equipment.

Clark is expected to stress to de Hoop Scheffer next week that NATO must

provide New Zealand's reconstruction team with the same level of air support and other back-up that it now gets from the U.S.-led coalition.

"The details will have to be worked out with New Zealand ... There will be air assets to provide close air support and other support," said a NATO official.

"NATO has no intention of sending troops anywhere with one arm tied behind their back," he added of a revamped operational plan for the ISAF mission which allows soldiers more leeway in dealing with attacks.

Although security concerns are to the fore, the Netherlands also wants assurances on how NATO will handle prisoners after reports that a suspected CIA plane, possibly carrying prisoners for interrogation, used Amsterdam's Schiphol airport last week.

Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot told reporters late on Thursday there should be clear agreement with Afghan authorities on how ISAF would deal with any prisoners it takes.

Afghanistan needs help to boost security: UNSC

UNITED NATIONS, November 25 (SANA) – Afghanistan needs international assistance to help it boost security, fight terrorism and control the drugs trade, the United Nations said.

Violence in any form intended to disrupt the democratic process in Afghanistan will not be tolerated, Russia's UN ambassador Andrey Denisov, the UN Security Council's president, said in a statement.

The Council reaffirms the importance for the international community to maintain a high level of commitment to assisting Afghanistan in addressing its remaining challenges. “The successful holding of elections has demonstrated the broad commitment of Afghan voters to democracy and freedom,” the Security Council said.

Afghanistan’s now a strategic gem - DNA INDIA, Amir Mir

ISLAMABAD: The war-torn impoverished landscape of Afghanistan seems to have become the new playground for India and Pakistan to score strategic points over each other.

Having expanded its presence and influence in post-Taliban Kabul, India has made substantial progress in its efforts to make the international community believe that Islamabad has been using terrorism as an instrument of foreign policy to pressurise New Delhi on the lingering dispute of Jammu and Kashmir.

According to well-placed Pakistani intelligence sources, having established its consulates in the Afghan cities of Herat in the west, Kandahar in the south and Jalalabad in the east, the Indian government is making renewed attempts to get hold of any evidence that could prove the notorious Inter Services Intelligence's involvement in the December 24, 1999 hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC-814. Since the fall of the Taliban government in Afghanistan, Indian and American investigation agencies have reached the epicentre and are investigating the 1999 hijacking.

Pakistani intelligence are believed to have learnt that in May-June 2004, CBI and FBI officials had already visited Kandahar to interrogate the Taliban-backed masterminds of the operation, which had led to the hijacking of the Indian Airlines plane as soon as it took off from Kathmandu airport on December 24, 1999.

Before proceeding to Kandahar, the Indian officials got permission from the Afghan government to question several Taliban operatives including Mullah Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, who happened to be Afghanistan's foreign minister during Taliban rule and a key witness in the 1999 hijack.

The Pakistan intelligence operatives in Kabul are learnt to have provided disturbing information to their bosses back home, according to which FBI agents seized revealing tape-recorded conversations between the hijackers of IC-814 and Air Traffic Control in Kandahar.

The information contained in those tapes has already been shared with Indian intelligence, pursuing which, in August-September 2004, an FBI team went to India while a CBI team visited Kandahar to follow up on those leads, the Pakistani intelligence circles fear.

To a question, a senior intelligence official requesting anonymity said the FBI reportedly extended full cooperation to the CBI because a US national, Jeanne Moore (a psychotherapist from Bakersfield, California), was amongst the passengers. While pursuing the criminal case registered in the US against the hijackers, an FBI team recorded Moore's testimony and visited New Delhi thrice.

The FBI interrogators are learnt to have also acquired the record of incoming calls at Air Traffic Control at Kandahar airport that can create some serious problems for Pakistan, besides affecting the pace of the Indo-Pak peace process, the intelligence sources fear.

Tens of thousands attend funeral of Indian hostage - Nov 25

CHINGOLI, India (AFP) - Tens of thousands of people crammed into this southern Indian village for the cremation of an Indian driver killed in Afghanistan by suspected Taliban rebels.

The dead man's eight-year-old son lit his funeral pyre, according to Hindu custom, which dictates that the oldest son perform a parent's last rites.
Ministers and local politicians also attended the funeral, which was marked by a gun salute by state police.

From early afternoon onwards, relatives and friends massed outside the two-room coconut-shaded home of Maniyappan Raman Kutty, 35, whose body was brought on Friday to his home village of Chingoli in a remote part of Kerala state.

"We've come to share their grief. I loved him like a brother," said villager Dileep Chellappan amid mounting anger among locals about what they saw as lack of effort by the government to save Kutty's life.

Thousands more people had lined the road into the village to greet the coffin, which was transported 125 kilometers (75 miles) by road from Kerala's capital Thiruvananthapuram.

Kutty was working as a driver on a road project in southwestern Afghanistan being built by the Indian government's Border Roads Organisation when he was abducted last weekend.

His body was found Wednesday, dumped on a roadside. His throat had been cut,
"My son is gone, my son is gone," wailed his mother, a 62-year-old cancer patient. "Who will light my funeral pyre?"

The coffin was flown to Kerala's capital from New Delhi where it was received with military honours at the airport late Thursday. Photographs of Kutty plastered walls throughout the farming village. Amid the sadness, a mood of anger was building in the village as some said they did not believe the government made enough effort to win Kutty's release.

"My nephew could have been saved if they'd tried to negotiate. They didn't try hard enough," said the victim's uncle, Raman Kutty Vishwan. "We're angry with the way the Indian government dealt with this."

"If the Taliban had abducted a senior official or minister's kin, the government would have acted more responsibly," said neighbour K. Ajayakumar. "Because we are very poor...they dealt with things in a casual manner." Kutty was one of thousands of Indians who travel abroad to earn money -- often in risky work.

The fundamentalist Taliban regime, ousted by US-led forces in 2001 for sheltering Osama bin Laden, claimed responsibility for the killing. A man identifying himself as a Taliban spokesman had said there had been no response to a demand that Kutty's employer leave Afghanistan.

"The government should have sent some people to Kabul to start discussions with the Taliban militia and he would have been saved," said Ashok Kumar Uthaman, a schoolmate of Kutty.

India has called the killing a "cowardly and brutal murder of a brave Indian ... working in the cause of peace and development" and said it reflected the "inhuman character of the Taliban and the forces they represent".

The official use of that phrase -- "the Taliban and the forces they represent" -- has triggered speculation in the Indian media that New Delhi is pointing a finger at rival Pakistan, which had close ties with the Taliban.

New Delhi has been trying to win back its foothold in Afghanistan after losing out to Pakistan in the 1990s.

Pakistan, the Taliban's key supporter until Islamabad backed the United States after the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, has been ill at ease about deepening Indian relations with Afghanistan.

India, which shares historic cultural ties with Afghanistan, has said the killing will not affect its efforts to rebuild the war-ravaged country.

DG BRO asked to visit Afghanistan, discuss security of its men - NEW DELHI, NOV 25 (PTI)

Government today said it has asked the Director General of Border Roads Organisation Lt Gen K S Rao to travel to Afghanistan to discuss steps to strengthen security arrangements for about 300 Indian nationals working in that country.

Official sources here said Government was contemplating deploying additional ITBP personnel in Afghanistan as part of long term measures to ensure the safety and security of Indians engaged in various projects.

On reports that Pakistan may be behind the recent abduction and killing by Taliban of BRO driver Maniappan Raman Kutty in southern Afghanistan, the sources said it was difficult to point an accusing finger at this stage.

The sources said the message sought to be conveyed was that India should stop the highway project from Zaranj to Delaram and pull out its nationals from Afghanistan. Indian agencies were in touch with their Afghan counterparts to investigate the killing of Kutty, whose body was found with his throat slashed.

Information is also being sought on the role of two Afghan security guards who were also believed to have been abducted by the Taliban along with Kutty. A fourth hostage, an Afghan driver has been set free. One of the angles being probed is whether these two guards were conniving with the Taliban.

The note pinned on Kutty body by the Taliban said "this (Afghanistan) is not India or America and India should get out of this country. Giving the chronology of the abduction case, the sources said on November 19 late evening, an Afghan security official attached to the BRO received an unidentified call that Kutty, another Afghan driver and two Afghan security guards had been abducted and the caller had said he was from Taliban. India's Ambassador to Afghanistan Rakesh Sood immediately contacted Afghan National Security Adviser who promised immediate action. Simultaneously, Indian agencies were activitated to gather information from their channels, the sources said.

As efforts to establish contact with the abductors continued, an international news agency received a call on November 20 at 1600 hours purportedly from the Taliban giving a 48 hour ultimatum for BRO to pull out of Afghanistan with the threat that otherwise, Kutty would be killed.

Information from the Afghan driver, who was freed, revealed that while the vehicle in which Kutty was travelling moved towards Minar, four armed men armed with rocket launchers and guns stopped the vehicle and soon were joined by armed men who arrived on a second vehicle and disarmed the two Afghan security guards.

While Kutty was taken in a black Corolla, the three were driven to another destination. Till late in the night on November 21, the Afghan authorities were unable to confirm reports that Kutty had been killed.

AFGHANISTAN: UNHCR says major concern of refugees is livelihoods not security

KABUL, 24 November (IRIN) - The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees on Wednesday said that the major concerns of refugees living in both Iran and Pakistan are jobs and employment, not security.

"Now, for the sustainability of return to be possible, our work with refugees still staying in Pakistan and Iran, has shown us very clearly that the major concern is not paradoxically security, but it is livelihoods," Antonio Guterres, told reporters at a press conference at the end of a two-day mission to Afghanistan, in the capital Kabul, adding the major concerns of refugees were related to the issue of employment, education, and health care.

A high proportion of the over 3.5 million Afghans, who have returned home from Pakistan and Iran since the collapse of the Taliban regime in late 2001, are suffering from lack of shelter and unemployment.

"Our main message is that …there should be the creation of conditions for the full integration of returnees in the development process of Afghanistan," Guterres explained.

Asked for his view of the future of returns, Guterres said "Afghans will continue to return to their homeland in large numbers. But there will be those who will take longer to make that decision. Those Afghans who do not return in the short-term should continue to have the right to a decent life in their countries of asylum."

Some 500,000 Afghans have returned home this year, bringing the total number of returns since UNHCR began its repatriation programme in 2002 to nearly three million, according to the refugee agency. "I encourage all three governments, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, to play a constructive role in addressing this [refugee] issue, together with the UN refugee agency," Guterres said.

Ghazni farmers make profits from potatoes instead of poppy
November 25, 2005 COMBINED FORCES COMMAND – AFGHANISTAN

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan – Afghan farmers in Ghazni are finding it pays to grow potatoes instead of poppies after they recently received 400,000 Afghan dollars from the Coalition Humanitarian Assistance Department.

The Ghazni Provincial Reconstruction Team met within the past month with the Minister of Agriculture Sultan Hussein to deliver the equivalent of about $8,240 U.S. dollars to farmers who chose to grow potatoes instead of the poppies.

The project was coordinated by the Ghazni Ministry of Agriculture who personally distributed the profits from the sale to representatives from each of the three farmers’ co-ops.

“The program is very successful,” said Lt. Col. Robert Meier, Ghazni provincial reconstruction team commander. “We were able to take care of farmers and to distribute food to returnees coming from Pakistan and Pakistan earthquake victims.”

The farmer cooperatives, or co-ops, participated in the Great Ghazni Potato Project. The program aims to deter Afghan farmers from poppy cultivation, and toward developing a more viable and legal source of agricultural commodity.

The co-op represents 21 local Ghazni Province farmers who had an over abundance of potatoes for their local markets and were paid the fair market value price for the 40,000 kilograms of potatoes. In the Coalition’s effort to assist Afghans in the transition from poppy to a more viable agricultural crop, CHAD purchased the potatoes to distribute humanitarian assistance food to returnees in the Asadabad, Jalalabad and Parwan districts. It’s a “win-win” situation for both the farmers and the government of Afghanistan said Meier.

Roshan boosts Afghan mobile penetration

Afghanistan’s leading cellco, the Telecom Development Company Afghanistan (Roshan), claims that its GSM subscriber base reached 650,000 this month, up from 523,000 at the end of June, on the back of determined efforts to expand services in the war-torn country. Rival operator Afghan Wireless Communications Company (AWCC) had signed up only 260,000 mobile users at the end of June, despite having a year’s headstart on Roshan, which received its licence in January 2003.

Afghanistan’s cellular penetration stood at just 1.6% at the end of 2004, but the figure is now thought to have topped 4%, largely due to Roshan’s network expansion. It operates in 45 towns and cities, spread across 29 of the country’s 34 provinces, including less commercially viable areas such as the remote north eastern region of Badakhshan. The company plans to cover the whole country by mid-2006, including the Taliban stronghold of Uruzgan.

Roshan has invested over USD150 million in its infrastructure so far and plans to invest a further USD100 million in the next year to maintain its position, with two new competitors due to enter the market in 2006. Lebanese company Investcom, in partnership with the Alokozay Group of the UAE, won one of two GSM concessions in an auction in September, with the second licence going to Watan Mobile Afghanistan, a consortium made up of Saudi Arabia’s Al Houbi Telecom, and US companies Cellular One and GlobeCom Systems. Each concession cost USD40.1 million. Investcom says that it intends to launch a commercial GSM network by mid-2006 under the brand name Areeba.

Telling Tale of Afghan Wars by Any Means Necessary - By MARGO JEFFERSON November 26, 2005 The New York Times

What do we want from political theater, the kind that lays bare the social realities we are shielded - or shield ourselves - from?

For starters, we want these sometimes awful, alien realities to have force, to be as tangible to us as our everyday lives. And by force I don't mean brute power: blood and screams of anguish, brandished rifles and carefully simulated rapes; I mean power that continues after the play is over. Not just images that haunt us, but also sounds and words that prompt us to think more, learn more and take action.

How to make vital political theater is hardly a new question. Playwrights, directors and performers everywhere have used satire, fable, melodrama, propaganda, puppet theater, epic theater, carnivals and performance art. Still, seeing "Beyond the Mirror," at Theater for the New City through Dec. 4, reminds us how urgent a question it is.

The first collaboration between an Afghan and an American theater company, it has a quiet authority, even delicacy, that is truly powerful.

The project began in Pakistan's refugee camps shortly after 9/11, when members of Bond Street Theater met a group of Afghan actors who called themselves the Exile Theater. The next year, the Bond Street company, led by its director, Joanna Sherman, went to Kabul. There, along with two million other returning Afghans, the Exile troupe started over.

The entire country had been devastated by war. The Soviets invaded in 1979; then came the Mujahadeen resistance and factional wars, leading to the rise of the Taliban, which banned all the arts, including theater; in 2001 came the United States invasion. That same year, the theatrical collaboration began. First, Exile's director, Mahmoud Shah Salimi, created a nonverbal scenario about the quarter-century of war. Then came rehearsals that melded various traditions: what Ms. Sherman called, in American Theater magazine, "an exciting mix of music, dance, martial arts, mime, acrobatics, any way we can communicate our tale without words." And in a radical move, a woman joined the all-male Exile troupe; women's experiences became a central part of this war story.

The result is theater with restrained mime and abstracted imagery. Two puppet heads twist on sticks. We don't see a literal hanging; we have to imagine it. As in a nightmare, the details become very exact and intimate. Props are nonliteral, too. Sticks with ropes attached serve as rifles (and every other kind of brute-force weapon). A small blue puppet becomes a child gurgling happily as it crawls towards a land mine. Short scenes show normal life being interrupted or destroyed, or remade so that brutality becomes ordinary. After all, killing a man for a sack you believe contains food can be normal behavior if you are starving.

"Beyond the Mirror" has eight actors (four American, four Afghani) and one musician. And the theater is small, so you do not have the luxury of physical distance.

A robed man sits onstage, playing long melodies on the ruhab, an elegant, short-necked lute with roots in the eighth century. The most literal images appear and disappear on a screen (really a cloth stretched across the back wall of the stage). Here are tanks and machine guns. Here is the lavish greenery of the countryside and austere snow-capped mountains; a white-gold sun, in a beige sky; a camel with a load of hay on its back that looks like a cloud. People too, in cars and on bicycles, or cooking in markets and crouching in muddy streets.

In a 1972 essay called "Photographs of Agony," the critic and novelist John Berger wrote that images of literal and explicit horror exist apart from our lives. They create a discontinuity that we may feel as moral inadequacy, and that sense of inadequacy, he says, numbs us.

We're all too familiar with it. This applies to theater too. "Beyond the Mirror" takes us beyond the obviously horrific. That is when we start to mistrust the apparent safety and privilege of our own lives.

Tourism Key to Afghanistan’s Future - Adam Dean The Seoul Times, South Korea

Afghanistan may not seem like the most obvious tourist destination, but as the country navigates itself through the winding path towards stability and democracy, tourism will be key to its economic development and help Afghanistan break away from its reliance on foreign aid and poppy production.

Although Afghanistan's reputation in the West may still be of a country blighted by war and conflict, with a history of medieval regimes, tribal law and for being the source of the majority of heroin found on the streets of London and New York, it actually had a relatively successful tourist industry in the 70's when Kabul was very much part of the "hippy trail."

Since then the country famously slipped into civil war following the successful repulsion of the invading Soviet Army by the Mujahedin. The result was a power struggle that saw horrific infighting amongst the warlords competing for control of the country and specifically Kabul. These warlords, formally united against their common Soviet enemy and supported by the West, ended up fighting brutal and bloody battles in the streets of Kabul, causing devastation and huge death tolls. Ironically it was as a consequence of this that the Taliban formed and seized power in an attempt to purify the country with their own brand of Islamic Sharia law.

The first generation of international backpackers, setting the blueprint for millions of gap year students and making million dollar industries for the likes of Lonely Planet and Rough Guide publishing houses, were lured by the promise of eastern philosophy, cheap living, and even cheaper hashish, and made the overland trip from London to Kathmandu through Europe, Turkey, and Iran before crossing into Afghanistan and then on to Pakistan, India and Nepal.

In Afghanistan they would cross the country taking in Herat, Mazaar-e-Sharif, or Kandahaar on their way to Kabul and Bamiyan.

Kabul was an almost unimaginably different city in those days. Afghan women walked the streets in mini skirts, western films played in the cinemas, locals mixed with Westerners, eating and drinking in open air restaurants and dancing together in nightclubs. Things soon changed and the modern image of Afghanistan was born, where women walk the streets ten paces behind their husbands covered from head to toe in burkas, music and TV are banned, and the only westerners on show are the aid workers and journalists foolish enough to stay behind.

Things have certainly improved since the 2002 invasion although the majority of women still wear burkas, music and TV are no longer banned, and there are more Western aid workers, contractors, and soldiers of the NATO led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) patrolling the city.

However, the country is still not regarded as safe. The British Foreign Office and the US State Department still "strongly advise (against) all but non essential travel" and only last week three people were killed, including a German peace keeper, by suicide car bombers in Kabul. In short, foreigners are still a target. Commentators were concerned that the recent elections would see a resurgence in violence from Taliban and al Qaeda sympathisers trying to destabilize the democratic process. There were pockets of activity but not enough to deter the Afghan people from turning out in force for their first opportunity to vote for their own government in over 30 years.

Although all is not rosy in Afghanistan and Hamid Karzai recently questioned America's approach and policy in the country, the Afghan people's response to the elections and democracy has been a positive sign for all parties and particularly the American foreign policy and military planners who no doubt wish things were going as well in Iraq.

It is obviously hoped that with democracy will come stability and safety, and it is then that tourism in Afghanistan will be given an opportunity to flourish.

"Afghanistan is one of the least developed countries in the world. The political instability and war in the last two and half decades left this country in ruin. Afghanistan is an agricultural country (with) a bargain of natural resources," said Seoul's Afghanistan Ambassador Nabil Malek-Asghar. "In order to develop other sectors of the community, tourism plays a major role."

The country has some of the world's most outstanding natural beauty and historical sites that equal any country: from the Buddhist sites of Bamiyan to the Mazar-e-Sharif Shrine. This, along with the legendary Afghan hospitality, suggests that success and income through tourism are inevitable.

The 10-storey high Buddhas of Bamiyan carved into the rock face on the edge of the Bamiyan valley in central Afghanistan are infamous for being blown up by the Taliban in 2000. There has been ongoing discussion about the fate of the site since the Americans removed the Taliban from power in 2001, including rumours of UNESCO grants to rebuild the statues and the most recent suggestion that a famous Japanese artist recreate the Buddhas in a laser light display.

Whatever they choose to do, Bamiyan will become a major international tourist attraction in its own right. It not only has unique religious heritage but it is also situated in one of the most beautiful 100 km long, green, sweeping valleys in an untouched landscape. Close by are the high altitude azure lakes of Band-e-Amir, which will ensure that Bamiyan is the first stop on any tour itinerary from Kabul when they finally get the new road built.

The United Nations co-ordinator of the aid effort in Bamiyan, Peter Maxwell, also says that tourism will play a major role in bringing money to the region.

"What I hope very much is that Bamiyan as a cultural centre will actually be starting to come on stream [with its] Buddha sites and the Band-e-Amir lakes and other world-class attractions," he said.

"That brings us on to the four or five year spectrum, where I think you really will see good roads, lots of tourists - that will mean that Bamiyan is where it deserves to be, a major and worldwide attraction, which will have quite transformed economic prospects for this area."

Although Bamiyan is undoubtedly a potential World Heritage Site, Afghanistan has plenty more to offer.

As part of the ancient Silk Road and more recently the "hippy trail," Kabul city itself is a lure for many travellers. Although ravaged by war, its ancient bazaars, street traders, and mosques are truly captivating. The main focus of tourism in the city is Chicken Street. Popular in the 60s, the street is lined with handicraft shops selling everything from lapis lazuli and carpets to Herati glass and Uzbek embroidery.

They even sell traditional handmade carpets commemorating the American invasion and depicting B-52s dropping bombs on the mountains of the Hindu Kush. The return of foreign aid workers and journalists has seen a long awaited revival in fortunes for the traders of Chicken Street.

Northeast of Kabul lie the Hindu Kush mountains famed for their cave complex hideout where Osama bin Laden was last known to have been and where the Americans' subsequent bombing campaign at Tora Bora failed to flush him out.

Earlier this year a team of Italian mountaineers, Mountain Wilderness, started training former war lords and Mujuhadeen fighters, who have spent their lives in the mountains, how to become qualified mountain guides in anticipation of an influx of adventure tourists and particularly climbers.

The peaks have been inaccessible for the past thirty years, so they predict great interest from mountaineers the world over vying to make first assents on some of the highest faces and peaks in the world. The former freedom fighters will be replacing their Kalashnikovs with ice axes and taking advantage of this lucrative opportunity.

These are just a few examples of some of the tourist opportunities for Afghanistan, not to mention the plethora of Mosques and Shrines that litter the vast country.

Afghanistan is still a long way from mass tourism, but as stability and safety continue to improve, the more adventurous independent travellers will start to dip their toes into this seemingly uncharted land. The unstoppable wheel of tourism will soon start to roll as greater numbers follow in the footsteps of these more intrepid travellers, and we may see a repeat of what is happening in Cambodia, where the streets of Siem Reap are filled with five star hotels and international jet setters flying directly into the local airport to marvel at the temples of Angkor Wat and as a result investing huge amounts of foreign currency into a country in desperate need of economic help.

[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.]