In this bulletin:

• US general expects more violence in Afghanistan
• 'One killed' in Afghan bomb blast
• Afghanistan: Militants set fire to a school in southern Helmand
• 'Pak launches hunt for 150 Taleban fugitives after receiving a list from Kabul'
• Pakistan, Afghanistan to start trans-border bus service
• AFGHAN PRESIDENT CONFRONTS PAKISTANI COUNTERPART OVER SUICIDE BOMBERS
• Two tribesmen shot dead in S. Waziristan
• Albania sends 22 troops to Afghanistan
• U.S. might be dragging NATO into new Afghan war
• General Dostum supports disbandment of illegal armed groups
• Tajikistan, Iran, Afghanistan Sign Deal On Electric Power Line
• The West pushes to reform traditionalist Afghan courts
• Tallying up the Taliban
• Officer says winning in Afghanistan depends on world delivering promised aid
• Afghan task good — but painful — for Canada
• Afghan Paper Highlights Importance of Northern Highways
• Afghanistan starts testing for 'virtually unavoidable' bird flu
• Parliamentary Pay Deal Draws Protests
• Film Director Gets Early Start
• Afghanistan: Tourism as drive train of the economical development

US general expects more violence in Afghan istan - By Yousuf Azimy Feb 21

BAGRAM, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Insurgents will increase attacks in Afghanistan in coming months, the top U.S. general in the country said on Tuesday, as NATO finalized plans to deploy troops in the restive south of the country.

Lieutenant-General Karl Eikenberry said U.S.-led forces would expand efforts to improve coordination and trust between Afghan and Pakistani forces as part of a campaign aimed against insurgents Afghan officials say operate from neighboring Pakistan.

"We can anticipate there will be more fighting in the months ahead," Eikenberry told a ceremony for a change of command between U.S. forces at the main U.S. military base at Bagram, north of Kabul.

"The enemy will increasingly resort to atrocities in an effort to attack the will of the Afghan people and their international partners and to reverse the extraordinary gains that have been made during the last four years," he said.

Eikenberry was referring to the period since U.S.-led forces overthrew the Taliban government in late 2001 for refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the September 11 attacks on the United States.

The general's comments come as NATO-led troops brace to expand their mission in coming months into the south, the focus of a Taliban-inspired insurgency that has killed more than 1,500 people in the past year, including nearly 70 foreign troops.

The expansion, which will eventually include the east, will allow Washington to trim its troop strength in Afghanistan and focus on hunting militants active near the border with Pakistan.

The Afghan government says the militants orchestrate most of their attacks from Pakistan, which says it does all it can to stop the cross border infiltration of the guerrillas.

President Hamid Karzai visited Pakistan last week and urged it to crack down on the militants. Officials said he handed over dossiers detailing Taliban activities in Pakistan.

"We will broaden our efforts to...improve operational coordination between Afghanistan and Pakistan and promote exchanges and trust between the Pakistani military and the Afghan national security forces," Eikenberry said.

'One killed' in Afghan bomb blast - BBC News 22 February 2006

One person has been killed and at least 12 injured in a bomb blast near Nato peacekeepers in northern Afghanistan, police say. A bomb planted on a bicycle exploded near three UN vehicles parked close to a bazaar in the city of Kunduz, local police chief Mutalib Beg said.

Police officials said one German peacekeeper was among the wounded. the Nato-led peacekeeping force in the relatively calm north of the country has suffered several recent attacks.

Nato confirmed the attack but would not give the injured soldier's nationality. A spokesman for the German military in Germany said one German soldier had been wounded and at least one Afghan killed an attack on a military vehicle, the Associated Press reported.

Nato is currently boosting its troop numbers in Afghanistan from 9,000 to about 16,000, as peacekeepers move into the unstable south where Taleban forces continue to operate four years after the US-led invasion.

Afghanistan: Militants set fire to a school in southern Helmand

[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

Kabul, 21 February (IRIN) - Suspected Taliban militants have set fire to a school for some 1,500 boys in Afghanistan's southern province of Helmand, officials confirmed on Tuesday.

"Last night militants set fire to a boys' high school in Zarghon village of Nadali district, around 17 km west of the district capital, Lashkargah. All the books, desks and chairs have been burnt, but no one was killed or injured in the incident," Haji Mohammad Qasim, head of Helmand's educational department, said, adding the villagers had extinguished the fire. "There were around 1,500 boys in the school," Qasim noted.

An investigation is now under way in the area, but nobody has been arrested yet, according to local police officials. At least 15 schools have been set ablaze in Helmand since last year, and according to officials around 200 other schools have been closed in the southern provinces of Zabul, Kandahar, Helmand, and Urozgan due to insecurity.

Militants, battling US-led coalition and government forces, have recently launched numerous attacks on schools and teachers in Kandahar and Helmand provinces. Suspected Taliban guerillas set fire to three primary schools in the Nawa district of Helmand in January.

In December, suspected Taliban gunmen dragged a teacher from his classroom and shot him at the gates of his school after he ignored warnings to stop teaching boys and girls in a mixed class in the southern province of Helmand.

In a separate attack, also in December, gunmen shot and killed an 18-year-old male student and a guard at another school in Helmand. In Zabul province, also in the south, in another gruesome incident, a teacher was dragged from his home and beheaded in February.

Insecurity remains a key issue in post-Taliban Afghanistan. Despite the deployment of thousands of US and NATO forces, at least 1,600 people died in conflict-related violence in 2005. Ninety-one US troops died in combat or as a result of accidents in 2005 - more than double the total for 2004.

'Pak launches hunt for 150 Taleban fugitives after receiving a list from Kabul'

ISLAMABAD (The Associated Press 02/22/2006) - Pakistani security agencies are looking for about 150 Taleban fugitives whose names were provided to Islamabad by the Afghan president, local media reported on Wednesday.

Hamid Karzai handed over the list to Pakistani officials during his trip to this Islamic nation last week, a major Pakistan English language newspaper Dawn quoted the country's Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao as saying.

"Yes, we have received a list of about 150 terrorists who are believed to be hiding in Pakistan," Sherpao told the newspaper. It was not immediately clear whose names were on the list. Afghan officials have said that Taleban chief Mullah Omar and scores of his associates are hiding near the Pakistan-Afghan border.

Pakistan, a former supporter of the Taleban but now a key US ally in the war on terror, has deployed thousands of troops along the Afghan border, and says it has done everything it can to flush out remnants of the Taleban regime and al-Qaida, and to prevent them from sneaking across the border.

According to Pakistani officials, Karzai during his meetings with Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and other officials had discussed how they could enhance cooperation in the war on terror.

Although some Afghan officials, who traveled with Karzai, had told some newsmen that they had given the list of about 150 suspects to Pakistan, no Pakistani or Afghan government spokesmen would confirm this on the record.

Sherpao on Wednesday was not immediately available for comment. After returning home Saturday, Karzai confirmed he had given the Pakistanis detailed information about suspects including their whereabouts.

"We have not given a list of 150 persons to anybody, but we have given some documents, ... specific information about individuals and their locations and we are hopeful that measures should be taken from both sides - from their side and from our side," he told reporters.

Karzai also said that Afghanistan was awaiting notification of what measures are taken by Pakistan to capture these suspects.

Pakistan, Afghanistan to start trans-border bus service - 02/22/2006

Pakistan and Afghanistan agreed in principle Wednesday to start a cross-border bus service with trial runs beginning next month, officials said. Transport officials from both countries may sign a formal agreement on Thursday, said Firdus Alam, a senior official from Pakistan 's Communication Ministry.

The bus service would link the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar with Jalalabad, the capital of Afghanistan 's eastern Nangarhar province. The service is scheduled to start March 20, said Mohammed Hashim Waiz, the head of the Afghan delegation at the talks.

The two countries will discuss starting another bus service between the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta and Kandahar in southern Afghanistan after looking at the outcome of the Peshawar-Jalalabad route, Alam said. Pakistan is home to millions of Afghan refugees, and illegal border crossings are common, reports the AP.

AFGHAN PRESIDENT CONFRONTS PAKISTANI COUNTERPART OVER SUICIDE BOMBERS
Ahmed Rashid: 2/21/06

Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s administration, backed by the United States and Britain, is pressuring Pakistan to take action to stop suicide bombings in Afghanistan. During his recent visit to Islamabad, Karzai presented evidence to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf implicating Pakistan in the recruitment, training and equipping of Islamic radical suicide bombers.

Karzai’s three-day visit Pakistan ended February 17. On the visit’s first day, the Afghan and Pakistani leaders jointly pledged to intensify counter-terrorism activities. At least 30 suicide bombing attacks, carried out by the Taliban and al Qaeda, have killed nearly 100 people in Afghanistan over the past three months. Most of the victims have been Afghan civilians. Anti-Pakistan sentiment has been rising in Afghanistan. There have been dozens of demonstrations in towns across the country, against the alleged support that Pakistan’s Inter-services Intelligence (ISI) is giving to the Taliban.

“We have provided President Musharraf with a lot of very detailed information on acts of terrorism being carried out in Afghanistan, and we discussed in great detail what actions Pakistan could now take,” Karzai said. “We expect results; we expect that terrorist attacks will decrease.”

Karzai made it clear that the United States and Britain had increased diplomatic pressure on Pakistan to sever ties with the Taliban. “There will be thousands of British troops deployed in the south against the Taliban and neither Britain nor Afghanistan is in any mood to tolerate any more casualties,” said Karzai. “Britain will be piling on the pressure from now on.” About 4,000 British troops began deploying in southern Afghanistan in mid-February. Most of the British soldiers will be stationed in Helmand Province, where the Taliban have conducted increasingly aggressive operations in recent months.

The dossiers given by Karzai to Musharraf included the names and addresses of Pakistani recruiters, trainers and those who equip them with suicide vests and explosives before they are sent into Afghanistan. Much of the recruitment takes place at a radical Islamic bookshop, several mosques and madrassas in the port city of Karachi, while the training is done at safe houses in Quetta and Chaman, in Balochistan province.

‘’In places like Karachi, Pakistani extremist groups working on behalf of the Taliban for a fee, carry out the recruitment and then bring them to safe houses in Balochistan for training and equipping with vests,’’ said a senior Afghan official who accompanied Karzai. The senior official added that Afghan leaders repeated a request that Pakistani officials take action to detain top Taliban commanders, including Mullah Mohammed Omar, who are known to be living in Pakistan with their families.

Islamabad no longer denies that the Taliban is active on Pakistani territory, but officials insist that the government has nothing to do with it. Musharraf, who usually is vehement in denying any kind of Pakistani connection to terrorist operations, was clearly subdued as a result of the Afghan intelligence given him, evidently combined with behind-the-scenes reprimands issued by the United States and Britain. After his February 15 meeting with Karzai, Musharraf called on ‘’all the progressive political elements in Pakistan’’ to suppress those who may be abetting the Taliban.

Karzai vowed that Afghan intelligence services had the ability to keep tracking Islamic radicals in Pakistan, even if ISI failed to cooperate and the militants took new measures to conceal their activities. “We will uncover them again, we have the abilities to do so,” Karzai said.

Western diplomats said Washington and London have also joined Afghan leaders in stepping up the pressure on the ISI to find and hand over Taliban leaders hiding in Pakistan. Since the September 11 terrorist tragedy, the focus of the US-led anti-terrorist coalition has been to seek Pakistan’s help in capturing al Qaeda militants, rather than Taliban suspects. Now that appears to be changing. US satellites are gathering intelligence about Taliban activities in Pakistan rather than just concentrating on al Qaeda. According to Western diplomats, during a recent visit to Islamabad, Gen. John Abizaid, the head of the US Central Command showed the Pakistanis intelligence photos of Taliban training camps at an undisclosed location and asked for them to be shut down.

Editor’s Note : Ahmed Rashid is a Pakistan-based journalist and author of the book "Taliban: Militant Islam and Fundamentalism in Central Asia."

Two tribesmen shot dead in S. Waziristan - The News: Jang By Sailab Mahsud 2/22/06

TANK: Unknown militants shot dead two tribesmen in the border village of Angoor Adda in South Waziristan while a government school in the same place was blown up with explosives on the night between Monday and Tuesday.

Official and tribal sources said attackers with their faces covered fired at Badshah Khan and his brother Rasul Khan on Monday afternoon in Angoor Adda, located on the border with Afghanistan and killed them on the spot. The killers walked on foot while pursuing the two men and calmly walked away after committing the crime.

In similar targeted killings in the past, attackers invariably used white wide-bodied cars during their hit-and-run attacks.

It wasn’t clear as to why the two victims were targeted. Some of the villagers said militants operating in the area suspected Badshah Khan and Rasul Khan of spying for the US and the Afghan government. They said the two men frequently travelled across the border to Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, three rooms and boundary wall of the Government Primary School in Panjgoona village near Angoor Adda were destroyed by the blast caused by the bomb placed there by unknown people. The school is located on the premises owned by a local cleric, Maulana Shakirullah. The explosion took place at in the early hours of Tuesday. There was nobody at the school when it was blown up.

Albania sends 22 troops to Afghanis tan

TIRANA, Feb. 21 (Xinhuanet) -- A 22-troop Albanian army peacekeeping contingent left for Afghanistan on Tuesday, said the Defense Ministry. The newly-sent soldiers will come under the command of Turkish troops, and will be deployed over a six-month period, the ministrysaid in a statement.

As part of the joint medical team with Macedonia and Croatia, Albania has also sent 12 medical staff to assist NATO's military personnel and civilians of Kabul. Albania, located in southeastern Europe, has also sent 120 military personnel to Iraq and 70 troops to Bosnia. Enditem

U.S. might be dragging NATO into new Afghan war

Moscow. (RIA Novosti political commentator Pyotr Goncharov 02.22.06) – The United States, in a manner that is already becoming hard to ignore, is clearly doing its best to drag the Atlantic Alliance into a new Afghan war.

Committing to build up the NATO peacekeeping force in Afghanistan to 15,000 last October, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer left an impression that the Alliance was just going to expand the area of responsibility of its International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). This deployment had been made reluctantly under intense pressure from Washington who sought to share at least part of responsibility for Afghanistan action with its European allies and was therefore encumbered with a tight ring fence of self-imposed limitations.

In the first two to three years of the broader counter-terrorist Operation Enduring Freedom, the U.S. did not doubt its future success. In a media questions session at the U.S. base in Bagram on Christmas Eve 2003, Joint Chiefs Chairman Richard Myers and David Barno, the allied commanding general, were very optimistic about Enduring Freedom and said the U.S. presence in Afghanistan would not last longer than the situation required. Now, in fact, the situation seems to require more ISAF contingents and a larger area of responsibility.

There is a rumor in the media that the current ISAF area of responsibility, which does not go far beyond the loyal capital Kabul and northern and western provinces bordering on Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Iran, will expand into volatile southern provinces, and the Allied Command will send around 6,000 British, Canadians and Dutch there.

Southern provinces Zabol, Kandahar, and Helmand, and eastern Paktia, Paktika, and Khost, broadly known as a “Pushtu tribal area”, have long been an engine of instability for the whole country, which comes as no surprise as its Pakistani border has been porous and insecure since the early days of the Afghan statehood, whoever was in power. This area, where it is unclear at what point Afghanistan ends and Pakistan begins, is the most volatile; it is home to al-Qaeda leftovers and rebounding Taliban.

Of course the multinational force will all but reach its stated goal to ensure security and stability across Afghanistan if it builds on the “assistance from a moderate U.S. capability” to secure control over the south and east of the country, but that would require a huge military operation. Though the United States will doubtless take the lead in military action, it will be hard for the ISAF Canadian, Dutch, and British forces to stay firmly within their self-imposed police mandate.

Involvement in military action seems to be the last thing ISAF wants. Its carefully built peacekeeping image and hard-earned grass-root loyalty rely heavily on the public perception of their mission there as protecting peace, rather than spreading war.

Germany, France, and Spain have repeatedly denied their men in Afghanistan would be in any way involved in U.S.-led counter-terrorist military activities. But a decision in favor of an additional deployment in the south would signal that the U.S. pressure has worked, and NATO is being finally drawn into military action.

In fact, the U.S. has little choice but to get other Western countries equally involved in military operations in Afghanistan as a country that has so far remained largely out of U.S. control could turn into a crucial toehold if the looming prospect of an Iraq-style military attack against Iran becomes reality. If Tehran finally defies European pleas and American demands and goes on with its efforts to build a full-cycle enrichment capability – which looks highly likely – the time-pressed Washington will very soon be facing a dilemma of attacking Iran and beginning a two-front war or looking impassively at the emergence of a new nuclear power. To wage a war against Iran without a secure Afghanistan in the back would be insane. 

That a NATO deployment in the southern and central parts of Afghanistan will give the Alliance and the U.S. a military edge is beyond doubt, but whether the end is worth the investment remains unclear. As the peacekeeper image evaporates, the southern NATO task force might face intense resistance and casualties (and Uruzgan province where the Dutch contingent will be deployed is no exception), which will not be welcome back home and might undermine the whole idea of bringing peace to a war-torn country.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the opinion of the RIA Novosti editorial board.

General Dostum supports disbandment of illegal armed groups - Source: United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA)

Kabul – February 21st, 2006 - On Thursday February 23rd, a big ceremony organized by General Dostum to celebrate the birthday of the Uzbek poet Amir Ali Sher Nawai will take place as of 9 o'clock in the morning, in Sheberghan, Jawzjan province. General Dostum will deliver a speech and call his former Commanders to surrender their remaining weapons to the Government through the Disbandment of Illegal Armed Groups (DIAG) programme. On this occasion, hundreds of weapons are expected to be handed over by General Dostum's ex-Commanders to be verified by the DIAG weapons collection team.

A high level delegation from Kabul will travel to Sheberghan, including the First Deputy Minister of Defense and Vice Chairman of the Disarmament and Reintegration Commission, Yussef Nooristani who will give an address on DIAG to the gathering.

By calling his commanders to hand over their weapons, General Dostum is actively supporting the Disbandment of Illegal Armed Group - DIAG, a process which is intending to consolidate peace, rule of law and prosperity in Afghanistan.

The DIAG process was launched on 11June, 2005 when officially announced by Vice President Khalili. So far, 21 February, 17,724 weapons as well as 26,287 pieces of boxed and 77,070 pieces of unboxed ammunition have been handed over to and verified by ANBP collection teams in Afghanistan. 4,857 of the collected weapons have been handed over by 124 candidates to the parliamentary and provincial council elections.

Tajikistan, Iran, Afghanistan Sign Deal On Electric Power Line

DUSHANBE, 21 February 2006 (RFE/RL) -- Tajikistan, Iran, and Afghanistan have concluded a trilateral agreement on the construction of a power line to carry electricity to Kunduz and Herat in Afghanistan, and to Mashhad in Iran.

The deal was signed a day after Iranian Energy Minister Parviz Fattah and Afghan Water and Energy Minister Mohammad Ismail Khan joined Tajikistan's President Imomali Rakhmonov at a ceremony to mark the start of work on a new hydroelectric power plant south of the Tajik capital, Dushanbe.

The new Sangtuda-2 facility will, along with the Sangtuda-1 and Roghun power plants, provide electricity for the new power line to Afghanistan and Iran.

The West pushes to reform traditionalist Afghan courts - By Scott Baldauf | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN - Since the summer of 2002, septuagenarian Fazel Hadi Shinwari has run Afghanistan's Supreme Court like the respected Islamic scholar he is. He has banned the Afghan feminist Sima Samar from holding a cabinet position, after she reportedly said she didn't believe in Islamic sharia law.

He has banned an Afghan TV station for showing what he called "half-naked singers and obscene scenes from movies." He has also spoken against coeducation; has supported the employment of women (if they wear head scarves); and ordered the arrest of an Afghan journalist who suggested that, in some cases, the Koran was open to interpretation. The charges in this case were blasphemy, punishable by death.

Mr. Shinwari says these decisions are based on Islamic law. But as a growing chorus of European and Western donor nations call on the government to reform and professionalize the judicial system - as required by the Constitution and the Afghanistan Compact signed in London on Feb. 1 - the chief justice says that Afghanistan will be governed by Islamic laws or tumble into violent civil conflict.

"Anything that is according to the Koran is fine with me, but if you go against the Koran, you Europeans will have to tell Karzai to get rid of this old man who is in charge of the Supreme Court," says Shinwari, a lean but sturdy man whose white turban shows his rank as a maulvi, or top religious scholar. "I'm ready to resign, but then there will be lots of problems, just as the desecration of the image of the prophet Muhammad, peace be unto him, caused 60,000 people to go out into the streets. The same thing will happen here."

Instability has long been President Hamid Karzai's chief concern. But when a group of European diplomats brought a démarche, or diplomatic petition, to Mr. Karzai on Feb. 11, demanding reform of the Supreme Court, insiders braced themselves for the worst. European diplomats say the démarche was merely a friendly reminder, and Afghan spokesmen say they intend to abide by promises to professionalize the court - bringing in judges, male and female, who know as much about civil law as they do religious law. But privately, some officials worry that taking on religious conservatives like Shinwari could be severely destabilizing.

"They're just focusing on the Supreme Court, but the whole justice system is rotten," says one Afghan official privately. While the German government has trained tens of thousands of Afghan police, efforts to revamp the court system - led by Italy - have lagged behind, with few judges or prosecutors trained enough to know how to handle the cases that the Afghan police hand them.

"Who are the nine Supreme Court justices? They're all mullahs," this official says. "If you focus on the Supreme Court, it's going to be viewed as focusing on Islam."

The wording of the démarche, obtained by the Monitor, does not mention the current makeup of the Supreme Court, but emphasizes the need for professionalism.

"The quality of the [Supreme Court] appointments and the fair and balanced representation of all components of the Afghan society, including women, are all prerequisites to increasing public confidence in the judiciary, and will reinforce the Government's programs towards justice reform in Afghanistan."

Achieving gender balance in the judiciary is, in fact, one of the responsibilities that Karzai agreed to in the Afghanistan Compact in London. Karzai is required to present his list of justices and his list of cabinet appointees to parliament within 30 days of its regular session. (Parliament is in a special session, hammering out rules and procedures. A regular session could be weeks away.)

"For a variety of reasons, the centrality of judicial reform was not a feature of the last four years, but it is a top priority today," says Christopher Alexander, the deputy representative of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. "And our sense is that the president shares this view."

The Afghan Supreme Court is not merely the highest court of appeal. Nor is it simply the final word on constitutional issues. Supreme Court justices are responsible for managing the personnel, budgets, and policy decisions for the entire court system, down to the lowest district court. For this reason, European ambassadors say, it is important not only to rebuild the system from the ground up, but also ensure that its leadership is professionally competent.

"Since Afghanistan is a sovereign country, it is not appropriate for donor nations to criticize or praise an institution," says Italian Ambassador Ettore Francesco Sequi, one of the diplomats who delivered the demarche.

"The spirit of the démarche was to say, the Supreme Court is a crucial body in the implementation of the rule of law, and we attach great importance to the issue of gender, and we pledge our support and attention to its reconstruction," says Mr. Sequi.

Italy spent $45 million between 2001 and 2005 on court construction and training seminars for existing judges and prosecutors. An additional $12 million is budgeted for this year, but, Sequi admits, "We should do more."

But some Afghan officials worry privately that any change to the composition to the Supreme Court could upset the man who is seen as most responsible for selecting the nine current justices: former militia commander, and current parliamentarian Abdul Rab Rasool Sayyaf. Both Shinwari and his deputy chief justice, Abdul Malik Kamawi, have been members of Sayyaf's militia group, the Ittehad-I Islami, since the anti-Soviet resistance days of the 1980s.

"Let's not make everything political," says Jawed Luddin, Karzai's chief of staff, who described the meeting with the ambassadors as "friendly and cordial." "The process of reform is happening across the board. There is a need for reform in the judiciary at all levels. We agree that the professionalism of the judiciary and the gender issues are important considerations."

"But if you are asking, will there be women on the Supreme Court, I think that is a matter that will be decided by the president," says Mr. Luddin. "He will take the views of various segments of society and government, and he will proceed with the decision."

If Karzai calls Shinwari, the chief justice, he is likely to get an earful. "We have many women judges here, but a woman cannot be a judge over the general country, and she cannot sit in this chair," says Shinwari, who also serves as head of Afghanistan's Council of Islamic Scholars. "If a woman becomes a top judge, then what would happen when she has a menstruation cycle once a month, and she cannot go to the mosque? Also, a woman judge cannot give an execution order, according to Islamic law."

Shinwari warns that forcing Afghanistan to change its Islamic traditions will cause a backlash. "When a tiger attacks a cat, and the cat is cornered, the cat will fight back," he says. "We agree with you Westerners on reform, but you cannot interfere with our religion. If you do that, people will rise up."

Tallying up the Taliban - Kandahar officials claim the former Afghan regime is just an ideological shell with plenty of cash, but no real army

Feb. 21, 2006. 09:42 AM MIDDLE EAST BUREAU – Toronto Star

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan—The going rate for blowing up a Canadian, or any other component of the NATO takeover of southern Afghanistan, is a little less than a year's salary.

That works out to about $300, payable after the fact, in Pakistani rupees or Afghanis — bomber's choice. The number, given to the Toronto Star yesterday from the files of the Afghan security office responsible for safeguarding aid organizations, jibes more or less with other recent accounts of cash incentives offered for blasts to be carried out in the name of the Taliban.

The sum is startling, but even more so is the manner in which it was offered.

Potential recruits were quoted that figure recently in the Pakistani city of Quetta when they visited a house in response to a job advertisement. There was no mention of holy war, no mention of infidels. Just easy work for good pay.

"It was a Kandahari who told us about the offer," said Rahmatullah Mohammadi, national security adviser at the Kandahar headquarters of the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office.

"He lost his leg working for a demining company and eventually moved to Quetta to find work in a very serious economic condition. Last month his job search led him to a house where several people were sitting, promising him a salary, easy work, everything.

"He said, `What is the job?' They said, `Go to Kandahar. You will go to a house there and be equipped with explosive, everything you need for your assignments.'"

The Kandahari promised to think about it and made his exit. He cut off contact with the Quetta recruiters, and has since returned to Kandahar. No sell.

This encounter begs the question: how real is a Taliban jihad that buys at

least some of its recruits under false pretences from the bargain basement of Afghan despair?

A similar account was heard yesterday by Radio-Canada reporter Manon Globensky, who was told by a Kandahari seamstress that at least some of those responsible for torching Afghan schools — ostensibly an act of pious retribution against the education of women — actually have zero ideological motivation. They just desperately need the money.

Mohammadi said that whatever the circumstances, an act of violence involving conflict with the fledgling Afghan army or U.S.-led coalition troops invariably is characterized as an encounter with the Taliban. Each time the word is set in type, it deepens the impression of an ambiguous yet somehow monolithic foe.

"But sometimes these fights have nothing to do with the Taliban," he said. "In the northern district of Helmand province, there was big battle with government forces that ended with heavy bombing of the insurgents.

"What we heard from the locals is that the fighters weren't Taliban at all. They were drug smugglers very disgruntled with the government's poppy eradication campaign."

The lesson to be drawn, according to many of Kandahar's leaders, is that whatever the government of Hamid Karzai and his allies are fighting, it is probably less than what some make it out to be. So far, at least.

It is no wonder that Karzai is now raising the tenor of his protests against Pakistan, and to a lesser extent, Iran. In a weekend interview with Associated Press, Karzai warned his neighbours that if they insist on tacitly ignoring or covertly supporting the flow of insurgents, Afghans will make a point of sharing their misery to ensure the whole region goes down together.

Such cross-border conspiracies are the rule rather than the exception throughout Afghan history, from the CIA and Saudi bankrolling of the original mujahideen to Pakistan's carte-blanche backing of the original Taliban revolution 10 years ago.

It is not that the raw material isn't there for a more substantial jihad. Austere Saudi theology and its variants, which were covertly disseminated at madrassas along the Afghan-Pakistan borderlands as part of the anti-Soviet jihad, have quarter-century roots.

And as Kandahar Deputy Governor Ghulam Jelani said yesterday in an interview, they were the only roots. The rest of Afghanistan's education system was wiped out.

"After 30 years of war we lost everything. All the education was gone, only the mullahs were left," said Jelani. The big difference now, Jelani said, is that the majority of Afghans have had enough. They can see that whatever the Canadians and other troops represent, it is not Soviet-style occupation. There are nearly 2,200 Canadians deployed to southern Afghanistan.

When the call for mujahideen came 25 years ago every Pashtun tribe took part. He counts 30 fatalities from conflict with the Soviets in his own family and dozens more wounded, including a nephew who lost his eyes and hands and a brother whose bomb-mangled leg has yet to be treated properly, 16 years after the fact.

Afghans may not be thrilled with the pace of their recovery, or the culture of corruption that many say continues to dominate officialdom as ever it did in the pre-Taliban era. But unlike the puppet regime of the Soviet era, Jelani says he and the rest of the new Afghan government do not fear walking their own streets.

"More than anything, our people are upset with war, and all the people we lost. Children, fathers, brothers, mothers," said Jelani. "We have an insurgency and it is a problem. We have corruption and it is also a problem. But the biggest problem is war. And our people don't want it any more."

Officer says winning in Afghanistan depends on world delivering promised aid

EDMONTON (CP) - After seven hard months of trying to wrest part of war-ravaged Afghanistan away from the Taliban, success for Col. Steve Bowes was a children's soccer tournament.

The games played in dusty fields in Kandahar were a sign that efforts by Canada's provincial reconstruction team to stabilize a country ravaged by violence and upheaval are progressing, albeit slowly.

"We had 7,000 boys playing soccer across the city, a spectacle they hadn't seen in 30 years," Bowes said Tuesday after returning home on the weekend from commanding the team.

"It culminated with a championship game in a stadium the Taliban had used for other activities." Bowes is under no illusions about what it will take to help transform Afghanistan into a stable democracy.

Soldiers from the international community and the Afghan people are doing a good job bringing order to chaos in the major cities in what he called a dangerous, friction-filled environment.

But success will largely depend on whether foreign countries follow through with promises of billions of dollars in economic aid to help the Afghan government gain and maintain control of the country, he said.

"The Afghans are winning. It is the international community that will lose this for them," Bowes said. "It is not about the soldiers on the ground. We need to make sure that the people that have provided all of the promises actually deliver. That is the challenge."

Earlier this month, countries such as the United States, Russia and Germany said they will cancel billions of dollars in debt piled up by different regimes in Afghanistan over the years.

The announcement followed an earlier pledge by the international community to continue supporting the Afghan government, which depends on foreign aid for most of its annual budget. Maintaining that commitment over the long term will be the key to really making a difference, Bowes suggested.

"We must be prepared to see it through," he said. "We must maintain the conditions to allow the soldiers and the other international organizations to get on with doing the job of rebuilding that country."

The 250-strong provincial reconstruction team is made up of soldiers, RCMP officers, federal Foreign Affairs officials and aid staff. Canada's military presence in Kandahar is being increased to 2,200 soldiers this month to improve security in the long-standing Taliban stronghold.

Last month, a Canadian diplomat was killed and three Edmonton-based soldiers were seriously injured when a suicide bomber attacked their convoy. The Jan. 15 attack was one of two insurgent strikes against Canadian troops within a week. Nine Canadians have been killed in Afghanistan since early 2002.

After months of working and patrolling the Kandahar area, Bowes said he has seen no evidence the Taliban are specifically targeting Canadians. "They are still going after targets of opportunity," he said. "Given the ideology of the Taliban, a western infidel is a western infidel."

Afghan task good — but painful — for Canada - Feb. 21, 2006. RICHARD GWYN

The three RPGs — rocket-propelled grenades — arced out of the night on their way towards the mud-brick military base on the outskirts of the southern Afghan village of Gumbad.

In reply came not just small-arms fire — rifles and machine-guns — but as well a salvo of 155-millimetre howitzer shells. In fact, all three of the grenades missed. So, too, did the returning small-arms fire, despite the illumination provided by the parachute flares that ballooned from those shells.

None of the Canadian soldiers inside the Gumbad base became casualties from this brief exchange earlier this week. Neither did any of the Taliban fighters who had crept up until they guessed their RPGs were within range.

Tomorrow, though, or next week or next month, there will be other exchanges. During one of more of these, there are bound to be real costs. Only last month, a suicide bomb attack on a Canadian convoy in the southern capital of Kandahar caused the death of diplomat Glyn Berry and left two soldiers, Cpl. Jeffrey Bailey and Pte. William Salikin, with critical head wounds.

Canada is at war these days. For almost all practical purposes, this is the first time we have been at war since the Korean War of half a century ago. Very few Canadians, though, fully realize this yet.

Almost entirely, it's been the soldiers themselves who've levelled with Canadians about what's going on. Early this month, Brig.-Gen. Tim Grant, who commands the Edmonton base from which a planeload of Canadian soldiers flies off to Afghanistan every few days, said in a pep talk to troops and their families that, "This mission is about Canadians helping Afghans ... (but) We are prepared to kill if we have to."

In fact, killing the bad guys — the Taliban — is an integral part of the mission. Included in the total Canadian contingent of some 2,000 are special forces soldiers who will go into the hills to search out the enemy. So there is an equal risk of some Canadians being killed by the Taliban. That, too, is an integral part of the mission.

Nor is the Taliban the only threat. Almost as dangerous are the drug lords.

Southern Afghanistan, where the Canadians are stationed together with British and Dutch and some Americans, produces about half of the world's opium and heroin.

Is it worthwhile? It is most certainly to the 3 million Afghan refugees who, after decades of civil war and slaughter, have at last come back from Pakistan. It is, too, to the immense numbers of Afghans who have voted twice now in peaceable elections.

Ditto for the hundreds of thousands of girls now actually able to go to school. And to all the farmers who by using mobile phones can now pick the best time to send their sheep and goats to market.

So it has to be worthwhile also to Canadians. But will we have to pay too high a price for whatever we accomplish? In the months ahead, that judgment is going to be demanded of Canadians.

The answer won't come easily. We quite certainly are going to have to pay a price. Other than the handfuls of survivors of the Korean War and the two World Wars, no Canadians now living have ever had to make such a judgment before.

For roughly the last decade, the creed and mantra of Canadian foreign policy has been that of "human security." It was a fine ideal. But it was also always an easy one: It enabled us to feel good about ourselves while doing good to others.

Now, while trying to do good to others, we may have bad things done to us. Their security may cost us some of our own security. In essence, Canadians are about to take a long step out of innocence into reality. That really will be good for us. But it is also going to be painful for us.

Afghan Paper Highlights Importance of Northern Highways

Text of editorial by Afghan state-run newspaper Eslah on 22 February entitled "Economic importance of Taloqan-Badakhshan highway to government"

Mr Hamed Karzai paid a visit to Takhar Province on Monday [20 February] to inaugurate the Taloqan-Keshem highway.

The Taloqan-Keshem highway, which has been resurfaced with the cooperation of the Asian Development Bank, is due to be put into use by 16 Hamal [5 April].

The last two decades of war have ruined our infrastructures. The impact of war have badly affected our infrastructures, and today our provinces are in dire need of reconstruction. In reality, reconstruction and the resurfacing of highways mean strengthening the major arteries of the country. The resurfacing of the Taloqan- Keshem highway clearly indicates the enthusiasm of the international community, in particular the Asian Development Bank, towards the reconstruction of Afghanistan.

In the provinces of Takhar and Badakhshan, dozens of huge resources have remained untouched. According to authentic documents, Badakhshan enjoys the biggest source of spinal-ruby and azure in the world, despite the province being deemed as one of the poor and mountainous provinces. For a long time, these mines have been illegally worked and the stones exported to other countries.

In the meantime, there are other numerous mines in Badakhshan which have not attracted private investment due to the lack of transit routes and security problems.

The extension and resurfacing of the Taloqan-Keshem highway will not only play a significant role in tackling our people's economic problems but in the long run it will also be economically important to the government. If foreign investors gain access to the untouched mines of Badakhshan, enourmous revenues will annually go to the government and people in the country.

Source: BBC Monitoring South Asia

Afghanistan starts testing for 'virtually unavoidable' bird flu - Wed Feb 22

KABUL (AFP) - Afghanistan has begun random tests of poultry to determine if bird flu had arrived in the country, according to the United Nation's agriculture body which also warned that an outbreak was "virtually unavoidable".

Samples from 455 birds have been tested in Afghanistan and were sent for further study in Italy, Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) representatives said, without revealing any results.

The disease was most likely to enter Afghanistan via migratory birds that had started arriving a month ago, they told reporters at a lake near the capital where hundreds of migrant ducks are nesting.

"With cases of the deadly disease detected in Iran and India, Afghanistan is practically surrounded," FAO country representative Serge Verniau said.

"Today we can say that an outbreak of the disease among birds in Afghanistan is virtually unavoidable," he said.

The country was however unprepared to tackle any outbreak, he said, calling for emergency action which the FAO estimated would cost 1.5 million dollars, most of which would have to come from international donors.

"The FAO warns that actions from the authorities and the donor community are insufficient to win the battle against bird flu in Afghanistan," Verniau said.

Immediate action needed to be taken on strengthening the war-shattered country's animal disease testing and surveillance systems, informing poultry farmers about the risks and preparing a plan to cope with any outbreak.

The UN body had, with support from Italy, installed a laboratory to carry out tests but the facility was insufficient and some samples were sent to Italy, FAO officials said.

Since 2003 bird flu has killed more than 90 people, mostly in Asia. Experts fear the H5N1 virus, that is potentially deadly to humans

Parliamentary Pay Deal Draws Protests - Institute for War and Peace Reporting By Abdul Baseer Saeed in Kabul (ARR No. 203, 18-Feb-06)

Many Afghans see the sizeable salaries awarded to members of the new legislature as a thinly-veiled bribe from the government.

Samiullah shivers as he stands in the cold on a street corner in central Kabul waiting for a bus to take him home. The civil servant says he can’t afford a shared taxi on his meagre salary.

“I receive just 50 [US] dollars a month, so I have to decide between food for my family and transportation,” he said. But he heats up when discussing the salaries announced for members of Afghanistan’s new parliament.

“This is treason,” he said. "With these salaries, the government is trying to shut the mouths of the deputies. To preserve their salaries, they will be afraid to oppose the government openly.”

According to the pay schedule recommended by the finance ministry and approved by President Hamed Karzai, the speakers of the two houses of parliament receive monthly salaries of 3,500 dollars; their deputies get 1,500 dollars each, while the post of secretary carries 1,200 a month. The remaining deputies - 245 in the Wolesi Jirga, or lower house, and 98 in the Meshrano Jirga, or upper house - are being paid 1,100 dollars a month, with three months’ paid holiday a year.

A junior clerk working in a government office, by comparison, makes 40 dollars a month while a senior civil servant earns up to 120 dollars. Most government employees are given no more than six weeks’ paid leave, and that includes both vacation and sick leave.

Dr Shafaq Nejrabi, who works at the government-run Maiwand Hospital, is paid just 50 dollars. “This is unfair,” he fumed. “Whoever made the decision to reward deputies like this should have realised that public-sector employees have families as well.”

Even some members of parliament think that their salaries are out of line. Ramazan Bashardost, a former planning minister and now member of the Wolesi Jirga, said that the salaries being paid to parliamentarians are an attempt by the government to co-opt the legislature.

“These payments mean the government is trying to attract the deputies, to make them well-disposed towards it,” he said. “There shouldn’t be such a big difference between parliamentarians’ salaries and those of government employees.”

Bashardost says that he has not spent his own salary on himself. "When I got my 1,100 dollar salary, I went to the Dehmazang neighbourhood of Kabul together with the district head, and gave some of it to refugees, and some to the cleaners at the Dentistry Hospital,” he said.

Another lawmaker, former army general Noor ul-Haq Ulumi, agreed that the salaries were inappropriate. “The salaries of parliamentarians should be fair. There should not be such a disparity with government employees, like between heaven and earth,” he said.

Like Bashardost, Ulumi believes the high salaries reflect a desire to buy the goodwill of legislators. “The government wants individuals in parliament to work for the its own benefit,” he said.

But Fawzia Kofi, a member of the Wolesi Jirga, says these salaries are barely sufficient to meet her colleagues’ needs. “When a deputy receives 1,100 dollars, he or she has to pay house rent, telephone bills and so on. It’s not nearly enough,” she said.

Delegates also have to have meet the public and entertain guests. She believes the government should ensure that lawmakers’ needs are adequately addressed, “That way there will be no need for them to take bribes.”

The low salaries paid to government employees are often cited as a major reason for the corruption that is endemic to the Afghan administration.

Abdul Ghafoor Lewal, spokesman for the ministry of parliamentary relations, said that the salaries had been determined in discussions between the government and both houses of parliament.

“I do not think that this is a lot of money for them,” he said. “They have a lot of contact with people, they have to entertain. And the government is still trying to raise the salaries of all its employees.”

Abdul Hafiz Mansoor, political analyst and editor of the weekly newspaper Payam-e-Mujahed, who narrowly missed winning a seat in the parliament, warns that paying high salaries has a distorting effect.

“It isn’t good to give them so much money,” he said. “It causes mismanagement and unfair competition. If parliament continues to get these kinds of privileges, in the next election we will have more candidates than voters.”

Abdul Baseer Saeed is an IWPR staff reporter in Kabul.

Film Director Gets Early Start - At seven, Jawanmard Paeez already has impressive credentials. Institute for War and Peace Reporting
By Mohammad Jawad Sharifzada in Kabul (ARR No. 203, 18-Feb-06)

Jawanmard Paeez is hardly your typical film director. For one thing, he is only seven years old. Dressed in a red coat and blue jeans, he sat beside his father, actor Humayun Paeez, in the offices of Afghan Film, talking easily and expansively about his career in films.

“I had my first role when I was two-and-a-half,” he told IWPR, describing his part in “Almaz-e-Sharq” (“Diamond of the East”), where he played one of a gang of children throwing stones at a beggar. In his second film, “Khak wa Khakistar” (“Dust and Ashes”) he played a small boy who became deaf when a rocket attack destroyed his house.

His directorial debut came late last year with a seven-minute film called “Bad” (which means the same as the English word) about a young boy who does not listen to his parents.

The reviews have been positive, at least from his colleagues in the film industry. “Jawanmard’s talent is unique, it is a gift from God,” said Engineer Abdul Latif Ahmadi, head of the Afghan Film studio. “If he gets support, he will be a world-class director. He will be brilliant.”

Cameraman Najibullah Ahmadi, 22, worked with the young director on “Bad”. “Jawanmard has a remarkable talent,” he told IWPR. “I have not had such an easy time with any other director.”

Actress Breshna Bahar, 36, played the lead in the film. She confirmed Jawanmard’s abilities as a director. “In one scene I was slicing an onion, and tears were running down my face. I wanted to use my scarf to wipe them away, but Jawanmard stopped the camera, and told me angrily to use the back of my hand, as the scene had to be natural,” she said.

Jawanmard showed a talent for directing from the start, according to his father. “When he was doing ‘Dust and Ashes’ I saw that when he was not in shooting, he was making up his own scenes and imitating the director,” said Humayun. “After that, colleagues kept asking him to make a role for himself and direct it. Jawanmard did it so quickly that everyone was surprised. They all encouraged him.”

When he is not busy with movie-making, Jawanmard is a typical seven-year-old. He takes English classes, goes to the mosque every morning to learn the Koran, and then attends school. He also likes to play football and play hide-and-seek with other children, and is a master at snowball fights.

He said he likes educational films and wants to make his own one day. “I don’t like romantic films, or films where there is a lot of violence,” he said. Some of Jawanmard’s colleagues are not so positive about the attention being heaped on the boy.

“Jawanmard is clever, yes, but we should not encourage him too much,” said Mohammad Seddiq Barmak, a prominent Afghan film director. “He will think that he has already reached his highest point and he will not grow as a director.”

Ahad Zhewand, a long-time film director, dismisses Jawanmard as an insult to Afghan cinema. “This is a joke, but it’s not funny,” he said. “Directing needs life experience. How can someone who can’t read and write compose a scenario?”

Jawanmard, who has now finished third grade in school, said that he dictates his scenario to his older sister and she writes it down for him.

He is unruffled by the criticism, saying, “Those who say that Afghan film is insulted because a small boy has made a film – I just tell them to watch my movie once, and then pass judgement.”

Mohammad Jawad Sharifzada is an IWPR staff reporter in Kabul.

Afghanistan: Tourism as drive train of the economical development

Feb 21, 06 | 9:54 am By Ulf Amann eTurbonews

Somebody (still) knows Afghanistan as a hippie trail journey destination. But since 1979 the impressive landscapes and evidences of a varied past have been out of reach for tourism. In the regions of central Asia tourism booms – but Afghanistan’s tourism potential is unexploited, which also constitutes a disadvantage for tourism development of other countries on the Silk Road. Some appropriated concepts making aimed tourism development possible should improve the situation.

“Can people go there again?” was the most frequent question of the guests at the Afghanistan stand in the biggest public fair trade about traveling in Stuttgart in 2006. The first entry of Afghanistan in tourism fair gets a remembering of a country experiencing a continually changing tourism in the '70s.

In 1977, 117, 000 tourists went to Afghanistan spending 38 million dollars in the country. As the Tourism Office states, in 2005 2,200 travelers out of 64,000 were tourists.

 With the invasion of the Soviet troops in 1979, this development abruptly and it was not possible to restore it until now. After the liberation from the Taliban regime, the international donor countries community got stabilization through investments in the agricultural sector, in the mine clearance and in the education sector. Only in the conference for Afghanistan the donor countries carried out in January 2006, tourism was seen as a factor in the process of reconstruction and new begins.

Afghanistan’s tourism potential is settled in the natural resources of the country, in the very antithetic and intact landscapes. High mountains in Hindukush with summits higher than 7400 m, deserts and sub-tropical climatic zones and the most extreme temperature contrasts in the world (from +50 to –53 grades C) characterize Afghanistan natural aspect. As a part of the Silk Road, Afghanistan also represents a classical transit place with Alexander the Great’s evidences and Marco Polo´s descriptions. Cultural treasures as the UNESCO world culture heritage (destroyed) Buddha statues in Bamiyan witness Buddha times trade roads. The Friday Mosk in Herat witnesses the zenith of the Islamic era.

Tourism potential is also constituted by the booming tourism in Afghanistan neighbor countries. Mainly because of the Silk Road, tourism develops itself as an important economical factor in countries like Uzbekistan, Iran and Kyrgyzstan since their liberation.

An exotic destination like Kyrgyzstan counts 183,000 tourists (2002), Kazakhstan 3,237,000 tourists (2003) and Pakistan (which can be compared with Afghanistan from the natural and cultural point of view) 648,000 tourists (2004) (Source: http://www.sesrtcic.org/)

By a journey to middle Asia, the typical western tourist does not think about an individual country, but about a completely international region. In this way, the countries do co-operate and make the organization of international journeys easier. For this reason, incoming agencies have a great interest in making journeys to Afghanistan possible.

A great number of important conditions for tourism development are not given yet.  Indeed the first travel groups do travel on the ancient main routes between the individual tourist destinations, but they see themselves as pioneers enjoying the charm to discover forgotten, legendary “treasures” again.

Western travelers take the actual lacking stability and security as an absolute no-go criterion for Afghanistan. In fact, traveling in Afghanistan without suitable precautions is not inadvisable at the moment and the freedom of movement for the tourists is limited. (Source 400 CMT visitors survey by ILTIS).

So, travelers have to be protected against possible risks through unobtrusive security measures in the context of the tour organization. If it proves to be successful, information concepts about the positive “Afghanistan” experiences of the tour members can be created in order to produce abroad a varied and real picture. Here, Afghanistan can learn from the experiences of courtiers like Yemen or Mozambique. Both of them have the kidnapping (Yemen) and mines risk (Mozambique). Both of them successfully fight this negative image with development concepts for a tourism form suitable for the situation. Result: Tourism rates grow.

Infrastructure is underdeveloped in Afghanistan. Inland traveling is comfortable almost only with the Afghan airlines. On the country ways, the road number between the towns in not sufficient, even if it is slowly getting better. Public means of transport are not available for western tourists yet, but individual travelers and groups can hire suitable cars. The flight connection to abroad is good. Twice a week, the state airline Ariana flies with modern plane from Frankfurt to Kabul. Istanbul and Baku are also on the flight plan. There are also two connections Dubai-Kabul every day.

A bank system is being developed, but it is only available in Kabul until now. In all regions phone via GSM is possible, Internet is only possible in greater cities and is very expensive. Several foreign and an Afghanistan conveyance handle the freight traffic. Health care is equivalent development status, not sufficient. (Part one in a two-part series)

[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.]