In this bulletin:

• Dutch F-16 crash in Afghanistan
• Taliban torture 2 Afghan army officers to death in S. Afghanistan
• Foreign fighters join Taliban in Afghanistan, UK says
• Obscure Neo-Taliban Group Claims To Join Afghan Insurgency
• Pakistan president to visit Afghanistan next week for talks with Karzai
• Two rockets slam into Afghan capital
• Fight against drugs to be accelerated: Minister
• AFGHANISTAN: Japan pledges US $29 million to UNDP projects
• First parliamentary group formed in lower house
• Agreement inked to modernise Naghlu power station
• O'Connor seeks boost for Afghan forces
• You can't beat terrorists from the bleachers
• Restoring Kabul's lost beauty
• Toys for Afghan children

Dutch F-16 crash in Afghanistan – BBC

A Dutch F-16 fighter pilot has died after his plane crashed in southern Afghanistan, officials say.

They said that the plane was flying at a "great height" when the accident occurred, which meant that it was unlikely that it was shot down. "We therefore assume it was an accident," the Dutch defence ministry said in a statement.

The 29-year-old pilot is the third Dutchman to die in Afghanistan, after a July helicopter crash killed two men.

The ministry said the plane came down in the province of Ghazni, where it was supporting Nato peacekeeping troops on their way to southern Afghanistan.

The Dutch parliament had a heated debate in the spring to decide whether troops should take part in the Nato force which replaced US-led forces in the south last month.

The defence ministry said that the plane was found by a US rescue team, and the Dutch air force had launched an investigation into the accident. The two Dutch men killed in July's helicopter crash were among 10 others who died.

Afghanistan is going through its bloodiest period since US-led forces overthrew the Taleban in late 2001. Hundreds of people - mostly suspected militants and civilians - have been killed in violence since January.

Taliban torture 2 Afghan army officers to death in S. Afghanistan - August 31, 2006

Kyodo - Taliban militants have "brutally tortured" two Afghan army officers to death and mutilated their bodies in southern Afghanistan, the U.S.-led Coalition forces said Thursday.

The soldiers, an officer and a sergeant, were kidnapped on Monday by Taliban militants in Qara Bagh district in Ghazni Province, the U.S.-led Coalition said in a statement.

"The two Afghan National Army officers were kidnapped by Taliban extremists and then brutally tortured to death with their bodies mutilated," the statement said.

"This was not an act of armed conflict, but an inexcusable crime by amoral men against fellow Afghans," U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Paul Fitzpatrick said in the statement.

The bodies of the two soldiers were discovered Tuesday and will be returned to their families, the statement added.

In another incident, two Taliban fighters were killed in an air raid by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force or ISAF, also in southern parts of the country, while two rockets hit Kabul overnight, officials said.

Suspected Taliban fighters attacked the district headquarters of Nawzad in the southern province of Helmand on Thursday with heavy artillery and rocket-propelled grenades, the Defense Ministry said in a statement.

ISAF air strikes pushed the militants back from the district, the statement said, and Afghan forces found the bodies of two Taliban rebels near the district headquarters.

Meanwhile, two rockets fired from unknown locations hit the center of Kabul early Thursday but caused no casualties or damage, Interior Ministry spokesman Yousif Stanikzai said.

Kabul has been peaceful compared with the southern provinces, where Taliban-led violence has left more than 1,050 people dead since mid-May this year.

Foreign fighters join Taliban in Afghanistan, UK says - By Adrian Croft Wed Aug 30

LONDON (Reuters) - Foreign fighters are starting to appear among Taliban forces fighting British troops in southern Afghanistan, a senior British official said on Wednesday.

The official also said that neighboring Pakistan could do more to disrupt the activities of the Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan until ousted by U.S.-led forces in late 2001.

"So far the Taliban have been drawing very heavily on the locals in the south ... This is beginning to change," the senior foreign ministry official said.

"More by way of foreign fighters ... jihadists, are beginning to appear," said the official, who was authorized to speak to reporters on condition he not be identified.

A senior defense ministry official, at the same briefing, played down the presence of foreign fighters, saying there were limited signs of foreign involvement. Neither official would estimate how many foreign fighters were in Afghanistan.

British troops have met fierce resistance in Helmand, Afghanistan's biggest drug-producing province, since becoming the first large foreign force to go there earlier this year as part of an expanding NATO peacekeeping mission. Six British soldiers have been killed in Helmand this month.

The foreign ministry official said the presence of foreign fighters was "not necessarily a totally bad sign." British troops killed hundreds of insurgents over the summer, so local people were less willing to fight and outsiders were replacing them, he said.

"Chechens get mentioned, among others," the official said. He said Pakistan was doing a lot to support the NATO mission in Afghanistan but could do more.

"We have good reason to believe Taliban activity is being coordinated by a group of people sitting in the Quetta area (of Pakistan). It would be extremely good if the Pakistanis were to disrupt that and we are working with them on ways of trying to achieve that," he added.

In July, Britain praised Pakistan for arresting more than 200 Afghans suspected of being Taliban members in the southwestern province of Baluchistan, whose capital is Quetta.

Pakistan handed 58 prisoners to Kabul but Afghan authorities quickly released them, saying none seemed to be Taliban members.

Another British official, involved in efforts to counter the Afghan drug trade, said he expected a "fairly significant rise" in the country's opium poppy crop this year.

Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium, the raw material for heroin, and output is expected to hit record levels this year, encouraged by drug barons and the Taliban.

Obscure Neo-Taliban Group Claims To Join Afghan Insurgency – RFE/RL

A statement in the name of the Council of the Secret Army says it has joined forces with Hizb-e Islami, which is led by renegade former Afghan Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Peshawar-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) reported on August 28. "Until now we have carried out our activities using the name Secret Army...[but taking] into account the current situation in our country, we deemed it beneficial to join Hizb-e Islami," the statement noted.

"We expect others to follow our example and join Hizb-e Islami to prevent division in the ranks of the mujahedin," the statement added, without naming the "others." From the issuance of the statement which is not dated, the group will "announce" its "activities under the name of Hizb-e Islami." In 2004, Hekmatyar reportedly drafted a new plan that included recruitment of militants in the name of the Secret Army of Mujahedin to step up attacks against foreign forces in Afghanistan (see "RFE/RL Newsline," February 25, 2004). In 2005, the Secret Army of Mujahedin threatened to kill candidates for the parliamentary and provincial-council elections (see "RFE/RL Newsline," September 30, 2005).

Most recently, the Secret Army of the Taliban claimed responsibility for a minor explosion in northern Afghanistan targeting the office of a Bangladeshi nongovernmental organization (see "RFE/RL Newsline," July 3, 2006). The Council of the Secret Army seems to be one of a number of groups of neo-Taliban who increasingly are adopting the term "mujahedin" to identify themselves. AT

Pakistan president to visit Afghanistan next week for talks with Karzai - Associated Press

ISLAMABAD - Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf will travel to Afghanistan next week for talks with his counterpart, Hamid Karzai, a government official said on Wednesday.

However, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, didn't give any exact date for Musharraf's trip to Kabul because of security concerns.

"I can only say that this visit is planned, but we cannot release any other details because of security reasons," said the official.

Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam confirmed that the president's visit had been planned, but gave no further details.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are allies of the United States in its war on terror, but Kabul often accuses neighboring Pakistan of not doing enough to prevent the Taliban and other militants from sneaking into Afghanistan.

Pakistan, which used to support the Taliban but switched sides after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in America, has deployed about 80,000 troops in its tribal regions near the Afghan border and says it is doing everything possible to curb militancy.

Two rockets slam into Afghan capital - Aug 31

KABUL (AFP) - Two rockets slammed into the centre of the Afghan capital Kabul, one of them hitting a newly built upmarket residential area, but they caused no casualties or damage, police said.

The other rocket landed in a city park, police spokesman Mohammad Tahir Ayoubzada told AFP here on Thursday. The rockets were fired at around 3:00 am.

Four rockets were fired across the city early Tuesday, waking people up but causing no casualties. The same day a bomb exploded in a busy part of the city moments after a convoy of the US-led coalition passed. It also caused no casualties.

Kabul is relatively free of the Taliban-led violence plaguing southern and eastern provinces but sees sporadic minor attacks that officials blame on the hardliners and other disaffacted groups.

The Taliban came to power in 1996, ending a roughly four-year civil war that saw rockets rain down on Kabul daily. The Taliban were toppled by a US-led coalition in 2001.

Fight against drugs to be accelerated: Minister

KANDAHAR CITY, Aug 30 (Pajhwok Afghan News)- Minister for Counter-Narcotics Habibullah Qadiri has said that fight against drugs in the southern region would be further accelerated next year.

Speaking to journalists here on Wednesday, the minister admitted more poppies had been cultivated in Helmand province this year as compared to the previous year.

He was in Kandahar to exchange views on the fight against drugs with local officials. The minister was accompanied by officials of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC), the United States and the United Kingdom.

The minister said they had discussed the issue with elders in Kandahar , Helmand and Uruzgan. "Poppies are still grown in those areas despite assistance by government with the growers."

Qadiri said poppy growing was not only unacceptable to Afghanistan but the entire international community.

Chief of the UNODC Antonio Maria Costa said residents of those areas had promised not to grow poppies but they demanded more assistance from the government and the international community.

He asked Afghans not to use the poverty as an excuse for cultivating poppies because there were more poor nations in the world but they did not cultivate poppies.

A week back, President Hamid Karzai, during the second national conference on drugs, asked his countrymen to get rid of the banned crop. Karzai had admitted that the administration was failed in rooting out poppy cultivation in the country.

AFGHANISTAN: Japan pledges US $29 million to UNDP projects

[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations] - KABUL, 31 August (IRIN) - Japan has pledged US $29 million to the United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) efforts to boost rural development and the disarmament of thousands of illegal armed groups in war-ravaged Afghanistan.

UNDP's office in the Afghan capital, Kabul, said $23 million of the contribution announced on Thursday would be used to support rural development projects in the provinces of Bamiyan, Balkh, Nangarhar and Kandahar in conjunction with the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development(MRRD).

The remaining $6 million would be used to support the Disbandment of Illegal Armed Groups (DIAG) programme. Anita Nirody, UNDP's country director for Afghanistan, said an estimated 2,000 illegal armed groups were involved in activities designed to destabilise the government and hurt the international community's ability to deliver much needed practical support to residents. Nirody said the Japanese government's very generous contribution was essential to the DIAG process.

MRRD officials said the rural development projects to be funded would be identified through community consultation and were likely to include investment in new and existing food crops, infrastructure such as roads and bridges, drinking water and irrigation, public baths and buildings.

"We are also planning to create provincial development committees in Kandahar, Nangarhar, Balkh and Bamiyan provinces which will boost and oversee development activities in those areas," Mohammad Ehsan Zia, the MRRD minister, said. He said the ministry was planning to create more development committees in the country's 34 provinces. The $29 million was part of the $60 million pledged by Japan during a Tokyo conference on Afghanistan in July. Representatives from 53 countries and 15 international organisations attended the event. Japan has been one of post-conflict Afghanistan's major sponsors.

Junichi Kosuge, Japan's ambassador to Afghanistan, said after signing the funding document with UNDP in Kabul, that the projects would surely help the DIAG process. "Without the success of DIAG process there won't be establishment of peace and further development in this country," Kosuge said.

More than 24,000 weapons - including 14,920 operational weapons, 20,935 pieces of boxed and 196,840 pieces of unboxed ammunition - have been handed to DIAG collection teams since the programme was launched in June 2005. However, analysts said disarmament remained a challenging task given the shaky security situation and positions powerful warlords held in the government. "The lasting success of DIAG is a challenging one. For it to succeed it will require firm and robust leadership and commitment by the government at all levels," Nirody said.

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.

Agreement inked to modernise Naghlu power station

KABUL, Aug 30 (Pajhwok Afghan News) - The government has planned to increase power generation capacity of the Naghlu hydropower station by modernising its four turbines.

For this purpose, the World Bank (WB) will give a loan of $32 millions to the government. The renovation project will be completed in three and a half years.

In this connection, a contract was inked between the Ministry of Energy and Water and a Russian company here on Wednesday.

Speaking on the occasion, Minister for Energy and Water Ismail Khan said other technical work at the Naghlu hydropower plant had been completed. He said the Russian company would work on the turbines to increase its power generation capacity.

Appreciating the job done by engineers and workers of the ministry, Ismail Khan said they had kept the turbines in working condition despite several problems. The turbines were damaged during the civil war.

The rehabilitation of the four turbines will increase the power generation capacity by five per cent as well as increase the life span of the power station by 25 years. Ismail Khan said the turbines were presently run turn by turn, which was why they were facing power shortage.

The Naghlu power dam was constructed in 1967 by the Soviet Union in Sarobi district of Kabul to meet the electricity requirements of the central capital.

O'Connor seeks boost for Afghan forces

Defence Minister acknowledges that security situation hasn't improved since Canadian troops arrived - GRAEME SMITH Globe and Mail

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor says he wants to send more money and equipment to help Canada's mission in southern Afghanistan, acknowledging that the security situation hasn't improved since Canadian troops arrived there in force earlier this year.

Mr. O'Connor, who arrived at the Kandahar airbase this week, said that he has asked his military officials to come up with ways that Canada can strengthen its role in the troubled province of Kandahar.

"I've asked them to develop a plan to increase Canada's contribution to the Provincial Reconstruction Team," he said. "I've [also] asked military officials to develop a plan designed to help the Afghan government assume more responsibilities for their country's security.

"I would like to see increased contribution of military equipment by the government of Canada to the Afghan National Police and the Afghan National Army."

The minister said he will wait for advice from the military, and seek approval for this from his cabinet colleagues, before taking any action.

The comments came hours before Mr. O'Connor was scheduled to meet President Hamid Karzai today in Kabul. Mr. Karzai has been urging NATO forces to put more emphasis on rebuilding Afghanistan, rather than focusing on killing Taliban insurgents.

The commitment to give better equipment to Afghan forces will likely be applauded by local security officials in Kandahar, who have been complaining that their troops often lack basic necessities such as bullets.

Those calls for better equipment grew louder this week after Canadian soldiers mistakenly killed an Afghan police officer who didn't have a radio to communicate with his Canadian counterparts.

"This contribution will help the Afghan government take control of its own security," Mr. O'Connor said.

He also acknowledged that the security situation hasn't improved in Kandahar since his previous visit in March. Canada took responsibility for securing the volatile province earlier this year, but local officials say a rising insurgency has crippled Kandahar in the months since the handover.

"Since I was last here in March, there has been an increase in tempo of conflict in this area," Mr. O'Connor said. "From what I understand, from analysis, the reason for that is that there was a mild winter last year, so a lot of the Taliban did not go home to their bases in Pakistan."

He continued: "And the Pakistan army has increased their patrols, they've increased the troops on their border, and a lot of the leadership of the Taliban have not been able to return to Pakistan either, so they've stayed in country and they've conducted operations.

"I can't say that things are better at the moment in the security sense, but they're certainly under control."

You can't beat terrorists from the bleachers - Calgary Herald by Barry Cooper

On Sunday, ex-diplomat Bill Warden argued the war in Afghanistan was a mistake. Here is a response from an academic who strongly supports Canada's involvement.

Largely because of the pusillanimous regime of Jean Chretien and the soft-power dream world of his foreign minister, Lloyd Axworthy, few Canadians understand that war is not some unpleasant anomaly in an otherwise peaceful unfolding of the universe.

Accordingly, to understand why it is a source of pride that Canada has deployed around 2,300 troops to Afghanistan, we have to recall some forgotten truths and purge an equal number of corrosive lies from our minds.

The two greatest philosophers of war, Carl von Clausewitz, the 19th century Prussian general, and Sun Tzu, the 5th century BC Chinese sage, are agreed on two matters regarding the essential features of war. The first is that wars are by nature political and thus politics limits or guides the conduct of war. The second is that it is of the utmost importance to know your enemy.

This is especially true when the enemy has a different understanding of war than you do. In the case of the Taliban, their allies in al-Qaeda, and affiliates among the so-called jihadists, war is understood less as a political matter than a religious one.

For such an enemy, war is a struggle on behalf of God and against Satan. What may look to us as a remote political goal, the creation of a worldwide caliphate, turns out to be the imaginary product of a corrupt understanding of God's law. Even so, it is a tremendous motivator and one of the most important factors in this war.

The implications of fighting an enemy who is not undertaking conventional politics, with "an admixture of other means" as Clausewitz put it, also need to be borne in mind.

First, we must recall that we do not choose our enemies. They choose us. This is true whether it is a bar fight on 17th Avenue in Calgary or a firefight in the rocky groves of Panjwaii in Afghanistan.

If somebody plans to fight you, no matter how nice you think you are, he will do it. As Prime Minister Stephen Harper said, "We can ignore the dangers if we want, but the dangers will not ignore us."

Indeed, individuals and countries who want nothing so much as to be nice, are inviting attack.

If your enemy thinks war is doing God's work on Earth, and even more if he considers death in battle to be martyrdom, the fighting is likely to be especially intense.

The new model army of Oliver Cromwell during the English civil war thought of itself as an angelic host, as did any number of other armies during the European Middle Ages, moved by special revelations to prophetic and inspired fanatics.

When one party to a conflict understands war that way, it introduces a problem that can be solved in one of two ways.

After U.S. Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of the coalition troops in the first Gulf War, was told that many enemy soldiers were eager to die in battle because they then would see God, he replied with forthright brutality: "That's fine. Our job is to arrange the meeting."

In short, if adversaries will not surrender, they must be killed, a necessity that applies to secular enemies as well.

The alternative is to provide sufficient incentives that the enemy changes his mind and surrenders. In fact, when the enemy is (at least in part) religiously inspired, getting him to change his mind may turn out to be easier than when soldiers are fighting for a secular sense of honour. There is, after all, always the possibility of appealing to scripture.

The conclusion to be drawn from these general reflections is that any war, even spiritually inspired war, can be won for the same reason that it can be lost.

This is as true for the Cold War, which was a historical novelty, as it is for the current global and asymmetric war, one of the theatres of which is Afghanistan. The strategic reason we must win is the same reason we had to beat the Nazis and the Soviets: to defend our admittedly defective political order against the threat of domination by spiritually perverse tyrants.

When Canada intervened in Afghanistan in the winter of 2001-02, it was not the result of an altruistic whim or "human security," but because it served our national interest and the interest of global security.

As Harper later remarked, Afghanistan under the control of the Taliban was an "incubator" of al-Qaeda, the consequences of which "hit home with brutal force on 9/11."

Initially, only JTF-2 was sent to fight alongside U.S., British, and Australian special operations forces. Then, when Kabul was liberated, regular Canadian infantry took on what were chiefly defensive operations in the capital city, along with joint helicopter assaults with U.S. troops. Now, they have a major combat role in the south of the country where the Taliban remain strong.

Despite alarmist headlines, Canada is, in fact, succeeding in both its military and political tasks. Last week, Lt.-Col. Omer Lavoie explained the outcome of a nine-hour engagement, which took the lives of four Canadian soldiers, in the following way: The Canadians were well prepared for battle and, using typical military understatement, he said they ensured the Taliban "had insurmountable difficulties in breaking contact with us."

In ordinary language, the enemy could not retreat in good order and was compelled to stand, fight and be killed. Politically, Afghanistan has improved remarkably over the past five years. They have held elections and promulgated a constitution. They have demobilized more than 60,000 combatants.

The economy has grown annually since 2002 at a rate of 17 per cent and micro-loans have been provided to 140,000 clients, nearly 90 per cent of whom are women. Most importantly, unlike the Soviets, the NATO troops want to leave, but the Afghans want them to stay.

We can see what is at stake by considering the other option: a precipitous withdrawal. To begin with, it would not matter a hoot the reasons we came up with to explain our action to the world. As Harper warned, we would be cutting and running. The consequences are entirely predictable.

The Americans would see Canada as having returned to the status of free riders, shirkers, and -- let's face it -- chickens.

This would guarantee a return to the shameful times in Canada-U.S. affairs perfected by Chretien. Harper was right when he said the war against the terrorists cannot be won "from the bleachers."

In addition to damaging relations with our major ally, Canada's NATO partners would be appalled. Even the inconstant French would feel betrayed.

On the other side, the Taliban would claim a victory, which also has some predictable implications. Canada has announced a 3-D policy: defence, diplomacy and development. Without the military, the other two "Ds" are empty words because the diplomats and the development people would simply be killed -- and Canada has already had one senior diplomat, Glyn Berry, murdered by the insurgents.

In the longer term, a craven display of weakness would amount to an invitation for the jihadist militants to visit this country. The consequences for the ordinary citizens of Afghanistan would be disastrous.

Consider only this: The Taliban would be in a position to make good on their threat to throw acid in the face of any girl attending school. This is not an endless mission. Canadians will know we have won when the Taliban is incapable of attacking coalition troops.

We can expect to withdraw our troops when the Afghan National Army is capable of providing genuine security for the Afghan government and its citizens. Until then, both duty and national interest require Canadian troops on the ground in that unfortunate country.

Abstinence is sometimes a virtue. This is not one of those times.

Barry Cooper is a professor of political science at the University of Calgary and a Fellow of the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute.

Restoring Kabul's lost beauty - By Mark Dummett BBC News, Kabul 30 August 2006

In the 17th century, the poet Saib-e-Tabrizi wrote about the beauty of Kabul with words still recited in the Afghan capital today.

My song exalts her dazzling tulips And at the beauty of her trees I blush How sparkling the water flows from Pul-i-Bastaan! May Allah protect such beauty from the evil eye of man!

Few poets write about the city's dazzling tulips these days. Many of its "bricks more precious than the treasure of Shayagan" lie in piles of rubble.

The Kabul River is now a feeble and filthy stream, and most of the trees have been cut down for firewood.

War, tyranny and Soviet-inspired urban planning have all left their mark on the Afghan capital.

The worst period was during the 1990s when the historic heart of the city, which Saib-e-Tabrizi wrote his love song for, became a battleground for competing factions of Mujahideen.

The mud-brick walls of mansions, courtyards and mosques were no match for the bombs.

"This was the centre of the fighting," says Khalilullah, who stayed through the bad times. "Every day, 20 to 30 rockets hit these houses. Many people were killed."

After five years of relative peace in the city, the crowds have returned to the bazaars of Old Kabul. The city is enjoying something of a revival and what cannot be bought in the packed street markets is being crafted in the noisy workshops.

But the buildings have not recovered so easily. Those still standing are close to collapse. Many of the original streets are buried under metres of debris and rubbish.

"We want to rebuild our houses but we can't afford to," Khalilullah says. "They are historic monuments."

Two organisations are now helping restore Old Kabul. The Agha Khan Development Network has rebuilt a residential quarter, while the Turquoise Mountain Foundation, headed by the Prince of Wales and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, has started work in Murud Khane, the oldest area on the north bank of the river.

It is now at risk from "very aggressive and unscrupulous property developers", says author and former diplomat, Rory Stewart, who runs the foundation.

The return of millions of refugees has pushed up property prices in the city, and dozens of large, square blocks, with blue or green mirrored windows, have been built with remarkable speed. Most are far from the centre, but that could change.

"They want to put up shoddily-built, cheap, multi-storey buildings which don't retain anything of what is so wonderful about Old Kabul," Mr Stewart says.

The foundation plans to restore a series of historically-important buildings to house, among other things, a school of Afghan arts.

It also wants to build new homes using traditional skills and designs. This requires the instruction of a new generation of craftsmen and women.

"The war took away a large number of our artists and cultural traditions," says Yusuf Suratgar, who teaches the carving of intricately-designed wood doors and shutters.

"Most of our artists were either killed or disabled, or they moved to neighbouring countries."

"If you can properly restore the city, foreign tourists will come," Khalilullah believes. "We don't want modern buildings here," he says. "This is the place of our fathers and grandfathers. We're happy here."

One restoration project already attracting visitors is Babur's Gardens. Here, Kabuli families picnic in landscaped grounds built originally in the 16th century for the tomb of the founder of the Moghul empire, and now restored by the Agha Khan's organisation.

The mood in the gardens is peaceful and playful. It is possible to forget about the conflict in south-east Afghanistan, and the dire living conditions of most Afghans.

One visitor, Akhtar, thinks this is a good thing: "Kabul needs more places like this for families." His son, Limur, disagrees: "Actually we don't need gardens, we don't need trees, first of all let's make peace."

But Rory Stewart argues that it would be a mistake to abandon Afghanistan's heritage. "Any hope Kabul has of rediscovering its identity is going to depend on allowing these communities to flourish and these buildings to flourish. They are the last traces of an identity that was lost during the civil war."

Toys for Afghan children - Aug, 30 2006

EDMONTON/630 CHED - Employees of an Edmonton company want to build wooden toys to ship to Afghanistan in memory of Canadian soldiers killed over there.

The idea was hatched earlier this month after the death of Master Corporal Raymond Arndt, a reservist with the Loyal Edmonton Regiment. Artistic Stairs service manager Trevor Klein saw Shop Foreman Chuck Howe making a wooden cross for Arndt.

Klein already had permission to make wooden toys out of shop leftovers and now he has bigger plans.

With full support of Artristic Stairs management and the blessing of Ray Arndt's family, Klein and Howe hope to make wooden toys and dolls for children in Afghanistan to preserve the memories of our fallen troops. Each toy will be branded with a Canadian flag and a heart. The military will ship them and you can help by making a donation to buy additional supplies or by making clothing for the wooden dolls.

You can contact Artistic Stairs at 489-5591 or stop by at 17320 - 108th Avenue.

[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.]