In this bulletin:

• Al-Qaeda's Sanctuary
• On the trail of the Taliban's support
• US, NATO urged to take unilateral action in Waziristan
• Tackling the Taliban
• The dilemma of our Afghan policy
• Duceppe denies plan to topple government
• Duceppe has humiliated himself on Afghanistan
• Canada doesn't see safer Afghanistan in next year
• Afghan street children finding way out of poverty through job training programs
• Italy pledges $9 m aid to Afghanistan
• Afghanistan deal could net DynCorp over $2.1B
• Christmas a time of reflection for soldier in Afghanistan
• Flower shops bring Christmas to Kabul

Al-Qaeda's Sanctuary - Washington Post Editorial

Thursday, December 21, 2006 - THREE MONTHS ago the Pakistani government struck a deal with pro-Taliban leaders in the district of North Waziristan, bordering Afghanistan: It agreed to abandon military operations, withdraw the army and release prisoners in exchange for promises that the militants would cease cross-border attacks and disarm the foreign terrorists in their midst. That the extremists would not respect the accord, and that attacks on U.S. forces in Afghanistan would increase rather than decline, obviously seemed likely at the time. Yet President Bush, ever indulgent of Pakistan's autocratic ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, accepted his promises. "When the president looks me in the eye and says the tribal deal is intended to reject the Talibanization of the people, and that there won't be a Taliban and won't be al-Qaeda, I believe him," Mr. Bush declared when he met Gen. Musharraf at the White House on Sept. 22.

As senior administration officials now acknowledge, Gen. Musharraf's assurances were empty -- as they have been many times before. According to multiple independent reports, Waziristan has been thoroughly Talibanized, and the fundamentalists are spreading their influence through adjacent border districts. Cross-border attacks and the deaths of American soldiers that they cause are up significantly. Al-Qaeda is reliably reported to be operating training camps in North Waziristan with the help of scores of foreign militants who are schooling recruits in suicide bombing and the use of improvised explosive devices. According to a stunning report in the current edition of Newsweek, they are also preparing Western citizens who could carry out major terrorist attacks in Britain or the United States.

Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte grossly understated the case last week when he told The Post that "tribal authorities are not living up to the deal" struck by Gen. Musharraf and that the Taliban cross-border activity "causes serious problems." Considering the grave threat to U.S. soldiers and the homeland itself posed by the Pakistani sanctuary, the intelligence chief sounded positively laconic. "Sooner or later the government will have to reckon with it," he said, before quickly offering excuses for Gen. Musharraf, who, he said, "has a domestic political balancing act to perform."

In fact the situation in Pakistan's border areas is starting to look a lot like eastern Afghanistan before Sept. 11, 2001. President Bush and Mr. Negroponte ought to be asking themselves if they are repeating history by tolerating the situation. They need not do so: The United States has provided Gen. Musharraf strategic cover and billions of dollars in military and economic aid since 2001. In return it should have the right to demand that he abandon his separate peace. Action must be taken against Taliban and al-Qaeda forces in Pakistan before spring, when another major offensive against U.S. and NATO forces can be expected unless the enemy bases and supply lines are disrupted.

As for Gen. Musharraf's political problems, these could be addressed if he stopped allying himself with Pakistan's own Muslim fundamentalists and rehabilitated the secular democratic political parties that he has repressed since his 1999 coup. He could also abolish the colonial governing system in the tribal areas, under which secular political parties are banned and mullahs empowered, and allow representative government. By tolerating the general's empty promises and excuses, the Bush administration is putting its mission in Afghanistan and homeland security into unacceptable jeopardy.

On the trail of the Taliban's support

The Los Angeles Times - 12/24/2006 By Paul Watson - More signs suggest Pakistan plays a role in aiding the Afghan insurgency

LIZHA, AFGHANISTAN — The guerrillas followed a dirt road from the Pakistan border through a valley surrounded by low, grassy mountains to their target: an Afghan police post.

Not long after sunset, they opened fire from several sides. For almost four hours, scores of suspected Taliban fighters outgunned the lightly armed Afghan border police, and almost overran their camp.

Then, as quickly as it started, the fight ended. The militants picked up their dead and wounded and fled back into sanctuaries, three miles away, in one of the loosely governed tribal areas of Pakistan.

"A hundred armed Taliban men passed through the Pakistani border with their equipment, and with their rocket-propelled grenade launchers," said Qasim Khail, commander of the Afghan border police's 2nd Brigade, which guards the post here. "And they retreated the same way. There are only two escape routes out of here, and both of them end at a Pakistani border post."

Confidential documents obtained by The Times show that for at least two years, U.S. military intelligence agencies have warned American commanders that Taliban militants were arming and training in Pakistan, then slipping into Afghanistan with the help of Pakistani border control officers.

On Sept. 5, Pashtun tribal leaders in Pakistan's North Waziristan border region signed a pact with the central government in Islamabad led by President Pervez Musharraf, an avowed ally of the U.S. in its declared war on terrorism.

Under the agreement, the Pakistani army, which had fought fierce battles with pro-Taliban militants, withdrew from the region, leaving a tribal force in charge of border posts. In return, the tribesmen foreswore giving support, training and sanctuary to Taliban and Al Qaeda-linked fighters, although some foreigners were allowed to remain.

But the violence has not abated. Instead, Afghan officials and the U.S. military say that since the pact was signed, cross-border attacks have escalated.

Like many Afghans, Khail believes that despite Musharraf's persistent denials, his country's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, still supports the Taliban and at least some of its allies. The intelligence documents show that the U.S. military shared this suspicion as recently as the start of this year.

Doubts about Pakistan's denials are reminiscent of the 1990s, when Islamabad contended that the ISI did not help found, train and arm the Taliban, though Pakistani heavy weapons and military officers were found among Taliban units.

Pakistan has historically sought influence in Afghanistan, in part because of a border dispute dating back to 1893, when the British drew a border, called the Durand Line, that divided the Pashtun tribal areas.

When Musharraf decided to publicly turn against the Taliban after the Sept. 11 attacks, some in Pakistan's security establishment warned that it could lose influence in Afghanistan, a strategic crossroads between oil-rich Central Asia and the energy-starved Indian subcontinent. The increasing influence of rivals such as India, Iran, Russia and China have confirmed such fears.

Here in Khowst province, which borders North Waziristan, militants have killed at least 12 Afghan border police and wounded 52 since early September, Khail said.

Most villagers have family ties that cross the border. They believe that their government is too weak to defend them and so they are drifting toward the real power in the region, the Taliban, added Khail, who is Pashtun, as are most Taliban members.

In October, Khail said, Taliban fighters who attacked a border post took the body of an Afghan border policeman back to Pakistan, where they mutilated it and paraded it around a village. Khail soon got a phone call from a Pakistani police officer, who told the Afghan commander that he could pick up the Afghan's remains at the border in exchange for the body of a Taliban militant. Among the three Pakistanis attending the exchange was a man in a Pakistani police uniform, Khail said.

"The Pakistani police know everything about the border problems," he said. "The Pakistanis are giving them the weapons, and they are arranging the Taliban attacks. They are training them and they give them food. There are hundreds of training camps there in Pakistan."

Intelligence warnings have for months documented U.S. worries about Pakistan's role in providing a haven for Afghan insurgents.

A map prepared in early 2005 for a U.S. Army Special Operations task force warned that officers at Pakistani border control posts were "assisting insurgent attacks." It showed militants' infiltration routes from Pakistan, several of which crossed from North Waziristan to Khowst province, where members of Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorist network who have long been based in Afghanistan are still active.

On Jan. 19 of this year, a report from the U.S. military's Joint Intelligence Task Force said that Al Qaeda continued "to provide expertise and resources, such as weapons, training, and fighters to anti-coalition groups including the Taliban" and its allies, among which is Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hizb-i-Islami militia.

In a separate report the same month, the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, or DIA, identified six eastern provinces, including Khowst, as "Al Qaeda strongholds."

"These locations allow Al Qaeda members easy entrance and exit over the Afghanistan/Pakistan border," it added.

The document identified Al Qaeda's commander in Afghanistan as Khalid Habib, and said "Al Qaeda maintains close ties to the Taliban and has received technical support and training from Pakistani militant groups."

It warned that armed Afghans, Arabs and Pakistanis who might attack U.S. forces were in Afghanistan. And it said that Pakistan's ISI directorate posed "a HIGH intelligence threat to U.S. and Coalition forces."

Pakistani intelligence agencies were recruiting sources among Afghan interpreters for U.S. forces, collecting information on U.S. counterintelligence operations, the report said. It also noted continued risks for the U.S. military posed by spies for Iran, Russia and India.

The DIA report said Iranian spies gathered information from the U.S. Embassy's Afghan guards, interviewed Afghan visitors and shadowed American staff. It described the Iranians as a "critical threat."

Another DIA report from early this year said that senior Taliban leaders in Pakistan were directing operations that had led to a fourfold increase in suicide bombings. It said the bombings were carried out to boost Taliban morale and to show financial backers that it was worth funding the insurgency.

Like several other intelligence reports, the "Warning Assessment for Afghanistan" suggested that Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban's supreme leader who led the Afghan government until U.S.-led forces ousted it five years ago, may have split with other senior commanders over the increased used of suicide bombings. Omar's faction appeared "concerned about collateral damage turning the populace against the movement," the report said.

After the Nov. 27 battle at Lizha, about 12 miles southwest of a U.S. base in this border region, Khail's men counted 27 Taliban rocket-propelled grenade blast sites. One RPG exploded in the small, empty room where the police normally slept.

The 25 Afghan police defending the post had four RPGs; one hit a Taliban guerrilla as he crawled toward a gap in the camp's wall.

Days after the battle, the charred and blood-soaked remains of the patu blanket that he had worn lay on the ground, along with dried soybeans that he had spilled, about 15 yards from the barrier.

At least five militants were killed in the clash; the fighters took the bodies of three back with them. Afghan police, who did not suffer casualties, buried the other two near the dirt road leading to Pakistan. One of the dead men's black size 10 shoes lay at one end of his stony grave.

The raid was the third on the border post in as many months. Each time, the militants approached through the Zhawar Valley, which leads to an area of North Waziristan dominated by Taliban commander Jalaluddin Haqqani. His forces have a reputation for kidnappings, suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks.

Haqqani became the Taliban's supreme military commander on the eve of the 2001 war with U.S.-led troops and allied Afghan forces, and has escaped several U.S. airstrikes. His men appear determined to seize the Lizha camp; each attacking force is bigger and better-armed than the last, Khail said.

Abdul Ghafaar, the Lizha post's commander, said he radioed Khail in Khowst for help when his police came under attack Nov. 27. Khail said he immediately phoned the nearby U.S. base, which promised to send aircraft. But the besieged police post never saw one.

NATO, which took over command of U.S. and allied troops in eastern Afghanistan in October, said a support aircraft flew over the area but did not attack enemy forces.

Khail recently invited five tribal elders to his office in the hope of persuading them to help stop attacks on the border posts. They weren't sympathetic.

"They attacked my house," Haji Shad Raan said. "They have killed hundreds of our elders and they will try to kill us too. Now the first question you have to answer is, 'Who should I defend, my house or your post?' "

When Khail spoke, he was nearly pleading. "I know that your tribe is very brave, and I know that your tribesmen are very brave," he said he told them. "But all I complain about is that the enemy shoots at me from your door. The enemy shoots at me from your mosque. Can you do this much and stop them from shooting at me from your doorstep? Can't you?"

After the meeting, Khail said he understood why the elders were supporting his enemies. The Taliban is stronger, and in Pashtun culture, that commands respect and allegiance.

"We don't need a government that has no power or the ability to protect us," Gul Ahmad Khan told the police commander. "We know that this government is very weak. It only stands with the power of foreigners and nothing else."

US, NATO urged to take unilateral action in Waziristan

Pajhwok 12/23/2006 - KABUL -  "Action must be taken against Taliban and al-Qaeda forces in Pakistan before spring, when another major offensive against US and NATO forces can be expected unless the enemy bases and supply lines are disrupted," the leading American daily the Washington Post writes in an editorial published on Thursday under the caption "Al Qaeda's last sanctuary."

Without mentioning clearly as who should take the action inside Pakistani territory; however, the context shows that the call is directed at US and NATO forces stationed in Afghanistan.

The newspaper does not go into the consequences of what would happen if the US or its NATO allies were to take "action" in what is, after all, sovereign Pakistani territory.

The editorial also calls on Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf to stop allying himself with "Pakistan's own Muslim fundamentalists" and rehabilitate the secular democratic political parties that he has "repressed" since his 1999 coup.

"He could also abolish the colonial governing system in the tribal areas, under which secular political parties are banned and mullahs empowered, and allow representative government.

"By tolerating the general's empty promises and excuses, the Bush administration is putting its mission in Afghanistan and homeland security into unacceptable jeopardy, says the editorial.

The newspaper says that three months after Pakistan's signing of the peace deal with tribal leaders in North Waziristan, its failure is clear. "That the extremists would not respect the accord, and that attacks on US forces in Afghanistan would increase rather than decline, obviously seemed likely at the time. Yet President Bush, ever indulgent of Pakistan's autocratic ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf, accepted his promises."

The editorial claims that senior administration officials are now acknowledging that Musharraf's assurances were empty as they have been many times before. According to "multiple independent reports", Waziristan has been thoroughly Talibanised, and the fundamentalists are spreading their influence through adjacent border districts.

Tackling the Taliban

Madrid11.net 12/22/2006 - In an interview with Madrid11.net , noted journalist and Afghanistan expert Ahmed Rashid discusses negotiations with the Taliban and Pakistan's central role in the crisis.

In the west, the initial reaction to [Pakistani foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud] Kasuri's suggestion of negotiating with the Taliban was one of shock and rejection. Recently, however, the idea doesn't seem quite as preposterous . The assumption is of course that the Taliban cannot be beaten. Can the Taliban be dealt with by military means alone?

No, I don't think that the Taliban can be dealt with by military means alone, but at the same time I think we have to be very clear about what we mean when we say "negotiating with the Taliban". And that has to be that the present leadership of the Taliban is not acceptable. There has to be greater effort by the various countries involved – Pakistan, Afghanistan, western intelligence agencies – to divide the Taliban, and create a leadership that can be negotiated with, and which will be willing to accept the unitary state of Afghanistan, its sovereignty and present political structure.

The problem lies in that the west has given the job of trying to divide the Taliban to the Pakistan intelligence. What has happened in that process is that the Taliban rather than being divided have been strengthened. The extremists are being housed and given asylum and a base of operations within Pakistan. That has been the big problem.

How do you divide the Taliban? You have to prove to them militarily that they can't win. But you also have to be able to open negotiations with elements in there who may accept the present government.

The Pakistani foreign minister suggested that a similar arrangement to the one in place in Waziristan would work in Afghanistan. Is the situation in Waziristan worth emulating?

The deal signed by the Pakistani military has been signed with the extremists, with the Taliban and al-Qaida forces. It has not been signed by the tribal elders or the moderate Taliban. The extremists are already flouting it. In my opinion, the agreement has broken down.
It is totally worthless at the moment because the attacks against US and Afghan forces from Waziristan have in fact increased. The large number of suicide bombers that have penetrated into some of the cities including Kabul have also increased. They are happily killing local people who may oppose them. The agreement has already failed.

We seem to be nearing a time of uncomfortable diplomacy. If Washington does enter into negotiations or soften its line with Iran and Syria, will that heap further pressure on western officials to deal with the Taliban ?

Again, I'm all for negotiations, it just depends which Taliban we're talking about. If with Mullah Omar or Mullah Dadullah or any one of the present commanders who have been killing women and children and civilians, I don't think that's possible.
With other elements of the Taliban, yes.

How would you suggest, then, that Islamabad, Washington and London approach this "moderate" Taliban you've mentioned?

Number one, Pakistan has to arrest the leading memebers of the Taliban who are living in Pakistan, in Quetta: Mullah Omar, Mullah Daudullah their families are here, people know where they are. I think these leaders have to be arrested and an example has to be made of them. There's no need to hand them over to the Americans, but certainly what has to be demonstrated, as a number one priority, is that Pakistan's policy has changed, that Pakistan will no longer support the extremists. If that happens, then you will also see a corresponding shift in the Taliban, when the Taliban realise that without Pakistani support they cannot survive, and they'll shift to negotiations.

So far Washington's complete failure has been its refusal – not its inability – to question [Pakistani president Pervez] Musharraf on this matter.

You've been writing quite a bit recently about how many Pashtuns in Pakistan and Afghanistan are hoping to distance themselves and their communities from their reputation as supporters of the Taliban. What role can Pashtun political organisations on either side of the border play in tackling or undermining the Taliban?

I think they're already playing a very important role. Some of these secular and more nationalistic Pashtun organisations have been in touch with moderate elements of the Taliban. They have been persuading a lot of these Afghans to talk to the government in Kabul.

The problem here again is that they're not being supported properly. The problem is in Pakistan, where the secular Pashtun nationalists are not being supported by the government, but being suppressed by the military regime. Unless they have some degree of state support in what they're trying to do, they're not going to be able to move very far.

In persuading the moderate Taliban they also have to show they have power behind them. If they are a disenfranchised group, as secular Pashtun groups tend to be because the government is not supporting them, it's very difficult to persuade moderate Taliban to break ranks.

From the perspective of Islamabad, what concerns or pressures drove the Foreign Minister to such a suggestion? Is Pakistan rethinking its participation in the war on terror?

The military makes our foreign policy in Pakistan, not civilians, and the military has a strategic conception comprised of the following:

1) The Indian presence in Afghanistan, which it sees as a grave threat. It considers that Karzai and other Afghan leaders have allowed the Indian an overwhelming presence in Afghanistan, which I think is highly exaggerated and false.

2) They have this idea of strategic depth that no government in Afghanistan that is not entirely pro-Pakistan can be allowed. That is a result of the last ten years, when since 1992 most of the governments, not all, in Afghanistan from the mujahideen to the Taliban have been pro-Pakistan. The idea of an Afghanistan asserting its own sovereignty, being independent, having foreign relations with all the other countries is not acceptable to the military.

3) The role of the local fundamentalist parties that support the Taliban. The military has very close links to these fundamentalist parties because they are also providing manpower to fight in Kashmir. The miltiary has a 25year long political alliance with Pakistan's Islamic parites and extremist groups, and part of that is linked to supporting the Taliban.

If the military was to go against the Taliban in any way, that alliance would be jeopardised.

The dilemma of our Afghan policy - Farhatullah Babar, The News Int (Pak) 12.24.06

A critical question that needs to be asked regarding our Afghan policy, which has lately come under severe criticism, is who formulates the policy? There may be many factors responsible for instability in Afghanistan such as the presence of foreign troops, the warlords, the failure of the Kabul government to extend its writ, the problem of refugees and the alleged interference by Pakistan. But none of these factors can be adequately understood unless we address the most critical question namely; who formulates the Afghan policy and is the process transparent?

Obviously the Afghan policy has not been formulated by the parliament. The parliament has neither been consulted in its formulation nor encouraged to discuss its various aspects. During the past four years not one adjournment motion, a call attention notice or a motion or a resolution on our Afghan policy has come up in the parliament. Not because no effort was made by concerned members of parliament but because motions and resolutions seeking to discuss aspects of the Afghan policy were deflected.

The foreign office also does not seem to be adequately involved. It has been bypassed in dialogue with elements in tribal areas accused of fomenting trouble in Afghanistan. The tribal areas that are at the base of our Afghan policy have been taken over by the security agencies and turned into a no-go area for the civilians. Investigative journalists have actually been kidnapped and some even killed. No one from the foreign office has visited the tribal areas or met the tribal elders and other stakeholders. There is a veil of secrecy.

It appears that behind the visible facades of parliament and the foreign office the actual policy is in the hands of invisible elements. It is they who formulate the policy not only in a non-transparent and adhoc manner but are also not publicly accountable for it. This is the chief dilemma.

This is not a mere critique of the government. Writing in this newspaper on June 11, 2002, former foreign minister Sartaj Aziz said: "The foreign policy of the country, has been formulated by the military establishment particularly in the critical areas like Kashmir and Afghanistan…. Pakistan's foreign policy has been taking shape largely in isolation not only from the mainstream political thinking but also did not benefit from the advice of the foreign policy experts in the foreign office and various think-tanks".

The invisible operators have fought in the so-called Afghan jihad in the eighties. Some of them developed sympathies for the Afghan mujahideen who went on to merge into Taliban and Al Qaeda. Is it then not possible that elements sympathetic to them may be actually trying to revive the Taliban in the tribal areas?

In an interview with the NBC television on October 1 General Musharraf acknowledged that some retired officials of agencies could be assisting Taliban insurgents. "I have some reports that some dissidents some retired people who were in the forefront in ISI during the period of 1979 to 1989 may be assisting the links somewhere here and there", he said.

It has also been acknowledged that insurgency is taking place from Pakistan. On December 7 Foreign Minister Kasuri admitted in a press conference in Kabul, "I am not denying that people are coming from across the border but this is happening despite Pakistan".

The recent report by Brussels-based International Crisis Group on Pakistan's tribal areas says that the Musharraf government's ambivalent approach is destabilising Afghanistan and also Kabul's allies particularly the US and NATO. The report says that the appeasement of Taliban sympathisers has resulted in a base in tribal areas that militants are using to stoke instability both at home and in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Earlier Chris Patten, a former EU commissioner for external relations, in an article "What ails Afghanistan" in the Wall Street Journal wrote: "Pakistan's primary export to Afghanistan today is instability. The Taliban leaders are operating out of sanctuaries in Pakistan. If we are really going to get to the core of Afghanistan's instability, therefore, we must tackle Pakistan".

Pakistan has denied that peace agreements with Taliban, arrived at without consultations with the foreign office, have enabled the Taliban to re-group. But journalists who have reported that the peace pacts have led to the creation of virtual mini state of Taliban have been hounded. Remember how BBC's Dilawar Khan Wazir who first reported on Taliban's growing writ in tribal areas was kidnapped on November 19 in Islamabad.

One Taliban commander, Mullah Dadullah, recently claimed in a telephone interview with Rahimullah Yousufzai of this newspaper that he had travelled to Waziristan to persuade the Taliban to sign the peace pact with the Pakistan army. If Dadullah's claim, who is a wanted terrorist, were genuine it would be strange that he travelled to the tribal areas without being detected. If his claim were false it would be stranger that no effort was made to trace him from the call made from his cell phone. In case of Balochistan we claim that the sardars would not know what hit them but in the case of tribal areas the high tech capability seems to fail. Why?

We need to change our approach to Afghanistan to frame an Afghan policy. We must stop thinking in terms of Afghanistan as the fifth province of Pakistan or a country that provides us 'strategic depth'. The policy of treating Afghanistan as 'strategic depth' long nurtured by invisible operators has brought us face to face with strategic threat.

When policies are framed not by accountable institutions but by invisible and unaccountable operators it lacks comprehensiveness and suffers from adhocism. It is adhocism when we claim to have deployed over 70,000 troops in tribal areas to help Karzai but in the same breath say that we will mine the border. It is adhocism when in response to President Karzai's list of Taliban fighters allegedly operating from Pakistan General Musharraf publicly lambasts him as he did in a CNN interview on March 6: "This kind of nonsensical accusations are not acceptable".

The Afghan policy must be brought into the public domain. It should be extricated from the invisible security agencies and the foreign office should be allowed to play its role under parliamentary supervision. That is the only way to resolve the dilemma of our Afghan policy.

The writer is a former senator belonging to the Pakistan People’s Party.

Duceppe denies plan to topple government

GLORIA GALLOWAY The Globe and Mail

OTTAWA -- Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe says he never suggested that he would try to bring down the minority Conservative government early in the new year unless the military mission in Afghanistan is refocused.

"I didn't say we were coming with a motion in February," Mr. Duceppe told CTV's Question Period in an interview to be broadcast tomorrow.

"There are three major issues that we disagree [on] and we are having very specific demands: one on fiscal imbalance, one on Kyoto and a third one on Afghanistan. And I said if Stephen Harper doesn't change, and doesn't come with the demands we are asking for, well, he won't have our confidence on that," the Bloc Leader said. "So when people are saying we will make a motion, this is strategy. I never do open strategy. I never said that."

The Bloc is fighting to regain seats that were lost to the Conservatives in the Jan. 23 election, particularly in and around Quebec City.

Support for the Afghanistan mission has never been as strong in Mr. Duceppe's province as it is in other parts of Canada. And it could be further eroded in August when soldiers from the Royal 22nd Regiment from Valcartier, Que., replace those who are performing combat duties in on of the most dangerous areas of Afghanistan.

That could pose problems for the Conservatives and Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who have made it clear that they intend to honour Canada's commitment to stay in Afghanistan until 2009. Despite requests from Canada, some NATO allies in Europe are refusing to allow their soldiers to operate in the risky region where 36 Canadians have died this year.

In a speech on Dec. 11 to the Quebec Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Duceppe said the emphasis of the Canadian force must be turned from combat to reconstruction.

"If Mr. Harper refuses to make changes and remains incapable of getting better co-operation from our allies," he said, "we will not hesitate to withdraw our support and if we have to, defeat his government on the Afghan issue."

While Mr. Duceppe refused to say then when he would table such a motion, he did not rule out forcing a vote as early as February and said Mr. Harper must act rapidly. "Everything is possible," he said. "I'm not excluding anything. We will judge."

Between the time of Mr. Duceppe's speech in Quebec and his interview with CTV, Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion made it clear he would not support a Bloc effort to bring down the government over Afghanistan.

"I don't think the aim of Mr. Duceppe is so much Afghanistan but rather to rush into an election and not give the Liberal Party the capacity to organize ourselves. We will work hard and be ready for an election whenever it will come," Mr. Dion said on Tuesday.

"It doesn't seem very useful to me to want to bring down the government on that in February as Mr. Duceppe is proposing."

The Liberal Leader, who was also interviewed for tomorrow's Question Period, said he does not want an election in the near future but said he could not predict what would happen after the federal budget. The government would fall if the budget were defeated.

"A budget is coming and will [Mr. Harper] have the support of the House for the budget? Well, what is your guess? It may be yes, it may be no," Mr. Dion said.

"If the budget is unacceptable for Canadians, I cannot stand up and vote for something that I think will not be good for the country."

Duceppe has humiliated himself on Afghanistan

Friday, December 22, 2006 - The Gazette editorial - For the second time this fall, Gilles Duceppe has been too clever for his own good. Now on the Afghanistan issue, as earlier on the question of Quebec as a nation, the Bloc Quebecois leader has stumbled over his own little tripwires. In the process, he has appeared to be a man interested in polls rather than principles.

In Quebec City 10 days ago, Duceppe abruptly flipped his party's longtime position, announcing he might try to topple the minority Conservative government in January unless it changed the mission from one of combat to a reconstruction effort.

But Pierre Paquette, the Bloc's finance critic, quickly backtracked, denying that Duceppe had ever issued the threat "for the short term." He added next spring's federal "budget will come first."

Then, Bloc MP Claude Bachand reiterated Duceppe's original version to La Presse, repeating that the non-confidence motion could come first. Duceppe's face-saving parting shot this week was that he would not force an early vote unless "provoked."

Sovereignist leaders love to discover cases in which Quebec is "humiliated" by Ottawa. But in this case Duceppe has humiliated himself, in the process lending credibility to Prime Minister Stephen Harper's contention that Duceppe and the Bloc are "playing political games on the backs of our soldiers."

It's meaningless to rebuild a school or hospital when terrorists are just around the corner waiting for you to finish so they can bomb it - again. For that reason, the military campaign in Afghanistan is inseparable from the reconstruction drive. Duceppe also knows Harper's government set aside $1 billion over 10 years in its last budget to help rebuild Afghanistan, not a negligible sum.

In any event, Duceppe's threat proved to be empty. Not only has he backed away from it, but Liberal leader Stephane Dion rebuffed the idea of toppling the Conservatives over the issue. The Liberals want no part of this touchy issue, if only because on Afghanistan their caucus is the most divided in the House.

Dion argues the mission is failing to accomplish its objective of improving Afghans' lot. But he can hardly rattle a sabre about it, considering it was his party that boosted the Canadian contingent from 850 peacekeepers in Kabul to 2,500 combat troops in Taliban-riddled Kandahar last year. Dion also complains that Harper ramrodded an extension of the mission through Parliament, a complaint that is true enough but that lacks sting, since the Liberals never gave MPs a vote on the combat role in the first place.

As for the New Democrats ... well, who cares?

Whatever your view on the merits of the Afghan mission - and we believe firmly in this effort - it is hard to deny that the Conservatives alone have stuck to one principled position. Harper has displayed backbone and integrity in staking his political career on the Afghan operation.

Canada doesn't see safer Afghanistan in next year - Thu Dec 21, 2006 - By Randall Palmer

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Afghanistan is unlikely to get safer in 2007, but if the world abandons the fight against the Taliban it will only find itself sucked back in to combat terrorism later, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in an interview released on Thursday.

Parliament backed a motion from Harper in May to keep Canadian troops in the country at least until February 2009 but he is under pressure now from the opposition either to pull out or to put less emphasis on war and more on aid.

Harper told Global television his goal was to make progress over the next couple years in securing southern Afghanistan, the dangerous part of the country where 2,500 Canadian troops are fighting a Taliban insurgency.

"Obviously we'd like the security situation to improve," he said, adding he expected progress. "Frankly, I don't think it will improve in the next 12 months."

But he said the alternative of an early withdrawal -- demanded by the New Democratic Party, the smallest of three opposition parties in Parliament -- is unthinkable.

"If we pull out today, if Canada, and those that are carrying the freight -- and there's seven or eight countries in the south that are doing most of the heavy lifting -- if we all leave, my prediction is we'll be back there in less than a decade," he said.

"The Taliban represents not just a tyrannical force in Afghanistan but one that has made it clear it intends to spread violence and hatred throughout the world and has shown a capacity to do so in the past. I think if we leave, it will only come back to haunt us."

Canada's other two opposition parties, the Liberals and the Bloc Quebecois, are asking Harper to change the Afghan mission to one involving more reconstruction. "Do you think if the government could put more of our emphasis on reconstruction and aid that that's not what we would be doing?" Harper asked.

"The emphasis is on the military side because these people are in danger, because the strongest resistance in all of Afghanistan... What am I going to tell them (the soldiers)? Don't shoot? Go out and drop your weapons and start going out and delivering aid? I mean, it's crazy."

In a separate interview, with Omni television, Harper said it was not possible for Canada to have been neutral in the struggle in July and August between Israel and Lebanon's Shi'ite militant group Hezbollah. "I do not believe Canada can be neutral in a conflict between a democratic state and a terrorist organization bent on its destruction. I don't make any secret of that," he said.

"We cannot be neutral toward terrorist groups. These groups threaten us in Afghanistan. They threaten us here and in other parts of the world." Harper had been sympathetic to Israel's invasion of Lebanon in response to shelling of Israeli towns and kidnapping of Israeli soldiers.

Afghan street children finding way out of poverty through job training programs

The Associated Press 12/24/2006 - KABUL - Ahmed Fawad pushed his handcart through Kabul's chaotic market center, past honking cars and braying donkeys, looking for a profitable spot to sell his pile of yellow apples.

But the corner traffic cop did not like the 14-year-old fruit seller taking up a lane of his traffic and chased him away. "Go away," the policeman shouted. "This is not the place to be selling apples."

Youngsters have to grow up fast in Afghanistan — particularly the 60,000 children who eke out livelihoods on the street. They sell produce or newspapers, collect empty soda cans, shine shoes or hail passengers for taxi drivers as a way to help their families survive.

Fawad's mornings are spent selling apples or red pomegranates, which can net him up to $8 (€6.22) a day. His afternoons are dedicated to his future.

That's when the teenager studies carpentry at a vocational training center sponsored by the Social Affairs Ministry. Fawad is one of 37,000 young Afghans taking part in some kind of job education across the country, said Mohammad Ghous Bashiri, a deputy minister.

The classes are held in provincial community centers, often with the help of aid groups. They are one way the Afghan government is trying to help street children, many of whom were orphaned by the country's wars in the 1990s.

Many street kids do not go to regular schools, because they cannot afford to buy supplies or because they must dedicate every hour of the day to making money.

A recent survey by UNICEF, Save The Children and the Ministry of Social Affairs found some 8,000 children age 14 and younger work on the streets of Kabul, said Wahidullah Barikzai, a ministry official. There are not any statistics to show whether that is up or down from previous years, he said.

Poverty runs so wide and deep in Afghanistan that families must struggle to earn money. Years of fighting, first by Afghan groups against occupying Soviet troops and then among the factions themselves, killed thousands of men, leaving many households without a breadwinner and untold numbers of women and children to fend for themselves.

Some working children say they also cannot take time to go to the training centers. "My father is dead," Ahmed Shafiq, 13, said while selling plastic bags on a crowded street. "And I have my mother and three sisters I have to support."

Fawad's fruit-selling job provides much of his family's income and pays for the family's $40 monthly rent. His father hasn't been able to find work since he was fired from the Education Ministry last year, while his mother and 16-year-old sister make dresses they sell to neighbors. Fawad also supports his 9-year-old brother.

Fawad said he was excited when he heard about the carpentry course offered by a foreign aid group. He is tired of selling produce and wants the chance to do something different.

"I want to be a carpenter and participate in the reconstruction of my country," said the teen, who will soon earn a certificate allowing him to look for work in carpentry. "I will have a good income when I make windows and doors."

The Afghan aid organization Aschiana, which means "nest" in the Afghan language of Dari, offers street kids classes in subjects like carpentry, computers, music and theater.

Nearly 10,000 have attended the group's classes in three provinces, and hundreds have found jobs so far, said Mohammad Yasouf, the Aschiana director.

"We try to help those children who have nobody in their families to support the family to learn one of the skills, then we will provide the opportunity for them to find a job," he said. "We don't want them to be on the streets anymore."

Shoaib Ahmedi, a 12-year-old who washes cars and hails cabs for passengers to buy food for his family, comes to Aschiana's music classes with dirty hands and dirty clothes. But his face lights up as he practices the harmonia, a small keyboard instrument that sounds like an accordion.

"I have to work on the street and support my family. I have no any other choice," he said between songs. "I feel very happy when I play the harmonia by myself."

Italy pledges $9 m aid to Afghanistan

KABUL: Italy's aid to the Afghanistan's Reconstruction Trust Fund will reach about $9 millions by the end of 2007.

A statement issued by the Italian embassy said the decision by the Italian government would help Afghanistan to pay a portion of expenses of the ongoing reconstruction process.

Quoting the Italian ambassador to Afghanistan Ettor Francesco Sequi, the statement said Italy would remain committed to help Afghanistan and the increase in aid mark the trust and confidence of that country over Afghan officials.

Speaking to Pajhwok Afghan News, first secretary at the Italian embassy Sara Rezoagli said the Italian aid to the trust fund would start pouring in mid-2007.

The amount from Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund is used for payment of salaries of teachers, health workers, ministerial and provincial workers, administrative purposes, capacity building and repatriation programmes

Afghanistan deal could net DynCorp over $2.1B

12/24/2006 - By TOD ROBBERSON / The Dallas Morning News

After nearly a decade of experience eradicating illicit-drug crops in Colombia for the State Department, DynCorp has won a new contract that could earn the company more than $2.1 billion over the next 10 years and will include operations in Afghanistan, the world’s biggest producer of opium.

Marc Grossman, a Clinton administration undersecretary of state who helped initiate a $4 billion counter-narcotics effort known as Plan Colombia, said DynCorp’s eradication operation was well worth the taxpayers’ money. He now serves with Gen. Barry McCaffrey on DynCorp’s board of directors.

“When Plan Colombia was getting started, there was this fear that the drug problem was going to go wildly out of control, that it was going to explode and that it would never be stabilized,” he said. The fact that cultivation is back on the rise and drug smuggling into the United States is close to the same levels as 2000 is “not great because you’d like it to go down. But … the fact that there hasn’t been any doubling or tripling of this crop seems to me at least a worthwhile point to make.”

During the past decade, however, Colombian pilots have not replaced DynCorp on crop-dusting missions, as required in a training contract the company signed with the State Department in 1995. The cost savings could have been significant, according to a 1998 study by the General Accounting Office, now known as the Government Accountability Office.

Citing State Department estimates, the GAO said, “The direct costs of supporting the contractor [DynCorp] in Colombia increased from about $6.6 million in fiscal year 1996 to $36.8 million in fiscal year 1999. According to the State Inspector General, U.S.-provided contractor pilots and mechanics are paid between 2.5 and 4 times more than the Colombian contractors employed by the National Police.”

Asked why the government is forgoing the cost savings and continuing to use DynCorp, Mr. Grossman responded, “If there’s an implication to your question that people kept the Colombians from doing this in order to keep this contract [in DynCorp’s hands], I don’t believe that. Don’t forget that DynCorp has lost people; they’ve had people taken hostage there. This is not a cost-free thing for the company, just as it’s not a cost-free thing for the United States of America.”

The State Department declined interview requests for this story. From 2005 to 2008, DynCorp will have received $643 million for eradication work, mainly in Colombia and Afghanistan.

As the White House director of national drug policy under President Bill Clinton, Gen. McCaffrey introduced Plan Colombia as a way to combat the leftist guerrilla forces who had seized much of the country’s cocaine and opium trade in the 1990s and were using the profits to expand their war.

Christmas a time of reflection for soldier in Afghanistan

Saturday, December 23, 2006 - Canadian Press - MAS'UM GHAR, Afghanistan -- It may be the season of brotherly love in other parts of the world but here in Afghanistan the credo is a bit simpler: kill or be killed.

Canadian soldiers have become accomplished combat troops since arriving here, and the Canadian-led Operation Medusa in September added lustre to their war-time reputation on the international stage.

But the fact remains, being in a war means Canadian troops are having to kill the enemy and it's something soldiers have to deal with on a personal level.

"I haven't had a single kill that has bothered me and there's been a lot of them. None of them have bothered me at all," reflected one private, who cannot be identified because of a ban by the Canadian military.

"You sit and wonder if it should and you wonder why it doesn't bother you; I mean to see bodies explode or to see them chopped into little pieces by a machine gun and know that you did it," he added.

The soldier is a gunner on a light armoured vehicle, which sports both a machine-gun and a 25-mm cannon. As a member of the PPCLI (Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry) he and his mates have seen plenty of action.

"On Aug. 19 at Mas'um Ghar it was about nine hours fighting out at 360 degrees and there was a body count of 72 the next morning and they always carry their dead away so I would imagine there were 120-130 dead Taliban," he said.

"I had an RPG hit my turret, I was in a little jeep with a glass window on it but it was too close for it to arm so it just bounced over my head. I fired about 3,000 rounds out of a machine-gun in about 15 minutes," recalled the 28-year-old former heavy equipment mechanic.

The decision to kill under the rules of engagement is something each soldier has to decide before they come here he said, as he checked supplies and ammunition on his LAV high above the forward operating base at Mas'um Ghar, which is Afghan for "Beautiful Mountain."

"The Taliban are doing things I don't agree with. My country says it's all right for me to do it, my God says it's all right for me to do it. They're doing things he doesn't agree with too, so it makes it easy to do it," he concluded.

But being here has been a life altering experience and the long-term consequences worry him. "You wonder if you're going to be normal. I know I've caught myself wondering if I will ever be the same again and how I will adjust," he added.

Troops at Mas'um Ghar are on standby and would likely be called in if necessary to help out with Operation Baaz Tsuka, a NATO-led offensive against the Taliban in the Panjwaii and Zahre districts.

Canadian troops have set up a combat team, including tanks, troops and LAVs near the village of Howz-e Madad. There have been no battles with Taliban forces and NATO reported Saturday it had secured a third village in the area without incident.

NATO, along with Afghan security forces, have now taken control of Howz-e Madad, Zangabad and now Talukan without a shot being fired. Hundreds of hardline Taliban members are believed to be hiding out in the region south of Howz-e Madad.

Canadian military officials said the Taliban have nowhere to go with Canadian troops to the north and east, British to the west and American and British forces to the south.

Flower shops bring Christmas to Kabul

The Associated Press 12/24/2006 - KABUL - In devoutly Muslim Afghanistan, Christmas is like any other day — people go to work, there are no blinking lights lining the streets and pine trees remain unadorned — except on Flower Street, where local tree vendors are making an extra buck from the foreigners' holiday.  

Located in the heart of Kabul, Flower Street is different at Christmas from any other time of year, transformed into a festive place full of trees decked with multicolored tinsel garlands and lights.

"After the Taliban, we started to make Christmas trees because lots of foreigners are around, and they are asking for them," said Eidy Mohammad as he decorated a tree at his shop, the Morsal Flower Store. "Business is growing — we had only the wedding season before, but now we have Christmas as well."

Unlike many non-Christian countries in Asia, Afghanistan does not recognize or celebrate Christmas. But thousands of foreigners who live in Kabul working with the United Nations, non-governmental organizations or international military forces, celebrate the holiday quietly in restaurants and behind military barracks.

Many shop at Flower Street for their holiday trees. "Christmas is a good season for flower stores in Kabul," Mohammad said, adding that during the Taliban's rule, nobody was allowed to make Christmas trees in Kabul.

He has sold about a dozen Christmas trees, earning anywhere from US$20 to US$200 — a hefty sum for Afghans, many of whom make only about US$50 a month. The trees are from across Afghanistan and are adorned with Chinese-made artificial materials.

"I was amused when I saw trees with lights," said 29-year-old Abdul Qader. He thought the lit-up trees were a new fad in Afghan home deco, but he later found out they were for Christmas. "They looked beautiful to me," he said with a smile.

[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.]