In this bulletin:

• Finland Pledges 10 Million Euros Annually to Afghanistan through 2010
• Coalition soldiers kill 18 'extremists' in Afghanistan
• Beheaded bodies of two Afghans found in Pakistan tribal area
• Prodi says Italy to keep troops in Afghanistan
• O'Connor predicts improve Afghan security over next year - Canadian Press
• Duceppe says Afghanistan mission falls short
• With violence rising in Afghanistan - including a suicide bombing Monday - attention focuses on Pakistani city.
• The bribe to exit Pakistan: 15 cents
• Afghan police arrest 3 Iranian nationals
• Arrest Chakari, AG issues maiden order
• Cabinet takes cognizance of 'baseless media reports'
• First parliamentary group formed in lower house
• Afghanistan wishes more of you were here
• Afghans Who Fled Conflict Face Cultural Divide in U.S.

Finland Pledges 10 Million Euros Annually to Afghanistan through 2010

On August 29, President Karzai received Seppo Kaariainen, Finland’s Minister of Defense, in the Presidential Palace.

The Finnish Defense Minister reiterated his country’s commitment to the people of Afghanistan and said, “My government will allocate 10 million Euros per year until 2010 for the reconstruction of Afghanistan.  Our Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) will assume more responsibility in Mazar-e-Sharif next year.” 

President Karzai thanked Minister Kaariainen for his country’s commitment to Afghanistan and noted that significant progress has been made in the last four and a half years.  On behalf of the Afghan people, the President thanked the people of Finland for their continuing support.

Coalition soldiers kill 18 'extremists' in Afghanistan - Wed Aug 30

KABUL (AFP) - Coalition troops have killed 18 "extremists" in southern Afghanistan after dozens of the rebels attacked them with gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades, the force said.

About 60 "enemy fighters" ambushed the troops in a volatile area of Uruzgan province on Monday, the US-led coalition said in a statement received Wednesday.

The area has seen several clashes between troops and fighters from the extremist Taliban movement that the coalition helped to topple from government in late 2001.

"After the initial reaction to the ambush killed three extremist fighters, coalition forces (killed) an additional 15 enemy fighters," the statement said.

Three other rebels were detained for questioning. There were no injuries to coalition forces.

About 1,400 Dutch troops are setting up in Uruzgan as part of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which took command of foreign troops in the southern provinces on July 31.

ISAF took over from the US-dominated coalition, which teamed up with Afghan groups to oust the Taliban and has been hunting down rebels from the movement and other extremist outfits since then.

However the coalition maintains a counterinsurgency force in the area, while concentrating its operations on the east which is also a hotbed for Taliban and other fighters.

The Taliban, influenced by the Al-Qaeda terror network, have suffered heavy casualties in stepped-up military action this year.

But the movement has still been able to mount a steady stream of attacks, ranging from guerrilla-style suicide blasts to coordinated assaults on military bases.

Nearly 2,000 lives have been lost in the fighting since the start of the year, with the vast majority of the dead being rebels.

Beheaded bodies of two Afghans found in Pakistan tribal area - August 30, 2006

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (AFP) - Pakistani authorities in a tribal region found headless bodies of two Afghan refugees with notes saying they were spying for the US-backed government in neighbouring Afghanistan.

The bodies were dumped at separate places near Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan tribal district, a hub of pro-Taliban militants on the porous border with Afghanistan.

The notes, written in Pashtu, said: "This is the fate of those who are spying for the government of (Afghan President) Hamid Karzai," a local official said on Wednesday.

The two were identified in the notes as Haq Nawaz and Noor Wali, both living in North Waziristan, the official said.

Three days ago another Afghan refugee was found shot dead with a similar note on his body just outside Miranshah, he said.

Separately a 14-year old boy was murdered by unknown people in Karhi Kot village of neighbouring South Waziristan tribal district, officials said.

The teenager was the younger brother of local BBC correspondent Dilawar Khan Wazir, who moved out of the area to neighbouring Dear Ismail Khan town after an attempt on his life.

Wazir told AFP he had no dispute with anyone in the area and was unsure who could be behind the death of his brother, who was found unconscious with a broken neck close to the house Wednesday. He was taken to the hospital in Wana but died on the way, his brother said.

Several tribesmen have been shot dead or beheaded this year for allegedly spying for US-led forces in Afghanistan or supporting Pakistan's campaign against Al-Qaeda and other militants in the rugged region.

Pakistan has deployed some 80,000 troops to hunt down hundreds of Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters who sneaked into the rugged region after the 2001 fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

Prodi says Italy to keep troops in Afghanistan

TELESE TERME, Italy, Aug 29 (Reuters) - Italy will keep its peacekeeping contingent in Afghanistan steady even after sending troops to Lebanon, Prime Minister Romano Prodi said on Tuesday, a day after a minister suggested the mission could be reduced.

"We don't see the conditions to reduce or increase (the contingent in Afghanistan), we'll face our duty. I don't believe we can say we'll quit or reduce," Prodi told reporters at a political meeting in Telese Terme, a town south of Rome.

Italy is taking a leading role in the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, sending 3,000 troops.

Justice Minister Clemente Mastella said on Monday the deployment of such a large contingent would justify reducing Italy's military presence in Afghanistan, where around 1,900 Italian soldiers are deployed under a NATO-led force.

O'Connor predicts improve Afghan security over next year - Canadian Press

Kandahar — Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor predicted Wednesday that Afghanistan will be a safer place a year from now after a soldier questioned him about public support back home for the mission.

Mr. O'Connor is visiting Canadian troops in Kandahar amid a security situation in Afghanistan that has rapidly deteriorated this year, culminating in eight Canadian deaths in August alone.

“My expectation is that over the next year the security situation will improve,” Mr. O'Connor told reporters after a meeting with soldiers.

Moments earlier, Mr. O'Connor faced the toughest question of the open-door portion of his two days in Kandahar when a senior soldier asked him if the Canadian public was still behind the Afghan mission.

“How do you feel with the political climate, do we still have the public in general backing for our mission?” asked Warrant Officer David McLaughlin, one of the few soldiers who stepped forward to question his civilian boss.

“We only hear from our spouses and our immediate family. How about the people who really don't know what we are doing here?”

Mr. O'Connor's Conservative government is under pressure to do a better job explaining the mission to Canadians. Mr. O'Connor told Mr. McLaughlin that public support remained steadfast despite recent polls showing a drop.

“I believe support for the mission is solid among Canadians,” Mr. O'Connor said. “I think they understand why we're here.

“The public certainly support the military. If you go by polls, we don't operate on polls, but poll after poll shows Canadian Forces are high in the esteem of the public. They know what a tough job we're doing here.”

Mr. O'Connor said the Canadian public is getting only part of the story of what Canada is doing in southern Afghanistan because the recent upswing in violence is dominating headlines.

He said Canadians must remember that the 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, which also killed Canadians, were launched from Afghanistan.

The retired general said Ottawa's effort in Afghanistan will concentrate heavily on reconstruction over the next year with a boost of resources for the Provincial Reconstruction Team based in Kandahar.

“We are going to focus more and more on the activities of the PRT,” Mr. O'Connor said. “We, as the Canadian government, are going to put a lot of resources and effort behind the PRT.” He did not provide specifics.

Mr. O'Connor is in Kandahar to assess the situation and help give troops a morale boost. He will also meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and pay a visit to Pakistan.

Duceppe says Afghanistan mission falls short

Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - CanWest News Service; Montreal Gazette

QUEBEC - Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe called on the Harper government Monday to address the effectiveness of the Canadian mission in Afghanistan in light of reports regarding the resurgence of the heroin trade in the battle-scarred country.

Quebec soldiers won't take the lead role in the Afghanistan mission until next year, but troops from CFB Valcartier who have served for six months in Afghanistan have returned and a new contingent of 33 members of the Royal 22nd Regiment left Monday to train the Afghan army.

Duceppe questioned whether the international effort is enough, noting the resurgence of regional warlords and resumption of the heroine production.

And he said Prime Minister Stephen Harper has accepted the view of U.S. President George W. Bush that ''it's the devil against God'' an opinion Duceppe does not share.

''Soldiers do a very risky job and they have all my admiration for that,'' he said. The problem is ''the kind of risky policy that the government has.''

''The question is, are the international efforts enough to maintain peace over there?'' Duceppe asked. ''Are we applying the necessary policies to make sure the Taliban is not coming back? ''It seems not to be the case.''

Nelofer Pazira, the Toronto-based, Afghan-born journalist who starred in the film Kandahar, wrote in an article carried by several British newspapers last week from Kandahar that the Taliban and warlords involved in the heroine trade are making gains, saying the poppy farmers have welcomed the Taliban.

Afghanistan is the source of 90 per cent of the world's heroin. The Senlis Council, a Paris-based think-tank, has suggested the licensing of medical-morphine production to offer the farmers a livelihood and to undercut the illegal drug trade.

Pazira said Canadian troops in the area are also fighting a ''war on drugs,'' quoting an Afghan named Wali saying, ''If tomorrow the British and Canadians announced that the growing of poppies was allowed, the people wouldn't let the Taliban stay in the country.''

Duceppe noted that the Paris-based weekly Nouvel Observateur in its Aug. 14 edition quotes an unnamed diplomat who alleges that ''(Afghan President Hamid) Karzai's brother controls 70 per cent of world heroin production.''

''That is worrying if it is true,'' Duceppe said.

Pakistan struggles to identify Taliban

With violence rising in Afghanistan - including a suicide bombing Monday - attention focuses on Pakistani city.

By David Montero | The Christian Science Monitor
from the August 29, QUETTA, PAKISTAN

Imadad Ullah isn't afraid to talk about being a Taliban student, even after two of his friends walked away when the topic came up. They might have good reason: Mr. Ullah says that Taliban members are arrested every day in this region.

His friends wandered back into their madrassah, where some 50 other Afghan Taliban study. But Ullah remained seated by the roadside some 20 miles from Quetta, the capital of Pakistan's Balochistan Province. Ullah wouldn't answer if he or his friends had plans to fight jihad in Afghanistan. He only spoke of the prowess of those already fighting.

"We are fighting. We have a lot of ammunition in Afghanistan. When the Taliban fell, we kept a lot of ammunition in the mountains," he says.

Ullah is one of an untold number of Afghan Taliban living inside this provincial capital and its environs, according to local officials, residents, and journalists. His presence throws a spotlight on a contentious debate: British military and Afghan officials have said this capital, which lies about 60 miles from the Afghan border, is the base of operations for the Taliban. Insurgents, they say, cross into Afghanistan for deadly attacks, then recuperate and plan back in Pakistan - where they are safe from allied troops and feel little pressure from Pakistani forces.

These accusations have only intensified as violence in Afghanistan has escalated this year to the worst level since the US-led ouster of the Taliban government in 2001. Monday, a suicide bomber in the southern Afghan province of Helmand blew himself up in a crowded market, killing 17 people and wounding 47.

Pakistani officials admit the presence in their country of some Afghan Taliban - after all, the police have arrested several Taliban officials and commanders and uncoverered Taliban bomb factories after accidental explosions in Quetta. But officials here testily deny that Pakistan has become a Taliban base. Such allegations, they suggest, cannot be corroborated for the same reason that Pakistan hasn't been cracking down more: There is no simple way to identify who is and who isn't a Taliban fighter.

"[Taliban fighters] may be coming. I'm not disputing that," says Chowdhury Muhammad Yaqoob, the inspector general of police in Quetta. "The border is porous. People keep moving in and out," he says. But he denied that any Pakistanis were going to Afghanistan to fight.

And he and other local police say they cannot arrest everyone in Quetta who wears a turban, which is traditionally associated with the Taliban. There are 400,000 Afghans living here, almost all the men wearing the traditional headdress, along with many Pakistanis.

The problem was etched in sharp relief in mid-August, when police arrested 29 wounded Afghan men from Al-Khair, a private hospital in Quetta. The police said 10 had been fighting NATO forces in Afghanistan, and hailed the arrests as a symbol of their crackdown on Taliban fighters. But hospital officials at Al-Khair and others say they have no reason to believe the men were fighters.

"We haven't seen anything that will give us the sense that these are Taliban. They are simple Afghans. All have long beards and turbans. He's not carrying any rockets," says Muhammad Amer, a hospital administrator. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which referred the men from Afghanistan, also says there is no way to confirm if the men are Taliban. Paul Fruh, ICRC's head of office in Quetta, adds that innocent civilians are wounded in southern Afghanistan every day - and that many of the men are afraid to seek medical help because they are often falsely accused of being Taliban.

More concrete evidence does exist, however, suggesting there are more concrete leads to follow. Mr. Yaqoob, for example, referred to a recent raid on a house that uncovered materials for improvised explosive devices, which are commonly used against allied forces in Afghanistan.

"Should our entire intelligence agencies be working on this? That's probably what the Western world wants. But there are other problems in this country," Yaqoob says.

Local residents take exception to this stance, saying anyone who has lived for a long time in Quetta knows where the Taliban and its commanders live.

"You can usually make out these people. They have very costly vehicles," says Tahir Mohammed Khan, a former federal information minister and now a human rights activist. "They're moving around openly. I know them in a social context."

Like many others, Mr. Khan could not provide specific names or addresses, but he listed the general areas where the Taliban dwell: Pashtunabad, a bustling enclave with narrow lanes, and also the adjoining Satellite Town. Local journalists also pinpoint Eastern Bypass, a sprawling brick warren on the outskirts of town.

Yaqoob, the police chief, maintained that his force always seizes upon actionable intelligence. In October 2005, police arrested the Taliban's chief spokesman, Abdul Latif Hakimi, who they said had been living in Quetta.

Although it is difficult to assess precisely how many people have taken up arms to fight, there is no shortage of sympathy for the Taliban here.

"I'm not asking anyone to take part in [the war in Afghanistan]. But we have an ideology; we support those people who have a right to fight against foreign invasion. If someone decided to go, I would support him," says Hafeez Fazal Mohammed Barech, Quetta president of Jamiat Ulema-e Islam, a hard-line Islamist party. His remarks seem to be typical of the Pashtuns living in Quetta, who constitute a majority of the city's 2 million residents. Mr. Barech, however, denied that madrassahs like his organization's provide militant training.

Around dinner tables and in drawing rooms, many residents of Quetta suggest that theirs is becoming a captured city. "The whole of the city, by its attitude, is Talib," says Mr. Khan, the activist. "Their thinking, their culture, everything is like the Taliban."

The bribe to exit Pakistan: 15 cents

Afghanistan, Pakistan agreed last week to joint patrols of their border, but official crossings remain lax.

By David Montero | The Christian Science Monitor
from the August 30, CHAMAN, PAKISTAN

For a little more than the price of tea, Abdul Razzak, a trader, says he crosses illegally from Pakistan into Afghanistan every day.

Mr. Razzak, who stood recently near the border, preparing to cross, has no passport or identification documents of any kind. But that doesn't matter: For only 10 rupees (about 15 cents), he bribes the border security forces to let him through. Sometimes he pays 20.

"I bargain for the price. All of these people," he says, indicating the throngs of pedestrians moving toward the border check post, "when crossing the border, don't have documents. They're all paying the Frontier Constabulary [the border security forces]."

Chaman, the main border crossing into Kandahar 60 miles away, is supposed to be a model of border security, symbolizing Pakistan's commitment to containing the Taliban surge. Instead, security measures are breached for mere pennies, bolstering the accusation that Taliban fighters based in Pakistan are infiltrating the volatile Afghan provinces of Kandahar and Helmand.

That accusation was most recently leveled by Gen. John Abizaid, commander of the US Central Command. He told reporters at Bagram air base that militants are using Pakistan as a base from which to infiltrate into Afghanistan. He was quick to add, however, that he did not believe the Pakistani government is conspiring with them.

"I think that Pakistan has done an awful lot in going after Al Qaeda and it's important that they don't let the Taliban groups be organized on the Pakistani side of the border," he told reporters.

The first step in preventing the Taliban from organizing in Pakistan is to impede their mobility to and from Afghanistan. In an effort to bring more military muscle to the border, Pakistan and Afghanistan agreed to a breakthrough deal last week. Under the agreement, Afghanistan and Pakistan's military forces - with participation from NATO troops - will conduct simultaneous patrols of the border, and may also begin using more high-tech equipment to communicate with one another.

But the joint patrols - designed to bring some level of enforcement to the vast wilderness stretches of the 1,500-mile border - may not be effective if the official border crossing in Chaman remains so lax.

For 12 hours a day every day, 35,000 people pour through the Friend Gate at Chaman. Families and burqa-clad women stream from Pakistan to Afghanistan, gingerly bridging the divide in seconds. Border guards do a quick pat down, and random searches of bags, but mostly the stream continues uninterrupted, pacing through metal detectors that do not beep or produce any sounds.

Abdul Haleem, who was preparing to cross last week, says migrants can bypass even the occasional searches of pedestrians by paying 100 rupees (about $1.50) to hop on the back of amotorcycle . With young men perched on top, motorcycles roar through the checkpoint, seeming to stop for no one. As many as 4,000 motorcycles pass through Chaman every day, according to police sources. Mr. Haleem says many of them are illegally transporting people over the border.

Across town, local government officials laughed off the idea that motorcycles are taking people illegally into Afghanistan. "The motorcycle owner is just taking rent. If he is going illegally, he will be stopped," says Khan Gul, a station headquarters officer.

But other local police, sitting in the border security area, say that none of the motorcycles passing through the gate are searched - a troubling claim, since in January a suicide bomber riding on a motorcycle, apparently from Pakistan, killed 23 people on the Afghan side of the border in Spin Boldak, just four miles from Chaman.

Western media reports from Spin Boldak indicate that the same problems of corruption and lax security occur at the Afghan checkpoint there.

For now, the infiltration problem at the border is, as elsewhere inside Pakistan, a problem of intelligence and identification. "It's easy for the Taliban if they want to go and come back. They can shave their beards and change their clothes," says Mr. Khan, the police officer.

Documentation is also a problem, as many people at the border seem to have no passport. Back in Quetta, the provincial capital 70 miles to the south, the inspector general of police marveled that the documentation system was in such disarray."There should be a situation of documentation. What is the system to check the people moving into Afghanistan?" he asked rhetorically.

The Frontier Constabulary, however, denies that the Taliban are easily moving in and out, and says it arrests about 35 to 40 people a day who lack documentation. "That's totally a wrong perception. We have our ways of checking," says the head of border security, who would give his name only as Colonel Raees. He added that all vehicles and goods are searched, and that no one without proper documentation can pass into or out of Pakistan.

Minutes later, just feet from Colonel Raees's office, a man leading a group across from Afghanistan smiled sheepishly and shook his head when asked for his papers at the check post. He had none; but moments later, he and his companions passed into Pakistan, disappearing among the crowds headed for town.

Somewhere there, hidden among the dusty lanes, sympathies for the Taliban are propelling young men back into Afghanistan to lay down their lives.

Karem Mumtaz Ahmed, head of the Madina Mosque in Chaman, spoke recently of 12 men and their lethal commitment to jihad. Mr. Ahmed met them the night before their passage into Afghanistan, and said they had shaved their beards before crossing through Chaman.

"Yes, it's true, people are going to southern Afghanistan from Pakistan," he says. "The government of Pakistan is not sending its people from here. People are going by themselves.... It is the responsibility of Muslims to fight."

Afghan police arrest 3 Iranian nationals – Xinhua 08/30/2006

KABUL - Afghan police have arrested three Iranian nationals on charge of instigating people to stage uprising against the U.S.-dominated foreign troops in Afghanistan, a Kabul-based newspaper reported Wednesday.

    "The trio namely Abdul Ghani, Mohammad Rafi and Abdul Majid from the border town of Iran's Balouchistan have confessed to their crimes," according to daily Arman-e-Millie.

    Quoting undisclosed the name of an intelligence source, it also said that the alleged saboteurs, inviting locals to Jihad or holy war in Kandahar and Herat provinces against foreign troops were taken into custody last week.

    "These alleged terrorists were in contact with the Pakistani-based religious group of Jamaat-e-Tablighi," the newspaper said.

    The Afghan government has arrested a number of Pakistanis on charge of involvement in the post-Taliban Afghanistan, but it is the first time that it detained the Iranian nationals on charge of conducting subversive activities in Afghanistan, it added.

Arrest Chakari, AG issues maiden order

KABUL, Aug 29 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The newly-appointed Attorney General Abdul Jabar Sabit ordered the arrest of member of the Jamiat-i-Islami party and a mujahideen-era minister Seddiq Chakari for threatening a judge.

Speaking at a news conference here on Tuesday, Sabit said Chakari would be interrogated for threatening a judge, who had decided a property case against him.

Sabit said law enforcement agencies had been issued directives regarding Chakari's arrest three days back. "After issuance of his arrest warrant, Chakari has even threatened me over the telephone," said Sabit, adding all the border police and airports had been directed not to let Chakari escape the country.

Head of the investigation department of the attorney general's office Abdul Halim Samadi told Pajhwok Afghan News Chakari had litigation with communist-era minister for information and culture Bashir Roygar.

The court decided the case in favour of Roygar which enraged the Chakari and he entered the courtroom with his armed men and threatened the judge, explained Samadi.

Sentence for threatening a judge can vary from six months to one year in jail. This is the first time the Afghan government has ordered arrest of a strong man.

Habib Rahman Ibrahimi

Cabinet takes cognizance of 'baseless media reports' - Zainab Mohammadi 

KABUL, Aug 28 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The cabinet on Monday slammed the reports appeared in a section of western media regarding inefficiency of the Karzai government in tackling the issues of security and social justice.

Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Dr Farouq Wardak said the cabinet, in its today's meeting, took notice of some reports appeared in a section of western media criticising the government of President Hamid Karzai.

Wardak said the articles published by two leading American dailies the New York Times and Washington Post were far from journalist principles.

A New York Times article on August 22 said: "After months of widespread frustration in Afghanistan over corruption, the economy and a lack of justice and security, doubts about President Hamid Karzai have led to a crisis of confidence in the country."

The Washington Post wrote: "Many Afghans and some foreign supporters say they are losing faith in President Hamid Karzai's government, which is besieged by an escalating insurgency and endemic corruption and is unable to protect or administer large areas of the country."

In a statement, the minister asked the national and international media to respect the journalistic principles and focus on factual reporting. Such accusations against the government could not serve any one's interests, rather these help those who did not want peace in Afghanistan.

"The Afghan government will not stay silent in face of such baseless propaganda which puts the government's legitimacy under scrutiny and create instability. The government will defend itself against such accusations," said the statement.

Regarding the drug trafficking, the statement said an international mafia was involved in great part of the illegal business and the media must help the government and the international community in curbing the menace.

First parliamentary group formed in lower house

KABUL, Aug 30 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The lower house of parliament on Wednesday constituted the first parliamentary group, Isteqlal-i-Milli, to present the viewpoint of several members in the form of a group.

Presently, every MP individually presents his viewpoint on a special issue, which often results in wastage of time. However, formation of such groups, comprising likeminded parliamentarians, would not only save time of the parliament but also avoid unnecessary rumpus in the House.

Commenting on the formation of the Isteqlal-i-Milli group, Khudaidad Sarmachar, an MP and member of the new parliamentary group, told Pajhwok Afghan News only one member would now speak on behalf of his colleagues in the group.

The groups were planned to be established soon after commencement of the parliament; however, it was delayed due to difference among MPs. The new group has 26 members with Mustafa Kazimi as its head while Sayed Muhammad Gulabzoi as his deputy.

In today's session, three articles based on directives of the president, were approved through majority vote and added to the law of detention and prisons.

The articles were about permission of media men to visit prisons for reporting purposes, facilities for pregnant female prisoners and look after of children whose parents are in jail.

The article regarding media men's access to prisons states that journalists would be allowed to enter jails, meet prisoners and take photographs in emergency situation.

Under the second article, jail officials will be responsible for shifting pregnant women prisoners to hospital for delivery and for check up after delivery. The women would be allowed to remain on bed as per recommendations of her doctor.

Children below three years would stay with their mothers inside jail but the authorities would made special arrangements for such children and they would remain there till they attain the age of seven years, states the third article.

Afghanistan wishes more of you were here - By Kim Barker Chicago Tribune August 30, 2006

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Sabrina Lou knew all the dangers. Insurgents in the south. Land mines in the mountains. Roads where even the potholes have potholes. She read the U.S. State Department warning, which strongly discourages anyone from traveling to Afghanistan and contains a litany of potential threats, from banditry to Al Qaeda.

But Lou, a 5th-grade teacher from Oakland, saw something besides potential violence in this war-torn country--a summer vacation. She stayed in Kabul for 13 days, visiting the bird market, TV mountain, Chicken Street, Butcher Street and Money Street. She watched boys fly kites, wrote a blog about her trip, got sick for three days and even adopted a dog on her way to the airport.

"I didn't tell my family until I got here," said Lou, 29, sitting at a restaurant in Kabul. "I mentioned it to some friends. Everyone freaked out."

For the first time since the fighting started here in 1979, tourists are returning to Afghanistan, once famous as a hippie hangout between Iran and India. There are not many tourists, but enough have arrived to prompt the government and the country's fledgling travel business to come up with a plan.

The government held its first tourism workshop Aug. 16. Last week, tourism consultants from New Zealand came for a conference at the Serena Hotel in Kabul, the only five-star hotel in the country. A writer from the Lonely Planet guidebooks is researching Afghanistan, once seen as a no-go by even the most rugged travel guides. Two private travel agencies--Afghan Logistics & Tours and Great Game Travel Co.--now cater to foreign tourists.

"People are still nervous about coming to Afghanistan," said Andre Mann, an American who helped set up Great Game Travel, which has booked trips for about 40 tourists since opening in Kabul in April. "We have to reassure them that we're not going to take them to any place that isn't safe."

The country's peak tourist season was in 1977, when 120,000 tourists searched for adventure, sometimes tracing the Silk Road trade route, sometimes looking for cheap drugs.

But the war changed everything. First the Soviets invaded. After they were pushed out, the civil war exploded, settled only when the harsh Taliban arrived. Through it all, the doors of the Afghan Tourist Organization, the government-run tourist agency, stayed open, but aside from the occasional journalist, no one walked in.

"It was a really boring job under the Taliban," said Abdulkhalil Oryakhail, the agency's deputy president. "We wore our turbans and sat in the office until 1 p.m. Then we put our turbans in our desks and went home."

After the Taliban was toppled in late 2001, tourists occasionally showed up, often war junkies who traveled alone and seemed slightly off-kilter. But more arrived. Some had visited in the 1970s; others wanted to experience remote Afghanistan before it forever changed. In the Afghan year that ended in March 2004, only 165 tourists registered, Oryakhail said. About 4,000 tourists visited Afghanistan in the past Afghan year.

"We're thinking for the future," said Nasrullah Stanekzai, the deputy minister for tourism. "We haven't got good services for tourists. We need to review laws for tourists. We don't have insurance for tourists. It's a real problem."

The problems in Afghanistan are not difficult to find. In the volatile south, Taliban-led insurgents are fighting international troops and the U.S.-backed government, but violence, such as the deadly anti-foreigner riots in Kabul on May 29, can happen anywhere, any time. Old land mines, leftovers from the country's decades of war, still kill and maim Afghans and foreigners.

The country is largely in ruins, and the landscape mostly beige. There is little infrastructure, whether sewers, power or, perhaps most importantly, roads. In Afghanistan, getting there is never half the fun. Instead it is often painful, a bone-jarring ride over rutted roads at a speed of maybe 20 m.p.h.

Describing the hotels outside Kabul as "Spartan" is a compliment. Most feature cold showers, squat toilets, intermittent electricity and a steady diet of rice and kebabs.

Traveling also is expensive for backpacker tourists--about $200 a day outside Kabul with one of the agencies.

But Afghanistan has its charms. The mountains are stunning. Visitors can hike or ride yaks through the Wakhan valley and look for Marco Polo sheep. They can swim in the deep blue lakes at Band-I-Amir. The can climb the Minaret of Jam, the second-tallest brick minaret in the world.

Historical monuments, forts and palaces are everywhere, although most are pocked with bullet holes or marred by war, requiring imagination, such as the coffinlike holes that once housed the giant Buddhas of Bamiyan, which were blown up by the Taliban.

Afghans are noted for their hospitality, sometimes carried to extremes. Here, feeding and housing strangers is normal. Guests must be careful not to compliment a piece of clothing or jewelry, or risk walking away with a new gift.

"The people are incredibly friendly," said Andrea Baravalle, 41, a lawyer and one of three Italians visiting Bamiyan last week. "Everyone loves to have their picture taken. Some Afghans are like models. They stand, they want pictures and then they want to see them."

The challenge to rebuild tourism is huge. Some Afghan officials are planning for future tourist packages, perhaps combining the war on terror and tourism. For instance, tourists could see where Osama bin Laden or his family once lived or they could tour the caves of Tora Bora, where major battles have been fought.

"It was a center for terrorism," Stanekzai said. "It could be very interesting for people."

Although three tourists have been killed in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban, they all traveled on their own, through the dangerous south. No tourist has been injured with either private travel agency in Kabul. Both agencies have complex security plans. Neither will take tourists to the south, although Americans in particular have asked Afghan Logistics to book terror tours.

But peace is essential for any tourism here to succeed. Muqim Jamshady, who runs Afghan Logistics, said he was refused a visa for Germany after he said he wanted to go to a tourism convention there and spread the word about Afghanistan.

"They [German officials] said Afghanistan was too dangerous to market," he said. "I know if Afghanistan is peaceful, lots of tourists will come. I just don't know when that will happen."

Afghans Who Fled Conflict Face Cultural Divide in U.S. - The Washington Post 08/30/2006 By Dina ElBoghdady

Aman Feda, an Afghan-born mortgage broker, cringed at his 13-year-old niece's choice of music, the hip-hop blaring from the car radio, the lyrics grating on his nerves as they drove home after shopping at Tysons Corner.

"Why not listen to some Afghan music?" Feda asked casually. "What music?" he remembers her saying with a shrug of her shoulders. "There's nothing."

The exchange sparked Feda's first thought of creating a magazine that showcases Afghan musicians, poets and celebrities in a way that enlightens his niece's generation about Afghan culture and engages community elders eager to reconnect with their Afghan roots.

Feda and his wife, Samira, who live in Springfield, followed through on the idea three years later. They launched a magazine three months ago and found themselves negotiating what one Afghan native describes as the "cultural schizophrenia" that has plagued a community that began settling in large numbers in this country more than two decades ago, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan .

As Aman Feda, 32, tells it, many of them were well-educated professionals who scraped by as taxi drivers and beauticians when they arrived. They've raised doctors, engineers and now publishers. But calming the political tensions they brought with them, reconciling Muslim tradition with American lifestyles, and easing the resulting strain between generations proved tougher than the financial challenges they faced.

Even the Fedas, who arrived as youngsters, grappled with the hyphen in Afghan-American. She was not allowed to date. So he had to ask her parents for her hand in marriage. A one-year engagement led to a wedding and then the magazine.

Samira, 23, the editor in chief, and Aman, the publisher, decided on the name Zéba -- the Dari word for beautiful. But they fretted about putting a woman on this month's cover, Miss England 2005, the Afghan knockout (and Muslim) who caused a stir when she took part in the swimsuit competition.

"We're trying to be respectful of everyone, but we're trying to push the buttons just a little bit on the social issues," Aman Feda said. "And there are a lot of social issues the Afghans here don't agree on."

In the Washington region, home to one of the country's largest Afghan populations, "everyone" includes roughly 14,000 people who said they are of Afghan ancestry, most of them born in Afghanistan, according to a 2005 U.S. Census survey released this month. Many of them live in Northern Virginia. Some congregate at the Mustafa Center Mosque in Annandale. They have two well-established poetry reading circles and a sports federation in Fairfax that draws throngs of Afghans from around the nation to its annual Fourth of July soccer championship.

Afghans came in waves, bringing competing political ideologies, said Rameen Moshref Javid, 37, who splits time between Alexandria and New York, where he runs a nonprofit organization that promotes cultural and intellectual discourse among young Afghan professionals.

When the Soviets invaded in 1979, Afghanistan's ruling elite escaped immediately if they could. Intellectuals who refused to embrace the new party dogma followed in the 1980s. And when the communist regime collapsed in 1992, any Afghans associated with it fled and civil war broke out. Four years later, after the Taliban seized Kabul, the capital, still more left. Since 1999, about 9,100 Afghan refugees have arrived in this country, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

"Each one of those waves formed the Afghan society we see in the United States, including the one in Northern Virginia," said Javid, executive director of the nonprofit Afghan Communicator. "There is always friction between those groups. Every time there was an Afghan gathering, there was a fight going on about something, and that alienated the younger people in particular."

Ethnic tensions played a role. Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras who jockeyed for a larger share of power in Afghanistan found themselves at odds here, too, Javid said.

Even the poetry reading club, formed by taxi drivers, an engineer and others seven years ago, split in two because of discord in its ranks. At the Springfield Masonic Lodge, during a recent late-night poetry reading session, some members attributed the split to scholarly differences. Others say political leanings played a role. A few accused the original members, who broke away, of being chauvinists who wanted the women to wear head scarves.

Adding to the generational divide were the financial strains suffered by well-to-do families that were suddenly penniless in a new country. Mothers and daughters and sons joined the workforce for the first time, sometimes earning more than the father and undermining his traditional role as breadwinner.

"With their own money to spend, sons and daughters became more independent," Javid said. "The fathers started feeling kind of useless. That's still playing itself out. Many of our elders in their sixties and seventies have nothing to do but sit in the mosques. "

As the father's influence waned, traditional gender roles blurred and family dynamics shifted, said Fouzia Afshari, a member of the American Society of Afghan Professionals in Alexandria.

Some of that came to play in Afshari's own family when her father, a successful businessman in Afghanistan, set up a fruit stand in the District to make ends meet after arriving in this country in 1992 with his wife and six children, ages 7 to 22. Those old enough to work found odd jobs and pleaded with their father to abandon the fruit cart.

"We told him men of his stature should not do this kind of job," said Afshari, a real estate broker in her thirties. "But he didn't want to live off of us."

Besides, she said, her father, now deceased, always figured he would reclaim his life in Afghanistan one day.

That yearning for home helped spur ethnic media in this country by catering to immigrants hungry for news about goings-on in their native lands, said Sandip Roy, editor of New America Media, a consortium of ethnic publications.

The potential audience grew as the number of people of various ethnic groups who immigrated to this country legally and received green cards increased 31 percent, from 720,461 in 1995 to 946,142 in 2004, according to the most recent Department of Homeland Security data. The estimated number of illegal immigrants reached 10.5 million last year, according to the U.S. Office of Immigration Statistics.

Ethnic publications tend to evolve with the communities they target, Roy said. The first are usually launched in the native tongue by community activists passionate about politics back home. As a community settles in, publications start to reflect diversity of opinion.

Some reinvent themselves, Roy said, as the Vietnamese Nguoi Viet Daily News did after the Vietnam War ended. Others put a greater emphasis on English, just as the bilingual Nichi Bei Times did this year when it launched an all-English weekly to target the growing number of Japanese Americans who do not read or speak Japanese. Others -- such as Zéba -- turn to new topics.

"Especially now that people can access information about their home countries on the Internet, readers are looking for more about their ethnic community here instead of what they're missing out on back there," Roy said. "That's why you'll see more about fashion, health, youth and lifestyle in ethnic publications. It's no longer about a single point of rage."

The Fedas hope their magazine, which Aman Feda is bankrolling out of his own pocket for a year, will offer a refreshing break from the rage created by Afghanistan's war-torn past. They believe Zéba can attract young and old alike because it is bilingual (half in Dari, half in English). They keep it largely free of the two most divisive topics: politics and religion.

"God knows we needed something like this, especially for the younger generation," said Diana Noory, 43, who moved to this country from Afghanistan with her husband at age 17. Noory, an Alexandria resident, said she was pleased to see Zéba's story about Afghan designer Samira Atash because it brought back fond memories of happier days in Afghanistan, when women in Kabul wore the latest Parisian fashions and beehive hairdos.

Her eldest daughter, Lida Sahar Noory, 24, said her "eyes popped open" when she saw Zéba because it captured the culture her parents identified with back then. "Our story is always told from the Islamic perspective," Lida Noory said. "It's always about the burqa. Nobody understands that it was an entirely different lifestyle before the Taliban."

Other Afghan women say they hope the publications evolve even further, not just beyond politics, but also beyond lifestyle and fashions and on to taboo subjects such as dating and cross-cultural marriages.

Samira Feda said Zéba will tackle these issues in time.

For starters, Zéba plans to launch a teen-oriented "Dear Auntie" advice column.

"It will be Islamically correct advice," she said. "We're opening the doors slowly. We have to make sure readers fall in love with the magazine first so when these sensitive issues come up, they're not turned off."

[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.]