In this bulletin:

• Coalition 'retakes Taleban towns' – BBC
• Helmand bombing: 5,000 families forced to flee houses
• The Taliban's Silent Partner
• German troops to stay in Afghanistan until peace restored
• Interview: Helmand governor says coalition fights "coalition" in S. Afghanistan
• Vice and Virtue Department Could Return
• Pakistani delegation calls on Afghan officials
• Beauty queen defies bimbo stereotype
• Opinion: Need to seal Afghan border
• Dr. Lodhi briefs British Parliamentary Committee on Afghanistan
• Zaeef's book review: 'Your Excellency, you are no more Excellency'
• Iran’s proposed price for IPI gas unacceptable: Delhi

Coalition 'retakes Taleban towns' – BBC

US-led and Afghan forces say they have retaken two Taleban-held towns in the southern Afghan province of Helmand. Taleban fighters had seized the areas of Garmser and Naway-i-Barakazayi earlier in the week. Reports say many locals have fled the area.

In neighbouring Uruzgan province, one coalition soldier was killed and two others injured, the US military said. Some 10,000 US-led troops are fighting the Taleban and their allies. Hundreds of people have been killed this year.

Meanwhile a statement purportedly issued by the Taleban threatened to intensify attacks. "There will be a manifold increase in mujahideen operations in the coming few days... new fronts will be opened against the enemy," it said.

General Rahmatullah Roufi, an Afghan army commander, told the Associated Press that hundreds of troops had battled Taleban fighters before entering Garmser on Tuesday.

"Our troops launched an attack on Garmser and thank God we captured it," he said. The operation in Garmser followed a similar operation to retake the town of Naway-i-Barakazayi.

Two Afghan soldiers were slightly hurt in the operations, the US-led coalition said. US military spokesman Lt Col Paul Fitzpatrick said Afghan and coalition forces "skirmished" with Taleban fighters outside Garmser but met no resistance once inside.

"The Taleban appears to be bullying their way around some of the smaller towns in remote areas, but they have no capability to lay claim to any piece of ground," he said.

The two towns are both a few miles west of Lashkar Gah, where the British military operation centre is based.

The US-led coalition has said a massive military operation has seriously disrupted Taleban fighters in southern Afghanistan, particularly in the districts of Sangin, Musa Qala and Baghran in Helmand province.

"Afghan and coalition forces in the last week have killed numerous lower and mid-level commanders that the senior Taleban leadership rely on to intimidate villages, threaten elders and lead small bands of extremists to conduct attacks on Afghan and coalition forces," a statement on Tuesday said.

The statement also confirmed that a coalition soldier had died on Monday in neighbouring Uruzgan province. The nationality of the dead soldier has not yet been released.

The troops came under fire after destroying a truck that militants were loading in Tarin Kowt district. Eleven other soldiers were wounded, the coalition said.

Al-Qaeda and Taleban militants have mounted a series of attacks in Afghanistan in recent months. Most of the violence has been in the south and east, in provinces bordering Pakistan.

Helmand bombing: 5,000 families forced to flee houses

LASHKARGAH, July 18 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Local officials said insecurity and the recent spate of violence have forced around 5,000 families to flee different districts of the restive Helmand province.

Several districts such as Sangin, Greshk, Musa Qala, Kajki, Nawzad and provincial capital Lashkargah were severely pounded in the recent string of air strikes by the US-led coalition forces.

Taliban fighters have already captured Garmsir and Nawa districts of the province after heavy battles. By the same token, residents claimed 150 civilians were killed in the bombing in Nawzad district by the coalition aircrafts, but the coalition said they had killed 40 Taliban in the strikes.

The residents complained the massive killing of civilians in the gun battle between Taliban fighters and Afghan National Army (ANA) and coalition forces had impelled them to flee the region.

Abdul Karim, one of the residents of Nawzad district told Pajhwok Afghan News they were compelled to flee the area and move with his family to the provincial capital due to severe fighting.

Muhammad Daud, a resident of Sarwan Qala of Sangin district said: "Our gardens, farmlands and houses had been bombed by coalition forces, thanks to God Almighty we survived the strikes, our area is all under Taliban."

He said they were fed up with the insecurity in the region and thus migrated to the provincial capital Lashkargah. Provincial Refugees Affairs Department director Abdul Satar Mazhari said bout 5,000 families left their homes and had migrated to other districts, provincial capital or other neighboring provinces.

He said only 2,500 families had left Nawzad district and went to other areas.

He blamed insecurity and water dearth as the causes for displacement of the people and added they had no facility in hand to help displaced families.

Spokesman for the refugee affairs ministry in Kabul Hafiz Nadeem while confirming displacement of the people told this news agency many families were forced to flee their houses in southern Zabul and Helmand provinces. He said they had prepared a report on the issue that would soon be presented to the government's emergency commission.

Nadir Farhad UNHCR spokesman said they had also heard about people leaving their houses and migrating to other places. "As we dont have any agency in Helmand province that is why we dont have any report regarding this."

Helmand provincial officials blame Taliban for snatching houses of locals and using them for fighting.

Secretary to the provincial governor Haji Muhaiudin told this news agency: "There will be no civilian casualties if the Taliban stop taking positions in locals' houses."

Rejecting using of locals houses for fighting, Haji Mullah Abdul Rahim, Taliban-appointed governor for Helmand province, said: "How is it possible for us to hide in locals houses from the Americans satellites as they claim they can find a two-inches stuff on earth through Satellite." He said coalition forces killed civilians in their air strikes and now blame us for such killing.

The Taliban's Silent Partner- The New York Times Op-ed 07/20/2006 By Robert D. Kaplan

WHEN the American-led coalition invaded Afghanistan five years ago, pessimists warned that we would soon find ourselves in a similar situation to what Soviet forces faced in the 1980's. They were wrong — but only about the timing. The military operation was lean and lethal, and routed the Taliban government in a few weeks. But now, just two years after Hamid Karzai was elected as the country's first democratic leader, the coalition finds itself, like its Soviet predecessors, in control of major cities and towns, very weak in the villages, and besieged by a shadowy insurgency that uses Pakistan as its rear base.

Our backing of an enlightened government in Kabul should put us in a far stronger position than the Soviets in the fight to win back the hinterland. But it may not, and for a good reason: the involvement of our other ally in the region, Pakistan, in aiding the Taliban war machine is deeper than is commonly thought.

The United States and NATO will not prevail unless they can persuade Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, to help us more than he has. Unfortunately, based on what senior Afghans have explained in detail to American officials, Pakistan is now supporting the Taliban in a manner similar to the way it supported the Afghan mujahedeen against the Soviets two decades ago.

The Taliban has two leadership cells operating inside Pakistan, presumably with the guidance and logistical support of local authorities. Senior lieutenants to Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban's supreme leader, are ensconced in Quetta, the capital of the Pakistani province of Baluchistan. From there they direct military operations in the south-central Afghan provinces of Helmand, Kandahar, Uruzgan and Zabul.

Meanwhile, one of the Taliban's savviest military commanders, Jalaluddin Haqqani, and his sons operate out of Miramshah, the capital of the North Waziristan Province. From there, they run operations in Kabul and the eastern Afghan regions of Khost, Logar, Paktia and Paktika.

Mr. Haqqani, who was years ago an American ally in the anti-Soviet campaign, has also been long suspected of sheltering Osama bin Laden. He is a crusty warrior with a great deal of credibility in Afghanistan because 20 years ago, rather than sip tea with journalists like some other rebel leaders, he was laying siege to Soviet positions.

Meanwhile, in the Pakistani city of Peshawar and the Bajur region, one finds various headquarters of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whose Hezb-i-Islami Party is aligned with the Taliban. Mr. Hekmatyar, another former American ally, runs operations in the Afghan regions of Kapisa, Kunar, Laghman, Nangahar and Nuristan.

These various bases inside Pakistan have assured the Taliban's survival in the years since a democratic government was established in Kabul. Having hung on, the Taliban has recently regained much of its strength — and may now be winning the war of the villages against President Karzai.

In Afghan politics, it is the rural heartland that has always been the pivotal terrain, the place from where the mujahedeen rebellion against a secularized, Marxist-influenced urban regime was ignited in 1978, almost two years before the Soviets actually invaded. Whereas Iraq is two-thirds urban, less than a quarter of Afghans live in cities.

In Afghan villages, God and tribe are more tangible than any elected parliament. And where democracy remains an abstraction, anyone who can provide security and other basic needs — by whatever means — commands respect. Since toppling the Taliban in late 2001, the coalition and Afghan leaders have concentrated too much effort on Afghan cities, many of whose inhabitants, connected as they are to the outside world, are apt to support democracy anyway. The war we are now fighting will be won or lost in the villages.

While government officials from Kabul show up in rural areas for regular visits, the Taliban are setting up permanent presences in them. They are also importing radical, Pakistan-trained clerics to preach against the Kabul authorities. While officials from the capital too often speak in platitudes, the Taliban make concrete offers to protect poppy fields from eradication.

The drug trade is a particular problem because the United States, given its domestic policies, must take a stand against it and the government in Kabul, needing to maintain an upright image with international donors, must follow suit. Thus, the Taliban is free to use our morality against both.

The Taliban even have shadow officials for small areas of Afghanistan, whose top officials live just over the border in Pakistan. Afghan villagers journey to Pakistan to seek justice for one grievance or another from these alternative figures.

The situation is tragically simple: the very people we need to kill or apprehend we can't get at, because they are in effect protected by our so-called ally, Pakistan. All we can do is win tactical battles against foot soldiers inside Afghanistan, who are easily replaced.

It isn't that President Musharraf is doing nothing. He has deployed troops along the border that have somewhat cut down on the activities of Mr. Haqqani. Moreover, many of his troops are busy quelling a separatist rebellion in the border province of Baluchistan.

But he feels himself atop a volcano of fundamentalism. He is among the last of the Westernized, British-style officers in the national army; after him come the men with the beards. The military and Pakistani society are filled with those who do not see the Taliban as a threat: it is an American problem, and one for an Afghan government toward which they feel ambivalence. So President Musharraf must walk a fine line. And he must be as devious with us as he is with any other faction.

Thus Pakistani strategy is to get the Taliban to the point where it can set up secure leadership bases in remote parts of Afghanistan and move across the border. Then Pakistan will claim that it is no longer its problem.

There are two opposing tipping points to watch out for. The first is the moment the Taliban leadership feels safe in bases inside Afghanistan and decides it can mobilize to infiltrate and eventually topple the cities. That is when Presidents Bush and Karzai lose. Mr. Karzai would need to form his own private militia, and perhaps cut a deal with Mullah Omar in order to survive.

The other tipping point is when the Taliban leaders inside Pakistan feel themselves under so much pressure from the local authorities that their energy is spent on survival rather than on running operations. That is when Messrs. Bush and Karzai win. Unfortunately, this seems less likely than the first tipping point.

We can't reverse this drift without a stronger policy toward Pakistan. I say this with extreme trepidation. President Musharraf, for all his faults, may still be the worst person to rule his country except for any other who might replace him. And yet it is necessary to hold his feet to the fire to a greater extent than we have.

Things have reached the point that it was entirely justified for the American ambassador to Islamabad, Ryan Crocker, to say this month that the exiled former Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif should be allowed to return and run against Mr. Musharraf. As corrupt as those two leaders were, we need leverage.

IN the end, the battle for Afghanistan will be won in the villages, and the time-tested rules of counterinsurgency will apply. The two most vital goals in this case will be giving the local residents a stake in the outcome through subsidies and development projects; and providing security through the presence of coalition troops embedded with Afghan Army units. Periodic patrols don't cut it. If you live and sleep beside people, they tend to trust you. You don't win these kinds of wars operating out of big bases near the capital.

Finally, while democracy may be an abstraction in the Afghan countryside, it can be a powerful psychological tool if explained in the language of nuts-and-bolts enticements. With our help, President Karzai's rural representatives must articulate a strategy of hope and development, and contrast it with the one of interminable conflict that is all that the Taliban can ultimately offer.

Robert D. Kaplan is a national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, and the author of "Soldiers of God: With Islamic Warriors in Afghanistan and Pakistan."

German troops to stay in Afghanistan until peace restored - Reuters
7/20/2006

MAZAR-e-SHARIF • German troops will stay in insurgency-hit Afghanistan until “permanent peace” is established, the German defence minister said yesterday.

Franz Josef Jung met German troops in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif on the second day of a visit to Afghanistan, which thousands of foreign troops have been helping to secure since the Taleban regime fell in 2001.

“We have come here to bring permanent peace and unless that is accomplished, we will not leave Afghanistan,” Jung said in response to a reporter’s question.

Jung also praised the work of the German deployment, which has since last month been commanding the northern region of a Nato-led force that covers the north and the west and is due to move into the south in the coming weeks.

Germany has about 2,200 troops with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), most of them based in the north.

The country is in charge of two reconstruction teams in the north, which sees relatively little of the Taleban-led insurgency plaguing southern and eastern Afghanistan although attacks have been picking up in the region.

ISAF has been deployed in Afghanistan under a UN mandate since the Taleban regime was toppled in a US-led invasion in late 2001.

Interview: Helmand governor says coalition fights "coalition" in S. Afghanistan

Source: Xinhua News Agency Date: 20 Jul 2006 by Yu Zhixiao & Chen Gang

KABUL, Jul 20, 2006 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- One coalition, mainly grouping the Afghan government, its troops and coalition forces, is carrying out a life-and-death war against the other "coalition," made up of the Taliban and international drug smugglers, in Afghanistan's southern provinces, Helmand Governor Mohammad Daoud said.

"Taking Helmand province as an example, Taliban militants there are using their military forces to convoy international narcotics smugglers, and the latter provides money and many weapons for the Taliban," Daoud told Xinhua on Thursday during an exclusive interview by telephone.

The southern Helmand province, where 3,300 British troops are deployed to fight Taliban insurgents, is famous for vibrant Taliban activities and gigantic poppy cultivation, which accounts for 25 percent of the country's total poppy crop in 2005.

There is apparent evidence to show the Taliban is involved in drug trafficking, as Afghan and the U.S.-led coalition forces have occasionally said they found opium and drugs after capturing Taliban hideouts.

In a recent case, coalition soldiers seized 70 kg opium paste, with an estimated value of 3 million U.S. dollars, in a mud-walled Taliban compound in Helmand on July 13.

The UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) predicated in February the province's poppy cultivation would rise 50 percent to 40,000 hectares in 2006, up from 26,500 in 2005. High profits have encouraged Afghan farmers to rush to poppy plant.

Daoud said, "Drug smugglers can provide money for farmers one year before the poppy harvest, so farmers are allured." The government should help farmers earn more money in other ways if it intends to get their support, he added.

In 2005, farmers in Helmand gain 5,400 U.S. dollars for each hectare of opium yield, which is almost ten times more than the equivalent price of wheat, according to a UNODC survey.

The total opium value in the province last year reached a staggering 143 million U.S. dollars, compared to the total wheat value at only 44 million U.S. dollars, though 80,000 hectares were dedicated to wheat cultivation.

Although the government officially forbids poppy cultivation in the country and burns a great amount of narcotics from time to time, Afghanistan still produces nearly 90 percent of opium in the world, which is first trafficked to neighboring countries, then mainly to Russia or to Europe and North America.

Daoud, a supporter of President Hamid Karzai, was appointed as Helmand Governor early this year. Until the Taliban regime, Daoud was heading an NGO, which distributed wheat among the poor in Afghanistan.

He told Xinhua the majority of opium profits went to pockets of international smugglers, while local farmers only received a tiny part. He said the continuous drought in the region for several years had forced more farmers to plant poppy, which needs less water than other crops.

Southern Afghanistan including Helmand province has witnessed a rise of Taliban-linked violence this year, during which more than 1,200 people, mostly Taliban militants, have been killed.

One coalition, mainly grouping 11,000 Afghan and coalition forces backed by local governments, has launched the massive Operation Mountain Thrust in Helmand and other three provinces in southern Afghanistan, a stronghold of the Taliban, since mid-May to smash the enemies there.

More than 800 persons, most of whom are Taliban militants, have lost their lives in the operation. Local resources told Xinhua more than 5,000 families of Helmand, which has a population of about 1 million, had fled their homes this year due to ascending violence, and some villages were totally emptied.

However, the other "coalition" has all along tried to show their seemingly untiring strength. A purported Taliban statement said Wednesday that the Taliban would open "new fronts" in its war against foreign forces in Afghanistan, and launched more attacks in the coming days.

The statement said Afghan soldiers now had the last chance to leave the camp of the government, which it called as "a puppet of the United States."

The soldiers, as "obstacles between the Taliban and coalition forces," wouldn't have chance to surrender to the Taliban in the future, and they would be killed immediately after surrendering or being captured, it added.

Taliban militants also occupied the centers of Gamser and Nawa districts in southeast Helmand on Monday, apparently to show they had the ability to effectively control some major parts of this war-weary country. Afghan and coalition forces regained the two towns on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Daoud said the militants, carried by eight vehicles, had come to attack the two towns after crossing the porous Afghan-Pakistani border and escaped back to Pakistan later.

He said Pakistan, with a 160-km border with Helmand, should do more to fight Taliban militants on its side, while Pakistan has insisted it has deployed many troops on the border to combat terrorism.

"We should accept the seriousness of Taliban and drug problems in Helmand and other southern provinces. It is not easy to fight narcotics smugglers and Taliban militants together, and it needs hard and continuous work," Daoud said.

Vice and Virtue Department Could Return - Human Rights Watch - 07/18/2006

New York - A proposal to reestablish the Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in Afghanistan raises serious concerns about potential abuse of the rights of women and vulnerable groups, Human Rights Watch said today. President Hamid Karzai's cabinet has approved the proposal to reestablish the department, and it will go to Afghanistan's parliament when it reconvenes later this summer. It is not clear what the department's enforcement power would be. Nematullah Shahrani, the minister of Haj and religious affairs, who would oversee the department, has stated that it would focus on alcohol, drugs, crime and corruption. Afghanistan's criminal laws already address these issues.

"Afghan women and girls face increasing insecurity, and it's more important for the government to address how to improve their access to public life rather than limit it further," said Zama Coursen-Neff, senior researcher for Human Rights Watch. "Reinstatement of this controversial department risks moving the discussion away from the vital security and human rights problems now engulfing the country."

In a recently released report, "Lesson in Terror: Attacks on Education in Afghanistan," Human Rights Watch identified the lack of access to education, especially for girls, as jeopardizing the country's future development and security. Human Rights Watch pointed out that the proposed vice and virtue department does not address the real problems of increasing insecurity in the south and southeast, particularly attacks on schools, teachers and students that are preventing children from attending school.

"The proposed vice and virtue department's vague standards for upholding morality could be used to silence critical voices, and further limit women's and girls' access to work, health care and education," Coursen-Neff said.

A female member of parliament told Human Rights Watch that the proposal was "a symbolic decision from the government but I'm worried about it, maybe as always there will be some extremist violence against freedom of speech on women's issues. The only hope is the Parliament."

Under the Taliban, the vice and virtue department became a notorious symbol of arbitrary abuses, particularly against Afghan women and girls. The department ruthlessly enforced restrictions on women and men through public beatings and imprisonment. The department beat women publicly for, among other things, wearing socks that were not sufficiently opaque; showing their wrists, hands, or ankles; and not being accompanied by a close male relative. They stopped women from educating girls in home-based schools, working, and begging. They also beat men for trimming their beards.

President Karzai came under pressure from conservative political figures two months ago to reestablish the department in order to counter anti-Western propaganda by opposition groups. The president then appointed a panel with representatives from the Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Haj and Religious Affairs, and the Supreme Court, which drafted a proposal and presented it to the cabinet. The cabinet approved the draft and plans to submit it for parliamentary approval when the Afghan National Assembly reconvenes later this summer.

Human Rights Watch called on the international community to make clear a commitment to Afghanistan's long-term security and reconstruction, and to avoid a return to repressive past practices.

Pakistani delegation calls on Afghan officials

KABUL, July 18 (Pajhwok Afghan News): A two-member team of the Pakistan's Interior Ministry Tuesday called on Afghan officials and discussed with them in detail release of Pakistanis held in Afghan jails.

Spokesman for the Pakistani embassy in Kabul Naeem Khan told Pajhwok Afghan News the visiting team met Afghan deputy minister for interior Abdul Hadi Khalid and discussed with him issue of Pakistani prisoners in Afghan jails.

The delegation comprises additional secretary Qamar-uz-Zaman and National Crisis Management Cell director Col. Muzaffar.

Neam said the two sides agreed on exchanging information about their nationals detained in each other jails. The visiting team handed over a list of 680 to Afghan official of Afghan prisoners in Pakistani jails.

Pakistani officials also met head of the prisons Abdul Salam Bakhshi and later called on the Pakistani prisoners in Pul-i-Charkhi prison, he said. The Pakistani team arrived on three-day trip would visit Bagram airbase on Wednesday to meet Pakistani prisoners on second day of its tour.

Interior ministry spokesman Yousuf Stanizai told this news agency the visiting team also gave a letter to Abdul Hadi Khalid from Pakistani Interior Minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao in which Afghanistan was asked to release Pakistani detainees.

Meanwhile, the Pakistani Interior Minister Sherpao told reporters in Islamabad that the delegation was sent to Kabul to give a list of 70 Pakistani detainees held in Afghan jails and hold talks for their release.

These Pakistani nationals were detained after the Taliban were ousted in late 2001 by a heavy US-led coalition forces.

He said both the neighbouring countries were fully cooperating with each other in returning citizens to their own countries. He said Pakistan recently released 150 Afghan prisoners and had also freed more in the past.

Beauty queen defies bimbo stereotype - By Chiade O'Shea - Rawalpindi BBC

With lustrous hair to her waist, immaculate make-up and perfect poise, Miss England 2005 has all the credentials of a beauty queen. But ask her what she has hoped to achieve in her year wearing the crown and Hamassa Kohistani proves to be as well grounded as she is well groomed.

There are no vague aspirations for world peace here. Her aim has been to make a dent on child illiteracy in Pakistan, learn from her adopted charity there and set up her own NGO in her native Afghanistan.

"People from my background especially, we haven't had the opportunity to take education for granted," she says, referring to her family's exile from Afghanistan.

Had they stayed there, the country's oppressive Taleban regime would have prevented Hamassa from going to school. Now, she is multi-lingual and studying four, rather than the standard three, A-levels.

Surrounded by children in a small Rawalpindi school who also came very close to missing out on education altogether, Hamassa is suddenly overwhelmed. She is visiting a school run by the Zindagi Trust, a charity whose name simply means "Life". Its workers are based in the poorest areas of Pakistan, trying to give child labourers a basic education.

Touched by their homemade gifts, she is aware that the young pupils will leave the classrooms in a few hours to return to low paid and often dangerous jobs. "It's hard to see them go back to the streets and work when they're so happy in a classroom," she says, wiping tears from her eyes.

Until the Zindagi Trust approached their parents, none of these children could read or write. Now, they divide their time between work and study.

Eventually, they will be encouraged to leave work altogether to enter a full-time vocational skills programme that will ultimately leave them qualified for safer and more lucrative employment as adults.

The struggle to get children out of labour usually stumbles on the problem of the family's lost income. To counter this, the Zindagi Trust pays each pupil 20 rupees (30 cents, 20p) a day to study.

The modest income - enough to buy seven chapattis or half a kilo of sugar - nonetheless exceeds what many of these ruthlessly exploited children earn.

But, for the moment, the trust is working hard to get boys like 13 year-old Waleed Akhtar out of his furniture workshop for the few hours a day it will take to teach him basic literacy.

"I want to have the same sort of life that other children have," said Waleed. "I came here because these people offered me to be able to study as well as working," he added.

Waleed can't afford to stop work entirely. He spends as much as eight hours a day, before and after school, making cushions and padding for sofas. But, the extra 20 rupees he brings home convinced his impoverished family that school was a worthwhile investment.

For Waleed, the pay off is his academic progress. "Now I can read and write English better than Urdu," he boasts with a smile. Pakistan has 10.5 million working children like Waleed. The vast majority of them lack even the literacy to write a basic sentence.

Without the education needed to progress to better-paid employment, these youngsters own children will probably never go to school. Hamassa is also keen to get children in Afghanistan out of the same vicious cycle.

"At least these children have the Zindagi Trust behind them... I know that these are the lucky ones, but what about in Afghanistan where they have nothing?"

Her year as Miss England is now over, but she wants to carry on with her work. But when conditions are safer, the teenager has resolved to travel to Afghanistan to start her charity. In the meantime, she intends to learn as much as possible about running this kind of organisation.

While she works on her own skills as a fundraiser and campaigner, Hamassa hopes to change people's perceptions of her as a beauty queen. "It's not just that I appreciate education as an Afghan woman, it's also about being a model and having an education," she said.

"People stereotype beauty queens and models so much and think, oh, you know, she's a bimbo," adds Hamassa. But in case there's any doubt on the matter, it's a point she can argue in six languages.

Opinion: Need to seal Afghan border - Dawn 19 July 2006 By Najmuddin A. Shaikh

IT may seem out of place to be writing about Afghanistan at the end of a week which has seen such major developments as the Israeli bombing of Beirut, continued Israeli aggression in Gaza and the inability of the Iraqi government to curb the spiralling cycle of violence in Baghdad. Closer to home there have been the Mumbai train blasts, and in Karachi, the killing of the revered Allama Hassan Turabi by a suicide bomber.

But these developments and the emotions of Islamic solidarity they arouse make a cold blooded analysis of the Afghan situation even more necessary. In this way we can take decisions that minimise the costs to Pakistan and give our policymakers the room they need to tackle domestic and regional problems.

In last week’s column I had offered the view that given the present level of military and economic assistance and President Hamid Karzai’s inability to provide good governance or to remove unsavoury people from positions of power, Afghanistan would continue to be wracked by violence and instability for many years. A report by the former US commander of forces in Afghanistan, General (retd) Barry R. McCaffrey, seems to confirm this bleak assessment.

In his view, “The Afghan national leadership are collectively terrified that we will tip-toe out of Afghanistan in the coming few years — leaving Nato holding the bag — and the whole thing will again collapse into mayhem. They do not believe the United States has made a strategic commitment to stay with them for the 15 years required to create an independent, functional nation-state which can survive in this dangerous part of the world.”

He recognises that “there seem to be neither US resources nor political will to equip these ANA (Afghan National Army) battalions to rapidly replace us as the first line counterinsurgency force”, and strongly suggests that this army and police force should consist of 70,000 to 100,000 troops within 18 month, and should not be an anaemic force of 50,000 soldiers. He feels that “A well equipped, disciplined, multi-ethnic, literate, and trained Afghan National Army is our ticket to be fully out of the country in the year 2020.” Is this likely to happen? Probably not, given the resistance in Nato to even the present level of commitment and anxiety of the Pentagon to pull troops out of Afghanistan.

He absolves the Pakistan army of the many sins laid at its door by the Afghan government and the western media, maintaining that “I do not believe that President Musharraf is playing a deliberate double game. Pakistan is four nations in one weak and violent state. The Pakistan army is the only load-bearing institution holding the nation together. The army provides the only corps of high-integrity societal leadership (in general — and certainly when compared to civilian political elites). There is absolutely no way that the army is serving as a dupe while fielding 15 battalions in severe combat in Fata — battalions which have suffered hundreds of casualties (while presenting a picture of both courage and embarrassing ineffectiveness). The ISI is the army. The Frontier Police are the army. The senior state and national police leadership and much economic business is the army.”

In his view “the real problem is that the Duran (sic) Line marking the border does not exist. The Pashtuns and others are not primarily Afghans or Pakistanis — they are ferociously conservative, ignorant, hostile, black turban, black baggy pants guys — with AK47s and an aversion to infidels and national government. They move back and forth from Quetta to Khandahar (sic) to fight and live — and have for decades. The Pakistanis barely control five per cent of Balochistan. They do not control most of Fata. They fear the increasing radicalisation of their frontier. Afghanistan does not control anything except parts of Kabul most of the time. Both nations are consumed by nationalistic hatred of the other state.”

He advocates that “The US should consider actively supporting a concept of fencing and putting barriers along selected areas of the Afghan-Pakistan border to constrain movement of the many, many armed groups moving back and forth across the frontier.”

While there is much that can be questioned in this assessment and recommendation, the frightening part is the assumption that the Pakistanis, controlling only five per cent of Balochistan, can do little to prevent cross border movement of those who are assumed to owe little loyalty to either Pakistan or Afghanistan. I disagree. Our institutional machinery has broken down. Such of it as exists is under the wrong sort of political pressure in both Balochistan and the Frontier. There is public sympathy for the Taliban in both provinces fuelled no doubt by the sort of developments that I have mentioned in the beginning of this column. But these adverse factors notwithstanding, we still have the strength in what is a military government to prove McCaffrey wrong.

We must deploy this strength against the Taliban and other foreign forces that threaten our social fabric and our vision of “enlightened moderation”, and use political methods to seek a solution to the insurgency problem created by our own nationals in Balochistan and Fata and which leads McCaffrey to assume that the government controls only five per cent of Balochistan and perhaps no higher percentage of the tribal areas.

This will, of course, require us to recognise that the principal contributor to the global perception of Pakistan, as a “weak and violent state” flows from the damage that has been done to our social fabric by the presence of Afghan refugees and their extremist leaders and the role they have played in our domestic polity.

According to the UN, there are still 2.6 million Afghans in Pakistan. The UN had earlier estimated that in 2006 some 600,000 would return from Pakistan and Iran to Afghanistan. So far only 103,000 in Pakistan have done so and it seems unlikely that there will be any substantial increase in the near future. On the contrary, many observers, seeing the long lines outside the Iranian and Pakistani embassy and consulates, believe that lack of economic opportunities is forcing many Afghans to migrate once again to Pakistan and Iran. UN officials also acknowledge, according to some reports, that the reluctance of refugees to return to Afghanistan is owed not to security concerns but to economic factors.

For Pakistan, however, their presence is a security concern. Why can’t the Pakistan government insist that the refugee camps be shifted from Pakistan to Afghanistan? The government can offer to provide whatever assistance the UN officials need to keep these camps supplied with food and other necessities, but then the coalition forces and ANA and the Afghan police would face the problem of these camps being used by forces inimical to both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

I have noted that Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri, in making a suggestion of this nature, estimated that a sum of $4-5 billion would be needed to rehabilitate these refugees in Afghanistan, but that should be the joint responsibility of all members of the international community and should not be a reason for not shifting the camps to the Afghan side of the border.

McCaffrey may be exaggerating when he suggests that the government controls only five per cent of Balochistan but there can be no doubt if reports from the region are to be believed that Chaman, Pishin and a number of other border points are under the control of the Taliban, many of them of Afghan nationality. Once the Afghan refugees are removed the restoration of control by the local administration will be easier.

There is also the problem of trafficking across the porous border. This year the goods to be trafficked will include opium of which a record crop is expected in Afghanistan. What this can mean for Pakistan and Iran is evident from a recent report from Iran where Dr Mehdi Gooya, the chief of the disease management centre of the Iranian health ministry, disclosed that Iran has 3.7 million drug users of whom 2.5 million were addicts. In the late 1980s, it was calculated that Pakistan had some 2.5 million drug users. One can be almost certain that since then this number has gone up. The record crop will probably push the price down and give a fresh impetus to drug use in Pakistan unless measures are taken to stop the flow from Afghanistan by sealing the border as far as possible.

Our government has repeatedly emphasised that sealing the long border is not feasible. This is true but the fact is that much of the traffic takes place across the manned check points which are conveniently located. Greasing the palm of immigration and customs officials permits the easy, frictionless passage of illicit trafficking of both human beings and goods. Perhaps it is time to consider granting officials posted on the border special allowances to compensate for the hardship they suffer and to ensure that those who turn a blind eye to smuggling after these allowances are given draconian punishments.

Most observers agree that the presence of the Taliban in Pakistan and across the border has given an impetus to extremism here. Now it seems that even the Karzai government is moving in that direction. The Afghan parliament is set in the next few weeks to consider a proposal put forward by their ministry of religious affairs to resurrect the Department for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice that the Taliban had set up.

The fact that such retrograde measures are being considered will be detrimental to the interests of the Afghan people and will also have adverse repercussions across the border unless we take measures to insulate ourselves from such influences. This requires us to seek the return of the Afghan refugees to their homeland and to seal the border with Afghanistan as effectively as possible.

If and when stability is restored in Afghanistan there will be tremendous advantages to both countries as a transit route for South Asia’s trade with Central Asia. For the moment, Pakistan’s need is to insulate itself from the pernicious traffic that flows from that country into Pakistan. An added advantage of such an effort at insulation will be to make far less plausible the allegations that the Taliban in Quetta are directing anti-government operations in Afghanistan. Getting rid of this burden will do much to improve our image abroad, which the government says is one of its cherished goals.

The writer is a former foreign secretary.

Dr. Lodhi briefs British Parliamentary Committee on Afghanistan - Paktribun July 19, 2006

LONDON: Pakistan’s envoy to Britain, Dr. Maleeha Lodhi told a key British Parliamentary Committee that she hoped that the escalating violence in the Middle East would not again distract the international community from Afghanistan.

Dr. Lodhi gave a detailed briefing to members of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee on Pakistan’s role in combating terrorism and contributing to peace and stability in Afghanistan. The chairman of the Committee, Mike Gapes, MP, presided over the session at Westminster Tuesday.

Dr. Lodhi told the committee that no country has a greater stake in Afghanistan’s stability than Pakistan. She said that interdiction across the Pakistan-Afghan border has to be addressed on both sides and is a joint responsibility.

Pakistan has deployed almost 90,000 troops along the border in NWFP and Balochistan for effective interdiction. But this task also requires a matching response on the other side of the border. 600 check posts have been established and a rapid reaction force created.

She said Pakistan’s offer to fence the border at key points and document flow of traffic and people remains on the table. This has not been reciprocated yet, she added.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s operations in North Waziristan continue. Pakistan’s High Commissioner explained that a three pronged approach had been evolved for the Tribal Areas. One track was law enforcement, the second track involved political engagement and the third entailed implementation of development programmes for socio-economic progress.

She said Pakistan’s objectives were to deny the use of any of its territory as sanctuary for terrorists. This involved search and sweep operations, aggressive patrolling and sealing key points along the border to establish firm control.

Dr. Lodhi said that calls in the Western media for Pakistan to "do more" are not only misplaced notions but reflect a lack of understanding of complex challenges and realities on the ground.

Dr. Lodhi also emphasized that the large Afghan refugee presence in Pakistan continued to pose a number of challenges including security challenges.

She pointed out that continued, even intensifying instability in Afghanistan is adversely affecting the security of Pakistan’s border regions especially in some parts of the tribal areas where certain forces are trying to spread a culture of Talibanization.

Dr. Lodhi said the international community needs to make good its promises to help Afghanistan’s reconstruction and economic recovery. To do so, the world community must commit and disburse larger resources. Dr. Lodhi said that Pakistan fully supported the Afghanistan Compact signed in London early this year.

Zaeef's book review: 'Your Excellency, you are no more Excellency'

KABUL, July 18 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Former Afghan ambassador to Pakistan Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef has disclosed the naked violation of diplomacy, brotherhood, democracy and hospitality not in an un-Islamic country but in the neighbouring Pakistan, that the rulers called a fort of Islam.

Zaeef, s/o, late Mullah Noor Mohammad was born in June 1967, in Panjwayee district of the southern Kandahar province. He was appointed ambassador to Pakistan in 2001 during the Taliban regime.

In a riveting book authored by him, Zaeef has bared the harsh realities and the subservient nature of Pakistani forces to America. Pakistani forces, the so-called guards of Islam and honour, but the ignoble in the real sense were standing dumb and watching the ceremony in which the former ambassador was handed over to American forces, the book revealed.

Titled as Guantanamo's Picture, the post-bellum book chides the Pakistani army, who were silent spectators and considering the thrashing and tearing clothes of a Muslim brother as a feast to their drowsy eyes.

Widely regarded as straight shooter in the Taliban leadership, Zaeef's views are in no way coloured by pride or arrogance. Photocopies of all the documents provided in the book like identity card of diplomat, 2000-Protocol (exempted body search only), letter from Pakistan's foreign ministry and his passport, showed that the religious scholar was once a respectable guest of Islamabad.

Such copy of the passport has also uncovered the false statement of Pakistan's former foreign ministry spokesman Aziz Ahmad Khan, who said Zaeef was deported from Pakistan as his visa was expired. Though the photocopy of passport showed that visa of the Guantanamo detainee was valid for ten months at the time of his handing over to US forces. Still a question virtually perturbs any sane mind, what law demands from Pakistani government in case of visa expiry?

Obviously, the government has to deport a person to his ancestral country if he did not comply with the order to leave the host country in a told time, or he would be handed over to America and should be sent to Guantanamo Bay, the notorious prison of the world.

"Your Excellency, you are no more Excellency. You know America is super power, none can combat it. None can dare to be rude before the Americans. They were in need of you for investigation. We want to hand you over to America, just to get its favour and to save Pakistan from threat," were the words of one of those Pakistani officials that met the 39-year-old at his home, writes Zaeef.

Some officials of the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) then shifted him to Peshawar in a car that was vibrating with music all the way and was escorted by two other four-wheelers, the ex-ambassador writes.

Zaeef was not allowed to offer prayer on his repeatedly requests by these Pakistani officials, the act that would perhaps not practiced even by non-Muslims. Zaeef writes: "I got only one answer to my time and again beseech, I can offer prayer in Peshawar. I was requesting the Muslims, who were themselves less worried about this supreme obligation."

The book also elaborates Zaeef's experiences in Peshawar that may pierce one's heart. Some officials, who only spoke few words of regards, visited him, but they could hardly help to hide their inner storm, despite their failed struggle to suppress. "One official entered my room. First he sobbed and then lost consciousness," he witnessed.

Eventually, the day came when Pakistani forces unloaded their shoulders with their once honourbale guest, trampling under feet all the principles of diplomacy, democracy and human rights.

In the first part of the book, Zaeef writes: "I was handed over to American forces, who kicked, punched me and tore my clothes. Depriving me of my dress, they pushed me in a copter and tied me with chains. I received a severe blow for any involuntary movement."

The journey goes on and ended in another heart-breaking episode than the previous one. The writer reflects it thus: "The American forces started chatting while sitting over my back, as I was a wood or stone. I was impatiently waiting for death, when my soul will fly from my body, when Azrael (Angel of Death) will put its claw on me, oh Pakistan."

Zaeef, a man of firm intention and iron nerves, glaringly against the meaning (weakness) that his name suggests, was first shifted to Bagram air base. "This is the big one" while uttering such sentence the American forces welcomed him with sticks, punches and butts, the book elucidates.

The son of revered religious scholar Mullah Noor Mohammad, Zaeef has also mentioned the most enquired questions during his investigation in Bagram, Where is Osama? Where is Mullah Omar? What did you do in New York and Washington, referring to the 9/11 incidents? "I was laying naked among them. What justice?" the writer lamented.

Now I am going to quote that sentence from the book that may feel the readers giddy, the abusive language that the religious scholar heard from a soldier in his 39, that one cannot tolerate in his 5, "Don't talk I will f**k you."

After some enquiries and a meeting with former Afghan foreign minister Wakil Ahmad Mutawakil in Bagram, the former ambassador was asked to prepare for his journey to Guantanamo.

Presenting a picture of Guantanamo, the American forces told Zaeef: "On July 1, you will be sent to Guantanamo. We send the people to this prison where they will live till their death. And their return to home is not clear even after their death."

The Yankees offered him some conditions for his release. The former ambassador writes: "Cooperation with American forces and spying for them were the conditions offered me for my release. God Almighty forbids me from such acts."

Not complying with their conditions, the religious scholar was shifted to the notorious prison where he was again tied with chains and quizzed by a man, who introduced himself as Tom, flanked by a Persian interpreter.

Zaeef has also confirmed the desecration of the Holy Quran by the American forces in Gitmo in his book. He writes: "Desecration of the Holy Quran was a routine work by American forces and they were even expecting such things from us. More than ten sacrilegious incidents were noted in the Gitmo, five of them were confessed by the American forces."

In his three years and six months captivity, Zaeef has experienced, seen and heard the troubles beyond human tolerance. By evil luck, they were exposed to such hardships not by animals, but by the brutal American forces, the book reveals.

Zaeef writes some detainees could not bear the brunt of American forces in Gitmo, and soul flew from their bodies towards heaven during such rough-and-tumble punishments.

The former ambassador writes: "Slogans of Allah-o-Akbar echoed in the Indian Block, and sound of thrashing could be heard clearly. Later, we came to know that forces tortured and killed a Saudi brother named Mashal." The book comprises details of the various hair-erecting cruelties that poor Muslims suffered in Gitmo.

The former ambassador writes: "Hair of head, beard, moustaches and eyebrows of the detainees were shaved. Even, they also shaved half moustache of some prisoners and left the other half." American forces were doing all this to have fun, as they have lost taste in all others immoral acts they are doing in their routine life.

Iran’s proposed price for IPI gas unacceptable: Delhi - Daily Times 19 July 2006

NEW DELHI: Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki arrived on Tuesday on a three-day visit to discuss the latest developments in the region as well as the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline.

Indian Petroleum Ministry sources said the project had hit a bottleneck, as Iran was quoting an uneconomical price that might be thrashed out during Mottaki’s visit.

Mottaki is expected to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and talk to the minister of state for external affairs. He will also visit Gujarat and Mumbai and meet the Essar Industrial Group, which has substantial interests in Iran. Iran’s nuclear programme and its standoff with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and international community are also expected to figure in the discussions. India has maintained that Iran has the right to peaceful use of nuclear energy, but simultaneously it must fulfil its obligations as a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

The US has given a deadline to Iran to respond quickly to the incentive package offered in return for abandoning its uranium enrichment programme if it wants to avoid UN Security Council sanctions.

However, high on Mottaki’s agenda will be the IPI gas pipeline. Indian Petroleum Ministry officials recently threatened to back out from the gas pipeline as according to them Iran was now demanding an uneconomical and high price. The ministry has sent feelers to Tehran that the pipeline project may have to be dropped unless Iran agrees to agree on supplying gas at $4.5 per million British thermal units (MBTU) and not at $7.2 it is demanding. One MBTU is equal to 36,000 cubic metres.

Sources said India was also not agreeable to Iran’s second condition that the price of gas would be linked to the international price of crude oil and adjusted whenever there was a 10 percent fluctuation in crude oil prices. They said India had sought a firm figure on the price of gas beyond which it would not be raised as otherwise downside power plants running on the gas would become uneconomical and would increase electricity rates.

The Petroleum Ministry was concerned that Tehran was not even sticking to the agreed price structure as sources pointed out that India had entered into an agreement with Iran last year for the import of LPG (cooking gas) on an assurance that the price would not go beyond $3.25 per MBTU, but Iran recently notified that it would cost $5 per MBTU. iftikhar gilani

[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.]