Afghanistan intelligence department chief killed by suspected militants

KABUL - Xinhua 10/17/2005 - Suspected militants gunned down the director of intelligence department and three of his bodyguards in the restive Helmand province in south Afghanistan on Monday, officials confirmed.

"Director of National Security Directorate in Helmand province Mohammad Daud along with his three armed bodyguards were killed when they came under enemies' attack at 12 o'clock local time," provincial secretary Hajji Mohidin told Xinhua.

He, along with three bodyguards, was driving towards Sangin district when fell prey to enemies, Mohidin added. Taliban's spokesman Qari Yusuf claimed responsibility for the attack and said fighters of the movement punished them for their support to Americans.

Taliban remnants who warned local people not to support the US-backed Afghan government also assassinated two pro-government religious leaders namely Mawlawi Mohammad Gul and Mawlawi in Helmand and Kunar provinces on Sunday night.

A similar skirmish in southern Kandahar province claimed the lives of three Taliban operatives as the government launched operation in the area Sunday night.

Over 1,300 people including rebels, Afghan and US troops as well as pro-government figures and even aid workers have been killed in Taliban-linked militancy since the beginning of this year.

US troops kill 4 Afghan police by mistake -official

Kandahar (Reuters) - U.S. troops shot four Afghan policemen dead and wounded another after mistaking them for militants during an operation in southern Afghanistan, a senior local official said on Tuesday.

Separately, on Tuesday three Afghans working for the American security firm USPI were hurt -- and one was possibly killed -- by a roadside bomb in Kandahar, provincial governor, Assadullah Khalid said.

He said there were no foreigners on board the vehicle, but had no further details about the attack outside Kandahar city. The U.S. military in Kabul said it had no information about the killing of policemen which, if confirmed, would be the second incident of its kind this month.

Khalid said Monday night's shootings in Maiwand district came after police fired into the air from their checkpoint. "The U.S. soldiers were on a hunt for Taliban on the basis of a tip-off when the shot was fired in the sky and the soldiers thought it was the enemy who fired it," Khalid said.

"They fired on them and, after overrunning the checkpoint, found that they had killed four police and wounded another by mistake," he told reporters. Earlier this month U.S. troops mistook some policemen for militants during a hunt in the adjacent province of Helmand, again killing four and wounding another.

The U.S. military, which leads some 20,000 foreign troops hunting militants in Afghanistan, confirmed that incident. Nearly 11,00 people -- most of them militants, but including more than 50 U.S. soldiers -- have been killed in Afghanistan this year, the bloodiest period since 2001.

U.S.-led forces are blamed by many in the country for killing several thousand Afghans by mistake, mostly in airstrikes since the offensive to oust the Taliban was launched in October 2001.

8 Taliban killed in Spin Boldak - Daily Times (Pakistan) / October 17, 2005

KABUL: Eight Taliban have been killed in fresh fighting in Spin Boldak while a rocket attack on Kandahar airfield damaged two British Harriers.

The clash between Taliban and Afghan Army personnel occurred on Thursday, said Gen Muhammad Zahir Azimi, Afghan Defence Ministry spokesman. One suspected Taliban was also arrested after the battle, he added.

Separately, the British Harrier warplanes were on the tarmac at Kandahar airfield when the rockets exploded nearby, damaging them with shrapnel, said US military spokeswoman Sgt Marina Evans. No one was wounded in Friday’s rocket attack. Also, the Taliban on Sunday killed three Afghans for spying for US troops in Afghanistan, a spokesman for the militant group said. Lal Mohammad, Mohammad Hassan and Abdul Samad had their throat cut in Uruzgan province, Qari Yousaf, said, adding, “They were spying against the mujahideen and we slaughtered them.”

Speaking by satellite phone, Yousaf said the Taliban had killed four Afghan soldiers in a pre-dawn raid in Kandahar province. No provincial officials could be immediately reached for comment about either incident.

A tanker supplying fuel to a US base in Afghanistan was destroyed in an explosion on the border with Pakistan, police said on Sunday. No one was hurt in Saturday’s blast at Torkham Pass, police commander Mustafa Khan said. An Afghan military commander said the blaze was caused by a bomb blast, but the provincial governor said it was sparked by a cooking fire. agencies

Afghanistan: Foreign Minister Cautions Against Drawdown At Central Asian Bases - Robert McMahon

Afghanistan's foreign minister is urging members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) not to weaken support for his country's stabilization efforts. Abdullah Abdullah said that, despite a recent communique, the SCO should recognize the importance of maintaining a robust international military presence in Afghanistan. Separately, the country’s women’s affairs minister said the new parliament offers hope for lifting Afghan women out of poverty and a culture of violence.

Washington, 18 October 2005 (RFE/RL) -- Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah says the battle against extremists in Afghanistan should remain a top concern to its neighbors in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

Abdullah told a news briefing at RFE/RL in Washington yesterday that now is not the time to consider reducing the number of international coalition forces waging the antiterrorism campaign in his country.

"The war against terrorism in Afghanistan is an ongoing process," Abdullah said. "Despite all the achievements, it has not come to an end. And friendly countries to Afghanistan should realize that it's a contribution to stability in the whole region. It's not just for Afghanistan."

In July, the SCO issued a communique calling on Washington to set a timeline for withdrawing from military bases in Central Asia. It suggested there is a declining need for combat operations against the Taliban. The SCO comprises Russia, China, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.

Uzbekistan has since called on U.S. forces to vacate a base in its country. But Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan continue to permit coalition military operations on their territory. Last week, Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiev affirmed that U.S. forces can stay at the Manas air base as long as the situation in Afghanistan requires.

Bakiev spoke at a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was touring Afghanistan and three Central Asian states on a trip aimed at boosting democratic forces and underscoring the need to support the effort against Al-Qaeda and Taliban rebels in Afghanistan.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Russian television on 16 October that as soon as the terrorist threat starts to fade in Afghanistan, there will be no need for U.S. bases in Central Asia.

But Abdullah said yesterday that the international community plays a vital role in preventing the return to power of Taliban and Al-Qaeda elements. “I hope that the understanding and the broad support for the coalition efforts in Afghanistan will [be] sustained and will be further strengthened rather than weakened," he said. "But one can see signs of different views on that which, hopefully, the United States -- as well as Afghanistan and the rest of the international community and our region -- will be able to work out.”

Addressing his country’s political transition, Abdullah said he does not expect incoming members of the country’s first elected parliament in more than 30 years to press for any sharp changes in foreign policy.

He said decrees from President Hamid Karzai will be reviewed by the parliament, such as the one dealing with Kabul's long-term strategic relationship with the United States. But Abdullah said he expects parliament to approve the country’s partnerships with the international community.

Afghanistan’s women’s affairs minister, Masuda Jalal, told the same briefing that September's parliamentary elections signaled a dramatic turning point for the welfare of women.

One-quarter of the 249 seats in parliament were reserved for female lawmakers. Jalal expressed hope that this will have an impact on the allocation of resources and services for the country’s women.

“It means that the policies, strategies, and plans and programs and activities of the government will be further gender-sensitized going ahead," Jalal said. "And further parliamentarians or the parliament as a whole will be impacting women’s life very positively, very positively. There are more than 68 women who will come to the parliament, and that is a good power.”

Afghan women suffer from some of the world’s highest levels of illiteracy, maternal mortality, and impoverishment. The country’s constitution says all Afghan citizens have equal rights and duties before the law. But Jalal said deep societal problems involving the abuse of women and girls still exist and must be overcome.

“Although we have the constitution, we have all sorts of violence going on against women and girls -- the forced marriages, the domestic violence, the early marriages, child marriage, the bad [settlement] of disputes by marrying of women and the exchanged marriage. All type[s] of violence [are] going on,” Jalal said.

Jalal added that access to legal services for women are very limited. She said it is essential for the international community to remain engaged in Afghanistan's political and economic reconstruction to help surmount the problems facing women.

State's Dobriansky Co-hosts U.S.-Afghan Women's Council Council holds seventh semiannual meeting in Washington October 17-18

Job opportunities, education, healthcare, political empowerment and legal rights for Afghan women will be on the agenda as the U.S.-Afghan Women’s Council holds its seventh semiannual meeting in Washington October 17-18. 

According to an October 17 State Department announcement, Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky will co-chair the meeting with Afghan Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdullah Abdullah and Afghan Minister of Women's Affairs Massouda Jalal.

Following is the text of the announcement: Under Secretary Dobriansky To Host U.S.-Afghan Women's Council Meeting

Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky, Afghan Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdullah Abdullah, and Afghan Minister of Women's Affairs Massouda Jalal will co-chair the seventh meeting of the U.S.-Afghan Women's Council in Washington D.C. on October 17-18, 2005.

This binational Council of Americans and Afghans will review progress on initiatives to assist Afghan women and identify additional means of support.  At this month's meeting, Council members and expert guests will focus on programs and progress for Afghan women in the economic sector and job market, education, health and the political and judicial arenas.

President George W. Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced the creation of the Council in January 2002.  The Council was established to help ensure that Afghan women gain the skills and education necessary to participate in all sectors and to stimulate private and public assistance for such activities.  The first meeting was held in Washington D. C. in April 2002. 

Afghan Ministers Praise Women's Electoral Gains - VOA By Gary Thomas Washington 17 October 2005

Although official results have not yet been announced, Afghan officials are praising the recent parliamentary elections as a breakthrough for women. Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdulllah and Minister for Women's Affairs Masuda Jalal say last month's parliamentary elections were a major step for women's rights in their country.

At a Washington forum Monday sponsored by Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, Ms. Jalal said female candidates fared well in the elections, and women turned out in large numbers to vote.

"The people of Afghanistan's reaction to women empowerment, women's leadership, and promotion of gender equality is positive.  They proved [that] in the parliamentary elections," she said.

Elections were held September 18 for the new lower house of parliament, called the Wolesi Jirga, and 34 provincial councils.  There is a minimum of 68 seats reserved for women in the 249-seat parliament. Ms. Jalal said voters in many areas cast ballots for women, because they had no ties to the civil war and the harsh rule of the Taleban.

"They appreciate that women did not have any hand in the problems of three decades," she explained.  "And they are trusting women.  I think they are welcoming women's leadership in the country."

Although the Taleban was ousted in 2001, Afghanistan remains a deeply traditional, male-dominated society.  Tribal leaders in rural areas are male. Men also control the booming narcotics trade, which has hit record highs since the Taleban left.  Afghanistan now produces an estimated 87 per cent of the world's heroin, and drug money fuels much of the Afghan economy.

Foreign Minister Abdulllah said the government of President Hamid Karzai is committed to eradicating the drug trade, but admits the task has proved more daunting than expected.

"We are dealing with it at a time when we have to deal with all other issues," said Mr. Abdullah.  "For any other country it has taken a long time.  [But] Afghanistan, since there has been a lot of progress in the political process, there has been progress in other fields, so it is expected to deal with it overnight.  It's not possible, I think it's not feasible."

Ms. Jalal says Afghanistan is so poor that many farmers have no recourse but to turn to poppy cultivation, which produces the opium used to make heroin, to earn a livelihood for their families.  She says they need to be provided an alternative.

"That's why a lot needs to be done in terms of livelihood replacement to cover that gap that could be created if we take it completely from their [hands], the production.  So that's why it's difficult to fight against," she explained.

Foreign analysts have said that the new parliament is expected to have some major drug dealers within its ranks.

3 more Afghan parliamentary candidates disqualified

KABUL - Xinhua 10/16/2005 - Three more candidates for the Afghan parliamentary elections have been disqualified, head of the Election Complaint Commission (ECC) announced Sunday.

"One of the candidates had linked with illegal armed groups while two others had not resigned from their government posts," Grant Kippen told newsmen at a press briefing.

He declined to say if there were any important warlords among the trio but added they were from northeast Badakhshan and the restive provinces of Kandahar and Uruzgan, the heartland of Taliban. He also added that the case of another candidate is being reviewed.

Forty-seven candidates have been disqualified over the past two months. Any candidate, according to Perter Erben the Chief Electoral Officer of the Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB), could be disqualified if he or she does not meet the criteria set for entering parliament.

Some 6.8 million or over 50 percent of the 12.5 million Afghans registered to vote participated the Sept. 18 legislative polls to elect members of parliament and provincial councils. Final result of the landmark polls is due to be released by the end of the current month.

Japan's lower house passes bills to extend Afghanistan operations- Oct 18

TOKYO (AFP) - Japan's lower house has passed bills to extend by one year a logistical support mission in the Indian Ocean for US-led military operations in Afghanistan, an official said.

The bills were immediately sent for approval in the less-powerful upper house, which, like the lower house, is controlled by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's ruling coalition.

Japan originally passed a law two months after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States to enable logistical support for Washington's so-called "war on terror".

Under the law, Japanese supply ships have been refueling naval vessels from the United States, Britain and eight other countries in the Indian Ocean, while Japan has been a key provider of financial aid to Afghanistan.

Tokyo, which extended its logistical support mission in 2003 for two years, was urged by Washington to revise the law to extend its mission again before it expires on November 1.

Koizumi, a close ally of US President George W. Bush, is reported to have been asked by Washington to extend its controversial deployment in Iraq beyond December when the current mission expires.

Koizumi deployed the troops in 2003 and last year extended the mission, Japan's first to a country at war since World War II. Japanese troops, who are barred by the pacifist 1947 constitution from using force except in the strictest definition of self-

AFGHANISTAN: UN-Afghan aid to Pakistan underway - 17 Oct 2005 Source: IRIN

KABUL, 17 October (IRIN) - The UN and Afghan relief agencies are dispatching aid for survivors of the earthquake that hit northern Pakistan and India on 8 October.

Officials at the Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARCS) said on Monday they were providing 15 mt of dried fruit to quake victims in the two South Asian nations.

"We are preparing to dispatch 10 mt of dry fruit to the quake-affected areas in Pakistan, while we have already sent 5 mt of dry fruit to India yesterday," ARCS Disaster Management head Javid Qanie said, adding they were waiting only on official permission from Pakistan to start deliveries. "Today or tomorrow, we will send the aid to Pakistan."

The Afghan government and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) agreed to send 65 trucks from WFP's Afghanistan operation to assist in the transport of life-saving relief supplies to quake-hit areas in Pakistan, WFP said.

"The trucks will transport food and non-food items urgently needed by the hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom have been without food and shelter since the quake struck," said Charles Vincent, head of WFP in Afghanistan.

The UN said more four million people had been affected by the quake and one million were in dire need of relief, while more than 2.5 million survivors needed to be re-housed. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said about 200,000 winterised tents were urgently needed.

On Sunday, a joint convoy of more than 60 trucks from the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and WFP, carrying 1,500 tents, 20,000 blankets, 50,000 plastic sheets and 10,000 jerry cans, was set to leave Kabul for northern Pakistan, according to Nader Farhad from UNHCR Kabul.

WFP Afghanistan has loaned WFP Pakistan 1,000 mt of wheat flour and provided 40 mt of dates donated by the government of Qatar. The dates were being sent from the WFP's warehouse in Quetta to quake-affected areas, according to WFP.

WFP will be setting up five UN base camps in the worst-hit locations in Pakistan to co-ordinate the relief operation. WFP has also flown in emergency response teams to Pakistan from Afghanistan and other parts of the world to help with the operation. WFP Afghanistan will provide assistance as needs evolve, Vincent said.

Meanwhile, the Afghanistan government has provided four helicopters, along with 34 medical personnel and 4 mt of medicine. "Our medical personnel established a 50-bed mobile hospital, which has treated more than 800 wounded and conducted 70 major surgeries" Dr Ahmad Sha Shakuhmand from the health ministry said.

Afghan Route to Prosperity: Grow Poppies - The New York Times 10/18/2005 By Amy Waldman

SHORABAK — Rahmatullah trudged toward his village with his donkey, as men across Afghanistan have done for centuries. But in this century, men in Jeeps and on motorbikes were passing him by.
So this year Rahmatullah, a 37-year-old father of three, speaking in front of the village mosque and its mullah, said he would join his neighbors in growing poppies to harvest Afghanistan's most lucrative cash crop, opium.

His hierarchy of dreams is all sketched out. First he will pay off some $1,200 in debt. Then he will build a house to replace the one room he shares with his family, then buy cows for plowing. "Then, if I get richer, I'll buy a car," he finished, eyes agleam.

Across Afghanistan, opium cultivation is surging, defying all efforts of the Afghan government and international officials to stop it. Officials are predicting that land under poppy cultivation will rise by 30 percent or more this year, possibly yielding a record crop. Last year the country produced almost 4,000 tons — three-fourths of the world's opium — in 28 of its 32 provinces. The trade generated $1 billion for farmers and $1.3 billion for traffickers, according to the United Nations, more than half of Afghanistan's national income.

The expansion of the trade presents a gathering threat to the new democratic government and a severe challenge to the American and international forces here. But American officials, reluctant to open a new front in the campaign against terror or engage in an antidrug war here, are conflicted about how aggressively to combat it.

Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador, said in a recent interview that with Afghanistan's elections approaching — they are now scheduled for September — "the politics of it may require not to go too harsh" with eradication.

But as opium production underpins ever more of Afghanistan's economic life, from new business growth to home construction, officials also fear that the economic and political risks of uprooting it will only increase. To the chagrin of Afghan and international officials, the narcotics industry has far outpaced the legal reconstruction of Afghanistan, with a capitalist intensity they would otherwise applaud.

It has lured private capital for investment and created a free-market system. With Thuraya satellite phones, farmers in distant Kandahar, a rival source of poppy in the south, know almost in real time about changing weather conditions here in this northeastern province, Badakshan, and adjust prices accordingly.

Landowners and traffickers offer credit to farmers willing to grow poppy. Trafficking has linked Afghanistan to the global economy. It even brought the first real industry here, a heroin processing laboratory that villagers estimated had operated for six months to a year before it was destroyed by Afghan and British forces in January. One local referred to it as "the company."

Afghanistan's opium production peaked under the Taliban, who partly financed their movement from the profits. But in July 2000 the Taliban banned opium cultivation, to the distress of many farmers, and the price soared.

Many experts say the ban was simply meant to drive the price up, amounting to an effective cornering of the market for the Taliban and others who had amassed stockpiles.

British and Afghan officials are now counting on mullahs to spread the word that it is haram, or forbidden, under Islam to cultivate opiates. But interviews in many villages found that such preachings were ignored. Other mullahs were growing it themselves.

For many Afghans, poppy has allowed for piety. A United Nations report on Afghanistan's opium economy noted that 85 percent of opium traders surveyed had performed the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca that is incumbent on every Muslim but too costly for most Afghans.

The growth in opium production is among the gravest threats facing the administration of President Hamid Karzai. It has corrupted the government from bottom to top, including governors and cabinet officials, according to senior Afghan and American officials.

American and Afghan officials say opium is financing warlords like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, local militias, the Taliban and possibly Al Qaeda.

Even as some American officials remain wary of fighting the spread of opium too aggressively, others have criticized the British, who have taken the lead against the drug trade here, for being too soft and slow on eradicating poppy crops. A British plan in 2002 to compensate farmers for eradication is widely seen to have acted as a "perverse incentive" to grow, as one official put it.

Citing the link between narcotics and terrorism, United Nations and British officials, meanwhile, are urging the American-led military alliance to take on laboratories and traffickers. The Americans, who will put $73 million toward antidrug operations in Afghanistan this year, say such an approach will simply send the laboratories over the border to places like Pakistan's tribal areas, while doing nothing to stop the surge in new cultivation.

But an American official also pointed out that many of those in the drug trade "are the guys who helped us liberate this place in 2001" from the Taliban and on whom the American military continues to rely in its hunt for the Taliban and Al Qaeda. "The military just does not want to go down that road," he said.

Ideally, officials say, eradication efforts would focus on wealthy landowners growing poppy, not poor farmers. But many struggling farmers have become sharecroppers on the vast fields of the rich and would share the punishment, just as they share the profit.

The American forces have so far limited their intervention against traffickers and laboratories to encounters as they come across them in the course of other military action. But Lt. Gen. David Barno, the commander of the American-led forces, said in March that his troops were finding growing connections between extremism and drugs, which could augur a more assertive approach to the drug trade.

Afghan commando units, with British support, have recently raided as many as 30 laboratories in Nangarhar Province, often meeting well-armed resistance. An American A-10 attack plane shelled "the company" — the processing laboratory near here — when the British and Afghan commandos raided that site.

As the effort to treat the laboratories as targets increases, officials expect violence to rise. American officials say raids on laboratories have already provoked conflict among drug traffickers convinced that their competitors informed on them.

Recent fighting in the Argo district prompted the removal of the governor and police chief after officials in Kabul, the capital, concluded that the two men were working for rival traffickers.

The opium trade is transforming life in Argo, a remote district in Badakshan where a cover of green poppies climbs up steep, desolate hills. The street that runs through the bazaar is mud, but the $200 television sets in the stalls glitter.

In the last four years, said Abdul Rahman, 18, poppy provided his family with a motorbike, a television, an electric generator, a VCR and a CD player — and a new house to hold it all. Last year his family accumulated $4,000 in poppy profits.

Badakshan, here in the north, lays bare narcotics' distorting economic effects. Poppy cultivation has driven up dowry prices and raised the cost of labor so much that wheat was not harvested last year.

So many people are building new homes and businesses with their poppy profits that Atiqullah, 23, a mason, said his daily rate had doubled.

Criminal calculation is partly driving the spread of the drug trade. Residents of Pashtun-inhabited regions long known for poppy growing have turned into outlaw Johnny Appleseeds, crossing the country with loans, expertise and seedpods to generate more opium for heroin laboratories, American and United Nations officials and Afghan farmers say.

But a calculus of human longing is also at work. With the price of opium stubbornly stuck at more than $135 a pound, no legal crop can compete.

"We see in Daryan" — a district thick with poppy — "other people getting rich," said Rahmatullah, who like many Afghans uses one name. "Their life is better. We want to make our life better too."

Today, growing poppies is less about survival — as it was during a drought in this country — than about upward mobility. It is about a new consumer class and an even larger class of aspirants to it.

"Those who had a donkey have a motorbike," said Ahmed Shah, a young farmer in Badakshan. "Those who had a motorbike have a car. Those who have one wife want a second one."

In Dari, the local language, there is a saying: if your donkey lags behind, cut his ear off. It reflects, Afghans say, the central role of envy in their culture — and in cultivation.

The Shomali Plain, just north of Kabul, is full of first-time growers, many of them mujahedeen soldiers. A young commander, Mayel, denied that he was growing poppy, then whispered in earshot of a translator that he was too ashamed to admit that he was. "We see the people in the south and east getting rich," he told a confidant with righteous logic. "Why shouldn't we cultivate too?"

Addicted To Heroin - CBS - 60 Minutes 10/17/2005

For much of 2005, the news out of Iraq has overshadowed what has been going on in Afghanistan, where 18,000 U.S. troops are still fighting and dying along the Pakistan border in battles with the Taliban, al Qaeda and other Muslim extremist groups.

The rest of Afghanistan, at least compared to Iraq, appears relatively peaceful. But the country is facing another threat to its stability — its growing addiction the production and trafficking of heroin, which is controlled by some of the most powerful people in the country. Correspondent Steve Kroft reports.

Afghanistan is now the world's largest exporter of heroin, and the opium used to produce it, supplying 87 percent of the world market. And it is creating an infrastructure of crime and corruption that threatens the government of President Hamid Karzai.

The heroin trade begins with fields of opium poppies grown in almost every province of Afghanistan. Last year, according to the U.S. state department, 206,000 hectares were cultivated, a half a million acres, producing 4,000 tons of opium, most of which was converted into 400 tons of illegal morphine and heroin in laboratories around the country.

How much opium and heroin is that? "It is not only the largest heroin producer in the world, 206,000 hectares is the largest amount of heroin or of any drug that I think has ever been produced by any one country in any given year," says Robert Charles, who until last spring was assistant secretary of state for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, overseeing anti-drug operations in Afghanistan.

Charles says Afghanistan is producing more heroin than Columbia is producing cocaine. After 25 years of war, it is the country's main cash crop, contributing nearly three billion dollars a year in illegal revenues to the Afghan economy, which equals 50 percent of the gross national product.

The laundered proceeds are no doubt funding much of the rebuilding of Kabul, which is experiencing a major construction boom.

But the best way to illustrate the sheer volume of the drug trade is to tour the basement vault underneath Afghanistan's Counter Narcotics police in Kabul, where one and a half tons of heroin, just seized in the provinces, was awaiting destruction.

One and a half tons of pure heroin is much larger than the biggest shipment ever seized in the United States, and once cut and repackaged it is worth hundreds of millions of dollars on the streets of a western city.

Yet the seizure is less than one percent of all the heroin produced in Afghanistan last year, production which has increased more than 2,000 percent since 2001.

"That acceleration should be sending a blinking red light to all of us right now. Drug money is going to accelerate the disintegration of democratic institutions," warns Charles.

What is happening, Charles says, is the transformation of a poor, war torn country struggling with democracy into a narco state where power emanates from a group of drug kingpins far more powerful than the new government.

The process began in 2001 when the United States forged military alliances with powerful warlords and used their private armies to drive al Qaeda and the Taliban out of the country.

But some of Afghanistan's biggest warlords also happen to be some of the country's biggest drug lords. Now that they are part of the government, often in high places, a few are even charged with eradicating the drug traffic that many people believe they're still involved in.

One former warlord suspected of being involved in the opium trade is Hazrat Ali, whose private army fought against al Qaeda at the battle of Tora Bora. In appreciation of his efforts, he was placed in charge of security for Nangahar province until he resigned recently to run for parliament.

He also happens to be named in a United Nations report as one of the provincial officials suspected of being heavily involved in drug trafficking.

Ali doesn't deny that the heroin business flourishes in the region but denied that he is involved in the trade. "No. You can ask anyone. I am opposed to drugs. If everyone was like me, there wouldn't be an opium plant in Afghanistan."

60 Minutes had no difficulty finding people to make the allegations; proving them is another matter since there is virtually no criminal justice system in place to pursue them.

In all of Afghanistan there are barely 100 people in jail for drug offenses, most of them small time players. Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai, who is considered honest and well intentioned, outlawed the cultivation and trafficking of opium three years ago, but has neither the power nor the prosecutors to enforce it.

"It is the top priority. Not one of the top — the top priority now," says Karzai. "There have been lots of reports that many of the people in the provinces, many of the former commanders, have been involved with drug trafficking in the past. And some believe still continue to be involved in drug trafficking," Kroft says.

Karzai agrees. "A lot of people are still involved in drug trafficking," he says. "Maybe even there are people in the government who may be involved in drug trafficking. Drug trafficking, drug cultivation, poppy cultivation, was a major way of life in this country. Now that the country's going back toward stability, now that we have a better hope for tomorrow, that we have hope for tomorrow, the Afghan people have begun to distance themselves. Slowly, slowly."

Things are moving much too slowly for the country's top law enforcement officer, interior minister Ali Amad Jalali, who resigned earlier this month after complaining about the lack of progress in stemming the opium trade, and bringing government officials involved in it to justice.

Last June, his elite Afghan anti-drug force, trained and assisted by the British, raided the offices of Sher Muhammed Akhundzada, the Governor of Helmand Province, another warlord widely suspected of being involved in the drug trade.

They seized nine and a half tons on opium, but the investigation went nowhere. Governor Akhunzada said the drugs were not his but that they had been seized by police and were just being stored at his headquarters.

He showed 60 Minutes a locker now loaded with another two and a half tons of opium. "This is opium that we confiscated. We have to keep the confiscated opium in a safe place. And this is where we keep it," says Akhunzada, through a translator.

Not everyone bought that argument, especially the chief counter-narcotics officer for Helmand Province. When the investigation stalled, Abdul Samad Haqqani went on Radio Liberty, which is funded by the U.S. Congress, and denounced the governor as a major narcotics trafficker.

Haqqani has since disappeared and President Karzai says he would look into the matter. As for the tons of opium in the Governor's office, Karzai wasn't the least bit surprised.

"It's almost half of the economy," he says. "Why would it surprise me if there was poppy found in a governor's office? Or administrative offices? Whether they were confiscated or whether they belonged to somebody. In both cases, it doesn't surprise me."

Asked how his government would deal with the governor amid these allegations, Karzai says little can be done.

"This governor of Helmand, he has come to me a number of times to say that he is tired of working in Helmand precisely because of these allegations," Karzai says. "He says, 'Well remove me' and we have not removed him. Because right now, under the circumstances, any replacement would find it difficult to continue the fight against terrorism the way he's doing it there — in that province and at the borders."

Karzai went on to say that no investigation was needed and that the governor would be removed and assigned to other government work.

Antonio Maria Costa, director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, says he has pleaded with Karzai to do something about senior officials and governors involved in the drug business.

"These people who have been involved, senior officials and governors who were involved in the drug economy should be removed," says Costa. "Removed from office and possibly removed from the country."

Costa says the need to fight terrorism and defeat the insurgency should not be used as an excuse to ignore the opium trade. "I think it is the responsibility of the Afghan government and the foreign powers assisting it to fight both narcotics and the insurgency. I will say that fighting one is equal to fighting the other."

The British, who have overall responsibility for counter narcotics in Afghanistan, and the Americans have limited their role to assisting the Karzai government in training anti-drug units and providing occasional logistical support for their missions to confiscate opium and destroy drug labs. So far they have destroyed 150 labs.

The American military has no direct role in counter narcotics. Its responsibility is fighting terrorism and providing security and stability. If U.S. troops come across opium they can take action but it is not part of their mission.

Robert Charles says the U.S. military has limited resources to commit to the effort and feels that aggressive action could disrupt the flow of intelligence. "It is easy to say, 'We will get to this issue in time' the way we get to other social issues. But we don't have time."

And Charles doesn't think it is just a threat to the mission. "I think it is a threat to the Democracy. Why is it a threat to democracy? First, it has a potential for public corruption. Second, it funds the violent elements in society. Finally, it sends a signal that the rule of law doesn't matter."

One U.S. counter-narcotics official told Kroft that corruption is worse in Afghanistan than it is in Columbia, and estimated that 90 percent of the police chiefs are either directly involved in the drug business or protecting those who are.

The British trained mobile unit says it is under orders to stop police cars and official motorcades as well as ordinary buses. Official vehicles are the preferred means of transporting opium.

There have been a few small successes. The government has stepped up a modest poppy eradication program, and with the help of the U.S. state department is trying to persuade farmers to grow alternative crops. The number of acres of poppy under cultivation actually dropped 20 percent in 2005, although opium and heroin production remained about the same.

In the village of Kushkak, farmers told 60 Minutes that they voluntarily quit growing opium poppy after the government promised to build them health clinics, schools and roads. But the promises have not materialized and they are growing impatient.

"We did promise them alternative livelihoods," says Karzai. "We have told them that they should stop growing poppy, that we'll be there to help them. And if we don't do that, people out of desperation will go back to poppies, and we should not allow that."

But illegal profits from the opium and heroin trade are not only helping warlords and corrupt officials expand their influence over the government. There is evidence that some of the money is ending up with the Taliban and al Qaeda, who elicit tolls, protection money and drugs from traffickers in areas they control.

"Narcotics is such an insidious, creeping, potentially lethal problem in that country that it needs to be elevated to a rank that is commensurate with that threat," says Charles. Asked whether he is saying that this issue is as important as fighting terrorism, he said, "I am."

Afghanistan to Export Pomegranates to Japan, Malaysia - Pajhwok 10/17/2005

KANDAHAR  - The Afghanistan International Chamber of Commerce (AICC) Monday singed an agreement with Japan and Malaysia for exporting 7,500 tons of pomegranates.

Dr Abdul Raziq Rafiqi, head of the AICC, told Pajhwok Afghan News the two countries were eager to import pomegranates from Afghanistan. Earlier, grapes from Kandahar had been exported to several countries earning foreign exchange for the country.

The AICC chief said: "We have delivered 20,000 tons of grapes to India, Bangladesh, and Singapore during the current season."

Abul Hadi, aged 28, a resident of the Arghandab district, said finding international market for the produce had slashed all excuses of the poppy growers in the province. "Getting value in foreign markets, the exports will enhance economic status of the growers," he hoped.

US, India sign science, technology pact

Washington (AFP) - nd India have signed an umbrella science and technology agreement to boost cooperation in areas ranging from health to space technology.

The pact, signed by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and India's minister of state for science and technology Kapil Sibal, notably nailed down intellectual property rights issues that had snagged negotiations since 1993.

It is aimed at expanding collaboration in basic sciences, space, energy, nanotechnology, health and information technology, according to a fact sheet distributed by the State Department.

The agreement, officials said on Tuesday, would also complement the activities of the Indo-US Science and Technology Forum, established in 2000. Rice called the pact "another dramatic illustration of the fast-growing bilateral relationship we are building between the United States and India."

Sibal said, "This is indeed a very historic occasion. It is indeed a milestone 15 long years after negotiations." Relations between the two countries have blossomed in recent years, climaxing with an accord signed by President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in July, in which Washington agreed to lift a ban on civilian nuclear technology sales to nuclear armed India.

[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.]