In this bulletin:

• Despite NATO, Afghan opium cultivation grows 61 percent
• How to beat the opium economy
• Iran plays important role in Afghanistan's anti-drug campaign: minister
• Italy to donate 14m for Kabul-Bamyan Highway
• AAA begins flights for Kandahar
• AFGHANISTAN: Taliban Sets Its Sights On Kandahar
• Over 160 Afghan militants give up resistance
• UK troops switch tactics in Afghan Desert of Death
• Peace accord in provincial Afghanistan dividing opinion
• Pakistan undermining its 'major ally' status
• Pashtuns want an image changeAround the world we are accused of being terrorists, but tolerance is in our blood
• NATO's failure portends a wider war
• Afghanistan: a chance or a trap for NATO?
• Pakistan, Afghanistan to set up five anti-polio border posts

Despite NATO, Afghan opium cultivation grows 61 percent

Washington (AFP) - Opium poppy cultivation shot up a whopping 61 percent in Afghanistan this year in a setback for US and NATO efforts to clamp down on the country's illegal drug industry, according to new figures released by the White House.

The anticipated record crop is seen as another boost for the resurgent Taliban as the Islamic guerrilla movement is often accused by US officials of using proceeds from drug sales to buy weapons and attract new recruits.

The annual US government estimate for Afghan opium poppy cultivation shows that approximately 172,600 hectares (426,503 acres) of poppy were cultivated throughout the country this year, an increase of 61 percent over 2005, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy said Friday.

Two southern Afghan provinces -- Helmand and Oruzgan where the Taliban has been the most active -- are responsible for the bulk of the increase. Poppy planting there was up 132 percent from last year, compared to an 18-percent increase in the remaining 31 provinces.

The White House did not hide its concern. "While 2006 was a record year for poppy eradication, the news that net cultivation has increased is disappointing," John Walters, director of the drug control office, said in a statement.

He acknowledged the booming industry posed a threat to Afghanistan's internal stability, adding that "increased emphasis and continued reductions are necessary" to reduce the country's drug trade.

Assistant Secretary of State Anne Patterson shared his concern, arguing that "stopping the cultivation and traffic of opium is paramount in establishing rule of law in Afghanistan."

She vowed to continue working with the government of Afghanistan and NATO allies to bring the opium industry under control. The estimate is based on detailed satellite imagery of Afghanistan produced by the US government.

The detected cultivation levels mean that Afghanistan will be able to produce next year 5,644 metric tons of opium, up 26 percent from an estimate issued last year.

If all that raw material were processed, Afghan drug dealers will be able to bring to market approximately 664 metric tons of pure heroin, the White House office warned.

By comparison, in 2001, the last year of Taliban rule, Afghanistan had only 1,685 hectares (4,163 acres) dedicated to opium poppy. Prior to the US-led invasion, Taliban leaders had declared opium cultivation a sin and ruthlessly punished all violators of their edict.

But the movement, US officials say, has now changed its approach, seeing in illegal drugs a means of financing their anti-Western insurgency.

Areas dedicated to poppy cultivation grew to 30,750 hectares (75,984 acres) in 2002; 61,000 (150,734 acres) in 2003; 206,700 hectares (510,766 acres) in 2004; and 107,400 hectares (265,391 acres) in 2005, according to White House statistics.

The White House promised a renewed effort to clamp down on Afghanistan's burgeoning drug industry.

But a UN and World Bank report released this past week said attempts to combat opium had achieved only limited success and lacked sustainability.

They have been marred by corruption and have failed to prevent the consolidation of the drugs trade in the hands of fewer powerful players with strong political connections, the report said.

"History teaches us that it will take a generation to render Afghanistan opium-free," concluded Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

How to beat the opium economy

International Herald Tribune - 12/01/2006 By Jorrit Kamminga and Peter van Ham

RIGA: At NATO's summit meeting in Riga this week, one thing was undisputed: In order to save Afghanistan from turning into a narco-state the all-invasive drug industry has to be crushed. The opium business sustains a clan-based and crime-ridden society, it impedes Afghanistan's economic growth, hinders reconstruction efforts of the international community, and ultimately fuels instability and terrorism.

Today, the drugs crisis is worse than ever. Afghanistan's economy thrives on the illegal growth of opium poppy and the trafficking of drugs. This accounts for $2.8 billion each year, or around half of the country's gross domestic product. More than three million Afghans rely on poppy cultivation for survival, most of whom live in the south in extreme poverty.

Since the U.S.-led invasion in October 2001, the international community has supported Afghan security forces in their efforts to wipe out this opium- based economy by military force, spending $325 million annually on destroying poppy crops - but to little avail. Last September, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime announced record poppy cultivation levels, with a potential yield of 6,100 tonnes of opium - a 59 percent increase from 2005.

With Afghanistan's drug industry booming and opium production at an all-time high, it is time to acknowledge that existing policies are failing miserably.

Force-based poppy eradication campaigns are not just ineffective, but also extremely counterproductive, since they undermine the livelihoods of farmers who depend on the crop to feed their families. Poor and disgruntled farming communities are an easy target for warlords and terrorist groups, who have picked up widespread support from these farmers in exchange for the protection of their sole cash crop.

A new, long-term counternarcotics strategy is necessary that addresses the immediate needs of the local population and wins back the hearts and minds of the rural communities. But is such a strategy possible?

The Senlis Council, an international think tank, calls for setting up scientific pilot projects to study the possibility of an opium licensing system for the production of medicines such as morphine and codeine. Instead of being turned into narcotics, poppy crops could provide the raw material for valuable pharmaceutical products. Such a system would give farmers, as well as all other stakeholders, the opportunity to profit in a legal economy, encouraging them to cut ties with warlords and terrorists, while addressing the current world shortage in these pain-relieving medicines.

Before such an attractive idea can become reality, two important questions must be answered. First, could Afghan farmers be given a financial incentive to legally cultivate opium that would compete with the illicit drug trade? Second, is Afghanistan stable enough to stop legally produced opium flooding into the illegal system?

Through extensive field research over the past two years, the Senlis Council has documented how an integrated social control system could work at village level. Village elders and traditional councils, which exercise considerable control, could oversee opium licensing. Essential medicines such as morphine have a huge mark-up price, allowing ample opportunities to redirect money back to the licensed poppy farmers, who would receive a decent and sustainable income.

To test these findings, pilot projects should be started in different parts of Afghanistan. The terms of reference for these projects are already drafted, which means the final test is within reach. All that is needed is the political will of the international community to put the idea to the test.

Both the European Union and the United States need to take this alternative seriously. Afghanistan is not only strategically crucial in the global struggle against illegal drug production; it could easily become once more a breeding ground and support base for terrorism, as it was under the Taliban regime from the 1990s onwards.

Medicinal poppy cultivation could help to rebuild support for the central Afghan government outside of Kabul, thus serving as a bridge between economic development and lasting security in Afghanistan, as well as providing an effective nation-building opportunity.

Jorrit Kamminga is head of policy research at The Senlis Council, an international drugs policy think tank, based in Paris. Peter van Ham is head of the global governance program at the Netherlands Institute of International Relations (Clingendael).

Iran plays important role in Afghanistan's anti-drug campaign: minister

Vienna, Dec 2, IRNA - Afghan Counter-Narcotics Minister Habibullah Qaderi said here Saturday that Iran can be of great help to Kabul in its battle against production and trafficking of illicit drugs.

The Afghan minister, who is currently on a visit to Vienna, Austria, for talks with UN officials, was speaking to IRNA.

He said that his country needs Iran's help in its campaign to replace poppy cultivation with other crops, adding that Afghanistan also calls for Tehran's help in providing its Farah and Helmand provinces, bordering Iran, with needed electricity and agricultural expertise.

He said that Afghanistan would profit much from Iran's rich experience in the campaign against illicit drug trafficking, and called for bolstering of bilateral cooperation in this regard.

Referring to the aid pledged by several countries to Afghanistan in its fight against narcotics, Qaderi said aid has not been forthcoming and that several states have reneged on their promises.

The international community should allow the Afghan government and its officials to decide for themselves how financial aid given to Kabul by foreign governments should be spent, he said.

Referring to the global dimensions of the international campaign against drugs, he said UN assistance has not been adequate.

"Afghanistan has numerous problems. It has been torn by decades of wars and conflicts and is not a normal country," he said. The Afghan minister said Tehran and Kabul enjoy very good relations because of their common language, culture and religion

Italy to donate 14m for Kabul-Bamyan Highway

Lailuma Sadid  - KABUL, Nov 29 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Italian ambassador to Afghanistan Ettor Francesco Sequt announced on Wednesday his country will provide 14 millions to the Afghan government for rebuilding of the Kabul-Bamyan Highway.

The Italian envoy said Italy has already handed over 12 millions to Afghanistan for reconstruction of the road linking the capital with the central province of Bamyan. The construction work was started three months ago and will be finished in four years.

The project that takes totally 38 millions budget is completely funded by Italy, but its money are given in parts. The rest of the funding would be handed over to the government by February 2007.

The project is implemented jointly by the Afghan government and a Chinese construction company. Bamyan is located 204 kilometres northwest of Kabul and has so far no paved way with the capital.

AAA begins flights for Kandahar

Saeed Zabuli  - KANDAHAR CITY, Nov 30 (Pajhwok Afghan News): For the first time, Ariana Afghan Airline (AAA) Thursday started flights for Kandahar, after fall of the Taliban regime, officials said.

Haji Muhammad Qasim, in charge of the AAA in Kandahar, said the first flight from Kandahar to Kabul started at 2pm and 15 passengers were on board. He said the plane could accommodate 40 passengers and three flights would be arranged between Kabul and Kandahar per week. The flights would take place on Saturday, Tuesday and Thursday, he added.

"We would begin the flights between the two provinces on daily basis once number of the passengers was increased," he hoped.

Terminal and transportation facilities had also been paved for the passengers in the Kandahar airport, he added. He said the fare for per passenger was 1700 afghanis.

However provincial governor, Asadullah Khalid, while expressing happiness over the issue hoped the flights to begin in other provinces soon.

He urged the airline company officials to begin flights from Kandahar to other foreign countries so the people didnt have to go off to Kabul for flights to abroad.

AFGHANISTAN: Taliban Sets Its Sights On Kandahar

Helmand Province, 1 Dec. (AKI) - (by Syed Saleem Shahzad) - Afghanistan's volatile Helmand province is shaping up to be the launchpad for the Taliban's ambitious offensive to regain control, five years after their ouster by US troops. In more than 12 of the 17 districts there is growing grassroots support for Taliban-led insurgents whose recent savage suicide bomb campaign appears a prelude to a further offensive. An investigation by Adnkronos International (AKI) over 10 days in the region uncovered a strategy to besiege Kandahar, cutting it off from rest of the country, before launching an all-out battle to gain control of the city next year.

The fall of Kandahar has been significant in Afghan since the 18th century, when it was a starting signal to mobilize troops for the seizure of the Kabul throne. The Taliban fighters have opened up their battle fronts near the major Herat-Kandahar Highway and the apparent strategy is to establish a stronghold with the aim of cutting off Kandahar, the main southern city.

After the gruelling winter, traditionally a time for regrouping, the Taliban fighters would launch a full offensive to capture the city where the bulk of the NATO deployment is Canadian. Canadians have been on the receiving end of suicide bombings, car bomb attacks, kidnappings and ambushes in recent months.

One of those behind the new strategy is Taliban commander Qari Hazrat. He is the younger brother of Abdul Khaliq, the slain commander of the Hizb-i-Islami mujahadeen led by Hekmatyar, and commands hundreds of fighters in Sangin and Gresh districts, close to the Herat-Kandahar Highway.

Qari, 33, a tall pallid figure, is one of the most important commanders of the regrouped Taliban movement, where a new generation of young leaders is emerging.

"At present, you can see we have besieged NATO forces based around Sangin. They have control only in their base. Everything outside is ours," he told AKI.

"Once we force their evacuation from Sangin and Gresh areas - like we did in other districts - we would be in control of the strategic Herat-Kandahar Highway and would have an edge when the Taliban would launch major offensive for Kandahar battle,” Qari maintained.

Over 160 Afghan militants give up resistance

Kabul, Dec 2 (Xinhua) More than 160 militants have given up insurgency in Afghanistan, a newspaper reported Saturday.

The militants loyal to the Taliban and the Islamic party Hizb-e-Islami have vowed to work for peace, Outlook quoted Sibghatullah Mujadadi, head of National Reconciliation Commission (NRC), as saying.

They are from different parts of the war-ravaged country and some were involved in fighting Afghan, NATO and US forces based in Afghanistan.

More than 2,600 anti-government militias, according to Mujadadi, have abandoned armed resistance and resumed normal lives in the past two years.

UK troops switch tactics in Afghan Desert of Death

By Peter Graff - DESERT OF DEATH, Afghanistan, Dec 1 (Reuters) - Day breaks without a sound in the Desert of Death. No bird chirps, no cock crows as the British Royal Marines clamber out of the holes they have dug to sleep in.

Soon, with a few tiny stoves, they are boiling up tea as the sun rises over a ridge where the Taliban still have their grip on towns and villages along the Helmand River.

More than half a year since British forces first entered Afghanistan's wildest province, the troops are modifying their tactics, placing less emphasis on holding the centres of district towns and more on mobility. Units now operate out of small armoured vehicles, bedding down in the desert under the stars.

The units are called MOGs, manoeuvre outreach groups, and the marines and soldiers say they are MOGging -- living for weeks on end in the desolate moonscape that Baluchi tribes named the Desert of Death.

"What these mobile assets bring to the operation is the ability to appear in one place and then disappear into the desert and appear again somewhere else," says Major Ben Warwick, commander of C Squadron, the Light Dragoons, whose light armoured reconnaissance vehicles were brought to Afghanistan in October.

The desert is little more than pebbles and chalky white dust with the occasional tiny patch of scrub. But over the ridge to the east, the Helmand River is surrounded by ancient irrigation canals, providing a crescent so fertile that the province produces a third of the world's opium poppy crop.

British troops, part of a NATO force fighting to drive Taliban guerrillas out of the south, entered Helmand province this year with crack paratroops who travelled by helicopter but had little means of moving safely on the ground.

They were quickly dispatched to defend forward bases in the mountains to the north, called platoon houses, where they became a prime target for the Taliban.

Throughout June, July and August they fought battles their commander described as the most intense faced by British troops since the Korean War 50 years ago.

The Taliban attacks have since tapered off, and the Royal Marines and soldiers who replaced the paratroops have now moved into the south of the province as well.

Crucially, the Marines are now equipped with new "Viking" armoured vehicles -- small steel boxes on treads. "Basically, it's a protected battlefield taxi with a machine gun on top," says Major Andy Plewes, commander of Zulu Company, 45 Commando, Royal Marines.

His men arrived to begin MOGging just last week, and have already made their presence felt, driving up and doing foot patrols in villages along the crescent.

Instead of basing their forces inside the main district centre, the aim is to keep them mobile, out in the desert, with food dropped by helicopter, patrolling inside villages, and easily swooping off into the desert from which they came.

"We know that there is a lot of Taliban activity in the fertile strip on either side of the Helmand river," Plewes says. "Because we're here without being in a fixed location, they (the Taliban) don't have the freedom of movement they had at the platoon houses."

A small team of British troops is embedded with an Afghan army unit, maintaining an outpost inside the district centre, Garm Seer.

Fighting there has been intense. Hours before a Reuters reporting team arrived at nightfall by the desert camp, British Harrier jets and Apache attack helicopters had fired into the town in support of Afghan troops there.

Several times during the night the marines fired with mobile artillery, lighting the sky over the town with illumination rounds.

The troops know the stakes are high. "This regiment has been here before," says Sergeant Glenn Littlewood of the Light Dragoons, a 15-year veteran. "1880. The Second Afghan War. Entire brigade was wiped out. 2,300 British troops. Not far from here, actually."

"Let's hope we have a better time of it now."

Peace accord in provincial Afghanistan dividing opinion

The New York Times 12/01/2006 By Carlotta Gall and Abdul Waheed Wafa

KABUL - A month after the Afghan government sealed a peace deal with tribal elders in a district of southern Afghanistan, the ripples are still being felt up to the capital and beyond.

After a series of bruising battles with the Taliban in Helmand Province, the governor and the British forces there demanded a cease-fire. When it held for more than a month, they negotiated a withdrawal of British troops from the district, Musa Qala, and the Afghan police who had been fighting alongside them. The Taliban then also withdrew.

The deal, reached with virtually no public consultation, has brought some welcome peace for local residents and a reprieve for British troops, who had been under siege by Taliban fighters in a compound in the town for three months.

Yet it has sharply divided former government officials, parliamentarians and ordinary people.

Some fear it represents a capitulation to the Taliban, sets a dangerous precedent, and may further weaken the authority of the central government. Others defend the accord and say it could point to a way forward in negotiating peace in parts of Afghanistan.

"The Musa Qala project has sent two messages: one, recognition for the enemy; and two, military defeat," said Mustafa Qazemi, a member of the Afghan Parliament and former resistance fighter of the Northern Alliance, which fought the Taliban for seven years. "This is a model for the destruction of the country and it is just a defeat for NATO, just a defeat."

Some members of the government have privately expressed their unease, and President Hamid Karzai, who sanctioned the deal, admits to having mixed feelings. "There are some suspicions in society about this," Karzai said in a recent radio interview. "I trust everything these elders say."

Karzai added, however, that two recent incidents - of murder and intimidation - gave pause and needed investigation.

Some compare it to agreements in Pakistan's tribal areas that have empowered the militants and say the truce will allow the Taliban to regroup. "It is the calm before the storm," said one senior Afghan military officer.

By allowing one district to choose its own officials and police, which was also agreed to under the accord, the government has opened a Pandora's Box and more districts are clamoring for the same right, one lawmaker warned. Granting local autonomy in exchange for peace would represent a reversal of five years of U.S. policy aimed at building a strong central government in Afghanistan.

Foreign military officials and diplomats have expressed cautious optimism, however, saying the deal has at least opened a debate over the virtues of such deals and that time is needed to see if it will offer a way out of the cycle of violence.

"If it works, and so far it appears to work, it could be a pointer to similar understandings elsewhere," said one diplomat on condition of anonymity.

Another energetic supporter of the deal is Abdul Ali Seraj, a nephew of King Amanullah, who ruled in the 1920s. Seraj is the leader of the coalition for national dialogue with the tribes of Afghanistan which is working to bring peace through the tribal structures. "Musa Qala is the way to do it - 60 days since the agreement and there has not been a shot fired," he said.

The governor of Helmand, Mohammad Daud, brokered the deal and defends it as a vital exercise to unite the Pashtun tribes in the area and strengthen their leaders so they can reject the militant Taliban.

Appointed at the beginning of the year, Daud has struggled to win over the people and control the lawlessness of his province, which is the country's largest opium producing region as well as a stronghold of Taliban fighters.

A 5,000-strong British force deployed in the province this year as part of an expanding NATO presence has come under repeated attack. Scores of civilians have also been injured across the south as NATO troops have often resorted to air strikes, even on residential areas, to defeat insurgents.

It was the civilians of Musa Qala who made the first bid for peace, Daud said.

"They made a council of elders and came to us saying: 'We want to make the Taliban leave Musa Qala,'" he said in a telephone interview from the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah. "At first we did not accept their request and we waited to see how strong the elders were."

Eventually, the governor made a 15- point agreement with the elders, who pledged to support the government and the Afghan flag, keep schools open, allow development and reconstruction and work to ensure security and stability of the region. They agreed to try to limit insurgent numbers.

They drew up a list of local candidates for the posts of district chief and police chief, from which the governor appointed the new officials, and they chose 60 local people to serve as local police in the district and sent the first 20 to the provincial capital for a 20-day basic training, provincial officials said.

The agreement has been welcomed by residents of Musa Qala, who said in interviews by telephone or in neighboring Kandahar Province, that people were rebuilding their houses and shops and planting winter crops, including the ubiquitous poppy, source of Afghanistan's opium.

The onset of the lucrative poppy planting season may have been one of the incentives behind their desire for peace, diplomats and government officials admitted.

Elders and residents of the area say it has brought calm, for now at least.

"There is no Taliban authority there," said Haji Shah Agha, 55, who led 50 members of the Musa Qala elders council to Kabul recently to counter criticism that Musa Qala was in the hands of the Taliban.

"The Taliban stopped fighting because we convinced them that fighting would not be to our benefit," he said. "We told the Taliban: 'Fighting will kill our women and children, and they are your women and children as well.'"

Yet the Taliban presence remains strong in Helmand Province, so much so that United Nations security officials advise against journalists traveling on the road to Musa Qala.

While they are happy with the peace, residents do not deny that the militants who were fighting British forces all summer, have neither disbanded nor been disarmed.

Haji Bismillah, 40, who owns a pharmacy in the center of Musa Qala, said the Taliban had pulled back to their villages, and often came in to town, though without their weapons.

"The Taliban are not allowed to enter the bazaar with their weapons," he said. "If they resist with guns, the tribal elders will disarm them."

The newly appointed police chief of Musa Qala, Haji Malang, said the Taliban and the police had agreed not to encroach on each other's territory. "They have their place which we cannot enter and we have our place and they must not come in," he said.

Some residents said the deal would benefit the Taliban. "This is a very good chance for the Taliban," said Abdul Bari, 33, a farmer who accompanied a sick relative to a hospital in neighboring Kandahar Province. "The people now view the Taliban as a force, since without the Taliban, the government could not bring peace in the regions."

Opponents of the agreement warned that the elders were merely doing the bidding of the Taliban and would never be strong enough to face down Taliban commanders.

"The Taliban reappeared by the power of the gun and the only way to defeat them is fighting, not dealing," said Haji Aadil Khan, 47, a former police chief from Gereshk, another district of Helmand.

The governor, Daud, and the elders of Musa Qala, said a number of the opponents to the agreement were former militia leaders who did not want peace.

"The people of Musa Qala took a step for peace with this agreement," said the chief elder, Haji Shah Agha. "The Taliban are sitting calmly in their houses."

"For four months we had fighting in Musa Qala and now we have peace, said another elder, Amini, who only uses one name. "What is wrong with it if we have peace?"

Pakistan undermining its 'major ally' status

UPI - 12/01/2006 By Arnaud De Borchgrave - Pakistan intelligence training and equipping Taliban

WASHINGTON - President Bush promoted Pakistan in 2004 to MNNA, the same status enjoyed by close allies Israel, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Egypt and Jordan. Major Non-NATO allies get priority in defense purchases. They have no North Atlantic Treaty obligations, but club rules preclude undermining NATO.

Pakistan has been violating club rules -- big time. President Pervez Musharraf presumably knows about his Inter-Services Intelligence agency's major operations. Official fiction holds that Pakistan is not assisting Taliban's comeback insurgency in Afghanistan.

Yet the interrogation of Taliban prisoners and suspected agents reported to Hamid Karzai's intelligence service -- a total of about 1,500 so far -- shows that every single one (not even one exception) had come from Pakistan, many of them former pupils in madrassas (Koranic schools).  

Admittedly, these Taliban fighters may have come from Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, or FATA, where Pakistani soldiers are not welcome. But most of them had been trained and equipped in Baluchistan and the Northwest Frontier Province, Pakistan's two provinces that border Afghanistan, both governed by pro-Taliban administrations and both friendly to al-Qaida. The entire Taliban resurgence, the interrogations show, was conducted "under the supervision of ISI operatives, one to three layers removed."

The Taliban prisoners also told Afghan security interrogators that Pakistan supplied medical services, as well as rest and recreation facilities near the provincial capitals of Quetta and Peshawar.

Taliban was an ISI project to quell the mayhem that followed the humiliating withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989 after a disastrous 10-year occupation. Its first recruits came from major madrassas, under Wahhabi or Deobandi control, where they were taught the holy book by heart, along with the love of holy war to kill all enemies of Islam.

ISI claims it did not sire the Taliban. But it was present at its birth and assumed the role of wet nurse and then foster parent. ISI also provided training and equipment, and guided tactics and strategy as Taliban, based in Pakistan, under ISI supervision, conquered Afghanistan. Kabul fell to a victorious Taliban in 1996 where flat-earth clerics established their medieval dominion. Mullah Mohammed Omar, an Islamist Torquemada, tyrannical regime ruled for the next five years until the U.S. invasion in Oct. 2001.

ISI had 1,500 officers and operatives in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. The country represented Pakistan's defense in depth in the event of an Indian invasion. Many ISI agents were veterans of the anti-Soviet guerrilla campaign that was fought by the mujahideen under ISI direction, with funding and weapons from Saudi Arabia and the U.S.

The culture of ISI has been anti-American ever since the U.S. turned against Pakistan after the Soviets left Afghanistan. The country's secret nuclear weapons program, protected by ISI, incurred a slew of hostile U.S. diplomatic, military and economic sanctions.  

Dr. Jekill-Mr.Hyde

The Pakistani military, particularly ISI, is in a Dr. Jekill-Mr.Hyde mode when it comes to U.S. military requests. President Musharraf reacts favorably to U.S. intelligence on al-Qaida's operations in FATA and the rest of Pakistan. Almost 700 al-Qaida terrorists have been arrested since Osama bin Laden and his entourage escaped from the battle of Tora Bora in Dec. 2001.

ISI also gets high praise for its cooperation with British and U.S. intelligence on the movements of Pakistani Brits and Americans suspected of plotting terrorist actions. But ISI stubbornly protects Taliban insurgents when they cross back into Pakistan after killing U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan. And al-Qaida's bin Laden, despite a $25 million bounty for information leading to his capture or death, continues to lead a charmed life in a secret location in Pakistan.

The controversial pact Musharraf signed with tribal leaders in North Waziristan last Sept. 5 was officially described as an attempt to sharply curtail Taliban activities. In fact, the deal was signed by pro-Taliban tribal chiefs who went right on helping the Taliban in their privileged sanctuaries. And Taliban incursions into Afghanistan trebled over the following four weeks. Musharraf tries to placate rival factions and forces -- in this case Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal -- MMA, a six-party coalition of religious extremists -- and, on the other side, the U.S., Afghanistan and NATO.

The British, Canadian, Dutch and German NATO allies fighting in Afghanistan know the score on ISI's assistance to the Taliban. Now fighting with battalion-size units, the Taliban enjoys ISI-protected privileged sanctuaries on the Pakistani side of the border. But Musharraf's hanky-panky diplomacy is running out of hokey-pokey disinformation.

ISI assigned itself the task of scaring reporters away from embarrassing investigations. Four were held and beaten regularly for several months in 2006. On Nov. 1, the body of the Islamabad bureau chief for Pakistan Press International (PPI) was found near his home in Islamabad, one of four killed during the past six months. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) that represents more than half a million journalists in 115 countries described the Pakistani media as "rapidly skidding toward lawlessness."

Taliban's Operation Comeback now enjoys seamless battle space that stretches from Afghanistan's border provinces all the way into Pakistan's Pashtun region. And 12,000 U.S. and 32,000 (including 10,000 U.S.) NATO troops (from 11 of the alliance's 26 members) are fighting with one hand tied behind their back. Intel notwithstanding, they all make believe Pakistan's ISI isn't helping its Taliban wards. The Taliban and its ISI guardians also enjoy a nice slice of the multi-billion dollar opium poppy cake.

Many of the allies imposed some 50 caveats on where and when their soldiers could be used. Some said "no dusk to dawn operations," which is when Taliban guerrillas are on the move. Others would only serve in "tranquil provinces" in the north with little Taliban activity.

At the NATO summit in Riga this week, president Bush obtained pledges to lift some -- unspecified -- combat curbs on troop use. But France, Germany, Italy and Spain, still declined to allow their troops to be deployed in "hot" combat zones close to the mythical Pak-Afghan demarcation. But they agreed to make unspecified "exceptions" for unspecified "emergencies." And France even suggested bringing Iran into the mix to for a "global strategy" to address NATO's difficulties in Afghanistan.

Latvia and Estonia, former Soviet colonies, committed 10 percent of their armed forces (Latvia has an army of 1,817) to Iraq and Afghanistan.  National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley praised them for "punching above their weight" militarily.

By week's end, Pakistan's "Major Non-NATO Ally" status became a total sham when a government spokesman said NATO needed to reach an accommodation with the Taliban insurgency. "Instead of fighting Taliban militants, foreign troops should reconcile themselves to this reality," he said, and "if the Western world makes the mistake of prolonging this war, we would only see a never-ending conflict."

By this Pakistani logic, NATO was now the culprit and should make way for Taliban. At this rate, al-Qaida could look forward to getting its Afghan bases back. And Afghanistan could be volte-face "shock and awe." With 70 percent illiteracy and an economy 60 percent dependent on opium and heroin, democracy was never a viable option.  

RFE/RL Newsline - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty Friday, December 1, 2006 Volume 10 Number 221

AFGHAN NATIONAL ASSEMBLY CONDEMNS PAKISTAN'S TOP DIPLOMAT - Afghanistan's Wolesi Jirga (People's Council) on November 30 condemned a reported suggestion by Pakistani Foreign Minister Khursaid Kasuri to a number of NATO foreign ministers that Afghanistan should establish a coalition government that includes the Taliban but excludes President Hamid Karzai, state-run Radio Afghanistan reported. The lower house's press office called Kasuri's remarks tantamount to direct interference by Islamabad in Afghanistan's internal affairs. Meanwhile, in a press release dated November 30, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said Kasuri's comments have been "distorted and misrepresented." Kasuri "did not say that the Taliban were winning the war and NATO was bound to fail," the press release stated, adding that Kasuri "encouraged" Afghans to work toward "national reconciliation." AT

MORE OFFICIALS ORDERED ARRESTED AS ANTICORRUPTION 'JIHAD' CONTINUES - Afghan Prosecutor-General Abdul Jabar Sabet has ordered the arrest of the head of the Konar Province Endowment and Islamic Affairs Department on charges that he embezzled more than $20,000, Kabul-based Tolu Television reported on November 30. Sabet's office has also arrested the director of Sher Khan customs office on the Amu River that separates Konduz Province from Tajikistan on suspicion that he misappropriated more than $40,000. Four customs officials in Aqina, in the northern Faryab Province bordering Turkmenistan, have been arrested on charges of tampering with customs records. Sabet has already dismissed, and in some cases arrested, a number of officials in the western Herat Province and in Kabul in conjunction with an anticorruption "jihad" declared by President Karzai (see "RFE/RL Newsline," October 5, 6, 13, and 17, 2006). AT

KABUL RESIDENTS REACT TO SALARY INCREASE DEMAND BY PARLIAMENTARIANS

Tolu Television on November 30 aired comments on a recent demand for a salary increase by members of the Afghan National Assembly. One Kabul resident told Tolu that while people are "not criticizing the members of parliament for demanding an increase" in their salaries, they are aware that ordinary people in the Afghan capital cannot afford "wood for winter." Another Kabul resident said members of the National Assembly are only interested in helping themselves, not in the welfare of their constituents. The Afghan Finance Ministry has responded to the legislative prodding by saying that it has no authority to increase parliamentarians' salaries and that only the cabinet can make such a decision. Sayyed Daud Hashemi, a representative from Kabul Province, said government employees who earn much less than parliamentarians "do not receive 10 guests" in one night the way members of the National Assembly do. AT

KABUL-KANDAHAR COMMERCIAL FLIGHTS RESUMED - Commercial air service between Kabul and the southern city of Kandahar resumed on November 30, the first time that route has been available since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, Pajhwak Afghan News reported. A flight by national carrier Ariana Afghan Airlines departed Kabul the same day with 15 passengers bound for Kandahar, the former stronghold of the Taliban regime. Ariana is planning to operate three flights per week on the route and increase the frequency of those flights if there is sufficient demand. AT

Pashtuns want an image change – BBC guest columnist Ahmed Rashid, Lahore

Since 11 September 2001, Pashtuns feel they have become the most vilified ethnic group in the world.

They are angry, frustrated and now want to reclaim their identity from being lumped with the Taleban and as perpetrators of terrorism and suicide bombings.

Most Afghan prisoners held by the Americans in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba or at Bagram air base near Kabul are Pashtun.

Those who have emerged from these - and Afghan and Pakistani-run jails are also Pashtun.

So are the thousands of civilian casualties who have been bombed by mistake or carelessness in southern Afghanistan by US and Nato pilots during military operations since 11 September.

US soldiers who knocked down doors and interrogated women, alienating the population, did so largely in the Pashtun south, where American forces have been accused by locals of treating all Pashtuns as the enemy - an association that Nato is now trying to change.

All the 80 dead victims of the Pakistani air force bombing of a madrassa in Bajaur tribal agency in Pakistan in late October were also Pashtun.

The pace of promised development, reconstruction and money spent by Western donors is slowest in Afghanistan's Pashtun south.

Pakistan's Pashtun belt is one of the most deprived regions in the country, even though it holds immense resources and generates nearly 50% of the country's hydro-electric power.

Cross-border movement

The tragedy for the Pashtuns has been their association with the Taleban.

The Taleban were a majority Pashtun cross-border movement which, in 1994, enlisted support from Pakistan's 40 million Pashtuns and Afghanistan's 10-12 million Pashtuns.

Their bitter, brutal war against the non-Pashtun former Northern Alliance helped create long-lasting ethnic feuds in Afghanistan.

But it was the Taleban's association with Osama Bin Laden and the protection they gave al-Qaeda after 1996 that first associated the Taleban with terrorism in the eyes of the international community.

Even then many Pashtuns resisted the Taleban. Among them was Abdul Haq - who was gunned down by the Taleban for leading a revolt in 2001 - and Hamid Karzai, who is now president of Afghanistan.

In Pakistan, secular and democratic-minded Pashtuns have long resisted the idea that the 3,000-year-old Pashtun culture and language should be Talebanised.

Now, for the first time, hundreds of political leaders and tribal chiefs from the Pashtun tribes inhabiting Pakistan's border with Afghanistan have held a Pashtun Peace Jirga, or tribal council, demanding an end to Taleban violence in both countries.

They accused Pakistan's military regime and its intelligence agency, ISI, of giving clandestine support to the Taleban and other extremist groups and demanded an end to it.

Clean-shaven tribal chiefs with large turbans, religious scholars with long scraggly beards and young political activists sat together in a large hall in Peshawar in late November demanding that the peaceful traditions and values of the Pashtun tribes be restored.

"The world is asking 'who are you Pashtuns?'" said Mehmood Khan Achakzai, the leader of a moderate Pashtun party in Balochistan province?

"Around the world we are accused of being terrorists, but tolerance is in our blood - it is taught by our mothers. We do not hate people just because their noses are long or they speak in foreign tongues. We demand all the world respect our values, culture and the dignity of our people," he added.

The jirga was organised by the Awami National Party (ANP) - a democratic, secular Pashtun nationalist party that has been marginalised in the past decade due to its strong criticism of Pakistan's military regime and the wave of Islamic extremism that has flooded the Pashtun tribal belt on both sides of the border.

However, the ANP and other democrats are now regaining popularity because of deepening fears within the tribes about the Taleban enforcing their writ among all Pashtuns.

"The Taleban are not the creation of Pashtun society, but the creation of the Pakistan army," said Afsandyar Wali, the head of the ANP.

"Pashtuns stand united for peace, but the fire of war is burning our land and we have to find the means to extinguish it. We are caught in the middle of warmongers, extremists and militants," he added.

The Jirga also heard from Taleban supporters such as Maulana Fazlur Rehman, a cleric who heads the radical Jamiat-e-Ullema Islam party that is presently ruling the two border provinces of Balochistan and the North West Frontier and openly aids the Taleban insurgency in Afghanistan.

Rehman claimed that the Taleban were resisting foreign occupation and aggression. But for the first time, such appeals to violence by a Pashtun mullah were drowned out by voices which said that the Taleban were a threat to peace and a total negation of Pashtun values.

Part of the problem is the army and the ISI.

Before 11 September, when Pakistan openly supported the Taleban, the intelligence services (ISI) literally re-wrote Afghan history.

The Taleban were largely illiterate, but a special ISI cell wrote articles and books, and paid for seminars in an attempt to show that the extremism of the Taleban was part-and-parcel of Pashtun identity.

Afghan Pashtuns such as Mr Karzai, Abdul Haq and former King Zahir Shah resisted this, but they were voices without access to the Pakistani media.

Pakistani Pashtuns who resisted this labelling were called traitors and anti-national by the ISI.

Now democratic Pashtuns say that in recent statements, President Pervez Musharraf is also trying to demonise Pashtuns.

"Musharraf is describing us as barbarians who shed blood and that the Pashtun are violent," Mr Achakzai told the jirga.

Much of the debate focused on defining the two traditional centres of Pashtun values - the masjid, or mosque, and the hujra, or the seat of the tribal chief.

In other words, the power of religion and secular political power.

While clerics defended the Taleban saying they had united the two, others insisted they must be kept separate if the Pashtuns were to survive as a nation.

The debate on Pashtun identity has just begun and it will be further enhanced when a grand Pashtun jirga is held among both the Pakistani and Afghan Pashtun tribes next spring.

NATO's failure portends a wider war

International Herald Tribune - 12/01/2006 By Ahmed Rashid

PESHAWAR, Pakistan: The abysmal failure of NATO countries at the Riga summit meeting this week to commit more troops to Afghanistan will further encourage a countrywide Taliban offensive, and portends much greater interference by neighboring states - all staking their claims as they see the West giving up the ghost on Afghanistan.

In the future annals of the spread of Islamic extremism and Al Qaeda, the NATO meeting this week will almost certainly be considered a watershed. Germany, Spain, Italy and France, which refused to allow their troops in Afghanistan to go south to fight the Taliban, and other member states who refused to commit fresh troops or equipment, may well be held responsible for allowing Afghanistan to slip back into the hands of the Taliban and their Qaeda allies.

Such desperately depressing considerations arise from the fragile state of the Afghan government, the massive surge in Taliban attacks this year, the collapse of civil authority in wide swathes of the country and the rise in opium production, which is funding not just the Taliban, but a plethora of Afghan, Kashmiri, Central Asian, Chinese and Chechen Islamic extremist groups based on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

Last summer the Taliban planned to capture Kandahar - the second-largest Afghan city - and set up an alternative government. They were only just thwarted by the sacrifices of NATO British, Canadian, Dutch and American troops and their Afghan allies, who fought pitched battles with battalion-size Taliban units - battles the likes of which the West had not experienced since the Korean War.

Tribal leaders in Peshawar and along the border now say that the Taliban are recruiting thousands of fighters in Pakistan and Afghanistan for a full-scale, multipronged offensive in the spring, which will open so many fronts in southern Afghanistan that present NATO forces will be unable to cope. This time the target is Kabul and the government of President Hamid Karzai.

The Taliban will fully understand and exploit NATO's failure to respond to these threats. NATO's inaction will also cause massive demoralization among the Afghan people and encourage warlords and drug traffickers to prepare for the coming anarchy.

Most significantly, NATO's decision will pave the way for further interference by neighboring states, which helped fuel the civil war in Afghanistan throughout the 1990s.

Pakistan's military regime, which provides clandestine support to the Taliban and has refused to accept NATO and U.S. plans to arrest the Taliban leaders on its soil, has long calculated that in time the West will walk away from Afghanistan. Pakistani officials are already convinced that the Taliban are winning and are trying to convince NATO and the United States to strike piecemeal deals with the Taliban in the south and east, which eventually could develop into a Pakistani- brokered Taliban coalition government in Kabul.

Such a plan would never be tolerated, however, by the swath of other neighbors who in the 1990s supported the former Northern Alliance in their war against the Taliban. To beat back Pakistan and the Taliban, Russia, Iran, India and the Central Asian states may step up their support for Karzai's government, but they will almost certainly look for alternatives, such as rearming and mobilizing their former allies - the warlords of the north.

As in the 1990s, such a scenario could develop into an ethnic civil war between the Pashtun Taliban in the south and the Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras of the north. At Riga, NATO demonstrated that it does not have the will to stop such a civil war, which could lead to the partition of Afghanistan along north- south lines.

Many fear that despite the wishful thinking of the Pakistani military, a civil war in Afghanistan will have devastating effects on the integrity of the Pakistani state. The regime of President Pervez Musharraf already faces a full-blown separatist insurgency in Baluchistan Province. And a wave of Talibanization is sweeping Pakistan's Pashtun belt, which the military is not attempting to stop, but rather conceding to, through so-called peace deals that leave the Taliban-Qaeda groups in place.

Pakistan's Pashtun tribal areas have already proved to be the training ground for the July 2005 terrorist attacks in London and the thwarted Heathrow Airport plot this year.

The situation in Afghanistan is not just dire, it is desperate. The struggle against Islamic extremism will be lost not in Iraq, Iran or even the Palestine territories, but in Afghanistan. It is here that Al Qaeda wants to regroup and rearm itself to continue its global jihad and it is here that NATO countries are failing the world.

Ahmed Rashid is the author of "Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia."

Afghanistan: a chance or a trap for NATO?

Opinion & Analysis - December 1, 2006

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti military commentator Alexander Bogatyrev) - Afghanistan is one country where Russia is ready to cooperate with NATO, as the latest meeting of the NATO-Russia Council showed. The bloc, however, needed time to mull the offer over.

The first day of the NATO summit in Riga, Latvia, which discussed Afghanistan, provided the answer.

Afghanistan is a complicated and painful problem for the organization. Some say the country will decide its future. Five years after the beginning of the operation, NATO is coordinating the international effort in Afghanistan. This removes the ambiguity that prevailed when U.S. and NATO troops acted separately even though the Untied States is a NATO member.

The operation in Afghanistan was expected to give NATO a second lease on life after the end of the Cold War. The Taliban seemed to be the answer to the question of the bloc's objectives and adversaries.

But the meeting in Riga showed that Afghanistan is turning out to be an unbearably high price to pay for the preservation and expansion of the bloc.

At present NATO has to ensure security both in the relatively calm northern provinces of the country and in the south and southeast, where the Taliban are the true masters. Their autumn offensive proved that they have reinforced their positions and are gradually changing their tactics, going over from a guerrilla war to well-organized offensive and defensive operations. Moreover, they are now more frequently attacking in large groups of 300-400.

Foreign troops and Afghan government forces are sustaining heavy losses, increasingly as a result of terrorist attacks by suicide bombers, which is a new element. This year, suicide bombers have staged more than 140 attacks, which makes Afghanistan increasingly reminiscent of Iraq.

NATO does not have enough forces to deal with this new situation, and therefore its troops are mostly hiding in their bases and strongholds, only rarely staging raids against the enemy.

Some participants in the Riga summit called for increasing NATO forces in Afghanistan, but such entreaties by the U.S., Britain and Canada have been rejected by the European NATO members (Germany, France, Spain, Turkey, Italy, Norway and Denmark).

They presented their claims to Washington during the NATO summit, accusing the Pentagon of supplying incorrect information to its allies and deliberately removing some Taliban groups that cooperate with Americans from the line of fire. The allies' pleas for air support often remain unheeded; worse still, Europeans are sometimes hit by friendly fire from the U.S. Air Force.

It also turned out that American units have earned a bad reputation with the locals, so that the Dutch and Belgian units had to change the color of their fatigues to be more easily distinguishable from the Americans.

It became clear in Riga that the NATO command intends to replenish its troops in Afghanistan by rallying the assistance of candidate countries and newcomers. Georgia and Ukraine have hastened to pledge to send their troops to Afghanistan. Poland has decided to increase its group there to 1,000, Estonia will increase its 80-strong force by 50% and provide small arms, and Latvia will send an additional 20 servicemen. Bulgaria intends to send weapons and munitions, and Romania has agreed to dispatch a motorized battalion.

Croatia is wary of the request, or rather the order, to redeploy its troops from the relatively calm northern provinces to the unquiet south, and Lithuania has flatly refused to comply.

The newcomers' attitude is logical. Firstly, a minor increase in their numbers will be not enough to ensure control of the territory. Secondly, the root cause of tensions in Afghanistan is the problems Americans promised to solve five years ago - to defeat the Taliban within two or three years, to stabilize the political situation, create the foundations for economic prosperity, rebuild infrastructure, create jobs, ensure safety, and address the drug problem. They have not kept any of their promises, and so the new losses NATO will inevitably sustain will be useless.

Moscow is watching NATO's internal conflicts with alarm. These disputes came to the fore in Riga and are growing more acute with the admission of new members. Russian politicians have always warned that a weak NATO would not be a suitable partner for the Kremlin, and that Afghanistan's grave problems call for all European countries to cooperate.

The summit in Riga has confirmed and reinforced Russia's concerns.

Pakistan, Afghanistan to set up five anti-polio border posts

December 1, 2006 - ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistan and Afghanistan have agreed to set up five border checkposts to monitor for polio cases in one of the world's last reservoirs of the crippling disease.

Officials at the posts will halt children afflicted with polio and other conditions in order to check the spread of the diseases, Pakistan health minister Nasir Khan told a joint press conference with his Afghan counterpart Sayed Mohammad Fatemi.

The locations along the rugged and largely porous 2,500-kilometre (1,500-mile) border between the two Islamic republics will be identified by a joint team of Pakistani and Afghan officials, Khan said.

They will be set up alongside existing border crossings. Pakistan has reported 33 cases of polio this year while Afghanistan has reported 29.

The coordination between Pakistan and Afghan will synchronise efforts to eliminate polio in both countries, Khan said, adding that UN agencies will help national teams to administer polio vaccine in the border area.

Polio is endemic in Nigeria, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, according to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative spearheaded by the WHO.

[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.]