In this bulletin:

• Afghanistan denies U.K. terror plot link
• 12 die in southern Afghanistan clashes
• Cleric shot dead on espionage charges
• 3 U.S. Soldiers Die in Afghan Attack
• British soldier dies in accident in Afghanistan
• NATO to redeploy forces in south to tackle insurgents more effectively
• NATO to stay in Helmand: Wardak
• Afghan governor escapes attempt on life
• Pak-Afghan-US military officials discuss border security
• The Taliban Take on Heresy – Strategy Page 8/14/06
• Insurgents Torch Radio Station in Eastern Afghan Province
• Using words, not guns, to protect Afghan schools
• ISAF demands disarming of commanders in Afghan northwest province
• A Cult Following for the Elvis of Afghanistan
• Canadian medic killed in Afghan attack was 'hero' who saved lives:
• Grieving families mourn the fallen
• Afghanistan's burqa finds new followers of fashion

Afghanistan denies U.K. terror plot link - The Associated Press 08/13/2006

KABUL - Afghanistan's foreign ministry on Sunday denied any Afghan al-Qaida connection to a plot to blow up jetliners over the Atlantic, rejecting a Pakistani allegation.

"(Afghanistan) has become an inhospitable environment for al-Qaida to commission any terrorist attacks outside Afghanistan," the Afghan foreign ministry said in a statement.

The ministry was responding to the allegation made by Pakistan's foreign ministry that evidence linked a key suspect in the probe, Rashid Rauf, to an "Afghanistan-based al-Qaida connection."

Apparently pointing a finger at Pakistan, the Afghan statement said, "As the recent evidence and ongoing investigations have revealed, al-Qaida continues to enjoy safe haven outside Afghanistan."

Afghan officials accuse Pakistan of doing too little to stop militants in Pakistani border regions from staging attacks in Afghanistan. Pakistan says it is doing all it can to crush insurgents and has deployed 90,000 troops along the border.

12 die in southern Afghanistan clashes

Kabul (AFP) - Two bombs rigged to parked bicycles targeted NATO vehicles in the Afghan capital Monday, and 11 suspected Taliban militants and a policeman were reported killed in a clash in southern Afghanistan.

The fighting in the mountains of Helmand province also wounded three people, deputy governor Amir Mohammed Akhunzanda said. Police arrested three suspected militants and recovered weapons, he said.

In the past year, a growing insurgency has gripped the country's south and east, but Kabul, patrolled by thousands of NATO-led troops, has been largely spared. However, a series of bombings has rattled the capital.

Monday's first bicyle bomb went off in Kabul's northern neighborhood of Khayrkhana as a NATO patrol passed, shattering windows in a nearby car, police official Ali Shah Paktiawaal said. Four soldiers were slightly hurt, NATO reported. It said a second bomb was found and disarmed.

Another bomb-rigged bicycle blew up as a NATO vehicle was passing on a main road near a U.N. office, the Interior Ministry said. A suspect was arrested, and no damage or casualties were reported.

In southeastern Paktika province, a suicide car bomber targeted Afghan troops shopping in a bazaar, wounding six soldiers and one civilian, the governor's spokesman said.

The bomber drove a taxi to within 40 yards of the soldiers in Barmal district before his vehicle exploded, said Sayed Jamal, the spokesman.

In Ghazni, another southeastn province, insurgents killed four police officers going to help a local official ambushed by militants Monday, authorities said. Other Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces rescued the official.

Cleric shot dead on espionage charges

GHAZNI >CITY, Aug 12 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Taliban militants have gunned down a religious scholar in the Andar district of the southern Ghazni province on Friday.

The slain named Abdul Hakim was a religious scholar and running a homeo-clinic in the area. District chief Lahor Khan Wafadar told Pajhwok Afghan News he was resident of the same district.

Condemning his murder, the district chief said the killers were enemies of the country, who were out to disrupt the ongoing peace process.

Mohammad Anas Sharif, a caller claimed to be commander of Taliban in Ghazi, told this news agency over the telephone their men were responsible for the attack.

A resident of the area, who wished not to be named, said the slain was a religious scholar and a homeopathic doctor. "He has no grudge with any one in the area."

About a month back, the militants had shot dead a cleric named Fazl Rahman in Waghaz district of the province on charges of espionage.

3 U.S. Soldiers Die in Afghan Attack - The Associated Press 08/13/2006 - Forces Push Into Volatile Northeast; Former Official Is Slain

KABUL - Three U.S. soldiers were killed and three wounded in a firefight in northeastern Afghanistan after insurgents attacked an American patrol with rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire, a military spokesman said Saturday.

U.S. troops used artillery to repel the attack in Nurestan province Friday, and helicopters rushed the wounded soldiers to medical care, said Col. Tom Collins. A civilian was also injured.

U.S. forces in recent weeks have been pushing to their northernmost points along the mountainous border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, including Nurestan, opening military bases in one of the wildest regions in the country.

Their mission is to crush fighters loyal to the Hezb-e-Islami group of renegade Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the toppled Taliban and remnants of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.

In other violence, gunmen killed a former deputy governor outside his home in a restive southern province Friday night, five months after his former boss was assassinated in an ambush.

Abdul Hakim was gunned down when he left his house, said Abdul Ali Fakory, a spokesman for the governor of the southeastern Ghazni province. In March, militants ambushed former governor Taj Mohammed Qari Baba near his home, killing him and four others.

Afghanistan has had a surge in violence this year, particularly in the south, where supporters of the toppled Taliban rulers have stepped up attacks as Afghan and NATO-led troops try to drive insurgents out of their havens.

The fighting has been the bloodiest since the Taliban, a radical Islamic movement, was ousted in late 2001. In a two-month offensive in the south that ended at the start of August, the coalition said it had killed, wounded or captured about 1,100 insurgents.

Tom Koenigs, the top U.N. official in Afghanistan, told the German newsweekly Der Spiegel that the numbers do not reflect success.

"The Taliban fighters' reservoir is practically limitless," Koenigs told the magazine in an interview. "The movement will not be overcome by high casualty figures."

The worsening security situation contributed to a fourfold rise in polio cases this year, almost entirely in the insurgency-racked south, Afghanistan's Health Ministry said Saturday.

Afghanistan has had 24 cases so far this year, all but one in the south, compared with nine cases in 2005, all in the south, said Shukrullah Wahidi, who oversees the ministry's polio program.

He cited the region's rising violence, difficulty in establishing health services and poor communication with community leaders.

British soldier dies in accident in Afghanistan - Aug 13

LONDON (AFP) - A British soldier serving with the NATO force in the southern Afghan province of Helmand has died in an accident at a military base there, the Ministry of Defence in London told AFP.

An MoD spokesman said the soldier, whose identity has not been released, died in an accident involving a British military vehicle that was undergoing routine maintenance at a British base at 2:45 pm local time.

"It is with deep regret that the Ministry of Defence can confirm the death of a British soldier in an accident involving a British military vehicle undergoing routine maintenance at a UK base in (the) northern (part of) Helmand this afternoon.

"The circumstances of the accident will be investigated. No further details of the incident will be released until the investigation is concluded.

"No further details that could identify the soldier will be released until the next of kin have been informed," the spokesman said. Military sources in London indicated that the soldier's death was not a result of insurgent activity in the restive province.

The soldier's death brings to 19 the number of British troops who have died in Afghanistan since November 2001, when the country's troops were deployed there as part of an international military coalition to oust the hardline Islamic Taliban regime.

Some 4,000 British troops are currently in Helmand, with the figure set to rise to around 4,500. A further 1,000 are in the capital, Kabul, and a few hundred are in the southern city of Kandahar.

There are around 30,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan from 30 countries. Althought the Taliban were ousted from power five years ago, supporters of the extremist movement have this year stepped up attacks on foreign and Afghan troops.

On Thursday, the British commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, Lieutenant General David Richards, said British soldiers there were involved in some of the worst and most prolonged fighting since World War II.

NATO to redeploy forces in south to tackle insurgents more effectively - August 13, 2006

KABUL (AFP) - NATO will redeploy its forces in southern Afghanistan so it can take the fight to Taliban and other insurgents more effectively, a spokesman said.

British Lieutenant-General David Richards, commander of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), "intends to rebalance his forces, replacing some ISAF soldiers with Afghan security forces at static defendable locations," ISAF spokesman Toby Jackman told a press conference on Sunday.

He denied media reports of a "retreat" by the force, and also denied reports of a planned major offensive involving thousands of troops. "General David Richards has no plans to withdraw troops from the south," Jackman said.

The aim is to bring back soldiers assigned to guard public buildings in some districts so they can fight insurgents more effectively.

British newspapers have reported problems encountered by British troops in maintaining an adequate presence in advance positions in Helmand province, where they face severe and sometimes daily attacks in some districts.

Some politicians and experts have called for reinforcements to relieve a contingent exhausted by the severity and frequency of combat in southern Afghanistan. London is sending 900 extra soldiers to Helmand.

"The Afghan security forces will continue to receive very strong support from ISAF at static locations but this rebalancing will release more mobile ISAF forces to continue to take the initiative against the insurgents," Jackman said.

He would not give details of the redeployment across the south, where NATO on July 31 took command of operations from the US-led coalition.

Jackman said the redeployment would help achieve Richards's main objective, the creation of secure zones where government agencies and NGOs can work on development.

"This plan is in direct support of, and will complement, the government's concept of Afghan development zones," he said.

NATO has 21,000 troops in Afghanistan, of whom more than half are deployed in the south. Since taking over in the south ISAF has lost 13 soldiers, nine of them in combat.

NATO to stay in Helmand: Wardak

KABUL, Aug 13 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak on Sunday rejected reports regarding withdrawal of NATO forces from Helmand.

Replying to questions from members of the Meshrano Jirga or upper house of parliament, Wardak said British, Danish and Spanish forces would stay in Helmand and they would be assisted by Afghan National Army and police.

Earlier, reports quoting NATO officials said British commanders were planning to withdraw troops from districts in Helmand after facing fierce resistance from Taliban fighters.

Wardak said the 26-member alliance had promised more support to improve security and accelerate the pace of reconstruction in Afghanistan. He said the Afghan government and NATO were jointly trying to bring positive change in people's life by enhancing security and rebuilding works in the southern region.

Helmand and the neighbouring provinces of Kandahar, Zabul and Uruzgan have turned a hot spot for the NATO-led ISAF troops since their taking charge of security on July 31. Since then, 10 NATO soldiers have been killed in clashes with the militants.

Afghan governor escapes attempt on life - Xinhua 08/13/2008

KABUL - The provincial governor of Afghanistan's northern Sar-i-Pul province Syed Iqbal Munib narrowly escaped attempt on his life as a bomb had gone off minutes before he left residence for office Saturday, a local English newspaper reported Sunday. 

    "A bomb planted on a motorbike and parked in front of the governor's residence exploded when the governor was to leave for office," daily Afghanistan Times said.

    However, one of the cars of the governor parked around was damaged in the incident, it added. "I was the target of the blast," the daily quoted the governor as saying.

    It is the second failed attack on provincial governors in the relatively peaceful northern provinces of Afghanistan. A similar plot against the neighboring Balkh's provincial governor Atta Mohammad Noor, according to local media reports, wasthwarted months ago.

Pak-Afghan-US military officials discuss border security

KABUL >>, Aug 12 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The US, Pakistani and Afghan military officials held a flag meeting on Friday to review the cross-border movement of militants and other issues related to security.

The tripartite meeting was held in Angoor Adda area of the South Waziristan Agency during which, military officials from the three countries discussed various issues, including the infiltration of militants from the South Waziristan Agency into Afghanistan.

During the meeting, Afghan officials informed their Pakistani counterparts that the militants were crossing the border in the garb of shepherds, said a Pakistan daily quoting sources privy to the Friday meeting.

The participants also deliberated on the whereabouts of wanted militant commander Nazeer, whose name was also on the list given to Pakistani authorities by President Hamid Karzai during his recent visit to Islamabad.

Militant Commander Nazeer, the source said, was a close aide of mujahidin era prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The source said Pakistani officials complained about the landing of Afghan artillery shells in the tribal territory and informed that such incidents must be prevented.

The Taliban Take on Heresy – Strategy Page 8/14/06

August 14, 2006: The Taliban offensive lurches forward, with groups of Taliban moving through the back country, delivering threats to villagers, and promises of better times once the elected government is eliminated. The Taliban believe democracy is heretical and wrong. Over 80 percent of Afghans turned out for the last few elections, so there is a difference of opinion on this point. Taliban morale is getting shaky, as more of the Taliban gunmen find out that they are not the only ones taking a beating from Afghan security forces and foreign troops. It's also discouraging to find that the al Qaeda roadside bombs and suicide attack tactics are not very effective, despite promises to the contrary. Most of the roadside bombs hurt no one, and the suicide bombers are lucky to kill one other person. The Taliban leaders across the border in Pakistan, had promised so much for this years effort. The Summer campaigning season is almost over, and the Taliban have not got much to show for it.

August 13, 2006: The Taliban war on children is having some success, with up to 500,000 children being deprived of schooling because of attacks on schools and teachers, and threats to parents who send their children to government schools. The Taliban only approve of religious schools, run by the Taliban. These schools only educate boys, as the Taliban discourage education for girls. The Taliban attacks on schools are nothing new, but became more numerous last year, when there were 60 such attacks (arson, bombs, etc). So far this year, there have been at least 172 attacks, that government officials know of.

August 10, 2006: As American troops move into northeast Afghanistan, they are encountering lots of resistance from pro-Taliban tribesmen who have not faced much opposition for a while. Several hundred Taliban tried to overrun a newly established U.S. base, but were defeated, losing at least 19 dead, and many more wounded. Two American soldiers were wounded. The tribesmen are losing even more warriors during encounters with U.S. patrols, or from smart bombs dropped on large groups of armed tribesmen caught out in the open. According to Afghan tradition, if this lop-sided fighting goes on for a few weeks, the tribal elders will meet to come up with a new strategy, one that will involve fewer dead tribesmen.

August 9, 2006: The Taliban denied that they had killed, by public hanging, a woman and her son, after accusing the two of giving the security forces information about Taliban activities. Murders of this kind have happened perhaps half a dozen times in the past year. The Taliban threaten far more suspected informers, and will also kidnap suspected informers and try to beat a confession out of them. These terror tactics are a matter of life and death for the Taliban, who continue to suffer heavy losses when they run into security forces. This double hanging was denied by the Taliban because of its horrific and public nature, which makes it more obvious what a bunch of thugs the Taliban are.

Insurgents Torch Radio Station in Eastern Afghan Province - Radio Afghanistan 08/13/2008 - Text of report by Afghan state radio on 12 August

The country's enemies set on fire a local radio station in Baraki Barak District of Logar Province.

The security head of Logar, Abdol Majid Latifi, told a Bakhtar Information Agency correspondent that the country's enemies broke five windows and broke into the radio station and set it on fire after pouring petrol inside. A few minutes after the station caught fire, the police managed to remove a generator and a radio antenna, but the radio station was completely burnt down with its equipment.

He said the local Esteqlal radio station had eight hours of broadcast covering areas up to 30 kilometres. The local radio station started broadcasting in this district with the help of US Agency for International Development one and a half years ago. Via BBC Monitoring South Asia

Using words, not guns, to protect Afghan schools - The Globe and Mail 08/14/2006 By Grame Smith

KABUL - The schools of Afghanistan have endured a growing flurry of attacks in recent months: They've been bombed, shelled, burned, shot up and hit by rockets as Taliban insurgents target one of the most hopeful signs of reconstruction in this country.

The Afghan government and the country's top U.S. military commander unveiled a plan yesterday to defend the education system, but their approach was sharply different from that of the United Nations and human-rights groups, which have been calling for stronger security forces to protect schools.

Instead of relying on guns and barbed wire, U.S. Lieutenant-General Karl Eikenberry gave $300,000 (U.S.) to the Education Ministry for a project that will send teams into all 34 provinces and hold meetings with villagers to talk about the importance of their schools.

The hope is that Afghans will defend -- or, at least, stop attacking -- local schools if they can be persuaded that they don't threaten Islamic values, officials say.

"They're going to promote education," said an Education Ministry official who declined to be named. "Some people are not aware that education in this country is not against Islam, that it's based on the principles of Islam."

Until recently, officials often pointed to education as one of Afghanistan's great improvements since the Taliban were overthrown in 2001. The Western-backed Islamist guerrillas who fought the Soviets in the 1980s would often attack the Communists' schools, and Taliban who replaced them in the 1990s went even further toward dismantling the education system. Girls and young women were banned from school.

Children have flooded back into freshly built classrooms in the past several years, including almost two million female students. But overall enrolment rates remain low and it appears to be stagnating as the education system feels a backlash from Islamist insurgents.

"Politically, they know the education system is very dear to our people," Education Minister Mohammed Haneef Atmar said at a news conference in Kabul. "They know education is about democracy, true Islam and prosperity for Afghanistan."

As the insurgency has gained strength, especially in the south, the number of targeted schools has risen dramatically. In the past 12 months, Mr. Atmar said, 41 students and teachers have been killed, 144 schools burned down in 202 attacks and 208 schools have been forced to close.

Those numbers are even worse than the figures in reports published this summer by the United Nations Children's Fund and Human Rights Watch.

"Schools in Afghanistan are the targets of increasingly dramatic attacks," Unicef said, noting that the incidents have increased sixfold from last year.

Vernor Munoz Villalobos, a UN special rapporteur, estimated last week that the violence is preventing 200,000 to 500,000 Afghan children from attending school. He called for the Afghan government and "forces on the ground" to strengthen their protection of schools.

A recent Human Rights Watch report was more pointed in its criticism of the foreign troops, describing a failure to defend the vulnerable education system.

The rights group suggested among its recommendations that NATO and U.S. forces should, "within six months . . . assess whether they have committed resources (troops, materiel, and development assistance) sufficient to meet set goals."

Afghanistan's Education Ministry says its outreach effort will be part of a broader strategy to defend the school system. Officials say they started putting together the plans two months ago in response to the rising violence, which continues to make it difficult to repair the damaged schools.

"We were quite horrified to see the exponential increase," the education official said.

ISAF demands disarming of commanders in Afghan northwest province – Xinhua 08/13/2006

A NATO commander has called for the disarming of irresponsible commanders in the Faryab province of northwest Afghanistan, a Kabul-based daily reported Saturday.

"The only solution to clash between commanders was to disarm them," the Outlook newspaper quoted Markus Kneip, the regional commander of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in north Afghanistan, as saying.

He made this comment recently after the eruption of infighting between two local commanders respectively loyal to former warlords Abdul Rashid Dustom and Abdul Malik in Faryab province early in the month, said the paper.

In the skirmishes, which lasted for a few days in the far-flung Pashtunkot district, six persons were killed and several people have been forced to leave their houses for safer places.

With the involvement of ISAF, the United Nations and the Afghan central government, the fighting has been stopped and both rival sides have agreed to help restore security in the area.

Conflicts between the two sides have claimed dozens of lives over the past five years.

A Cult Following for the Elvis of Afghanistan

A Kabul singing school draws fans of Ahmad Zahir, who died 27 years ago under mysterious circumstances - By David Zucchino - Angeles Times August 13, 2006

KABUL, Afghanistan — It was the first day of class at the Ahmad Zahir Singing Course, and Samir Najibullah arrived looking like a young rock star. His wavy hair was slicked back, and he wore a body-hugging black T-shirt.

Najibullah, 22, announced that he wanted to be the next Ahmad Zahir, which is roughly akin to a young American male saying he wants to be the next Elvis Presley.

Zahir, Afghanistan's most beloved pop singer, died in his prime after a meteoric career singing love songs studded with lyrics that condemned the corrupt Soviet-backed governments of the late 1970s.

A Zahir cult has emerged among Afghans who were not yet born when the singer died under mysterious circumstances 27 years ago. Zahir's cassettes and CDs are still big sellers at Kabul street kiosks, and his songs are played in homes and clubs.

This perhaps explains why 54 young men have signed up for lessons in imitating his eclectic singing style, which blended Afghan folk songs and poems with rock 'n' roll.

"People tell me I have the voice of Ahmad Zahir, and this course will tell me whether I can be another Ahmad Zahir," Najibullah said. He opened the first class last month by belting out a rough but enthusiastic version of a Zahir song praising Afghan motherhood.

The singing school is the lifelong dream of Safiullah Subat, 60, who grew up with Zahir and says he wrote lyrics for several of his songs. An hour a day, three days a week, he offers Zahir singing lessons to the accompaniment of a harmonium player and a drummer who is the son of Zahir's drummer.

Subat has built a shrine to the dead singer in a two-room office above a raucous bazaar in downtown Kabul, the capital. The walls are decorated with photos of the ever-young Zahir — he died at 33 — with his black Elvis-like pompadour and 1970s disco shirts.

"Ahmad Zahir died at the peak of his talents and popularity, just like Elvis Presley," Subat said as his students sat on floor cushions to await their lessons. "He was the Elvis of Afghanistan, and like Elvis, he was loved by millions of women."

Subat believes government agents killed Zahir because of his love affair with the daughter of a top Afghan government official. The pop singer had already antagonized the ruling elite by performing anti-government songs that became anthems for the anti-Soviet Afghan resistance movement.

Zahir died June 13, 1979, on a roadway north of Kabul. The official cause of death was a traffic accident, but Subat and many other followers of the singer claim he was shot to death by government assassins.

Subat said he saw Zahir's body a few hours after he died. There was a bullet wound above his left eyebrow, he said, and the back of his head had been blown away. "It was no traffic accident," Subat said. "Politics killed him."

Subat said he and other Zahir fans had asked for an investigation but had been rebuffed over the years. He is filming a documentary on Zahir's life and death, which he hopes will prompt authorities to investigate.

On the anniversary of Zahir's death each June, fans throng his grave in Kabul to honor his memory. Every Friday, Afghans visit the grave to pray.

Subat, an elfin man with wavy silver hair and a neat goatee, said he decided to open the school because traditional Afghan strictures against singing and music have eased. More than four years after the fall of the Taliban regime, which banned music, singing is now tolerated — at least by many young, urban Afghans.

Subat's school accepts only males 16 to 33 years old, from the age at which most boys' voices mature to the age of Zahir's death.

The fee was initially 7,000 afghanis, about $140, for two months' instruction, or $840 for the yearlong course. But Subat reduced it to 3,000 afghanis for two months after students complained of the cost in a country where 70% of the population earns less than $2 a day.

Applicants must pass a "musical IQ" exam that consists mainly of questions about Zahir. Graduates earn a certificate stamped with a likeness of the singer.

Subat says he doesn't expect to mold another Zahir, but he does hope to launch professional musical careers for young men eager to emulate Zahir's music and swinging lifestyle. One young Afghan man he taught has a successful concert tour, singing Zahir songs to Afghan expatriates in the United States, Subat said.

The three students who showed up for the first day of class were raw but eager. Hafizullah Zahir, 21, a law student who is not related to Ahmad Zahir, said he had no experience singing but wanted to learn more about the singer's life and music. If it turned out he possessed musical talent, he said, he would much prefer to be a singer than a lawyer.

Wearing a Philadelphia 76ers basketball T-shirt and a 1970s-style blow-dry hairdo, Zahir closed his eyes and crooned a Zahir folk song. Subat, sitting on a pillow, nodded in encouragement.

Ahmed Zia, 20, said he had been listening to Zahir's music since he was 8 and had always dreamed of becoming a professional singer. But he, too, had no musical experience.

"I'm here to make Ahmad Zahir's soul happier by learning his music," Zia said, and then launched into a soft Zahir ballad, his wavy black hair falling over his forehead, a dead-on imitation of the singer's hairstyle.

After all three students had sung, Subat offered suggestions to each one. He explained that there was much to learn and many hours of practice ahead.

More paying students were expected for the next class, though Subat says he didn't open the school to make money. He is well-off, with a day job at the Education Ministry. He described his goals as spiritual, not mercenary.

"Mainly," he said, "I want my best friend and Afghanistan's best singer to live forever."

Canadian medic killed in Afghan attack was 'hero' who saved lives: comrades - Canadian Press Monday, August 14, 2006

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CP) - Fun-loving and said to be sometimes goofy, Cpl. Andrew James Eykelenboom, a Canadian army medic killed in a suicide attack in Afghanistan, is being remembered by friends as a hero who saved lives in the war-torn country.

Eykelenboom, 23, known as Boomer by his comrades, "came (to Afghanistan) a kid, and he died a man," recalls one of his closest friends, Sgt. Mark Simons.

Eykelenboom, from Comox, B.C., was killed Friday in a fiery suicide attack near the Afghan-Pakistani border.

He was believed to be the first Canadian military medic killed in action since the Korean War. He was also the 18th Canadian soldier to die since Canada redeployed troops from Kabul into southern Afghanistan in February.

Feelings of sorrow and even guilt over Eykelenboom's death ran high Sunday as colleagues from the 1st Field Ambulance unit, based in Edmonton, spoke of his last weeks in southern Afghanistan.

"It's like I failed him somehow," said Simons, looking forlorn as he talked about of his friend. "I wish it was me. "(But) if it wasn't Boomer on that convoy, it would've been somebody else."

Some of Eykelenboom's relatives at home have questioned why Canada is sacrificing its young men and women in a far-off land. Canada should rethink its role in Afghanistan before more lives are lost, said Eykelenboom's uncle.

"I believe in defending this country, not in meddling in someone else's affairs," Bob Eykelenboom of Penticton, B.C., told the Calgary Sun. "They're not keeping the peace," said Eykelenboom, who served in the Canadian military from 1964 to 1976.

"It's a war zone and I don't see what they're doing there. Why are we getting sacrificed there?"

The answer to that question could be found in the dedication Boomer showed for the job he was doing in Afghanistan, said Capt. Marilynn Chenette, Officer Commanding of the Canadian Forces medics in Kandahar.

"All of us here right now think that we have a mission to do," said Chenette. "We have lost some lives here . . . (but) we strongly believe in our role and what we need to do to help this country and, in turn, basically it's going to go back to Canada.

"We're helping our own country. Giving up now would be giving up on all the people whose lives have been lost," Chenette added. Eykelenboom was on the front lines when Canadians fought with Taliban insurgents in mid-July in what has become known as the Battle of Pashmul.

He is credited by his colleagues for saving a number of lives, particularly that of an Afghan interpreter who lost both of his legs during the fighting.

"He saved lives," said Simons. "He saved lives," he repeated, as if to emphasize Eykelenboom's contribution to the Afghan mission. "People would have died if it hadn't been for Boomer. That's the bottom line."

Hundreds of Canadian and other NATO troops bid a final farewell to Eykelenboom early Sunday as a coffin containing his body was placed on a C-130 Hercules aircraft at Kandahar Air Field, a trumpeter bringing tears to many an eye as he played Danny Boy.

Trying to come to grips with the loss, Simons, who helped carry his friend's body onto the plane, took comfort in a belief that Eykelenboom - along with the other Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan - played a role in helping the Afghan people despite the violence that surrounds them.

"One of my guys paid the ultimate sacrifice," Simons said. "He did this to help out these people. "Not to get too religious, but that's what the Big Dude asked of us."

Eykelenboom's body was expected to arrive late Monday at Canadian Forces Base Trenton in eastern Ontario, where the bodies of six other soldiers killed in Afghanistan have been returned in the last week.

A private funeral service was held Sunday for Sgt. Vaughan Ingram, one of three soldiers killed in a grenade assault by Taliban forces near Kandahar in Afghanistan on Aug. 3.

Pte. Kevin Dallaire and Cpl. Bryce Keller also died in the attack. Another funeral service was held Saturday for Cpl. Christopher Reid in his hometown of Truro, N.S. Reid was also killed Aug. 3, by a roadside bomb.

Canada has about 2,200 troops in Afghanistan, most of them based in Kandahar. A rocket struck the base late Sunday, causing no injuries or significant damage, NATO officials said. It was the first such attack in a week and the 38th rocket to hit the base since February.

Grieving families mourn the fallen - PATRICK BRETHOUR - From Monday's Globe and Mail

CALGARY — It has been three days of mourning across Canada as the military suffered its bloodiest week in more than three decades.

Seven Canadian soldiers have died in Afghanistan in a nine-day period, with that toll mounting on Friday when Corporal Andrew James Eykelenboom, a medic, was killed in a suicide attack on a supply convoy.

He died when an explosives-packed pickup was rammed into a North Atlantic Treaty Organization convoy near Spin Boldak, 100 kilometres southeast of Kandahar. The convoy was on its way to Kandahar airfield, and the main Canadian military base, when the attack took place, the Department of National Defence said in a statement.

Cpl. Eykelenboom's family members were congregating in Comox, B.C., awaiting the return of his body from Afghanistan; the flight carrying his body lifted off from Afghanistan yesterday. Family members said they were not yet ready to talk about his death, but the corporal's commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Chris Lennox, said the soldier had told his parents that helping children was the best part of his mission in Afghanistan.

In an e-mail to his parents, Cpl. Eykelenboom wrote that he gave a doll to a little Afghan girl after he bandaged her burned hand, and that the girl immediately stopped crying.

With seven dead in nine days, the Canadian Forces have suffered their worst week of casualties since Aug. 9, 1974, when a Buffalo transport plane was shot down by a Syrian missile, killing all nine Canadian peacekeepers on board.

Across the country, other grieving military families mourned, some publicly, others alone in their grief. In Ottawa, Private Kevin Dallaire was buried in the National Military Cemetery, with full military honours on Friday. He was one of four Canadian soldiers from the 1st Battalion of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry killed on Aug. 3.

On Saturday, in Truro, N.S., another one of those soldiers was laid to rest. Four hundred people attended the funeral of Corporal Christopher Reid, held near the Truro Armoury. The 34-year-old was killed after a roadside bomb exploded underneath his Canadian Forces LAV-III armoured troop carrier.

That same day, the body of Master Corporal Jeffrey Scott Walsh arrived at CFB Trenton, where his wife and three young children were waiting. MCpl. Walsh was killed Wednesday in what appears to have been an accidental shooting, with an investigation now under way into whether negligence contributed to his death. The wife and three young children of MCpl. Walsh clutched one another in anguish Saturday as the flag-draped casket of the fallen soldier made its return to Canadian soil.

A military official picked up MCpl. Walsh's six-year-old daughter, Avery, so she could lay a single red rose on her father's casket. His wife, Julie Mason, helped their two-year-old daughter, Jordan, place delicate white flowers atop the casket.

In a statement, the soldier's parents, Ben and Margie Walsh, said their son had full confidence in the Canadian mission in Afghanistan, where NATO forces are battling a newly revitalized insurgency. “Jeff believed in his job and felt he could make a change in Afghanistan,” they said in a statement. “We, his parents, support Jeff and all the Forces members in Afghanistan and all our peacekeepers.”

And yesterday, the tiny southern Newfoundland community of Burgeo buried Sergeant Vaughan Ingram, who also died Aug. 3. The funeral service for the 35-year-old soldier was private, but more than 1,000 people were expected to attend.

Military historian Jack Granatstein said the number of deaths may seem high, but that the toll is much less than in previous conflicts. Sixty-two years ago this month, Canadians were fighting their way through France in a bloody slog that saw 5,000 Canadians lose their lives between June and August, and that many again by the time the Second World War ended in Europe the following May. Mr. Granatstein, a fellow at the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute, said there were many days in which more than 100 Canadians died. “This is terrible what we're going through, but it is nonetheless what the military would call light casualties.”

Afghanistan's burqa finds new followers of fashion – AFP 08/14/2006 By Bronwen Roberts

KABUL - The burqa is 'in'. Actually the all-enveloping cloak has never really been 'out' in the five years since the fall of the ultra-Islamic Taliban regime that forced all women to wear it.

But in today's conflict-ridden Afghanistan, the garment seen by many as a symbol of oppression is finding new followers among Western women worried about anti-foreigner sentiment, and Western men looking for ironic gifts for lovers back home.

The growing number of women beggars and prostitutes on the streets of the capital are also choosing to hide their supposed shame beneath its all-covering folds.

And there are more and more cases of male insurgents caught using burqas to conceal themselves and their weapons -- with security guard searches under the voluminous veil a no-no even in these troubled times.

For most Afghan women the burqa is still a widespread item that can be a security blanket, protection against the pervasive dust, a shield for a breastfeeding baby, or a nifty cover for a nip down to the shops without putting on make-up.

In his burqa 'boutique' in Kabul's main bazaar, Waheedullah Najimi admits sales have roughly halved since the Taliban were forced out of government in 2001.

But he still sells about 20 a day, the shopkeeper says in his small store lined top to bottom with burqas of different colours, sizes and quality.

Most Kabul girls choose grey-blue, while in northern Mazar-i-Sharif white is also popular. Light blue is worn in some provinces, and green is used in Kandahar and Khost, Najimi says.

Among the demure colours are one or two splashes of pink and red -- these are for foreigners looking for gifts, he says. As are the pint-size replicas, just right to cover a wine bottle, that sell for one dollar a pop.

As with any fashion item, the quality depends on the buyer's budget.

A burqa in cheap, rough material delivered in rolls from Pakistan can cost a little as 200 afghani (four dollars). One in a soft fabric with careful embroidery in the front can sell for seven times as much.

One of Najimi's customers today is wizened 60-year-old Sufi Qayoom, who has come to buy new two burqas for his dying wife.

"She is sick and old," the turbanned man says, sitting on a stool near the door as young boys pass in the dust and heat outside with carpets slung over their shoulders, and a hawker shouts about a new readymade tea in a carton.

The burqas will be given to the women who will wash his wife's body before her burial. "If she doesn't have new clothes, maybe no one will wash her," Qayoom says.

Sixteen-year-old Hangama wants a new burqa for after her wedding in a few weeks. She has hooked the hip-length front of the garment over the back of her head -- as many women do when they need to see better -- while she browses.

"It is difficult to wear, it is hard to breathe ... but it is good because men cannot see me, nobody can see any part of your body," she says.

"If we don't wear the burqa, we feel like we are naked," says 32-year-old Malalalai, who comes in a bit later.

Nineteen-year-old Najia is in the store to deliver 12 burqas into which she and her sisters have painstakingly pressed hundreds of narrow pleats.

Every week the family collects drops of material that they pleat with a hot iron and water, a process they say is hard on their hands but earns around 100 afghani for each one.

They return the garments to the store for other women to pick up and attach the fitted skullcaps and lace grilles.

"I feel safe when I wear it," Najia says before heading out into the bright afternoon with her escort, her brother of about 10. "I can't see everybody or everywhere, but no one can see me," she says, her face hidden.

Most Afghan women say safety is the biggest benefit of the burqa, which was also common during the civil war that preceded the 1996 rise of power of the Taliban.

That is also why today some Western aid workers and journalists have one hanging in their closet.

A journalist whose home was in the thick of deadly May 29 riots that engulfed the capital threw one on and escaped on the back of a bicycle as angry crowds milled around following a deadly traffic accident involving a US vehicle.

"The burqa was the safest way to travel through the city during the riots. A number of Western women put them on to get unseen from house to house," she says.

It also helps to hide one's identity when travelling through the dangerous south where foreigners are targets of Taliban militants.

"It's useful for security as it's not so obvious from the car that you are a foreigner ... it's obvious, though, that you are not local the minute you walk in one because foreigners move differently. They have a much more determined stride than Afghan women," she says.

An aid worker who also has one says it is for emergencies only, although the garment rubs her the wrong way.

"They erode all sense of identity and are about as demeaning as clothing can get. On a practical level, they are also dangerous in that one's scope of vision is so impaired," she says.

Afghanistan's educated women were the first to drop the burqa when the Taliban were forced out and they too detest the garment but recognise that for many the time is not right to hang it up.

"Security in Afghanistan is still a problem. Day by day it is getting worse. And the wearing of the burqa is still related directly to security," says former women's minister Masooda Jalal.

"For more women to stop wearing the burqa, we need to have full security and need to educate families in rural areas," she says, referring to deeply conservative regions where men believe women should be completely covered.

Jalal, who defied the Taliban by practicing as a doctor from home, acknowledges more modern women sometimes use the garment when they have to go out but can be bothered to dress up. But, "I couldn't do it. It is too heavy and makes me impatient," she says.

Despite being such an overt sign of women's oppression, the burqa is not the biggest women's rights issue in Afghanistan, says legislator Shukria Barakzai.

Women in this conservative country have difficult lives: most are illiterate and poor, the maternal mortality rate is among the highest in the world, child and forced marriages are common, and women generally live as men tell them to.

"The big issue is tradition and the burqa is a small part of this," says Barakzai, who doesn't wear the garment even in the conservative provinces because as a "women's activist, you have to be a symbol".

She recalls the surprise of children when she first ventured outside the morning after the Taliban had fled Kabul with a scarf covering her head but no burqa. "Some little boys and girls never saw women on the street. They thought I was a foreigner," she laughs.

Barakzai may hate the burqa but she admits it has its uses, such as hiding expensive jewellery from view of potential muggers or modern clothes that may provoke comments, stares and nasty jibes.

"Whichever dress you are wearing, your make-up and your hair -- it is all covered, it is an easy solution," says the modern young woman.

As a symbol closely associated with Afghanistan, it is perhaps inevitable that the garment has become visitors' choice for a gift for people back home that is sometimes meant as a joke but also gives insight into what is an outrageous concept in the West.

One said he brought one for his girlfriend in Britain to pretend to "admonish her for having too good a time while I was away in Afghanistan".

"It was supposed to annoy her, to make her mad at me, after which I would give her a real gift, and win her over. Funny thing is, she wasn't at all annoyed with the burqa. She immediately tried it on and was shocked at how difficult it is to breathe and see through," he said.

And while the burqa may not be the new black, it has made it onto the catwalk, causing a stir at Afghanistan's first fashion show held last month. The white silk and embroidered piece was intended to acknowledge an item so integral to Afghan fashion and give it a more positive look, says designer Zolaykha Sherzad, from the design house that put on the show.

"During the Taliban it was a way to oppress women but it has also given women a certain freedom," she says.

"It protects you from the dust, from view, all sorts of things. At the same time it helps you to be free, you can really be who you are without worrying what people will say," she says.

The element of disguise is something she also sees in the West, she says. "I see more and more women wearing dark glasses -- it is a way to hide. They can't see you but you can see them."

[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.]