In this bulletin:

• Abizaid: Pakistan not aiding Taliban
• Pakistan, Afghanistan need a common approach to unrest
• British soldier, 10 Taliban killed in Afghanistan attacks
• FACTBOX-Military deaths in Afghanistan
• Disputes Spur His Critics, Karzai Says
• Minister: Afghanistan's peace, security same as that of Iran
• Taliban assassins target the clerics faithful to Kabul
• Afghanistan to establish indigenous Madrasahs
• Our successes are many
• Afghan cultural festival to open in Tehran Aug. 30
• In Afghanistan, a military milestone takes shape - Nation's army executes its 1st major operation
• Pakistan withholds terror suspects' info
• Pakistan rebel death sparks riots

Abizaid: Pakistan not aiding Taliban - By FISNIK ABRASHI Associated Press
Sun Aug 27

KABUL, Afghanistan - A coalition air strike in southern Afghanistan killed a Taliban commander and 15 other militants, the U.S. military said Saturday. A top American general, meanwhile, said insurgents are still using neighboring Pakistan as a base for infiltration.

Insurgents killed a NATO-led coalition soldier in southern Helmand province Sunday, NATO said. It did not provide the soldier's nationality or details of the clash. Another NATO soldier and six Afghan troops were wounded when mortars hit their base in neighboring Kandahar province Sunday, NATO said.

Two French soldiers were killed and two others were wounded in the volatile east on Friday, while at least 13 other insurgents were killed in clashes with police and NATO in the south, the U.S. military said.

On Saturday, Canadian troops in the south mistakenly killed a policeman and wounded six other people, including two civilians, according to NATO.

Afghanistan is experiencing its worst bout of violence since the late-2001 ouster of the Taliban regime for hosting al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. More than 1,600 people, mostly militants, have died in the past four months, according to an Associated Press tally of violent incidents reported by U.S., NATO and Afghan officials.

Four rockets slammed into west Kabul on Sunday, one landing near a police station and another damaging a house, but nobody was injured, police said.

Gen. John Abizaid, commander of the U.S. Central Command, said militants are using Pakistan as a base from which to infiltrate into Afghanistan, but he said the Pakistani government is not conspiring with them.

"I think that Pakistan has done an awful lot in going after al-Qaida and it's important that they don't let the Taliban groups be organized in the Pakistani side of the border," he told reporters in Bagram, where the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan is located.

Abizaid said he "absolutely does not believe" accusations of collusion between Pakistan's government and the resurgent Taliban rebels or other extremists.

"You do not order your soldiers in the field against an enemy in order to play some sort of a game with neighboring countries," he said.

Afghanistan repeatedly has criticized Pakistan for not doing enough to prevent Taliban militants and other rebels from crossing the poorly marked border.

Pakistan, a former Taliban supporter but now a U.S. ally in its war on terrorism, says it does all it can to tackle insurgents and has deployed 80,000 troops along the frontier.

A coalition forces air strike killed a local Taliban commander and 15 other militants in the central Khod Valley of the Uruzgan Province on Friday, the U.S. military said without identifying the leader. The strike brought rebel casualties to 29 over 24 hours.

That operation came the same day that a roadside bomb and a gunfight in the eastern Laghman province left two French soldiers dead and another two wounded, the U.S. military said in an earlier statement.

In Helmand, NATO-led forces used artillery against an insurgent convoy Friday, killing seven militants, an alliance spokesman said.

The convoy was spotted by British troops in the Musa Qala district of Helmand who then ordered the strike, said Maj. Luke Knittig, a spokesman for the NATO-led force.

The insurgents were traveling in a 12-vehicle convoy before they were hit, he said. Three vehicles got away while eight were destroyed or disabled, Knittig said.

Police clashed with suspected Taliban militants in southern Zabul province, killing six insurgents and wounding 12, said Hussein Ali, the Argandab district chief. One policeman was wounded.

In Ghazni province, militants attacked a building early Saturday, killing one court official and wounding two policemen, said Abdul Ali Fakuri, spokesman for Ghazni's governor. Three vehicles were burned during the attack, he said.

Canadian troops, meanwhile, mistakenly exchanged fire with plainclothes policemen in the south, killing one officer and wounding four other police, a NATO statement said.

The armed police, wearing civilian clothes, were shot after they did not heed orders by troops to stop as they approached a Canadian checkpoint in a speeding unmarked vehicle in Kandahar province, the statement said.

Two other civilians were injured shortly afterward, when the Canadian troops fired at their speeding scooter near the same checkpoint, the statement said.

Afghan officials were not available for comment on the shootings, which occurred a day after President Hamid Karzai ordered a probe into the killings of eight people in a U.S.-Afghan raid on a compound in eastern Kunar province.

U.S. forces said Thursday's raid targeted al-Qaida members, but local police said the dead were civilians — the second time in a week Karzai's government has questioned the military's tactics. A child was among those killed, and a woman was wounded.

Pakistan, Afghanistan need a common approach to unrest - Aug 27

KABUL (AFP) - Islamabad and Kabul need to find a common approach to tackling the Taliban-led insurgency, Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said as troops from his country set up in Afghanistan.

Around 1,400 Dutch troops are moving into the border province of Uruzgan, where "the situation is linked to people coming from Pakistan," Balkenende said at a media briefing on Saturday.

The prime minister was referring to militants trained or recruited in Pakistan and sent across the frontier to carry out attacks mainly against Afghan and foreign troops in a increasingly deadly insurgency.

He stressed after talks with President Hamid Karzai in Kabul that the fight against terrorism, including the Taliban and their Al-Qaeda allies, was an international responsibility.

But he said "it has to do with the contacts between the president of Afghanistan and the president of Pakistan. They need a common approach."

If this did not happen, "then we have a serious problem", he said.

Karzai and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf have been at odds this year about the insurgency, with Musharraf rejecting Afghan intelligence about alleged bases of Taliban and Al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan.

Afghan and some Western officials have charged that Islamabad is not doing enough to root out the sources of the insurgency and stop militants from crossing into Afghanistan.

Balkenende said his country believed "diplomacy, defence and development" were key to ending the violence, which has shown no signs of abating in Afghanistan despite the presence of thousands of foreign troops.

His country is one of the major contributors to Afghanistan since the Taliban -- which sheltered the Al-Qaeda terror network -- were driven out by a US-led coalition in late 2001.

It has sent more than 350 million dollars to Kabul, officials said Saturday, and will have around 1,400 troops and aircraft in Uruzgan where it will head a provincial reconstruction team.

Karzai said his country, a battleground in the US-led "war on terror", was "ready to sacrifice till terrorism is defeated from this region and the world."

But it became a "nest for terrorism" after the Soviet invaders left in 1989 and world powers allowed Afghanistan to be "handed over ... to its neighbours," he said, warning the country should not be deserted like this again.

Pakistan helped the Taliban rise to power and was one of only three allies of the internationally reviled regime until the September 11 attacks blamed on Al-Qaeda, after which it joined the US-led "war on terror".

British soldier, 10 Taliban killed in Afghanistan attacks - August 27, 2006

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) - A British soldier was killed and another NATO troop wounded in attacks in Afghanistan while police said they killed 10 Taliban who tried to capture a district headquarters.

In other violence linked to a Taliban insurgency, a roadside bomb blast struck a police vehicle in southeastern Afghanistan, killing two security officers.

The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) soldier was killed in an insurgent attack in southern Helmand province, ISAF said in a statement on Sunday.

The Ministry of Defence in London announced the soldier was British. Most of the foreign troops in Helmand are with a British deployment of about 4,750.

ISAF did not immediately release details of the attack, which the ministry said occurred in the north of the province at about 5:00 am local time.

Helmand police said meanwhile that about 40 Taliban fighters late Saturday stormed the headquarters of Musa Qala district, also in the north of the province, sparking a three-hour gunfight in which 10 Taliban were killed.

Police repelled the attack on the compound, which includes the office of the district governor and police, without casualties, provincial police chief Mohammad Nabi Mullahkhail told AFP.

He said five Taliban bodies were left at the scene of the fighting and the rebels took five away with them. There have been several attacks in Musa Qala, where British forces last week took over from a Danish contingent that had come under near daily attack.

In a separate incident early Sunday, a base in southern Kandahar province came under mortar fire that wounded an ISAF soldier and six Afghans, the NATO-led force said without releasing the nationality of the foreign troop. A Canadian force of about 2,300 soldiers is based in Kandahar.

The latest death takes to 81 the number of foreign soldiers who have died in hostile action in Afghanistan this year, including 12 ISAF troops killed in the south since the NATO force took command of the area from a US-led coalition on July 31.

The 10,000-strong ISAF force in the south, on the alliance's most ambitious military mission, have faced a barrage of attacks since moving into the hostile area.

Commanders have said they need more troops and equipment to confront a stiffer than expected resistance from the Taliban, whom experts say are working with drugs barons and other players who profit from lawlessness.

A coalition led by the United States removed the Taliban from power in 2001 when the hardliners did not hand over Osama bin Laden after the September 11 attacks.

An insurgency launched by the extremists has been growing in strength, peaking this year with more sophisticated attacks on military forces accompanying a stepped-up campaign of suicide and roadside bombings.

A remote-controlled bomb struck a police vehicle in the eastern province of Khost Sunday, killing a police officer and an intelligence official. Two other security officers and two civilians were wounded, provincial police said.

At a rough estimate, about 1,500 people have been killed in Taliban-linked violence this year, around 1,000 of them rebels.

The head of US forces in parts of Africa and the Middle East, General John Abizaid, said during a visit here Saturday that while the Taliban would be able to continue mounting their campaign thanks to their foreign sources of income, it was unlikely their action would prove to be "decisive"

The rebels had taken heavy casualties and had not "exerted control for any substantial period of time in any major population area," Abizaid told reporters.

"Certainly they managed to take some district capitals for short periods of time, but those have been largely media victories and not military victories," he said.

FACTBOX-Military deaths in Afghanistan

Aug 27 (Reuters) - A British soldier was killed in an insurgent attack in Afghanistan on Sunday, the British Defence Ministry said. The death brings the number of British soldiers who have died in Afghanistan to 21.

Two French special forces soldiers were killed on Friday in an insurgent ambush in eastern Afghanistan, the French Defence Ministry said on Saturday.

Here are the latest figures for military deaths in Afghanistan since the Taliban government was toppled in 2001.

NATO/U.S.-LED COALITION FORCES:

United States 333

Britain 21

Canada 27

Germany 18

Spain 18

Other nations 28

About 2,000 people, most of them militants but including civilians, Afghan troops, aid workers and more than 90 foreign soldiers, have been killed in fighting in 2006. Sources: Reuters/icasualties.org

Disputes Spur His Critics, Karzai Says - By SULTAN M. MUNADI The New York Times August 27, 2006

KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 26 — President Hamid Karzai said Saturday that recent criticism of his leadership and his administration stemmed from disagreements that he had had with some partners of the United States-led coalition in Afghanistan over the conduct of military operations.

“For some time, some circles of the Western media have started special propaganda against me and the Afghan government,” he told journalists at a joint news conference with Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende of the Netherlands.

“We had some disagreements with some members of the international coalition against terrorism concerning counterterrorism, and maybe they did not like those arguments,” he said. “And their media, because of that, started propaganda against us.”

Mr. Karzai has recently come under sharp criticism at home and abroad for failing to protect the country from violence and manage the economy, and for allowing widespread corruption in his government. And as the insurgency has worsened, confidence in his leadership has fallen.

In response, he has repeatedly blamed the worsening insurgency in southern Afghanistan on infiltration from Pakistan, and has called on the United States and its coalition allies to direct their attention against training camps and financing and recruiting efforts for the insurgency in that country.

He has lamented that Afghans are dying in a war being fueled from outside the country’s borders. He has also said that for two years he had been warning members of the United States-led coalition that the Taliban was a growing danger but that his warnings were not taken seriously.

“The Americans told him they would take care of the Taliban and cross-border infiltration, and two years later, it’s gotten worse,” a Western diplomat in Kabul said. “President Karzai feels let down.”

Mr. Balkenende, whose country has deployed 1,400 soldiers in Uruzgan Province as part of a NATO force, agreed the insurgency was fueled by fighters from Pakistan. He called for stronger cooperation between Pakistan and Afghanistan to combat the insurgency.

“It is no use fighting against those forces who are jeopardizing the prospects of the population in Uruzgan,” he said, “while at the same moment constantly new people are coming in.”

Minister: Afghanistan's peace, security same as that of Iran – IRNA 8/26/06

Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar in a meeting with his Afghan counterpart, Abdul Rahim Wardak, said here Saturday that peace and security in the neighboring Afghanistan is considered as those in Iran.

According to a report released by the Publicity Department of Defense Ministry, he said that based on such a strategy, Iran has always supported promotion of peace and tranquility in Afghanistan.

At the first round of talks with his Afghan counterpart, Najjar referred to Afghanistan's security and reconstruction and given close ties between the two states, declared Iran's readiness to promote security in this country and help expedite its reconstruction process.

Congratulating the anniversary of Afghanistan's independence, the Iranian minister said that Iran's foreign policy gives high priority to expansion of ties with the neighboring Muslim states, in particular the brotherly and friendly country of Afghanistan.

For his part, Wardak expressed satisfaction with his visit to Tehran and appreciated Iran's sincere support over the past two decades.

He added that his government and people will never forget the support, aid and hospitality of the Iranian government and nation.

"Just as Afghanistan experienced tranquility and freedom during the period of war and insecurity in the light of Iran's cooperation, it requires Iran's assistance for its development and progress in economic, political, cultural and defense fields," he said.

The Afghan minister heading a high-ranking military delegation arrived in Tehran on a three day visit on Friday in response to the invitation of Najjar.

Wardak attended the mausoleum of the late Imam Khomeini this morning and paid tribute to the founder of the Islamic Republic by laying a wreath on his grave. This is the first trip of Afghanistan's defense minister to Iran after the country's permanent government took office.

Taliban assassins target the clerics faithful to Kabul - Declan Walsh in Kandahar Sunday August 27, 2006 The Observer (UK)

Staying one step ahead of the assassins is a nail-biting business, says Maulvi Ghulam Muhammad, one of Afghanistan's most senior Islamic clerics.

Armed bodyguards stand outside his office in the southern city of Kandahar and visitors are frisked. By day he varies his route to work and keeps vigilant; at night he slips between safe houses. 'Hardly a week passes when a suicide bomber is not hunting for me,' declares Muhammad, who leads the provincial religious council. Over the past year the Taliban have killed a dozen Kandahar clerics, many in drive-by shootings. Muhammad fears he will be number 13.

Violence between coalition troops and Taliban fighters hogs the headlines in Afghanistan, where more than 600 insurgents have been killed over the past month alone. But the militants are also conducting a ruthless assassination campaign against civilian 'soft targets' as part of their drive to discredit President Hamid Karzai and destabilise his government. Teachers, judges, aid workers and landmine removal specialists have been shot, bombed or beheaded for their links, however tenuous, with Karzai or the United States. In June five interpreters were killed when a bomb tore through their bus on the way to the US base outside Kandahar. The US government's aid wing, USAID, says it has lost 100 staff over the past three years.

But it is the killing of clerics from the Ulema Shura, a 2,000-strong body of religious leaders, that has had a shocking, symbolic resonance. Religious leaders remain a powerful influence in Afghan society, but since 2001 the clerics have thrown their moral weight behind Karzai. Taliban leaders claiming religious sanction for their 'holy war' are displeased. 'The maulvis tell people jihad is over and now is the time for rebuilding. That is a severe blow for the Taliban. So to obtain silence they kill them,' said Ahmad Fahim Hakim of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission.

The Taliban have killed 20 clerics and wounded 40 over the past year, said Haji Khasrauw, aide to former chief justice Fazl Hadi Shinwari. In one of the most recent attacks, a grenade was flung into a mosque in Khost province, injuring three men, including the mullah.

The bloodshed started in Kandahar, the Taliban's spiritual home, in May 2005. A motorcycle-mounted gunman shot Maulvi Abdullah Fayyaz, then head of the Kandahar shura, through his office window. The killing came 10 days after Fayyaz publicly divested Taliban leader Mohammed Omar of his self-awarded title 'Leader of the Faithful'. Days later a bomb ripped through a crowd of mourners at Fayyaz's funeral, killing 21 and apparently showing that mosques were no safer than their mullahs. Since then, the attacks have sharply escalated. The past month has seen two attacks on Kandahar clerics. One, Maulvi Shams ul-Haq, was shot in the head but survived. The other was less lucky. Abdul Satar, who distributed a religious newsletter, bled to death outside his front door.

The beleaguered clerics are wrapped in theological tussles as well as violent struggles. The Taliban claims that violence against foreigners is sanctioned by the Koran. Pro-government scholars argue the opposite. 'The coalition troops were invited here by our government, which was elected by Muslims. So the coalition has our full permission,' said Muhammad. Yet the clerics are no born-again liberals. Many, including Muhammad, are sharply critical of western military tactics. Others, led by Shinwari, tried to ban co-education, close television stations and jail journalists.

Some clerics seem to have what a US commander called 'one foot on the dark side'. In early July, Kandahar police rounded up 125 men from mosques and madrassas (religious schools) on suspicion of links to the Taliban. Most were released within hours, but seven were arrested.

Abdul Hakim Jan, a curly-bearded cleric who runs a large madrassa, insisted that all journalists were spies, America was sheltering Osama bin Laden and poppy cultivation was permitted by the Koran. But suicide bombing was illegitimate, he continued, and despite his faults Karzai should be defended as Afghanistan's rightful elected leader.

'If these words are published, I may be killed,' he said. 'But I am not afraid of anyone. My death is God's will.'

Afghanistan to establish indigenous Madrasahs

KABUL: Afghan Education Minister Hanif Atmar said that his ministry plans to establish religious schools in all 34 provinces of Afghanistan for those students who wish to acquire religious education, Kabul-based Tolu Television reported.

Atmar made the statement while laying the foundation stone of a religious boarding school (madrasah) in Kabul Province’s Bagram district. "We will build a pure Islamic education system in our country," Atmar said.

He added that once the estimated $30 million project is completed, there will be no need for Afghans to seek Islamic education abroad. The madrasah in Bagram will accommodate 450 students. Most former Taliban and neo-Taliban leaders, as well as a large number of their recruits, come from madrasahs in Pakistan.

The attempt by Kabul to establish indigenous religious schools, if successful, could mark a major step toward taking charge of the country’s religious-education system, which currently is the domain of opponents and is largely foreign-based .

Our successes are many - SEAN MALONEY From Friday's Globe and Mail 8/25/06

Canada's best-known CSIS informant, he who played a key role in uncovering the alleged Toronto terror plot, has weighed in on our Afghan mission. Declaring, "Canada out of Afghanistan, now," Mubin Shaikh asserted that no invader since Alexander the Great has succeeded in controlling the country. The implication is that Canada is but the latest invader, and therefore doomed to fail. This is a sad distortion, both of history and current events.

First, Canada's operations in Kandahar are at the invitation of the legitimate, elected, United Nations-certified government of Afghanistan. When Canada first intervened alongside other coalition forces in 2001, the illegitimate, al-Qaeda-supported Taliban regime was being opposed by numerous groups that rejected the radical Islamic program imposed on them. Coalition forces, working with those groups, removed the regime and created an environment from which a legitimate government could emerge, which it did in 2004.

Canada committed military forces to all phases of the international mission to assist the Afghan government, including Operation Enduring Freedom and the International Security Assistance Force, which hunted insurgents in rural areas, suppressed urban terrorism in Kabul, and prevented the outbreak of another civil war among victorious anti-Taliban forces.

Second, Canada's military operations are not structured for occupation or a permanent presence in Afghanistan. We are not the Soviet Union. On the contrary: Canadian operations include mentoring provincial and federal government departments, co-ordinating construction and aid efforts, training the military and police, all of which constitute working to "teach a man to fish" rather than "giving a man a fish." Our objective is to eventually leave Afghanistan, and our exit strategy depends on the Afghans having viable, legitimate Afghan institutions at all levels of society.

None of this can occur without being shielded from outside interference, in this case the Taliban, the Hizb-i Islami of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and, of course, al-Qaeda, which uses these groups as proxy fighters. This is where the Canadian military, working alongside Afghan and other coalition security forces, is critically important.

Nobody has ever succeeded in Afghanistan? The Taliban's removal is success, and the fact that violence is limited to the southeastern parts of the country is success. One does not see the same levels of violence in, say, Dai Kundi or Feyzabad. The enemy, being of Pashtun ethnicity, does not have a constituency in the other 60 per cent of the population, which consists of Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras and at least five other ethnicities. And it will not have one in the near future, especially after years of Taliban abuse.

The fact that the events of 1993-96, when victorious mujahedeen groups turned on themselves, did not reoccur in 2002-04 is a major success story. The fact that these groups are currently incapable of doing so because of close co-operation between the Afghan government, Canada, Britain, the United States and Japan is also significant.

Kandahar and adjacent provinces are the prime focus of insurgent (and media) attention. How do we measure success in Kandahar, not in Afghanistan writ large? The region's main issues -- dysfunctional government, tribalism among the 17 Pashtun groupings, and a corrupt police force -- are all aggravated by outside sources from Taliban-base areas in Pakistan.

Success should not be measured by the number of Canadians killed or wounded in these actions, though this seems to be the only measurement employed by critics of Canadian involvement -- and by the enemy. Success can, in theory, be measured by a comparative body count: For every Canadian killed, we get 20 of theirs, for example. But that is not useful. It doesn't get into the heads of the enemy, which is what we must do to block them from getting what they want.

Success, in this case, should be measured by the number of children who are able to attend school and go to a clinic without fear of having their teachers and doctors assassinated. Success should be measured by the amount of taxes collected by the provincial government to pay for these activities, instead of the money going into the pockets of smugglers.

The insurgents want to impose, with force, what amounts to a 16th-century radical Islamic caliphate. Denying them this objective, which is what we are doing in Afghanistan with our Afghan partners (no matter how flawed they are), and allowing the next generation to move away from that stultifying world view is how we will succeed.

If we are unable to succeed, it will not be because the Afghan people oppose us. It will be by the Pakistani government's inability to exert control in Baluchistan and the other virtually lawless border zones, and it will be by the donors of a radical bent in the Islamic world who pay for the insurgency using zakat.

Sean Maloney instructs in the War Studies Program at the Royal Military College of Canada, and is the author of Enduring the Freedom: A Rogue Historian in Afghanistan

Afghan cultural festival to open in Tehran Aug. 30

TEHRAN, Aug. 27 (MNA) – Afghanistan’s first Art and Culture Festival is scheduled to open at the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (IIDCYA) in Tehran on August 30, the Cultural Heritage News agency (CHN) reported here on Saturday.

Different programs on the fields of film, theater, poetry, music, handicraft, and calligraphy will be held at the festival.

The event has been organized by the Iran-based Afghan organizations, aiming at introducing the Afghan culture and promoting the cultural heritage shared by the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) member states.

In Afghanistan, a military milestone takes shape - Nation's army executes its 1st major operation - By David Zucchino, Los Angeles Times  |  August 27, 2006

RAMAZAN, Afghanistan -- This remote village in the high desert of southern Afghanistan is home to six mud huts and 70 people. A few miles away, tucked behind two soaring escarpments, the settlement of Qazi contains four huts, 50 people, and a few goats.

More than 100 Afghan army soldiers descended on the two villages one day last month looking for Taliban fighters. After a carefully scripted battle plan, the soldiers sealed the villages and searched every hut, shed, paddock, and fighting-age male.

They found nothing -- no Taliban, no weapons, no documents, no bomb-making material. But in the eyes of the U S military advisers who set the raid in motion, the operation was a milestone.

For the first time in Afghanistan, the Americans said, the Afghan army had conducted a battalion-sized combat operation that combined logistics, mortars, scouts , and infantry from three companies. It is the sort of operation U S troops conduct routinely, but the fledging Afghan army is just beginning to apply its training to real-life battlefields.

``We witnessed a little piece of history today," said U S Colonel Martin Leppert, his face sunburned below his blond crew cut after a day spent supervising the operation in 120-degree desert heat.

The Afghan army, like the one being built and trained chiefly by the United States in Iraq, is key for American strategy in both countries. U S forces will remain mired in Afghanistan and Iraq for years unless the two armies become strong and capable enough to fight on their own. For both Afghanistan and Iraq, the army is the one national institution potentially capable of projecting government authority and security.

The nascent Afghan effort could provide a signpost for the Iraqi army, despite significant differences in size and the nature of the insurgency each is fighting. If the Afghan army is still struggling in its fifth year of training, its halting progress suggests that the Iraqi army, in its third year, has a long way to go.

Men such as Leppert, 46, a full-time National Guard soldier from Wisconsin, are at the forefront of the Afghan training. Known as an ETT, for embedded training team, his 20 American trainers serve as mentors for their Afghan counterparts.

The training has evolved from putting raw recruits through basic training at a military center in Kabul, the capital, to conducting combat forays alongside U S or NATO units. Afghan battalions are a long way from being able to operate on their own, but trainers are trying to wean them from relying on the U S military .

It is slow, frustrating work. Most Afghan soldiers are fearless fighters, but more than half are illiterate, with virtually no experience fighting in cohesive, disciplined units. Many recruits are too young to have fought in the country's numerous wars over the past quarter-century. Many older soldiers and officers fought the Soviets or the Taliban, but as guerrillas, not as part of a national army.

Today's army is very much a work in progress. Afghan commanders and soldiers complain of poor pay, faulty weapons, ammunition shortages and lack of protective gear. U S trainers, while praising Afghan soldiers for their bravery, complain of lack of discipline, and infiltration of the army by Taliban spies or soldiers who sell information.

Afghan soldiers are armed with old AK-47 assault rifles collected from warlord militias. A first-year soldier earns $70 a month, less than a common laborer. (The top enlisted man makes $180 a month, a general $530 a month.)

Soldiers have no body armor and no armored vehicles. Few even have helmets. They ride into battle in the dusty beds of U S -supplied Ford Ranger pickups, clutching their weapons while bouncing over rutted dirt trails. Their commanders scream orders into outdated U S -issue radios, forgoing code words or secure call signs.

``We're building the Afghan army on the fly," said Leppert, a fast-talking officer known to fellow commanders as ``Cowboy," as he watched from a ridgeline as Afghan troops swept toward the two villages. ``We're building the airplane while the airplane is flying."

Operation Mountain Thrust, the two-month-old campaign against a resurgent Taliban in southern Afghanistan, is being led by combat units from the United States and NATO countries, with the Afghan army in direct support.

From a forward operating base called Apache, Leppert supervises an Afghan brigade. His small hilltop base is protected by dirt beams, blast barriers, high walls, concertina wire, and guard towers against Taliban fighters who control towns and villages across the arid Zabul Province.

On the next rise is the headquarters of the Afghan brigade at Alexander's Castle, a fortification said to date from the days of Alexander the Great. Just after dawn that morning, the Americans and Afghans launched a ``cordon and search" operation aimed at the two villages . The trainers and Afghans had been collecting intelligence on the settlements, which they believed were sanctuaries for Taliban fighters.

The U S battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Harold Walker, carried a battle plan and map. His counterpart, Afghan battalion commander Major Gholem Sakhi, 44, carried a similar battle plan written in Dari.

The two commanders watched the operation play out from their command post at the top of a sandy ridge. They communicated through an interpreter. The Afghan scouts had taken their positions on mountain ridges that rose high above the command post .

The two commanders used scanners to monitor all radio traffic ; Taliban fighters often communicate by two-way radio. It was clear that the Taliban had its own observation posts and had spotted the convoy. It was likely that any Taliban in the area had been warned to flee.

More than a hundred Afghan soldiers fanned out through the gorges, backed by more than 100 more in support roles. They were joined by 15 U S trainers. ``We're the 911 for the ANA," said Walker, whose 10 trainers mentor 358 Afghan troops. ``We will not let them fail." 

Pakistan withholds terror suspects' info - By MATTHEW PENNINGTON, Associated Press Writer

Islamabad (AP) - Two weeks after an alleged plot to blow up U.S.-bound airliners was thwarted in Britain, Pakistani authorities have screwed tight the faucet that had trickled intriguing details from their investigation.

Mystery surrounds the role played by "key suspect" Rashid Rauf, a Briton with dual Pakistani nationality who has family ties to a notorious Pakistani militant. Pakistani authorities allege Rauf communicated between an al-Qaida mastermind in Afghanistan and the plotters in Britain.

Britain has yet to confirm al-Qaida's involvement in the plans to bomb as many as 10 U.S.-bound aircraft. On Wednesday, it released Rauf's brother Tayib without charge. The Home Office in London refused to say Thursday whether it was still seeking Rashid Rauf's extradition.

Rauf, in his mid-20s, is the only one among the at least seven suspects arrested in Pakistan to have been named. He is being interrogated at a high-walled Pakistani intelligence headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, near the capital Islamabad.

It's unclear if he or the other suspects have been charged with any offense.

The lack of transparency is characteristic of terror cases in Pakistan, which has netted most of the top al-Qaida figures captured since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America. It contrasts with the legal process pursued in Britain, where despite tight control on information from the investigation, authorities named two dozen suspects soon after their arrest Aug. 10.

So far, British authorities have charged 11: eight with conspiracy to murder and preparing to commit terrorism, and three others with lesser offenses, including failing to disclose information.

Under Pakistani law, authorities can hold any terror suspect for up to a year without charge. Such a detention must be approved by a panel of judges. In practice, suspects in the custody of intelligence agencies have little or no recourse to the law.

"The difference between Britain and Pakistan is the absence of due process," said Samina Ahmed, South Asia project director for the International Crisis Group think tank.

"There's been very little information to come out, other than about Rauf, and I think that's because his links with some very prominent jihadi leaders were bound to come out in the open. It would have been impossible to keep it covered up," she said.

Rauf has ties by marriage to Masood Azhar, leader of an al-Qaida-linked Pakistani militant group, Jaish-e-Mohammed. Rauf was arrested Aug. 9 in the Punjab town of Bhawalpur, where he had settled and where the outlawed group has a strong presence.

A senior Pakistani government official, who like the intelligence official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the case's sensitivity, described Rauf as a "transmitter of messages" between the unnamed al-Qaida mastermind in Afghanistan and plotters in London.

The official said there was as yet no established link with Pakistani militant groups to the plot.

To many observers in Pakistan that stretches credibility, and could explain authorities' reluctance to divulge more details about the other suspects, even their nationalities.

A Pakistani intelligence officer said Rauf had been monitored for five or six months, and within two days of his arrest had given investigators a full picture of the plot. The information was shared with Britain and the U.S., whose leaders later praised Pakistan's role thwarting the plan.

President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, a key Western ally, has been robust in fighting al-Qaida and has taken steps to reel in militant groups that emerged here during the U.S.-backed jihad against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s and later, the Pakistan-endorsed fight against Indian rule in Kashmir.

But the continued presence of dangerous militants in Pakistan and its failure to regulate religious schools that cultivate extremists has left this Islamic nation open to allegations that it remains a magnet for jihadists — such as the suicide bombers who killed 52 people on the London transit system in July 2005. Three of them visited Pakistan before the attacks.

Pakistan has also placed under house arrest Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, former leader of the outlawed Lashkar-e-Tayyaba group, which fights in Kashmir.

The government said his Aug. 10 detention was to prevent him from making a public address in Lahore on Aug. 12, but he has not been released, adding to the mystery surrounding Pakistan's investigations.

On Thursday intelligence agents took him away from his home in the city to an undisclosed location for questioning. Officials refused to disclose the reason.

Pakistan rebel death sparks riots - BBC News / Sunday, 27 August 2006

Security has been stepped up in south-west Pakistan's Balochistan province following the death of veteran rebel tribal leader Nawab Akbar Bugti.

A curfew was imposed in the provincial capital, Quetta, after hundreds of students rioted at news of the killing. Nawab Akbar Bugti, 79, was killed in a gun battle near his mountain cave hideout, officials said.

He was a key figure in the struggle for greater political autonomy and share of Balochistan's gas and mineral wealth. His death represents a major victory for the government in its campaign to undermine rebels in Balochistan, the BBC's Dan Isaacs in Pakistan says.

As news of his death spread, several hundred students from the state-run Balochistan university took to the streets in protest. Police had to fire into the air to disperse the rioters who attacked and set fire to cars and smashed windows.

Army troops have moved in and are taking positions to enforce a curfew imposed at 0600 (0100 GMT), senior police official Zahid Afaq said. "At the moment, the curfew is only in Quetta but if there is any law and order situation elsewhere, it will be imposed there too," he was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying.

The battle between tribal militants and government forces reportedly took place near the town of Dera Bugti. At least 24 militants and a similar number of soldiers died in the fighting, officials say.

Pakistani ground forces backed up by helicopter gunships are said to have swooped on a cave complex on the border of Dera Bugti and Kohlu districts on Friday. Heavy fighting followed.

Information Minister Mohammad Ali Durrani confirmed to Reuters news agency that Nawab Akbar Bugti had been killed, although there is no official confirmation that the rebel leader's body has been found.

Balochistan is Pakistan's biggest province, and is said to be the richest in mineral resources. It is a major supplier of natural gas to the country.

But for decades, Baloch nationalists have accused the central government in Islamabad of depriving the province of its due.

Nawab Akbar Bugti - known to many as the Tiger of Balochistan - played a major role in the politics of the province for more than five decades, the BBC's Steve Jackson writes.

Sometimes he pursued his nationalist agenda from positions of authority and sometimes as a rebel leader.

He was involved in earlier failed insurgencies in the 1950s, '60s and '70s but he also served in the federal government and was on occasion governor and chief minister of Balochistan.

The latest fighting between government forces and Mr Bugti's followers began after attacks by separatists on the gas infrastructure in the region.

In one of his last interviews - with the BBC's Urdu Service in July this year - Mr Bugti was asked why a peace deal between his tribes and the government had not been implemented.

"They say that I am intransigent, I don't listen to them, I don't bow before them," he said. "They say that I should bow before them and salute them, and give up my weapons, and then everything will be all right."

His vision for Balochistan has never been achieved but the insurgency he led has been one of the biggest headaches for President Pervez Musharraf in recent years, our reporter writes. The main question now is whether or not his death will provoke more violence from the separatists, he adds.

[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.]