JOINT PRESS STATEMENT – (Afghanistan, UK, UN)

The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, the United Nations and the United Kingdom are to co-chair a major international conference in London on 31 January-1 February 2006.

The Conference will:

• launch a new “Afghanistan Compact,” which will:

• Establish a framework for cooperation between Afghanistan and the international community for the next five years, designed to address the security, governance and development challenges that remain.

• Establish a new mechanism for coordinating Afghan and international effort, led by the UN for the international community.

• Provide an opportunity for the Afghan Government to present its Interim National Development Strategy which sets out its political and economic plans and priorities for the next five years.

• Create an opportunity for the international community to renew its political and financial commitment to the Afghan Government in support of its programmes, and of the goals agreed in the Afghanistan Compact.

President Hamed Karzai, Prime Minister Tony Blair and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan all intend to participate.

Released by the Office of the Spokesperson Ministry of Foreign Affairs Kabul, Afghanistan November 27th, 2005

Afghanistan to present National Development Strategy

KABUL, Nov. 27 (Xinhuanet) -- The post-war Afghanistan would present its National Development Strategy at the next donors' conference in London, Afghan Foreign Minister said Sunday.

"Work on the chalking out of a National Development Strategy, which is designed to be presented at donors' conference in London is going on," Abdullah Abdullah told journalists at a joint press conference with the special envoy of UN secretary General to Afghanistan Jean Arnault.

The two-day London conference, which is going to open on Jan. 31, is the third of its kind since the collapse of Taliban and induction of new government in the post-war nation over the past four years.

International community has pledged more than 12 billion US dollars in the first and second conferences of donors' nations held in Tokyo and Berlin respectively in 2002 and 2004.

The situation in Afghanistan especially the reconstruction is going to be reviewed by over 60 countries and international organizations attended the London conference.

"The international community would renew its commitment for another five years in assisting Afghanistan to rebuild itself in all necessary fields including development, security and good governance. We are hopeful to achieve the goal," Abdullah added.

Speaking at the press briefing, the UN special envoy to Afghanistan welcomed the coming London conference and called for more international support to Afghanistan.

"The plan to hold the London conference shows that, reassuringly, the international community has chosen another course of action to continue its high-level, multifaceted engagement with Afghanistan," Jean Arnault stressed. Enditem

Concerns cloud NATO plans to extend Afghan force

Brussels (AFP) - NATO has agreed to plans extending its ISAF peacekeeping mission into Afghanistan's more volatile south, but concerns remain over who will provide troops amid growing security fears on the ground, officials say.

The operational plan to send up to 6,000 extra troops for the next phase of expansion of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was provisionally agreed last Thursday by ambassadors at the military alliance's Brussels headquarters.

But sources underline that concern about sending troops into potentially frontline combat situations, as opposed to a strictly peacekeeping role, is raising questions in NATO capitals, notably the Netherlands.

"ISAF will be faced with a more dangerous situation in the south. There are countries which are hesitating," said one source at the 26-nation alliance.

NATO has been in charge of ISAF since 2003, and has gradually expanded the force out of Kabul into the north and west of the country, chiefly through establishing civil and military Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT).

A separate US-led coalition of nearly 20,000 mostly US troops, Operation Enduring Freedom, is based mainly in the more volatile south and east, the focus of attacks by Taliban and other insurgents.

Under the operations plan agreed last week, NATO troops will also move into the south next May with the help of "up to 6,000" extra troops to add to the currently 9,500-strong ISAF force.

The plan, which is expected to be submitted for final approval by NATO foreign ministers in Brussels on December 8, underlines that any ISAF troops dispatched to the south would have more robust protection and beefed up "rules of engagement".

It also sets out in detail command arrangements between ISAF and the US-led anti-terror operation, a subject which has fueled intense debate for months at NATO headquarters.

Under the agreed plan, a NATO commander for the whole of Afghanistan would be backed up by three deputies, one in charge of security, who would be "double hatted" in the sense of being answerable to both ISAF and the Americans.

At NATO headquarters, officials insist this will allow for a clear distinction between troops involved in anti-insurgent combat and ISAF, while underlining that NATO troops must all be able to defend themselves.

But in private military sources concede that it may be difficult, on the ground, to distinguish what is self-defence and more "pro-active" operations. Grey zones also exist for example in the fight against drug trafficking.

To cloud matters further, attacks on ISAF forces have intensified in recent months, fueling concerns in national capitals over the protection of soldiers they provide to NATO.

So for example in the Netherlands the two main political parties have voiced reservations about sending Dutch troops, as scheduled, to the difficult southern province of Oruzgan.

"The secretary general is fully aware of the discussions taking place in the Netherlands," said a NATO official, referring to the alliance's chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. "No country intends to send their troops to the south with one hand tied behind their backs."

Britain, which will take over command of ISAF next May, is expected along with Canada and the Netherlands to lead PRTs in the south. Discussions are also underway with other countries including New Zealand and Australia.

But British Defence Secretary John Reid has made it clear that London will not take on the task alone. A NATO official declined to forecast exactly what will happen in the coming months. But he added: "The Dutch decision is theirs to take. We will see."

2 Taliban militants killed in S. Afghanistan

KABUL, Nov. 27 (Xinhuanet) -- Two Taliban militants were killed and 2 captured Saturday after a firefight with Afghan police in southern province of Zabul, a local official said Sunday.

"At about 11:00 a.m. yesterday, a convoy of patrolling Afghan police cars came under attack in Sorai district. The policemen fired back to the militants and after 2-hour firefight, 2 Taliban militants were killed and 2 were captured, and 6 injured have beentaken away by other militants," Haji Rahmatullah, the district chief of Sorai told Xinhua.

"We have also seized 10 types of weapons, including 6 AK-47, 2 RPG rocket launchers and 2 heavy machine guns," he added. Early Saturday morning, a group of Taliban militants attacked the building of the district chief of Charkh in southern Logar province, taking away one officer and three soldiers, and setting fire to the building.

More than 1,500 people, with the majority of them Taliban militants, have been killed in the Taliban-linked militancy since the beginning of this year. Enditem

No US charges over Afghan bodies- BBC News / Saturday, 26 November 2005

US troops who burned the corpses of two suspected Taleban fighters killed in a gun battle in Afghanistan committed no crime, military investigators say.

The bodies were burned for reasons of hygiene, the investigation found. Four soldiers still face disciplinary action - two for failing to show local understanding and two for using the cremation to taunt other fighters.

The inquiry began amid fears news of the act would antagonise Muslims, who regard cremation as sacrilege. Video of the cremation shot by a journalist embedded with the US military was shown last month in Australia.

It shows the bodies being burnt on 1 October, in a location near the southern city of Kandahar, and also features insulting messages from soldiers which had been broadcast by loudspeaker to Taleban fighters in the area after the act.

However, the video has not been shown inside Afghanistan and there have been no reports of public protests. Speaking at a news conference in Kandahar, the US-led coalition's operational commander, Maj-Gen Jason Kamiya, said the soldiers involved had not been aware that what they were doing was wrong.

"Our investigation found there was no intent to desecrate the remains, but only to dispose of them for hygienic reasons," he was quoted by AP news agency as saying. The temperature, he said, had been 33C and the bodies had begun to decompose.

However, two junior officers who had ordered the bodies to be burnt would be officially reprimanded for "poor judgement and lack of knowledge and respect of Afghan culture and customs".

Turning to the broadcasts, which had been directed at presumed survivors of the same gun battle thought to be sheltering in a village, Gen Kamiya said they had violated military policy.

Two non-commissioned officers would be reprimanded as a result. Kandahar Governor Asadullah Khalid, also present at the news conference, said he had confidence in the US investigation.

The video was shot in the village of Gonbaz outside the southern city of Kandahar by Australian cameraman Stephen DuPont, who was embedded with a US unit, for SBS's Dateline programme.

It opens with what the programme describes as shots of an American PsyOps unit using loud pop music to try to flush out the Taleban - who banned music when they ruled the country.

Some footage shows two corpses laid out facing Mecca and then being burned in what the reporter, John Martinkus, describes as a "deliberate desecration of Muslim beliefs".

Islamic tradition states that bodies should be washed, prayed for, wrapped in white cloth and buried within 24 hours.

Later footage shows two US soldiers repeating messages broadcast by loudspeaker in which the Taleban are called "cowardly dogs" and "lady boys".

In May there were widespread demonstrations in Afghanistan resulting in the deaths of at least 15 people after Newsweek magazine reported that US forces had desecrated the Koran at the Guantanamo Bay military camp. The magazine later printed a retraction, saying it could not prove the allegation.

Afghan army 'stops Kabul blast' BBC News / Saturday, 26 November 2005

The Afghan national army has arrested six people driving cars packed with explosives into Kabul, the defence ministry spokesman has told the BBC. "The Afghan national army and other security forces have stopped a very dangerous attack which could have taken innocent lives," Gen Zaher Azimi said.

Meanwhile, the governor of the eastern Nangarhar province has said he was the target of a failed suicide attack. And four Afghan policemen who were feared abducted are now back at base.

Gen Azimi said the defence ministry and International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) had launched an investigation into the attempted attack in Kabul. He said the army had seized two cars, one of which, a land cruiser, contained explosives and a gas cylinder, as well as weapons and communications equipment.

Afghan security officials say they fear more attacks in Kabul. Earlier this month, eight people were killed in two suspected suicide car bomb attacks.

Also on Saturday, Gul Agha Sherizi, Governor of Nangarhar province, told reporters he had been planning to visit the road construction site where a bomb exploded on Friday night.

He had visited the area several times over the past few days and believed that he was the target of Friday's attack. He said the attempted suicide attack must have been carried out by a foreigner, not an Afghan.

The director of security in Jalalabad earlier told the BBC that a man had died while trying to plant the bomb. Eyewitnesses told the BBC that at least three civilians were injured in the blast.

A spokesman for the interior ministry told AFP news agency that four policemen, feared abducted after another militant attack in Logar province, returned home late on Saturday. Logar's deputy police chief told the BBC that Taleban fighters had attacked a police station and taken the four men.

But an intelligence official accused Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-e Islami group of carrying out the attack. Logar is a stronghold of the Hezb-e-Islami. 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. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.

In a separate incident, a Swedish soldier 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.

Afghan people to remember Kutty's sacrifice: Karzai - New Delhi, Nov 27, IRNA

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has sent a letter to the family of Maniappan Raman Kutty saying that the BRO employee, who was abducted and killed by "merciless terrorists," had paid the ultimate sacrifice while working on a road project in his country.

Kutty was abducted by the Taliban on November 19 in western Afghanistan and killed four days later by the Taliban, who demanded BRO pull out from Afghanistan.

"The Afghan people recognize, and will remember that Kutty paid the ultimate sacrifice while on construction of a road for Afghanistan," Karzai wrote.

Karzai expressed heartfelt condolences on behalf of people of Afghanistan to the family members and friends of Kutty.

Pakistan aided Taliban in killing of Border Road Organization driver Maniappan in Afghanistan

Pakistan aided Taliban in killing of Border Road Organization driver Maniappan in Afghanistan to create tension between India and Afghanistan: Indian National Security Adviser

India Daily M K. Narayanan, Media Release Nov. 27, 2005

The abduction and killing of Border Road Organisation driver Maniappan in Afghanistan was the result of a ''conspiracy'' between Pakistan and Taliban, National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan has said.

Narayanan said Pakistan's aim was to create rift in the cordial relations existing between India and Afghanistan. "It is a conspiracy, cheating and an ill-motivated act," Narayanan said.

He said the tragic incident, however, would not dampen Indo-Afghan relations. India would continue with its peace-time construction works in Afghanistan.

Narayanan rejected the allegation that India had not done anything to secure Maniappan's release. India had contacted the Afghan government as soon as the news of the kidnapping came out. But a link could not be established with the Taliban which did not offer a chance for negotiations.

The Taliban had executed the hostage in a most brutal manner and such acts posed a threat to the civilised world, he said. Narayanan was here to inaugurate the newly formed Ottappalam Development Forum.

U.S. Tries to Boost Authority Of Shaky Afghan Government - By John Lancaster, Washington Post Sunday, November 27, 2005

SOLON, Afghanistan -- The soldiers arrived by helicopter, fanning out through the village of mud-walled compounds and taking up positions on nearby rooftops and hills. But this was no ordinary air assault. Among the heavily armed U.S. paratroops was the governor of Zabol province, on a mission to win hearts and minds.

"Ask the Taliban, 'Why do you want to destroy Afghanistan?' " the governor, Delbar Jan Arman, told a group of village elders and younger men a short while later, as the goat he had purchased to feed them roasted over an open fire.

"They destroy every school in Afghanistan," continued Arman, a bearded, solidly built man in a quilted green cape. "Go and ask them, 'How many ayahs ' " -- verses -- " 'are in the Koran?' They don't know."

Watching from the sidelines was Army Capt. Joshua McGary, a 30-year-old West Point graduate who along with fellow soldiers had been ambushed last month by Taliban guerrillas in a ravine less than three miles away. "I wonder how many of these guys were shooting at us," he mused during a break in the meeting.

The moment underscored the challenge confronting U.S. troops as they seek to bolster the authority of Afghanistan's shaky central government in the face of stubborn resistance from the Taliban nearly four years after American-led forces drove the fundamentalist group from power.

In the spring and summer, U.S. forces engaged the Taliban in some of the heaviest fighting of the past several years as the soldiers moved deep into mountainous areas of southeastern Afghanistan, building a network of small bases manned jointly with Afghan forces. The areas had previously served as rebel sanctuaries.

In the last few months, according to U.S. military commanders, that aggressive strategy has appeared to pay dividends, hindering the Taliban's ability to assemble large groups of fighters and, at least in some areas, permitting more of an emphasis on political and humanitarian missions such as the governor's trip to Solon.

During a recent four-day visit to the main U.S. base in Zabol, the atmosphere was almost relaxed as soldiers took advantage of the lull in combat to catch up on reading or missed episodes of the U.S. television series "Lost," make improvements to the plywood sheds in which they will pass the winter or lift weights in the well-equipped gym. In the nearby provincial capital of Qalat, members of a civil-military unit were instructing pupils in plumbing and automotive repair, among other subjects, at a newly established trade school.

But the insurgency is far from over. By many accounts, the Taliban fighters are becoming more sophisticated, eschewing direct engagements with U.S. forces -- which they invariably lose -- in favor of tactics that are harder to counter. These include the growing use of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, as well as suicide attacks, including car bombings targeting convoys of U.S. or allied forces, and assassinations of government officials and police.

U.S. officers said that they would not be surprised by a surge of Taliban violence before the onset of winter and that, in any case, they expect the fighting to resume when the snow melts in the spring.

"We know we have moved the ball down the field, but to say where we are on the field is pretty difficult," said Maj. Greg Harkins, the operations officer for the paratroop battalion that constitutes the main U.S. combat force in Zabol. "I don't know if I can say how long it's going to take before this insurgency is going to be defeated."

So far this year, the fight against the insurgents has claimed the lives of 86 American soldiers -- eight from Harkins's battalion. A total of 204 have been killed since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan began in October 2001. But Harkins disputed suggestions that the Taliban was gaining strength, attributing the increased fighting in Zabol to the presence of U.S. soldiers in places they had not gone before.

"The reason there's been so much fighting and contact is because we are now amongst the enemy, and what you have is not a resurgent Taliban, but a cornered Taliban," he said.

Part of the 173rd Airborne Brigade based in Vicenza, Italy, the 2nd Battalion of the 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment arrived in Afghanistan in March and took up residence at the sprawling compound of hastily erected buildings and dirt-filled wire-and-cloth blast barriers of the main U.S. base in Zabol.

From there the battalion and associated units have steadily extended their reach in the province. They have set up nine smaller bases that are shared with Afghan soldiers and are intended to provide security and humanitarian aid, such as medical services, in remote tribal regions where the government has traditionally exercised little influence.

The difficulty of that task was evident during a brief visit to one of the camps, in the dusty brown pan of the Shinkay Valley, about a 90-minute drive southeast from the main base by slow-moving military convoy. A company of combat engineers stationed at the camp is building a road across the valley, a major transit area for Taliban fighters crossing into Zabol province from Pakistan.

Since the project started in June, Taliban fighters have repeatedly planted IEDs -- typically antitank mines wired to pressure-sensitive detonators made from scrap metal and wood -- along the road's path. They have also attacked construction and military vehicles with machine-gun fire and rocket-propelled grenades, killing a number of Afghan workers and causing five contractors to quit.

The attacks have diminished in recent weeks, and Army Capt. Dan Young, who commands the engineering company, said he expected to wrap up his portion of the road project by mid-December. But the Taliban maintains a heavy presence in nearby mountains overlooking the camp and road, reporting constantly on the movements of U.S. and Afghan forces over hand-held radios that are monitored at the camp.

"They see everything we do and everywhere we go," Young said.

In their quest to buttress the central government, U.S. commanders in Zabol have forged a close relationship with Arman, the provincial governor, a former commander in the anti-Soviet jihad of the 1980s who retains fond memories of the Peace Corps volunteers who trained him as an electrical technician a decade earlier.

One of his closest allies is Maj. Doug Vincent, the 2nd Battalion's executive officer, the second-in-command. A South Florida native with a wry sense of humor and a weightlifter's tapered build, Vincent, 36, is well-versed in the literature of Afghanistan, including work by Rudyard Kipling and "The Kite Runner," the recent bestseller by the Afghan-born writer Khaled Hosseini. For the last several months, he has been working with the governor to persuade Pashtun tribal leaders to pledge fealty to the government, after which they would be bound by tribal code to treat Taliban fighters as outcasts.

"We are like two brothers," Arman said as he waited to board a Chinook transport helicopter for the political mission to Solon with Vincent. "He's a very good adviser to me."

Surrounded by almond groves at the base of a boulder-strewn river valley about 160 miles southwest of Kabul, the village is in an area where U.S. forces have engaged in several sharp clashes with the Taliban, including a May 3 firefight that ended with the deaths of at least 37 insurgents, according to Harkins, the operations officer.

During their recent visit, the governor and his military entourage initially received a cool reception. Villagers complained that Afghan troops had stolen food and sweets while searching houses for weapons during a recent sweep of the area with U.S. forces. "We are scared of coalition forces and also the Taliban," said Haji Mohammed, a 38-year-old farmer, tugging nervously at his beard. "We don't know what we should do."

But the governor and his escorts did their best to reassure the villagers, promising to replace the stolen food and treating them with exquisite courtesy. During the governor's speech, for example, Vincent quickly ordered his men down from the roof of one compound when he learned that the women inside had complained that the soldiers' presence was keeping them from going into the courtyard to do chores. A load of food and clothing was deposited by helicopter a short while later.

Delivering his own speech through an interpreter, Vincent reminded the villagers that the prophet Muhammad, during his journey from Mecca to Medina, had relied on many helpers along the way. In the same manner, he told them, "Americans are here to help" Afghanistan as it makes its own journey out of the bloodshed and chaos of the last quarter-century.

Helping women make waves in Afghanistan Globe and mail By JANE MCELHONE, November 28, 2005

I worked with female journalists setting up their city's first independent radio station in the face of violent threats by authorities.

It was the first thing I saw as I stepped out of the elevator at Redux Pictures Gallery in Manhattan. There, dominating the entryway, was the photograph of a woman I first met a world away: Homeira Habib, the station manager of Radio Sahar, which is a member of the Parwana (Butterfly) Media Network and the independent radio station in western Afghanistan I helped set up.

Homeira's image had been captured as she strolled down a quiet dusty lane outside of her grandmother's house, wrapped in a gold scarf, robe and trousers. The setting sun lent a stillness and calm to the photograph, as did Homeira's enigmatic smile.

I first saw the photo a few months ago in a book Homeira was clutching under her arm at a conference at a small, dark hotel in Kabul. She was one of more than 200 journalists who had gathered to create Afghanistan's first independent journalists' association -- a conference I was invited to attend as an international observer.

Homeira leafed eagerly through the pages of photos, pointing out a flight attendant, politician, teacher, and beekeeper, and finally, her own image. She explained that the book was being distributed to girls' schools across Afghanistan and that all the women featured inside would serve as role models for Afghan girls.

I met Homeira two years ago in a leafy garden in the middle of Herat, a provincial capital with a vibrant cultural history, not far from the Iranian border. As the Afghanistan project director for the Canadian Institute for Media, Policy and Civil Society at the time, I was helping Herati women establish their city's first independent radio station. One afternoon we sat down with a group of young women students from Herat University's journalism department; Homeira joined the circle and already, in her early twenties, demonstrated a quiet dedication to her chosen profession.

When armed guards were placed in Radio Sahar last year by local authorities, Homeira was threatened and told she would never again work as a journalist in her own province.

I was also threatened: when I tried to enter the station compound early one evening, an armed guard smashed the door against my arm and said if I took one more step forward, he would kill me. That experience unsettled me, yet as a foreigner, I knew I could seek protection. As a young Afghan woman, Homeira was out on the front lines, yet she stood her ground and helped the station survive through the crisis.

Much like her country, Homeira has had to grow up quickly. Over the past two years, she has covered the rebuilding of Afghanistan and its continuing struggles with poverty, illiteracy and violence; the creation of a new constitution; the registration of voters heading to the polls for the first time; the first democratic presidential election campaign; and recently, her country's first democratic parliamentary elections.

It is these experiences that have given Afghan journalists like Homeira the maturity and courage they need to do their work, and to fight to improve journalistic standards, freedom of the press and the laws that govern media. To have seen Homeira debate these issues alongside dozens of her colleagues from across the country was a privileged moment.

Since helping to launch Radio Sahar in October, 2003, Homeira has worked as station manager, program director, technician and reporter. She has also continued studying, and in 2006 will be a member of the first graduating class of Herat University's Journalism Faculty.

When she began her studies, there was only one independent radio station in the country and a handful of state broadcasters, yet since then, the transformation of the media sector has been nothing less than dramatic. Today dozens of radio stations compete with television stations, news agencies and a myriad of newspapers and magazines. And hand-in-hand with this development -- slowly, slowly -- the number of trained female journalists is growing.

At that crowded conference in Kabul, I glimpsed many other women we had trained and nurtured: Mobina, the manager of Radio Rabia Balkhi in Mazar-i-Sharif, and Gawhar, the editor of Rah-e-Naw newspaper, and up at the front of the room, on the organizing committee, two women who had worked with us as radio journalists. Farida is now the Managing News Editor of Pajhwok Afghan News; Sharifa recently won a seat in her country's parliamentary elections.

Most of these women are struggling to find a place in a profession -- and a country -- that is dominated by men. Most of these media organizations are struggling to survive. Yet with a lot of work and determination -- and as long as there is a growing peace -- by the time journalists like Homeira graduate, there will be jobs to choose from and countless women to act as role models for all of the young girls growing up across Afghanistan.

Maybe that is why Homeira is smiling. Jane McElhone is a Canadian journalist now based in London.

Greek army to run Kabul aiport - The Herald Sun (Australia) / From correspondents in Athens / 26nov05

SOME 38 Greek Air Force personnel left Athens Friday for Afghanistan, where they will run Kabul airport as part of NATO's peacekeeping mission (ISAF), the Greek army said in a statement.

The servicemen flew from Eleusis air base near the capital and will run the airport for four months from December 1, the army said.

The government has said it will keep a Greek presence at the heart of the ISAF force, despite a Kabul bomb attack on November 14 which injured two of its troops. The international force comprises 10,500 soldiers from 37 countries, including 170 Greeks.

U.S. uses roads to woo Afghans

Orlando Sentinel (USA) Roger Roy | Sentinel Staff, November 27, 2005

ORGUN, Afghanistan -- In this remote, hostile province on the eastern border of Afghanistan, U.S. forces have found cobblestone roads and solar-powered streetlights to be their most powerful weapons in the war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

For the soldiers here charged with fighting the insurgents, the benchmarks for success are not body counts but how many miles of road they can pave, how many streetlights they can install and schools they can build.

"Our No. 1 priority is still killing or capturing the bad guys," said Lt. Col. Timothy McGuire, commander of the 1st Battalion of the 508th (Airborne) Infantry, the main U.S. war-fighting force in the province. "But projects like cobblestone roads are our most powerful weapon."

That roads and streetlights could succeed against the insurgency where bombs and guns have failed is testament to how stunningly backward and remote from the country's central government Paktika province is.

Until the roads through Orgun were paved earlier this year, there was not an inch of paved road in the province, an area the size of Vermont.

The national government was irrelevant and practically invisible in much of Paktika. The hostility it generated is perhaps best characterized by events two years ago in one border district where the police chief was beheaded, his officers executed and the district governor forced to flee for his life.

Some lifelong residents of the province told me recently they could not remember seeing national-government officials until representatives of President Hamid Karzai's government -- fortified by U.S. and Afghan army firepower -- recently began establishing district offices, garrisons and checkpoints staffed by Afghan soldiers and police.

Now U.S. and Afghan forces have been able to extend their influence -- and the red, black and green Afghan flag -- into insurgent strongholds. They have done it in part by persuading residents to support the Karzai government in exchange for projects such as roads and streetlights.

I saw firsthand how persuasive those rewards can be when I accompanied a company of McGuire's paratroopers to northern Paktika to search the homes of suspected insurgent supporters in Naka and Zerok for illegal weapons.

In Naka, the sullen leader of a madrassa, or religious school, being questioned about hidden weapons, perked up considerably when asked whether he had seen the new paved road in Orgun or the solar-powered streetlamps in Zerok, villages where residents are cooperating with the American and Afghan military.

"If you could provide some solar lights for my madrassa, the people of Naka would be very happy," he told the American soldiers through their interpreter.

But he was told no projects would come until villagers cooperate with authorities and the provincial governor, a carrot-and-stick message I heard delivered over and over during the course of the two-day operation.

Naka's 33-year-old mayor, Wali Shah, told the Americans he wanted some of the $1,500 streetlights for his village's government office, mosques and bazaar.

Shah, who topped off our visit by serving us a dinner of spicy chunks of beef and potatoes at his government office, explained that his people are tired of fighting and want improvements now.

The main street, where camel trains still plod along carrying loads of firewood and grain, is a rough dirt trail flanked by open sewers. About 25,000 people live in the village. There is no electricity, and the only lights at night come from the homes of the few who can afford generators.

"The people right now, they want projects: They want schools and streetlights," the mayor said through an interpreter. "They don't want al-Qaeda. They don't want trouble."

But whether the villagers of Naka will be drawn by the prospect of projects remains to be seen: Attacks there have declined recently, but residents still hesitate to cooperate freely with the Americans and the Afghan government, and the insurgents may be merely regrouping for the winter.

Through most of Paktika, residents are resisting pressure to choose sides. "We're fighting the battle of the fence-sitters right now," Capt. Jason Hansen of Utah explained to me. "They're waiting to see which side is going to prevail, and what we're trying to do is push them off the fence. And projects like the roads have been a big part of that. We're saying, 'Here's what your government can do for you, but you need to choose a side.' "

The irony isn't lost on the Americans that, despite all their 21st-century weapons and tools, it is a technology dating back thousands of years that is proving so effective.

The roads built or under construction in Orgun and three other cities in the province aren't much different from the stone roads of the Roman Empire. And they take advantage of one of the country's most abundant resources: rocks.

Afghans like to say that, after God made the world, all that was left over was rocks, and so God made Afghanistan. In parts of Paktika, the stones are hard, flat and consistent in thickness, making them ideal for use as paving stones.

Arranged over a hard-packed base of gravel and dirt, the stones are mortared in place. The result is a road that's not as smooth as asphalt, but which can be made with local materials and can easily be repaired when stones become loose.

They're also cheap. The 2.2 miles of stone road in Orgun was built for $300,000. And because the work is labor-intensive, the projects employ hundreds of laborers, who earn from $3 to $7 a day, perhaps two to four times more than the average Afghan.

For the first road projects, outside contractors were brought in because no one in Paktika knew how to do the work, said McGuire of Alamo, Calif. But the local foreman on the Orgun road used his experience there to win the contract for a $180,000 paving job in nearby Sarowbi.

"Next year, he'll probably get two or three paving projects, and so you've got a local contractor now who's getting the work," McGuire said. "That's building Afghan capacity."

The employment offered by the road-building -- in a poor province where there's little work -- is as beneficial as the finished road itself.

"If an Afghan is working all day and making a good wage building a road, he's not going to be out there at night planting a bomb on it," McGuire said as we inspected one of the cobblestone streets.

As aid to Afghanistan goes, the projects built by McGuire's paratroopers are a drop in the bucket. Foreign governments and aid organizations are pouring billions of dollars into the country in an effort to overcome the devastation of decades of war.

McGuire has just $6 million in what's called the commander's emergency program to fund projects for the year his battalion is in the country.

But while the bigger organizations have more money, they're also often hamstrung by bureaucracy and problems the soldiers don't face. Many of those organizations, especially the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), have been criticized for long delays in their projects, some of which have yet to be started months after their scheduled completion.

Work on many aid projects has essentially stopped because of security worries, attacks or squatters who take over partially completed projects and refuse to leave.

None of those are problems for McGuire's paratroopers, whose rapid work on the roads in Paktika recently brought a USAID official to investigate how they've completed their projects so quickly.

But though the projects have bolstered support for the Afghan government, and brought good will for the Americans, they've also fed rising expectations among residents who, until recently, didn't expect anything of their own government.

While inspecting work on the road in Sarowbi recently, Capt. Tom Hando of Milwaukee, who oversees the work, found himself confronted by villagers who demanded to know when their streets would be paved, some of them complaining that the selection of streets had favored one tribe over another.

Hando explained that more work was on the way and that other streets will be paved, too, but he didn't make any promises about their streets.

"This is what you get into every time on these projects," Hando said. "It's just the way things are here, and you have to work through it."

But many others in the town, not known as American-friendly, simply offered their hand and a brief word of thanks to Hando, who noted the many red, green and black flags displayed on rooftops and storefronts.

"Look at all the Afghan flags flying," Hando said. "That's something you never used to see. And it's always a good sign." Sentinel reporter ROGER ROY is on assignment with the Florida National Guard and other U.S. troops.

Editor's jailing tests Afghan democracy By Kim Barker - Chicago Tribune
Published November 26, 2005

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The prosecutors say Ali Mohaqeq Nasab deserves to die for what he did. Jailers shaved his head. He was pulled into court wearing handcuffs and leg shackles.

His crime? He is no killer, no kidnapper, no rapist. In a case reminiscent of the strict Taliban era, Nasab has been sentenced to 2 years in prison for blasphemy, for going against Islam. And prosecutors are appealing.

"There should be a bigger punishment for him," said Abdul Jamil, who is in charge of prosecuting attorneys in Kabul. "If he intends to keep to what he said, then he should be executed."

The case of Nasab, 47, a liberal Shiite cleric who flouted conservative Islamic beliefs in his Women's Rights magazine, is at the crux of a quandary for the fledgling Afghan democracy: how to reconcile the constitutional guarantee of free speech and the protection of Islam.

His jail sentence presents a problem for President Hamid Karzai, who is facing pressure from Western allies to pardon Nasab and pressure from powerful clerics to keep Nasab in jail. At the same time, a conservative parliament has just been elected, one that is likely to resist any attempts to free Nasab.

Karzai's office has been largely silent. Officials from the presidential palace say Karzai will not interfere with the court system but add that Nasab's case should have been handled by the media commission of the Ministry of Culture and Information. At a recent news conference, presidential spokesman Karim Rahimi said only that the office hoped for "positive results," without specifying what those might be.

"No one can intervene" with the courts, Rahimi said. "This is a fact. We hope this issue is solved in a better way."

The minister of culture and information has objected to the prison sentence. The media commission believes that Nasab did not commit blasphemy but that he should be removed as editor to placate any religious concerns.

Nasab disagrees.

The outspoken editor is not exactly helping his own cause. Although he appeared meek in court, since then he has repeated the kinds of statements that got him into trouble in the first place, even going on television from jail to challenge other clerics to a debate.

Nasab says the clerics who complain about him are illiterate. He says his prosecutors cannot even understand his writings, in Arabic and Farsi, a language closely related to Afghan Dari.

And Nasab challenges conservative interpretations of the Koran, of Islamic law and of the Prophet Muhammad. He says Muslims who commit adultery do not deserve to be stoned to death. He says Muslims who convert to another religion do not deserve to be killed. He says a woman's testimony is equal to that of a man, not half as much.

In jail, Nasab was unrepentant. "I am not a criminal," he said, fingering yellow prayer beads. "Why should I be in jail? Every day that I stay in this prison, that's illegal."

Nasab started Women's Rights magazine shortly after coming home to Afghanistan two years ago from Iran, where he also faced problems for his liberal views. His magazine is a curious mix of Western pop and women's stories, including cover photographs of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, of celebrity Alicia Silverstone and of the Buddhas of Bamiyan, which were destroyed by the Taliban.

Articles tackle why women set themselves on fire in Afghanistan and say that the Koran guarantees equal rights between men and women.

Nasab is not alone in his views; in Iran, a small group of liberal Shiite scholars have long challenged conservative Islamic thinking. But in Afghanistan, he is an oddity. Most of the Taliban fled four years ago, but their mind-set remains. Conservative clerics run the Afghan courts; soon they will join parliament.

Muhammad Aref Rahmani, a member of the national Shiite Council of Ulema, or Islamic scholars, said he felt fear reading through the first seven issues of Women's Rights magazine. He worried that Nasab opened the door to Muslims converting to Christianity and Judaism, which would move Afghanistan toward secularism, liberalism and infidelity.

"Sometimes the whole religion and the rules of the religion were attacked," Rahmani said. "For instance, he says one woman should be equal to one man, as a witness in a case, which is completely against our religion."

After Nasab was arrested Oct. 1 and sentenced three weeks later, local media defended him, running an open letter signed by Afghan intellectuals. International news media groups complained. Fahim Dashty, the editor of The Kabul Weekly, ran a free ad that took up one-fourth of the front page: "President Karzai, show us that you are in power and not the Taliban, again ... Free Mohaqeq Nasab!"

But since then, outrage seems to have faded. It is as if no one wants to align too much with the jailed editor. Even Dashty squirms when talking about what Nasab wrote.

"He's talking about very, very, very important religious issues," Dashty said. "But for me, it seems too quick, too strong and too hard, which is, of course, dangerous."

Nasab's case is only the most extreme example of media intimidation, according to the Afghan Independent Journalists Association. Since forming in June, the association has handled 15 cases, including that of two college students in the western city of Herat accused of blasphemy and called "infidels" in posters hung around town, said Rahimullah Samander, the head of the journalists association.

But Nasab's case could be the tipping point in the new Afghanistan, a predictor of future jail sentences and how free speech really is. It could have a chilling effect on the Afghan media.

"It is a sign," said Hazrat Wahriz, who helped found the Union of Freedom of Expression in Afghanistan. "In every mosque, they are agitating against anything having to do with democracy and anything to do with freedom of expression. Every Friday in every mosque, all over Afghanistan."

[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.]