In this bulletin:

• 900 more UK troops for Afghanistan
• Taliban vow attacks on UK troops
• Rumsfeld arrives in Afghanistan
• Rumsfeld in Afghanistan amid Taliban resurgence
• Spanish troops hit by Afghan blast, one dead
• Afghan foreign minister to hold talks with EU officials
• Pakistan and US in security talks
• Afghanistan: Kabul's New Strategy Focuses On Pakistan
• Afghan border security: Kasuri’s ‘concrete’ proposals to Rice
• Backing Away From Afghanistan No Option: UN
• The Trouble With Pakistan
• Taliban use beheadings and beatings to keep Afghanistan's schools closed
• Afghanistan to refer Russian debt claim to Paris Club
• Afghan clerics tell NATO commander to respect local customs
• O'Connor says morale high on Afghan mission
• Canadian dies in Afghan battle

900 more UK troops for Afghanistan

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Britain will bolster its force in Afghanistan by about 900 troops in the next few months, UK Defense Secretary Des Browne has said.

Britain currently has about 4,800 troops in Afghanistan, 3,600 of them in the restive Helmand province, where the additional troops will be stationed.

"It remains overwhelmingly in our national interest to ensure Afghanistan does not revert to a haven for terrorists," Browne told Britain's Parliament.

"It is also in the interests of the Afghan people, the vast majority of whom have no sympathy for terrorism or violent extremism."

The secretary said he made the decision to send the additional troops after receiving requests for them from British commanders. He defended the original decision to deploy a smaller number of troops.

"We said from the start that this was going to be a challenging mission," he said.

"... The force package reflected this. It was designed by the military and endorsed by the chiefs of staff. It contained attack helicopters, artillery and armored vehicles. We deployed tough, capable units, with robust rules of engagement -- because we expected violent resistance."

Although British troops in Helmand are assigned to reconstruction and security tasks, they have also engaged in battle with Taliban forces operating in the north of the province.

Six British soldiers have been killed in Helmand in the past month, bringing to 13 the total number of British troops killed in Afghanistan.

The war in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, as a response to the September 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States.

A U.S.-led coalition quickly swept the Taliban from power, but they and their al Qaeda allies have remained active in remote and mountainous sections of the country.

U.S. and Afghan government forces attacked an insurgent stronghold in the southern province of Uruzgan on Monday, killing more than 40 of them, the U.S. military said.

Currently, about 9,700 troops are in Afghanistan under a NATO banner to provide security and reconstruction, and that number is expected to grow to about 18,500 in the coming months. Another 18,500 U.S. troops are directly engaged with Taliban and al Qaeda in that country.

Taliban vow attacks on UK troops - Tue Jul 11, 2006

SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Afghanistan's Taliban said on Tuesday they would greet British reinforcements heading to the southern province of Helmand with ferocious attacks.

Britain announced on Monday it would send 900 more troops and additional helicopters to southern Afghanistan, where a force meant as the spearhead of a NATO peace mission has faced fierce Taliban resistance.

"We will greet more British troops in Helmand with fresh attacks," Taliban commander Mullah Hayat Khan told Reuters by telephone. "We'll attack the British troops with such ferocity they will flee," he said.

British troops are spearheading a major expansion of NATO peacekeepers into volatile southern areas which have seen some of the worst fighting since U.S. and Afghan opposition forces toppled the Taliban in 2001.

The reinforcements will arrive over coming months, bringing the total of British troops in the south to 4,500. One thousand more are based at NATO headquarters in Kabul.

"We are already causing British troops losses in lives and equipment every day in Helmand," Khan said. "The increase in British troops means we will have more British targets."

"Foreign troops in Afghanistan are already suffering huge losses. Our suicide bombers are searching for targets every day," he said.

The Taliban were ousted in late 2001 after refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden, architect of the September 11 attacks. They are now fighting to expel foreign troops and defeat the Western-backed government.

Rumsfeld arrives in Afghanistan - BBC 11 July 06

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has arrived in Afghanistan on an unannounced visit to the capital Kabul. He will hold talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, which are expected to include discussions on escalating unrest in the south. On Monday the UK said it would send 900 extra troops to Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the US-led coalition said coalition and Afghan forces had killed at least 30 militants in an operation in southern Afghanistan. A coalition helicopter made an emergency landing and had to be destroyed during the raid in Sangin on Tuesday, in the volatile Helmand province, the coalition said.

The raid was conducted as part of Operation Mountain Thrust, a large-scale anti-Taleban offensive involving more than 10,000 US-led troops. Mr Rumsfeld said a key purpose of his visit was to strengthen strategic ties and work through issues arising from the increasing Nato role in Afghanistan.

UK Defence Secretary Des Browne told MPs that reinforcements, which will boost UK troop levels to 4,500, will head for the Helmand province to help security and reconstruction efforts.

Extra troops were requested for the region following the deaths of six British soldiers in the past month. Hundreds of people have died in southern Afghanistan over the past few weeks and according to the BBC's Alasdair Leithead, Mr Karzai is starting to feel the strain.

Mr Karzai has called for reform and a strengthening of the police and army, extra resources and equipment and better assistance for provincial government improvements.

But perhaps more importantly, our correspondent says, he has called for the international community to reassess the manner in which the war against terror is conducted.

Rumsfeld in Afghanistan amid Taliban resurgence - 11 July 06 - By Jim Mannion

KABUL (AFP) - US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has arrived in Kabul for talks with President Hamid Karzai amid a resurgence of Taliban violence that is challenging NATO's expansion into Afghanistan's troubled south.

Rumsfeld's arrival came as a spokeswoman for the US-led coalition in the violence-wracked central Asian country announced that at least 30 Taliban militants had been killed in an early morning air strike in Helmand province.

The US defense secretary warned Monday that drug money was fueling the Taliban's rise and called on Europe and Russia to do more to help stem the demand for narcotics from Afghanistan's lush poppy fields.

Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, commander of the 23,000 US troops in Afghanistan, told reporters traveling with Rumsfeld that the Taliban had extended their influence from traditional strongholds into areas where the government is weak.

"If I were to show you a map that shows you where roads end in southern Afghanistan, or for that matter in eastern Afghanistan -- gravel roads, dirt roads, improved roads and then paved roads -- where do those end and where does the enemy's influence begin? It's precisely in those areas," he said.

Eikenberry said the rise in violence was due in part to the movement of international and Afghan forces into those areas, as the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) expands into southern Afghanistan.

But he said the Taliban, which was ousted from government by a US-led coalition in late 2001, appears better organized than in the past and was using roadside bombings and attacks on schools in the region to undermine security.

"We look very carefully on the intelligence side for indications of fighters coming from Iraq into Afghanistan, we look very carefully for concrete indications of what you call the migration of tactics," he said.

"I would have to say at this time we have not seen that in our intelligence. On the other hand I would say is were up against a very adaptive enemy," he said.

Rumsfeld on Monday said Eikenberry was consulting with Karzai on US troop levels required in the region, but the general declined to comment on whether more troops will be needed.

The United States had hoped to cut its force levels in Afghanistan from 19,000 to 16,000 this year, but instead wound up adding more troops as the Taliban mounted its largest spring offensive since being ousted.

"I wouldn't want to comment on troop levels," Eikenberry said. "This is going to require adjustments, we're going to look at what capabilities are needed beetween NATO and ourselves. We'll figure that out."

The NATO-led ISAF is in the process of taking over responsibility for southern Afghanistan from a US-led force. The ISAF is then expected to move into eastern Afghanistan late this year.

The United States will continue to be a major contributor of combat forces, helicopters and logistics to ISAF and maintain a separate US-commanded counter-terrorism strike force, Eikenberry said.

But he said the transition would bring some 3,500 British troops into Helmand province, a remote poppy-rich region where, until recently, the main outside presence has been an 80-person provincial reconstruction team and a 50-member special forces unit.

Rumsfeld, who arrived here from the Tajik capital Dushanbe, singled out the drug trade as a growing US concern, in comments to reporters Monday.

"I'm concerned about the role that narcotics are playing in this sense: when there's that much money involved you have to worry that it is going to be attractive," he said.

"Any time you have that much money floating around and you have people like the Taliban it gives them the opportunity to fund their efforts in various ways," he said.

Spanish troops hit by Afghan blast, one dead - Sun Jul 9, 2006

KABUL (Reuters) - A roadside bomb hit a patrol of NATO-led Spanish peacekeepers in western Afghanistan, killing one and wounding four, the force and Spain's Defence Ministry said. Sixty-four foreign soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan this year, in combat or accidents while on duty, as Taliban violence has intensified to its most severe since the hard-line Islamists were ousted in 2001.

The blast hit the Spanish patrol in Farah province on Saturday, the force, known as the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), said in a statement seen on Sunday.

"Five ISAF troops were injured; one of the soldiers subsequently died," the force said. It did not identify the soldier killed but Spain's Defence Ministry said he was a Peruvian serving with the Spanish military.

The police chief of Farah province, Sayed Agha Saquib, said he thought the blast had been caused by an old mine left over from decades of conflict. "It was an old mine, not a Taliban attack," he told Reuters.

But a Taliban commander, Mullah Hayat Khan, said his men were responsible for the blast. Taliban spokesmen have in the past claimed responsibility for incidents that foreign forces said were accidents. Western Afghanistan is much more peaceful than the south and east but there has been violence in Farah this year, including bomb attacks on road-construction crews and an attempted suicide-bomb attack on a NATO base.

Violence has surged in Afghanistan this year to its most intense since U.S. and Afghan opposition forces ousted the Taliban in 2001. Most of the violence has been in the south and east. The NATO force operates in the generally peaceful north, west and the capital, Kabul.

The NATO force is due to take over security duties in the south form a separate U.S.-led force at the end of this month. Of the 64 foreign troops killed this year, only four have been from the NATO force. The rest were members of the U.S.-led force that has been battling insurgents and hunting for their leaders in the country's south and east. (Additional reporting by Mohammad Riza in HERAT)

Afghan foreign minister to hold talks with EU officials – IRNA July 10, 2006

European Union High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana will meet the Foreign Minister of Afghanistan Dr. Rangin Dadfar Spanta, in Brussels on Tuesday to discuss the current situation in Afghanistan and the development of EU-Afghanistan relations.

Spanta will also meet EU Commissioner for external relations Benita Fererro-Waldner Tuesday and later address the foreign relations committee of the European Parliament on the latest situation in Afghanistan.

Pakistan and US in security talks – BBC

Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri has given the US what he calls concrete proposals for improving border security with neighbouring Afghanistan. Mr Kasuri was meeting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Washington, but refused to give further details.

Washington is increasingly concerned about the deteriorating situation on the border between the two countries. Tensions increased earlier this year after Afghan accusations that Taleban militants were operating from Pakistan.

Similar claims were made by a few days ago by Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Spanta, who called on Islamabad to do more to stop the infiltration of Taleban militants across the border.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said that Ms Rice reaffirmed that both countries shared a common interest. "The Afghans have an interest in a stable, more prosperous, more secure Pakistan, and vice versa," he said.

"Everybody needs to do more, somebody says 'So-and-so needs to do more,' and I'll say 'Everybody needs to do more' - that gets us nowhere," AFP news agency quoted Mr Kasuri as saying.

The issue dominated a trip by Ms Rice to Pakistan and Afghanistan last month when she urged all sides to work together in fighting cross-border militants.

During his three-day visit to Washington, Mr Kasuri will meet President Bush and Pentagon officials for talks on counter terrorism and political reform.

Afghanistan: Kabul's New Strategy Focuses On Pakistan

By Amin Tarzi RFE/RL

On his first visit to the United States since becoming Afghan foreign minister in April, Rangin Dadfar Spanta elaborated on a new counterterrorism strategy that has been proposed by his government. It is a three-pronged approach that involves sustained efforts to stifle ideological and military threats at home and abroad, as well as consolidating success through reconstruction. But arguably the inherent message is that the government in Kabul wants foreign help to rein in its neighbor to the east.


WASHINGTON, July 10, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- Minister Spanta said recently that the approach is based on three elements that Kabul views as crucial in the battle against terrorism.
 
First, he said, counterterrorism efforts should concentrate on centers of ideological and military training of terrorists and their financial resources -- all of which he described as being outside Afghanistan.
 
Second, terrorists should be confronted inside Afghanistan in a sustained manner similar to the current Operation Mountain Thrust in southern Afghanistan. Spanta said a rapid-deployment capability should be maintained alongside military operations to allow security forces to hold on to areas that they clear of terrorist activities.
 
He said the third component involves reconstruction once areas are free of the terrorist threat.

The second and third points in that strategy offer nothing new. They are simply in line with the current counterterrorism strategy of the U.S.-led coalition, which is spearheading the operation to which Spanta alluded in four southern provinces.

What is notable in the new Afghan strategy is the primacy of the focus on external factors.
 
Speaking at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on July 6, Spanta avoided blaming any single country for the ideological and military training of terrorists or their financing. But in the ensuing discussion, he left little doubt that Kabul views Pakistan as the main center for terrorists operating in Afghanistan.
 
Officials in Kabul have been pointing their fingers at Pakistan for some time, accusing Islamabad or intelligence services of turning a blind eye to cross-border terrorism targeting the Afghan central government. Many observers remain convinced that much of the former Taliban regime's leadership -- along with leaders of Al-Qaeda -- are operating in the lawless Afghan-Pakistani border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Karzai administration is appealing to its foreign backers, in effect pleading that they stop Pakistan from meddling in Afghan affairs.

 
An unprecedented upsurge in violence in Afghanistan has recently spread far beyond regions near the border with Pakistan. Attacks have reached the normally more secure northern areas of Afghanistan. Criticism of President Hamid Karzai's administration has spread, too.

Kabul's response appears to suggest that all of Afghanistan's ills have originated in Pakistan. The new counterterrorism strategy implies that many problems will continue unless Pakistan stops its support of terrorists and other "enemies of peace and security" in Afghanistan. But it also concedes that Kabul is powerless to force such cooperation on Islamabad.
 
So the Karzai administration is appealing to its foreign backers, in effect pleading that they stop Pakistan from meddling in Afghan affairs.
 
While powerless to force Pakistan to abide by its wishes, Afghanistan has done little recently to foster mutual understanding between two neighbors who have had an uneasy coexistence since Pakistan was established as a state nearly 60 years ago.
 
One of Afghanistan's first political gestures toward its new neighbor was a demand for self-determination for Pashtun and Baluchi tribes on the Indian subcontinent. The dispute over what came to be known as the "Pashtunistan" problem led to Afghanistan casting the lone vote against Pakistani admission to the United Nations in 1947.
 
Pakistani policy has long sought to prevent the rise of nationalism among Pashtuns -- on either side of the Afghan-Pakistani border. To achieve that goal, Islamabad has tried to infuse Islamism as a counterbalance to nationalism within its own Pashtun population, as well as among Pashtuns across the border in Afghanistan with the help of proxies like the Taliban.
 
Responding to a question from RFE/RL following his July 6 speech on whether a softer stance by Kabul on a long-standing border dispute might not have a favorable effect on Islamabad's treatment of the neo-Taliban, Spanta rejected any link between the "problem of terrorist attacks" in Afghanistan disagreement over the so-called Durand Line.
 
Echoing the policies of Afghan governments from the 1950s to the 1980s, Spanta called the Durand Line an Afghan "national issue" that lies beyond his authority as foreign minister. But in the next breath, Spanta signaled a potential link between cross-border counterterrorism efforts by Islamabad and Kabul's own calls for self-determination for Pashtuns in Pakistan. Spanta said that once terrorist activities cease, Kabul is ready to discuss "everything" with Islamabad.

Kabul is arguably justified in making a priority of a counterterrorism strategy that targets assistance for terrorists. And the Karzai administration's finger pointing at Pakistan over its approach to neo-Taliban fighters on its territory is perhaps understandable. 
 
But Afghan officials should be aware that their current policies toward Pakistan -- in particular concerning the apparent resuscitation of the "Pashtunistan" issue -- are unlikely to deter Islamabad from maintaining options that allow Islamabad to pressure Kabul to stop meddling in Pakistani affairs.
 
Afghanistan needs international support to pursue its counterterrorism strategy, but Kabul also must be proactive in doing its part.

Afghan border security: Kasuri’s ‘concrete’ proposals to Rice - Daily Times 11 July 2006

WASHINGTON: Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri met Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday, and said he had offered “concrete proposals” amid a public row with Afghanistan over border security.

Kasuri’s statement came days after Afghanistan’s foreign minister used an appearance in the US capital to urge Pakistan to do more to curb what he said were terrorists moving across the nations’ mutual frontier.

Kasuri said he had made “concrete” suggestions to Rice on how to improve the situation on the Pakistan-Afghan border. “Everybody needs to do more, somebody says ‘so-and-so needs to do more’, and I’ll say ‘everybody needs to do more’ – that gets us nowhere,” Kasuri told reporters outside the State Department after the meeting.

“I have made some concrete suggestions,” he said, without divulging details. He added that Rice agreed with him that neither Afghanistan nor Pakistan should discuss publicly their disputes over border issues.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack did not specifically confirm that remark, but said the United States was going to do whatever it could with both sides to improve border security despite their public spats.

“These are ministers in their own right, they are going to speak their minds publicly. We would encourage them if they have any differences to work them out and resolve them before they become a matter for public discussion,” McCormack said. Kasuri’s visit comes days after Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister Rangin Spanta caused a stir by saying in Washington that Islamabad had to do more to stop the infiltration of terrorist groups across the Afghan-Pakistan border.

Kasuri, who was due to meet President George W Bush’s National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley later on Monday, said his talks and lunch with Rice ran the “whole gamut” of US-Pakistan relations. He said they did not discuss India’s launch on Sunday of a nuclear-capable long-range missile.

Before the talks, Rice said she was looking forward to an extensive discussion of Washington’s “broad and deep strategic relationship with Pakistan”. US officials had said that the two sides would touch on issues including counter-terrorism and political reform. After meeting Kasuri, Rice was due to give a speech on the US-India civilian nuclear power deal to a group including members of the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin. Pakistan has expressed concern over the agreement, which helps India develop civilian nuclear facilities. afp

Backing Away From Afghanistan No Option: UN - By REUTERS July 10, 2006

KABUL (Reuters) - The international community underestimated the ability of the Taliban to recover from their 2001 defeat and the world should now respond by stepping up support for Afghanistan, the United Nations said on Monday.

An announcement by Britain expected on Monday that it will send more troops was ``excellent news'' and other countries should increase help, whether military, political or financial, the U.N. secretary-general's special representative said. ''These are difficult times for Afghanistan. These are difficult times for the south, but backing away is not an option,'' the special representative for Afghanistan, Tom Koenigs, told a news conference.

Taliban violence has intensified this year to its most severe since the hard-line Islamists were ousted nearly five years ago after refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden.

The violence, especially in the south of the country, has surprised the government and its Western backers. It has raised fears that NATO peacekeepers preparing to take over in the south from U.S. forces are getting sucked into a war. ``If we have thought that the Taliban would not recover from their defeat in 2001, we were wrong. They have recovered and they get help through international terrorist networks,'' Koenigs said.

``If we have thought we need not pay special attention to the southern provinces, we were wrong.''

Koenigs attended a top-level security meeting with President Hamid Karzai and his foreign allies on Sunday that looked at all aspects of the problem. If past analysis was wrong, now was the time to correct it, Koenigs said.

``The security in the south is much more fragile than we have analyzed, even half a year ago,'' he said.

``In the south we face the first phase of an insurgency, an insurgency using, frequently, terrorist methods, an insurgency fueled by international terrorist networks, and an insurgency not respecting any civilian lives.''

Koenigs referred to a debate in the Italian parliament later this month on support for Afghanistan and said the lesson from the south was clear: ``If one has not reached the goal in the expected time, one has to increase the commitment, not decrease it.''

The international community had to help Afghanistan build up its security forces and ensure that aid reaches everyone. It also had to help cut external support for the Taliban, who were getting logistical and financial help from abroad, Koenigs said.

``It seems to be clear that the Taliban would not have recovered as a military force in the south if they wouldn't have had both the territory to recover and the financial support.

``Obviously, the insurgency is well-financed and obviously they have logistical bases outside the country,'' he said.

``Ending the logistical and ideological support from over the Pakistan border is a Pakistan issue. The international community has to press and support Pakistan in that direction,'' he said.

Britain's expected deployment of more troops to back up the 3,300 it already has in the Afghan south was an exemplary response, he said.

``That's exactly the direction I want everybody to go: to see and analyze that we have problems, to take the consequence, more commitment, adjust strategy and stay the course. ``That gives a clear message to the Taliban that they will not win and that's what we all want.''

The Trouble With Pakistan - The Economist A country that everyone should worry about

TERRORISM has many sources and claimed justifications, but if it can be said to have a centre, it lies in the training camps, MADRASSAS and battlefields of northern Pakistan and south-eastern Afghanistan. There the Taliban and their ally, al-Qaeda, were both formed. From there, in hellish Diaspora, JIHADIS have fanned out across the globe. Add to that Afghanistan's lawlessness and ability to produce vast amounts of opium, not to mention Pakistan's wretched history of venal democrats and clumsy dictators, and its lamentable record on nuclear proliferation, and it is clear why what happens in those two places is of huge importance to the rest of the world. From neither place is there much good news.

The West has invested a huge amount in Pakistan's General Pervez Musharraf, who seized power in October 1999. This newspaper was prepared to give him a chance on condition that he acted swiftly and firmly to rein in extremism and sort out the economy, and then returned to barracks. He failed to do any of that. After September 11th 2001, however, he was recast as a provider of relative stability in a dangerous neighbourhood, and an essential ally in the "war on terror". Money was showered upon him; he was feted in Washington, DC, and London. Only gradually has it started to dawn on his admirers that, in the past five years, he has not done very much to make Pakistan a less dangerous place.

A DESTROYER OF DEMOCRACY True, the economy has improved quite a bit since 2001--and not just because of all that donor money. But promises, made even before September 11th, to bring the country's most radical MADRASSAS under control have not been kept. The training camps that Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency has long tolerated because of their usefulness against India and in Afghanistan still exist, though they have been told not to mount any operations for now. The most dangerous outfits, such as Lashkar-e-Toiba (the Army of the Pure), have been banned, only to reappear under new guises. Not until 2004 and under the most intense American pressure did Pakistan arrest Abdul Qadeer Khan, the scientist who had cheerfully sold nuclear secrets to anyone prepared to pay.

But perhaps the most damning criticism of General Musharraf is that he continues to do grave damage to the long-term political health of Pakistan (see our survey[1]). In his seven long years in office, he has insinuated the army into every nook and cranny of Pakistani public life, weakening institutions that were feeble already, emasculating its political parties and reducing parliament to a squabbling irrelevance. He has sacked judges when it suited him, created and dismembered parties at his own convenience, rigged a referendum on his presidency and used Pakistan's constitution to write his own job description. None of this bodes well for a post-Musharraf future--which could arrive at any moment given the enthusiasm of his enemies for trying to kill him.

Like a previous "caretaker" dictator, General Zia ul-Haq, who held power for 11 years before being killed, General Musharraf has been unable to resist the temptation to play politics with Islam, even if, unlike Zia, he has also had some success at purging fundamentalists from the top ranks of the army. He has forged a disparate group of Islamic political parties into a block that has helped him outmanoeuvre the democratic opposition; these Islamists are pushing hard for the extension of SHARIA law.

AND THEN THERE'S AFGHANISTAN It would not be fair to blame Pakistan for everything that is going wrong in Afghanistan. The government of Hamid Karzai is weak and corrupt; because of the West's continued failure to live up to its promises, much of the country, outside the big cities, is in the grip of bandits and warlords. But Pakistan's contribution to Afghanistan's chronic insecurity should not be underestimated. Both the Taliban and the remnants of al-Qaeda are able to take refuge on Pakistani soil, which makes the job of the soldiers from Western countries who have been struggling to eliminate them for the past five years much more difficult. The Taliban, after all, were in part a creation of Pakistan's ISI, which saw in them a way to establish a friendly state on their western flank, a vital strategic consideration for an organisation that sees itself as locked in perpetual conflict with India to its east.

General Musharraf, by contrast, contends he is doing all he can to root out Taliban fighters from their sanctuaries in the tribal areas, and Pakistan has lost more than 600 soldiers fighting there. Even so, say the critics, it could try much harder, especially given the size of its army. And as for al-Qaeda, none of General Musharraf's protestations can hide the fact that Osama bin Laden is generally reckoned to be holed up on Pakistani soil. Lesser terrorists such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the planner of the September 11th attacks, have been caught and handed over by the general, but Mr bin Laden goes on evading capture.

The danger is that Afghanistan may now, thanks to Pakistani meddling and Western neglect, gradually revert to what it was before September 2001: a state partly captured by the most dangerous Islamists. Belatedly waking up to this threat (see article[2]), Britain is leading NATO into risky action in Afghanistan's southern provinces, a swathe of territory where the Kabul government's writ is ignored and where a record-breaking crop of poppies was recently harvested. With a remit that has been altered to war-fighting at short notice, inadequate numbers and an apparent lack of enough helicopters and armoured support, these soldiers are taking politically painful casualties. There is a risk that the will of the politicians back home to go on fighting will swiftly fade.

An unstable, nuclear-armed Pakistan, intertwined with a chaotic and Taliban-dominated Afghanistan: it is not a settling prospect. It has all happened before, of course. The result was September 11th, swiftly followed by a terrorist outrage in Delhi that came close to provoking full-scale war between Pakistan and also-nuclear India. What will happen next time?

Taliban use beheadings and beatings to keep Afghanistan's schools closed

By Tom Coghlan in Kabul, The Independent - 11 July 2006

The letter pinned overnight to the wall of the mosque in Kandahar was succinct. "Girls going to school need to be careful for their safety. If we put acid on their faces or they are murdered then the blame will be on their parents."

Today the local school stands empty, victim of what amounts to a Taliban war on knowledge. The liberal wind of change that swept the country in 2001 is being reversed. By the conservative estimate of the Afghan President Hamid Karzai, 100,000 students have been terrorised out of schools in the past year. The number is certainly far higher and many teachers have been murdered, some beheaded.

In the province of Zabul a teacher and female MP, Toor Peikai, said yesterday: "There are 47 schools in my province but only three are open." Only one teaches girls. It is 200 metres from a large US military base in the provincial capital.

Across the south, schools burn during the night. According to a bleak report released by Human Rights Watch today at least 200 have been destroyed in the past year and half. Their blackened shells, many of them new buildings constructed with foreign aid money, are visible from the ever more dangerous road south to Kandahar.

The fate of the mixed-sex Sheikh Zai Middle School, on the outskirts of a community in the mountains of Maruf district is sadly not atypical. A local witness told Human Rights Watch what happened when the Taliban came: "They went to each class, took out their long knives .... locked the children in two rooms, where the children were severely beaten with sticks and asked, 'will you come to school now?'"

The six teachers later told residents what happened to them. They were taken out of school and blindfolded, then they were continually hit and were taken to nearby mountains on foot.

All six were separated and nobody knew where the other was. The Taliban asked them individually, "Why are you working for Mr Bush and Karzai?" They said, "We are educating our children with books -we know nothing about Bush or Karzai, we are just educating our children." After that they were beaten and let go.

The beatings were sufficiently serious that they remain handicapped. One of them had his leg broken and he cannot walk or work. One of the others still has problems with his hand and cannot use it. The headmaster was later targeted. He was beaten with a gun butt and later shot in the thigh.

This summer, across the south of Afghanistan, the Taliban have returned. They boast the same medieval world vision but their numbers are unprecedented, their weapons abundant, and their coffers full of money from wealthy Pakistani and Gulf State patrons and from the proceeds of drug trafficking.

And what was, until this year, characterised as an increasingly vicious "low-level insurgency" has become a war. A palpable terror grips the south of the country, where overstretched Western forces battle an enemy that melts in and out of the local populace at will, and anyone associated with the foreigners or the central government is a target for violent reprisals.

Faced with collapsing security and insurgents who are flowing back and forth from safe havens in the tribal areas of Pakistan, the Western forces in the south are resorting to more extreme measures.

Yesterday, Operation Mountain Thrust, the 11,000-strong coalition offensive in the south, claimed to have killed another 40 insurgents in a strike on a house in Uruzgan. The two months since the start of Mountain Thrust have seen more than 600 killed in the south, the vast majority of them Taliban fighters.

But increasingly figures within both the Afghan government and international community are questioning whether killing such huge numbers of people is quelling the insurgency or simply fuelling popular resentment.

"It is not acceptable that in all this fighting, Afghans are dying," an exasperated and increasingly unpopular Hamid Karzai said in June. "In the past three to four weeks, 500 to 600 Afghans were killed. Even if they are Taliban, they are sons of this land."

In May, the coalition dropped bombs in Afghanistan on no fewer than 750 occasions, more than the ordnance dropped in Iraq. On Sunday night, bombs were again lighting up the sky, amid a dull rumble in Ghazni province.

Afghanistan to refer Russian debt claim to Paris Club

Excerpt from report in English by Afghan independent Pajhwok news agency website

Kabul, 10 July: Afghanistan has decided to settle the debt claim made by the Russian government through Paris Club.

Decision to this effect was taken during a high-level meeting attended by the cabinet ministers here on Monday [10 July]. In light of the recommendation made during the meeting, Finance Minister Anwarolhaq Ahadi will leave for Paris on 19 July to discuss the matter with members of the Paris Club.

Finance Ministry spokesman Aziz Shams said most of the countries had written off their debts to Afghanistan. He said Russia was the only country with which the issue was yet to be resolved.

The Russian government claimed that Afghanistan owed 10.5bn dollars to that country in loans. However, the Afghan government said the debt was 9.5bn dollars. [Passage omitted] Shams said Afghanistan would not accept this money as debt since it was spent when the country was occupied by the then Soviet Union. He pleaded the Afghan government considered the amount as expenditure incurred on the Soviet troops during their occupation of Afghanistan.

Afghanistan and Russia had earlier discussed the issue bilaterally but it has been now referred to the Paris Club as the two sides failed to agree on its resolution. Paris Club is the group of 19 countries, including Russia, UK, and Germany.

Afghan clerics tell NATO commander to respect local customs

Text of report in English by Afghan independent Pajhwok news agency website

Kabul, 10 July: A grand council of ulema [religious scholars] in Afghanistan has demanded of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to give due respect to beliefs, customs and traditions of the Afghan people.

Acting chief justice of the Supreme Court and head of the council Mowlawi Fazl Hadi Shinwari presided over the meeting that [was] held here on Monday [10 July]. Participants of the meeting asked commander of the ISAF Lt-Gen D.J. Richards to cease bombardment, bring culprits to the court and decide fate of the prisoners.

Mowlawi Mohammad Sadiq, a participant of the meeting, told Pajhwok Afghan News that ISAF forces had promised of holding in honour, culture and other festivals of the people.

He said commander of the ISAF, Lt-Gen D.J. Richards, also attended the meeting and vowed that demands of the council would be materialized.

Sadiq said ISAF forces reminded the ulema that they had come here to ensure security, enhance reconstruction process and eliminate terrorism. He said ISAF asked ulema to extend full cooperation to its forces in maintaining law and order situation in the country.

The ulema also urged the government to take immediate steps to enhance security in the region that was a great hurdle to the rebuilding process.

Representing other religious scholars, Mowlawi Qayamudin, urged the ISAF to refrain from such acts that might spark people feelings against them.

O'Connor says morale high on Afghan mission

Updated Mon. Jul. 10 2006 10:15 PM ET CTV.ca News Staff

Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor dismisses suggestions of suffering morale in Afghanistan amid reports the young soldier slain in a firefight had become desperate to leave his tour of duty.

"The morale of the troops in Afghanistan is literally fantastic as it is back here in Canada," O'Connor told reporters on Monday. "If you get a chance, go and visit some of our infantry battalions around here, or our artillery battalions or armour and you'll find that you've got to hold them back, they want to go to operations."

Cpl. Anthony Boneca had recently become "disillusioned" with Canada's role in the conflict, his girlfriend's father, Larry DeCorte, said Monday. Boneca, a reservist, didn't have the proper training to serve on the front lines where he died Sunday, DeCorte told The Canadian Press.

"He expected to be on patrol, not fighting a war for someone else,'' said DeCorte. "He wasn't ready for that.'' DeCorte said the 21-year-old had become so desperate to leave Afghanistan he was considering telling an army priest he was suicidal so that he could be discharged.

"He wanted to get on with his life,'' said DeCorte, who added his daughter Megan had been given a promise ring by Boneca. "It wasn't happening fast enough for him. I guess it didn't happen fast enough for him.'' But O'Connor asserted that he would be surprised to discover soldiers were being misled about the nature of their operations would consist of.

"These operations are well-planned, orders are given, they're all the way down the chain of command. So I am not contesting what Cpl. Boneca said but I'd be surprised if people are misled," he said.

O'Connor said reservists who travel to Afghanistan get the same training as other military personnel but that once they are in the region, they cannot choose to opt out.

Boneca, a reservist from the Lake Superior Scottish Regiment in Thunder Bay, Ont., was killed Sunday after Canadian troops battled Taliban gunmen near the village of Pashmul, a recent hotbed of insurgent activity.

His tour of duty was to end in three weeks. The casket carrying his remains is on its way home after a sombre ceremony at Kandahar airfield.

Canadian troops were joined by their American, British, Romanian, French and Dutch counterparts to say good-bye as Boneca's body was loaded onto an aircraft in a sunrise ceremony Monday.

Two other Canadian soldiers were wounded shortly after Boneca was killed in the same area Sunday. They suffered non-life threatening injuries. Boneca was the 17th Canadian soldier to die in Afghanistan.

"He was doing outstanding work out there," said Brig.-Gen. David Fraser. "We really have to admire his professionalism and outstanding efforts to help those less fortunate."

Canadian soldiers have faced increasing attacks from Taliban insurgents near the village of Pashmol, which has been a hotbed of Taliban activity in the past few months.

The Pashmol area has been a main gathering point for Taliban, who have upped attacks on coalition troops and Afghan National Police outposts. In fighting on Sunday, Canadian troops had been mounting aggressive patrols near the village when they encountered the Taliban, sparking a firefight.

Back-up was called in, and U.S. Apache helicopters answered by bombing targets. "This is a village long known as a Taliban stronghold," said CTV's Steve Chao, reporting from Kandahar.

"The Soviets tried to take over and attack this village and failed. The Americans have been trying for months to rout the Taliban here, and they also failed. The Canadians were having a go at it, and it's been a three-day long intensive battle."

With a report from CTV's Roger Smith and files from The Canadian Press

Canadian dies in Afghan battle

Soldiers engaged in lethal two-day game of cat-and-mouse with Taliban fighters

CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD From Monday's Globe and Mail

PASHMUL, AFGHANISTAN — It was about 6 a.m. local time Sunday when Corporal Tony Boneca and the rest of the 1st Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry first filed through the maze of lush grape fields of the Panjwei district west of Kandahar.

The sun was already up purple over the foothills of the small mountains off in the distance. It was still almost cool, at least by the standards of the blistering heat that regularly tops 60 degrees by noon. The biting sand fleas and fierce long-legged ants of the night had gone to bed, and their daytime cousins weren't up yet.

It seemed every turn in the giant mud-walled maze held a sweet surprise -- here, two ancient black tea-brewing kettles on a ledge allowing a glimpse of a simple life quickly abandoned; there, giant sunflowers grinning from behind a mud wall; everywhere clusters of small green grapes hanging from leafy vines, and in one dusty courtyard, a group of gorgeous little tawny rabbits with enormous ears.

It was the trickster Afghanistan at its winsome best, making the world seem benign and enchanting. Not two hours later, Cpl. Boneca was being frantically carried out on a black rubber sheet through those same grape fields by his mates.

He was ashen, with the plug of an airway tube showing in his mouth. There was a medic running by his side giving first aid, and just behind him a sergeant barking out, "Be careful boys! Easy boys!" as the soldiers desperately struggled to keep their balance in the narrow paths of the mud maze while staying low enough to duck the gunfire that still rang out sporadically.

Past the clusters of small green grapes and the sunflowers, past the courtyard of big-eared bunnies, on the same worn paths Cpl. Boneca had walked as a strong 21-year-old, his blood now dripped. On arrival at a secure point, I heard one of the sergeants ask the medic for Cpl. Boneca's vital signs.

The medic grimly shook his head. There were none; the young man was dead, a gunshot to the neck just above the ceramic plate of his body armour, the bullet tearing downward through his body.

He was choppered out a little later, and by the time you read this newspaper, if things proceed as scheduled, his "ramp service," the military's formal sendoff for one of their own, will be over and the 17th Canadian soldier to die in just over four years in Afghanistan will be on his way home in a casket.

Cpl. Boneca was shot as he headed up the stairs of one of three mud-walled compounds by one of two men, presumed to be Taliban, who for the better part of two horrendous days played a lethal cat-and-mouse game with the Canadians from 1PPCLI and the combat engineers and the soldiers of the Afghan National Army 205th Corps and their American trainers.

The task, "probably the largest scale co-ordinated battle group manoeuvre" in southern Afghanistan thus far according to Major Bill Fletcher, the Officer Commanding for Charlie Company, saw the Canadians flood the volatile Panjwei area on Friday night.

Almost from the get-go, it was a difficult mission, made more so because so many of these soldiers have spent most of the previous five months "outside the wire" -- meaning the relative safety of the sprawling coalition base at Kandahar Air Field -- living and working in appallingly primitive conditions while simultaneously engaged in ever-increasing contact with the Taliban. These soldiers are near exhaustion, or would be if they stopped long enough to notice. Many have lost between 25 and 35 pounds since arriving: They are gaunt and sunburned, often unrecognizable to their spouses when they head home on leave, and dramatically changed even since I saw them last in early April.

What they ran into on this assignment included -- and this is from being with Charlie Company, with whom I was embedded on this trip, and from my inexpert monitoring of the radio, which captured reports from Alpha and Bravo companies as well -- numerous rocket-propelled grenade (or RPG) attacks, including one that came within 10 feet of the light armoured vehicle (LAV) I was in; various bursts of small-arms fire upon various vehicles; reports of "women and children fleeing" the area we were headed to, a sure sign that the village is emptying because the Taliban is there and ready to fight; part of one company being in a huge battle that saw some of their soldiers pinned down in a trench and being repeatedly RPGed (two were injured), perhaps by the same two who would later hold the soldiers hostage for much of the weekend; the discovery of an IED, or improvised explosive device, along a road later used by U.S. soldiers in a metal-detecting Buffalo vehicle, which has saved other Canadian lives before; the discovery of an RPG, which was deliberately exploded, and reports of "harassing fire in the grape fields."

The Canadians fought back, successfully, tenaciously and always with an admirable fairness and respect for their rules of engagement.

At one point during the weekend, with the help of their invaluable interpreters, the soldiers made a forceful appeal for the Taliban to surrender; they were invited to walk into the open and meet at the building the Canucks call "the white school" and be greeted peacefully. The allotted half-hour passed with no takers.

At another point, the soldiers spotted five Taliban walking along the edge of the tree line, had them clearly in their sights, and could have easily killed them. But Major Fletcher ordered his men to check their fire until he was assured that there were no ANA in the area; the men by the trees were wearing pants, not typical Afghan dress, and appeared relaxed. By the time all the attached ANA soldiers were accounted for, the men had disappeared into the forest.

And, a telling Canadian touch, the soldiers always do a "battle damage assessment," which at first I thought meant a tally of ground gained and lost, but in fact is the process by which the Canadians determine if they have taken action that saw, say, a farmer's wall damaged by a vehicle, and then arrange to fix the wall. This Canadian niceness does not extend to battles in which they are engaged by the Taliban, but still, as Major Fletcher said, it's an easy enough gesture to make.

After Cpl. Boneca was killed, his fellows tried desperately to avenge themselves on those who had shot him.

As Major Fletcher said in his premission briefing, "We will always dismount [from their vehicles] and chase them. The overriding principle is that no one will ever shoot at us without being shot at."

The Canadians and ANA made at least three assaults on the mud-walled house, but were forced to retreat each time: The two Taliban were on the roof, probably hunkered down in the little hut that is a common feature to rooftops here, obviously had ammunition to burn, and perfect sightlines over the low walls of the grape fields and adjacent small huts.

The soldiers tossed in grenades; indeed, one Canuck badly wrenched his knee doing just that. They called in the snipers. They set up firing lines so they could safely extricate the wounded. Ultimately, they turned to the big guns of the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery and to air support. As Major Fletcher promised at the briefing, "This is the division main effort, so there'll be no shortage of shit in the air ready to drop bombs."

There wasn't, either. At various times yesterday, trying to in military jargon "destroy" the enemy on the rooftop, the Canadians called upon the U.S. Air Force Predator, an unmanned air vehicle equipped with Hellfire missiles, the A-10 Warthog, which dropped 500-pound bombs, and U.S. Apache attack choppers, which repeatedly strafed the rooftop.

When I left the soldiers about 3 o'clock local time yesterday, one of the Taliban wounded, was still firing, and the soldiers were calling him the Invincible Man.

But the Canadians did, to use the lingo, destroy many enemy, arrested at least one man, and choppered one critically injured to Kandahar for treatment.

The Taliban are famously swift at retrieving the bodies of their dead, which makes counting their casualties problematic, but two were still in the ditch by a little irrigation canal on Saturday morning.

One was the seriously wounded man, who was treated by a Canadian medic before being flown off; the other was dead, killed Friday night by a young soldier in my LAV. This was his first confirmed "kill," but he was properly subdued, or at least circumspect, about it.

I saw the man lying in the ditch. His head had been blown off, and most of his clothes. He was improbably thin, dusty and to judge by his clothes and sandals, probably poor. He appeared to be the universal age of Afghan men, that is, anywhere between 40 and 60. One of the interpreters who was there was shaken to see one of his fellows, even a Talib, dead, and quietly stepped away to get down on his knees and pray.

It wasn't so much later that I saw Cpl. Boneca, and knew immediately, and exactly, how the interpreter felt. What we were both hoping for, praying for in his case, was an Afghanistan day that ended as brightly, and gently as it began.

[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.]