In this bulletin:

• Suicide blasts hit Afghan city, eight dead
• Afghan violence 'leaves 22 dead'
• Pressure mounts on Karzai as Afghan violence surges
• British troops in Afghanistan 'winning' against Taliban: commander
• Taliban hang six highwaymen in Helmand
• More troops for Afghanistan likely
• Islamabad deports 58 illegal Afghan immigrants
• Creditors write off Afghanistan's debt
• Losing Ground in Afghanistan
• The Taliban's 'Last Chance'
• Musharraf's 'crisis on all fronts' – BBC analysis by Ahmed Rashid
• Hard Lessons in Herat Schools

Suicide blasts hit Afghan city, eight dead – AFP 07/22/2006

Two suicide attacks struck Afghanistan's main southern city of Kandahar about an hour apart, killing two coalition soldiers and six Afghan civilians, officials said.

Twenty-seven Afghan civilians and eight coalition soldiers were also wounded in the blasts which hit about 100 metres (yards) from each other in the volatile city, officials from the Afghan government and US-led coalition said.

Purported Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi said the movement had carried out both attacks. "The second was pre-planned to impact more casualties," he said by telephone from an unknown location.

The first attack ripped into a vehicle of the US-led coalition based in the city at around 5:45 pm (1315 GMT), the US-led coalition said.

People were gathered around the scene of the blast when the second explosion struck, causing people to run helter-skelter, abandoning their parked vehicles many of which had windows shattered by the force of the blast.

Some people escaped over the bodies of victims flung around the area, an AFP reporter at the scene said. Others helped to carry away the wounded.

"Two coalition soldiers were killed and eight were wounded in the suicide car bombing this afternoon," coalition spokesman Major Scott Lundy told AFP. The coalition would not immediately release the nationalities of the soldiers.

Five of the wounded were released from hospital in the evening and the other three were in stable conditions, Lundy said. "From the second explosion -- five killed and 22 wounded," police ministry spokesman Yousuf Stanizai said.

"It was a suicide attack carried out by a person who was his own enemy and the enemy of innocent people who detonated himself among the people," Stanizai said.

"Twenty-seven Afghans wounded, six killed, two coalition killed and eight wounded from two suicide attacks," Kandahar province spokesman Daud Ahmadi said, giving an overall casualty list.

About an hour later police were still collecting the remains of the suicide attackers as firefighters hosed down the blood-drenched streets, the AFP reporter said.

There have been several suicide attacks in Kandahar, many of them involving Canadian forces who were deployed to Kandahar province this year, as well as other cities in the country.

Most are claimed by the Taliban movement which says it has hundreds of men prepared to sacrifice their lives to kill "invading" forces and government troops.

Nearly 60 foreign troops have been killed in hostile action in Afghanistan this year, including Saturday's blast.

The extremist Taliban were toppled from government in late 2001 in an invasion by a US-led coalition that was launched weeks after the September 11 suicide strikes blamed on Al-Qaeda leaders being sheltered by Afghanistan.

They have been waging a determined insurgency that is more organized this year than ever with the rebels taking on coalition forces in full frontal battles while continuing a campaign of guerrilla-style bombings. The extremists on Tuesday vowed to intensify their insurgency.

"We will carry out lots of suicide attacks, we will carry out bombings and we will engage the infidel troops in guerrilla battles," spokesman Mohammad Hanif said, adding the militants planned to take control of several southern districts.

The threat came soon after the rebels had taken control of the headquarters of two districts in southern Helmand province, hauling down the Afghan flags.

The rebels were forced out of Naway-i-Barakzayi district Tuesday and southernmost Garmser early Wednesday by coalition and Afghan troops.

Security force sweeps of the province continued Saturday with an Afghan official announcing 13 more rebels had been killed in a coalition bombing raid, adding to six others announced dead on Friday.

Officials meanwhile announced attacks on police in three of the provinces adjoining the capital Kabul that are normally relatively free of the insurgency-linked violence plaguing the east and south.

A policeman was killed and three wounded in an attack Friday in Laghman province, a police chief said, blaming "the opposition or illegal armed men".

Two more policemen were wounded when they came under rocket and small arms fire in Logar province, the interior ministry said. And policemen were wounded when fighters attacked a police station in Wardak, the coalition said.

US-led strikes 'kill 13 Taleban' - BBC News. Saturday, 22 July 2006

US-led coalition and Afghan forces have killed at least 13 suspected Taleban in a strike in southern Helmand province, local officials have said.

Some 15 Taleban fighters are said to have been injured in the strike in which ground forces were backed by helicopter gunships. There has been no comment on the fighting from the coalition.

Some 10,000 US-led troops are fighting the Taleban and their allies. Hundreds of people have been killed this year. The latest fighting is said to have taken place in the Garmser district in Helmand - one of two Taleban-held areas which the coalition said it had retaken earlier this week.

"Afghan soldiers and police killed these Taleban with the help of coalition forces, who used helicopter gunships to target their positions," a spokesman for the provincial governor, Haji Ghulam Huhiddin, was quoted as saying by AP.

On Friday, six Taleban fighters were reported killed in the same area. On the same day, the Dutch army said its special forces had killed at least 18 militants in an operation in the neighbouring province of Uruzgan

"We are conducting operations in and around Garmser as you would expect soon after taking control," coalition spokesman Major Scott Lundy told AFP news agency. "We will continue doing so for the foreseeable future."

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.

Nato is due to take over operations from the Americans in southern Afghanistan later this year, and is expected to deploy up to 21,000 soldiers there.

Afghan violence 'leaves 22 dead' – BBC

At least 22 people are reported to have been killed in the latest violence in Afghanistan - 19 of them Taleban fighters and three policemen.

The Taleban were killed in fighting with UK troops and Afghan police in the southern Helmand province, local officials say. The police were killed by suspected Taleban fighters in Ghazni province.

On Saturday six civilians and two Canadian soldiers were killed in a double suicide attack in Kandahar.

"Government and British forces killed 19 Taleban and arrested 17 others, including two Pakistanis, in the attacks" in Helmand, the province's deputy governor, Amir Mohammad Akhundzada told the Reuters news agency.

Local people said civilians had also been killed. The fighting took place when the UK and Afghan forces attacked Taleban positions in villages close to the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, Mr Akhundzada said.

The three Afghan policemen were killed when their post was attacked in the town of Gelan in Ghazni, local officials said.

A spokesman for the US-led forces in Afghanistan, Major Scott Lundy, said Saturday's suicide attacks in Kandahar city would not deter the coalition from its task of promoting security and bringing development in Afghanistan.

The two Canadian soldiers died, and eight others were hurt, when a car laden with explosives rammed into their convoy. Soon afterwards near the scene, a second bomber killed six Afghans.

Nineteen Afghan civilians were also injured. Both bombers died in the attacks. A man who claimed to be a spokesman for the Taleban told reporters by telephone that the movement was behind the attack.

He threatened more suicide attacks and ambushes against the US-led coalition and Afghan forces. On Friday the most senior British military commander in Afghanistan said the situation in the country was "close to anarchy", with feuding foreign agencies and unethical private security companies compounding problems caused by local corruption.

Lt Gen David Richards, the head of Nato's international security force in Afghanistan, warned in an interview with the Guardian newspaper that coalition troops lacked necessary equipment.

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.

Nato is due to take over operations from the Americans in southern Afghanistan later this year, and is expected to deploy up to 21,000 soldiers there.

Pressure mounts on Karzai as Afghan violence surges – Reuters 07/23/2006
By Robert Birsel

KABUL - The Taliban for now have no chance of defeating Afghanistan's Western-backed government but the insurgency is sapping support for President Hamid Karzai who is facing his most difficult days since coming to power in 2001.

Karzai won a presidential election in 2004 with more than 50 percent of the vote. But the optimism, also generated by last year's almost trouble-free parliamentary polls, has evaporated.

Many Afghans are frightened, despondent and angry about a revitalised Taliban insurgency raging in the south and east, analysts say.

The pressure on Karzai is mounting as NATO prepares to take over security from U.S.-led forces in the Afghan south. NATO countries with troops in the firing line could soon be making much greater demands on him than a tolerant United States has up to now.

"The president, unfortunately, is under pressure from several sides," said Waheed Mozhdah, a former official in several governments and an analyst and writer.

"Where he should have influence, he is regarded as a hated figure, and in other areas, like the north, from the ethnic point of view, he can't do much to improve his position," Mozhdah said.

Karzai's Western backers are frustrated with what they see as ineffective leadership and a failure to tackle reforms and the drugs problem, analysts say.

The country is the world's top supplier of opium and programmes to stop opium poppy growing have had only limited success. People complain their lives haven't improved in the five years since the Taliban were ousted from power.

At the same time, perceptions of heavy-handed tactics by foreign forces and civilian casualties have eroded support for a war against insurgents that Karzai is identified with.

Karzai has made repeated calls to U.S.-led forces to treat civilians properly, and to go after what he calls the roots of the insurgency across the border in Pakistan.

But the calls have not stopped his popularity sliding, especially in his ethnic Pashtun homeland in the south where he should be strongest. At the same time, Karzai knows if he were to stop the war, the winners would be the Taliban.

"The presence of foreign troops is crucial. If they leave, Afghanistan will go back to the way it was," Mozhdah said. "Karzai can't stop the military operations but every day they carry on, his government loses support. It's very difficult for him."

Anger and frustration seem to grow by the day for ordinary Afghans. No one is happy with a growing insurgency and a government that is unable to protect them from it, and an international community that has not prevented it," said a Western diplomat.

"Karzai has become the target for some of that frustration, but at the same time there's no one offering an alternative," the diplomat said. Karzai has struck deals with old power-brokers and failed to get to grips with crucial reforms, such as revamping the police.

He has also failed to build a strong team and while he is seen as honest, he is also seen as weak, analysts say. "We're not yet at a tipping-point but Afghanistan is at a crossroads," said an analyst who declined to be identified.

"This is an opportunity for Karzai to govern. If the security situation can be improved and we can have genuine reform, then I think we can get things back on track."

Member of parliament Shukria Barakzai said the fact people complained about Karzai at least meant they still had some hope.

"I'm afraid of the day people don't ask him for things and don't blame him," said Barakzai, who has been critical of Karzai but has also backed the government on some issues. Karzai would probably win a second term if he ran, she said.

British troops in Afghanistan 'winning' against Taliban: commander - Jul 22

LONDON (AFP) - British troops in southern Afghanistan are winning the fight against the Taliban but there is still work to do until the "tide turns", their commander, Brigadier Ed Butler, said.

Butler, back in Britain on a brief tour to update collegaues on the operation, said officers in Helmand province were now comfortable with the number of soldiers available to them.

Earlier this month, London announced it would send an extra 900 troops to southern Afghanistan to boost its contingent in the region to 4,400 after meeting a fiercer-than-expected resistance from Taliban militants.

The British deployment is due to take control of a NATO-led force in Helmand around the end of the month.

Talking about the mission, Butler said: "We are winning and the plan is sound but the boys are working very hard in some very extreme conditions."

His troops had taken part in some "very successful" operations in Helmand in recent days to tackle the threat from the Taliban.

"It is too early to say that the tide has turned, but we are overwhelmingly defeating the Taliban on every occasion that we have clashed with them," the commander of British forces in Afghanistan said.

"We knew it was going to be tough and we knew that the Taliban would test our resilience and possibly in some cases we have been a little surprised by the ferocity and persistence of the Taliban. "But hopefully it will not be too long before the tide does turn."

Six British soldiers have been killed in clashes with suspected Taliban fighters since the start of June.

Taliban hang six highwaymen in Helmand

(Pajhwok 07/22/2006 By Abdul Samad Rohani) LASHKARGAH - Taliban spokesman Thursday claimed their forces hanged six highwaymen for charges of looting passengers in Disho district of the southern Helmand province.

The purported Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi told Pajhwok Afghan News via telephone from undisclosed location a ring leader Madwak was nabbed with his six abettors in Bahramcha district of the province and some stolen materials were also recovered from them.

The robbers were sentenced to capital punishment according to their Sharia court, he said, our forces later hanged the highwaymen. While confirming the incident, a resident of Bahramcha Sangin Baluch told this news agency the area was cheek by jowl with Iranian borders and there were many robbers who often looted passengers.

Provincial governor spokesman Haji Muhaiudin revealed unawareness about the hanging of highwaymen. Taliban had captured Disho district about five months back.

More troops for Afghanistan likely - July 23, 2006

AUSTRALIA is likely to send more troops to Afghanistan to protect engineers about to be deployed to that country, Defence Minister Brendan Nelson says.

Dr Nelson said the Special Operations Task Group already in Afghanistan, which includes elite Special Air Service soldiers, will come home as planned at the end of September.

But the minister said worsening security in southern Afghanistan may require extra protection for the reconstruction taskforce Australia was about to send to the country.

"The threat level and the risks in Afghanistan have been increasing substantially over the last few months," Dr Nelson said on Channel 9.

"I've been watching it very closely, I'm very concerned about it, and in fact I have been discussing with the leadership of the Australian defence force the nature and the size of our deployment to Afghanistan.

"I think there is an argument for us increasing the close ground force protection of our reconstruction taskforce. "That's a matter that I'll be putting toward the Prime Minister and my colleagues."

The Provincial Reconstruction Team of 240 soldiers is due to head to Afghanistan later this month. Half of the taskforce will be tradespeople and engineers, with the remainder an infantry protection unit.

Dr Nelson said it was likely the size of the protection contingent would increase. "I think we will, and we need to make sure that every effort is made to see that our troops are as safe as they can be in what is a task which is as important as it is dangerous," he said.

"Fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, fighting al-Qaeda and others through other parts of the world is extremely important to the next generation of Australians to see that they are not left hostage to a force of ideological insanity that they may never control."

Australian soldiers suffered minor injuries during a gun battle in southern Afghanistan last week, with three evacuated for medical treatment.

Australia currently has 300 troops in Afghanistan, with SAS soldiers recently exchanging fire with anti-government forces in Oruzgan province. Defence force chief Angus Houston warned in February of a rising incidence of suicide bombings in the country.

Last week, Afghan and US-led coalition soldiers reclaimed two southern towns that had been overrun by the Taliban, with hundreds of troops involved in the operation.

Islamabad deports 58 illegal Afghan immigrants

Quetta (Reuters): Pakistan handed over 58 prisoners to the Afghan authorities a week into a crackdown aimed at catching Taliban fighters living around the western city of Quetta.

"The Afghan authorities will investigate the prisoners before releasing them to see if they include any Taliban," said Inspector Munsif Khan, of the Balochistan police.

Early last week, police arrested 250 Afghans, including Taliban and members of a madrasa, on grounds that they lacked proper documents. Senior police officials said the bulk of those detained had fought with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Over 50 of those originally arrested were later freed.

The Afghan government, the United States and Nato powers with forces in Afghanistan want Pakistan to act more forcefully against the Taliban, particularly in the Baloch capital of Quetta where many settled after the religious militia was ousted from power in 2001.

The prisoners, some as young as 16, were brought in handcuffs and with a heavy security escort to the Afghan border checkpost at Spin Boldak.

"My house is in Quetta and the police arrested me without telling me any reason," Abdullah, 38, said as he was handed over to the Afghan authorities. Another prisoner said he was not among those arrested last week, but had been detained over a month ago.

"I am a daily wage earner and was arrested because I did not have the documents. I am 16 years old and cannot get the permit to stay until I am 18," said Naseebullah.

Pakistan and Afghanistan agreed to swap prisoners after a visit last week to Kabul by Pakistani officials. "Afghanistan has 82 Pakistani prisoners in its custody and agreed to release 17 next week," a Pakistani Interior Ministry official said.

Creditors write off Afghanistan's debt

KABUL, July 22 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Afghanistan's major creditors have written off $10.4 billion in debt, a further major reduction in the country's debt in the Paris Club, finance ministry spokesman said on Saturday .

Aziz Shams told Pajhwok Afghan News US, Russia and Germany canceled their debt what he said was $10.4 billion. US had $108 million and Germany 40 million debt on Afghanistan. Paris club played a mediator role between in-debt and creditor countries . The U.S. State Department said on July 21 that the agreement means that 92 percent of Afghanistan's total debt to the three Paris Club creditors -- Germany, Russia and the United States has now been written off .

Finance Minister Anwarulhaq had attended the Paris Club, he added. He said besides discussing major creditors of the Paris club US, Russia and Germany the attendants discussed on canceling the debts provided by World Bank, Asian Bank in the last four years, but he said this discussion did get finalized .

Afghanistan had received over 600 million US dollar as debt from different donor, he contended. Shams said Russia had claimed it had $10.5 billion payable debt on Afghanistan while the documents in hand with the Afghanistan government show the Russian debt was only $9.5 billion dollar .

He also said Afghanistan insisted on not paying these money and it also did not accept the money as debt on Afghanistan and Afghanistan terms it as expenses of former Soviet Union in Afghanistan .

Russian government is asking for payment of debts while Afghan people are calling them as inheritors of Former Soviet Union and demanded Russians to pay compensation for the devastation this country inflicted in Afghanistan during its invasion on central Asian country .

During the one decade occupation of the country by former Soviet Union Afghanistan changed to a ruin, over 1.5 million people were martyred, hundred thousands were maimed and millions of others were forced to get displaced and migrate to abroad .

Losing Ground in Afghanistan - The New York Times, Editorial 07/23/2006

Things are not going well in Afghanistan, the original front in the war on terrorism. American and NATO casualties are rising in some of the deadliest fighting since 2001. The Taliban are enjoying a resurgence in presence and power, especially in their traditional southern and eastern strongholds. And with civilian casualties mounting and economic reconstruction in many areas stalled by inadequate security, the American-backed government is in danger of losing the battle for Afghan hearts and minds. If this battle is lost, there can be no lasting military success against the Taliban and their Qaeda allies.

There is still a chance to turn things around. The first step must be enhanced security, so that foreign and local civilians can carry out reconstruction projects. That will require a large and long-term foreign military presence, with a large American component. Unfortunately, Washington is headed in a different direction. With the Army overstretched in Iraq and Congressional elections coming up, the Pentagon is moving to prematurely reduce already inadequate American troop strength.

The plan is for European and Canadian NATO forces to step in and provide security for civilian teams in southern and eastern Afghanistan while the remaining Americans concentrate on fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda. This is a new variant of the Bush administration's misbegotten theory that Americans should be war-fighters and leave nation-building to others.

There are two big problems with this. First, in violent situations like that in southern Afghanistan, NATO can assure security only if America, its leading member, provides reconnaissance, transport and combat support. Second, the idea that American troops are there not to bring security to Afghans but to hunt down the Taliban — and too bad if Afghan civilians are caught in the cross-fire — is a disastrous approach to counterinsurgency warfare. It has not worked in Iraq and it is not working in Afghanistan.

In the end, international military efforts can only buy time to build an Afghanistan its own people will fight to defend after Western troops leave. In addition to foreign aid, that will require improved performance by the government of President Hamid Karzai, which has been plagued by corruption and hobbled by the alliances it has made with local warlords to extend its authority beyond Kabul.

In particular, the Karzai government has not made much of a dent in Afghanistan's hugely profitable drug trafficking operations. Corruption and governmental feckless are only partly to blame. This is an area in which Afghanistan's multiple problems have begun to feed off one another. A lack of credit and security has left farmers few economic alternatives to opium. Drug revenues feed corruption and make the warlords who run many of the trafficking rings more powerful. They, in turn, use their additional money and influence to recruit more fighters and expand into new areas, promoting wider instability.

Building a stable Afghanistan that can stand up to the Taliban once Western soldiers leave is going to take many years, many billions of dollars and more foreign troops for longer than most Western governments are now prepared to contemplate. Yet signs of fatigue with the Afghan mission are already beginning to appear in Western capitals, including Washington. These must be resisted.

Washington made the mistake of premature disengagement once before, after the 1989 Soviet withdrawal. That opened the door to the Taliban, Al Qaeda and Sept. 11. If America now means to be serious about combating international terrorism, it cannot make the same mistake twice.

The Taliban's 'Last Chance' – Newsweek 07/23/2006 - NATO's top commander in Afghanistan is optimistic

NATO has a war on its hands in Afghanistan. Beginning on July 31, it will take control of the U.S.-led Coalition in the increasingly violent south, where six British soldiers were killed last month. British Lt. Gen. David Richards, NATO's top commander in Afghanistan, spoke with NEWSWEEK's Emily Flynn Vencat in London last week. Excerpts:

Fynn Vencat: Have the scope and ferocity of the Taliban resurgence caught you by surprise?

Richards: We knew from the outset that this was going to be a combat operation, and prepared accordingly. There are more Apache attack helicopters in the south today than there were under the U.S. Coalition. The Taliban recognize that 2006 is a crunch year. If they don't succeed this year, then their chance of success, with 36 nations joining forces with the government, [grows slim]. This year is their last chance.

Is it realistic that NATO forces will be able to provide enough security in the southern provinces to get real economic-development projects going?

First of all, I would say that there's been more happening than your question has intimated. Because the U.S. was successfully concentrating on the counter-Taliban operation in the east, the south was relatively ignored. There was effort there, but there were only about 150 people, say, in Helmand. You can only do so much with 150 people. With the British presence in Helmand at around 4,000 [at the end of this month] and with other nations contributing to that presence, that's bound to enable us to emphasize different things, such as reconstruction and development.

You say you want to provide security in the south so the Afghan government can establish its authority. But haven't the Afghan authorities failed to provide good governance or essential services to people in the areas they've controlled?

First of all, I don't recognize quite such the scathing picture that you created, but there's something to it. [After 30 years of fighting,] Afghanistan has lost two generations of middle-class talent. Instead of being critical of this, we should work hard at developing the capacity that is required to turn the country around. The Afghans know best how Afghanistan works. What we need to do is adopt the "keep it simple" approach, focusing on the essentials of the economy as it is today, rather than how we'd wish it to be in 25 years' time.

You recently commented that "we need to realize that we could fail here [in Afghan-istan]." Do you think there's been too much arrogance?

Arrogance is probably not the right word. But I think there was a risk, two years ago, that people thought it was a done deal. And what this year has shown is that we still need to put a lot of effort into Afghanistan. What we really need is a Marshall Plan [of a type] that the United States demonstrated so graphically in the post-WWII era. If we could do that, this country is definitely for turning. We will win, but with a lot more effort over a shorter time frame we would save money and win faster.

Musharraf's 'crisis on all fronts' – BBC analysis by Ahmed Rashid

Guest journalist Ahmed Rashid examines why problems are mounting for Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf at home and abroad.

President Musharraf is facing a tough stand-off with neighbours India and Afghanistan and the international community, who are all urging him to do more to curb Islamic extremists operating in his country.

This comes at a time when he is facing the worst domestic political and economic crises since he came to power in 1999.

The train bombings in Mumbai on 11 July which left 182 people dead have led to a dramatic sea change in Indo-Pakistan relations, after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh accused Pakistan of supporting "terrorist modules" bent on harming Indian democracy.

Such accusations from India have been rare since both countries set out on a path to peace. Afghanistan accuses Pakistan of allowing the Taleban sanctuary and support in their bid to drive out Western forces from Afghanistan and overthrow the government of President Hamid Karzai.

On both counts Pakistan has rejected the accusations. But there is little doubt that Gen Musharraf and the military are facing unprecedented global criticism for their apparent reluctance to wrap up extremist groups who still operate with impunity and brazen openness in Pakistan.

However, at the same time, al-Qaeda and their Pakistani and Afghan allies have long expressed a desire to see the end of India-Pakistan rapprochement and an end to Gen Musharraf, whom Ayman al Zawahri, the number two al-Qaeda leader, credits as being the organisation's worst enemy in the region.

Moreover, Pakistan has lost more than 800 soldiers battling militants in the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan. So where does the truth lie?

After suffering heavy losses in southern Afghanistan in recent weeks, US and Nato military commanders in Kabul say they have complained harshly and bitterly to their respective governments about the Taleban's ability to maintain bases for command and control, logistics and recruitment in Pakistan's Balochistan province.

The normally reticent UN has also publicly notched up pressure on Pakistan. These complaints have resulted in a visit by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Islamabad while senior ministers from European Nato countries are due to make their own complaints.

India has accused Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) of having a hand in the Mumbai train bombings. Even though the LeT has been declared a terrorist organisation by the UN, the US, Britain and Pakistan, a reformed LeT with a new name was rehabilitated by the military after the earthquake in Kashmir last year, as it acted as a relief organisation.

There is certainly anger amongst many Pakistanis at the way the military has allowed some extremist groups a continued platform for their views.

Despite strong protests by civic groups and Shia leaders, the militant Sunni extremist group Sipah-e-Sahaba was rehabilitated by the regime earlier this year and allowed to hold a huge rally in Islamabad just a mile away from the diplomatic quarter.

The results have been tragic. On 14 July the country's leading Shia politician and scholar Allama Hasan Turabi was killed by a suicide bomber at his home in Karachi. The fear of sectarian violence has gripped the country.

In Balochistan the army has depended on the Pashtun-based Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam (JUI) for political support. The JUI has supported the Taleban since its inception in 1994. Gen Musharraf is hoping to cause a split in the alliance of Islamic parties by weaning away the JUI and enlisting it for his second bid for the presidency. Going against the Taleban now would mean alienating the JUI.

And that is where the contradiction between the international community and the Pakistan military and Gen Musharraf emerges.

Much of what they do is connected with domestic politics - ensuring Gen Musharraf's political survival, retaining the military as the unquestioned power in the country at the expense of political parties and civil society and making sure that the military's national agenda is the only agenda.

Gen Musharraf and the military hierarchy are neither extremist nor remotely fundamentalist. But they have every intention of using the fundamentalists as political allies against national political parties who question the need for military rule. (The fundamentalists may question Musharraf's personal secular credentials, but they are not opposed to military rule.)

Where the military is not threatened politically, such as the presence of al-Qaeda and other groups in Waziristan and where US pressure is inescapable, the military acts and sends in the troops. It is an anomaly to many that the army has lost 800 troops battling al-Qaeda in Waziristan, but not a single soldier battling the Taleban in Balochistan.

The present crisis comes at a time when Gen Musharraf's popularity has hit an all-time low as major scandals related to the stock market, privatisation and sugar shortages rock the country and people suffer from high inflation.

Moreover, after seven years people are just tired of military rule, which according to some critics has resulted in a pretence parliament and a puppet government, with the generals calling the shots behind the scene.

In the midst of his waning popularity and growing international criticism, Gen Musharraf is trying to marshal all the political forces to support his re-election bid as president next year - while holding on to the post of army chief.

He then wants to hold an election in which the army will once again forge an alliance between the pro-army faction of the Pakistan Muslim League and some Islamic parties such as the JUI.

It is Gen Musharraf's pressing political agenda for which time and credibility is in short supply that pushes his continued love affair with the fundamentalists, even though the same fundamentalists have shown little real love for the people or the military's national agenda.

Hard Lessons in Herat Schools

Despite a ban on corporal punishment, schoolteachers in Herat insist on beating knowledge into their charges. Institute for War & Peace Reporting By Sadeq Behnam and Sudabah Afzali in Herat (ARR No. 223, 20-Jul-06)

Nine-year-old Mahbuba has been beaten so many times by her teacher that she is afraid to go back to school. Showing her bruised hands, she said, "Our teacher is a very bad person. My hands have gone black because of the beatings. I hate my teacher and school."

Mahbuba's father Nurullah, who lives in the western Afghan province of Herat, is sympathetic to her plight – and he is furious with the school.

"I send my child to school so that she’ll learn something, not for her to be beaten by vicious teachers," he said, adding that he has already had to take Mahbuba to a nearby hospital to have her hands treated.

Nurullah warned that if the teacher beat his daughter again, he will beat up the teacher and - as many parents have done already - withdraw the child from school.

The head of Herat’s provincial education department, Mohammaduddin Fahim, said beating and other forms of ill-treatment were against the country’s education law, and any teacher found to be doing so would face legal sanctions.

Fahim said his department had sent out letters to all the schools in the province ordering them to put a stop to corporal punishment.

"This problem is mostly caused by high school graduates who have become schoolteachers,” he said. “We have launched training courses for teachers across the province in order to eliminate violence against children. In addition, a delegation from the provincial education department inspects schools every month.”

Mohammad Muhsen Ismailzada, who represents the Afghan education ministry in Herat, confirmed that physical punishments are not legal, "Teachers have no right to use violence against school kids. If a pupil does anything wrong, the teacher should not react in haste, but find a way to resolve the problem."

Teachers in the province - where at least half a million children, two-fifths of them girls, attend about 600 schools - remain unrepentant about using violence, and openly hostile to instructions telling them to change.

"In my experience, unless pupils are beaten they will not be corrected,” said Abdul Karim, a headmaster in the Pashtunzarghun district. “We don’t accept the ministry's letter saying teachers don’t have the right to beat students. Pupils should be told that teachers do have the right to beat them. They have begun disobeying teachers since the letter was sent out to schools."

Khowaja Mohammad Nadir Seddiqi, the head of the teachers union in western Herat province, argued that since Afghan children had grown up surrounded with violence, they would not study unless they were beaten.

He had a simple message for his colleagues, "Teachers should use canes to beat their pupils, so that they fear them."

Saifuddin Maulawizada, a teacher in the Guzra district, described how he regularly beats his charges by tying up by their feet and beating them on the soles with a stick.

"If I don't have a stick with me, I can’t teach because the pupils don’t listen to me and they disrupt the lesson," said Maulawizada. Psychologists and human rights activists in Herat are concerned that violence against children has serious long-term consequences.

"In foreign countries, beating and threatening children is regarded as a crime for which the perpetrator is punished, whereas in our country, children are punished for very minor things,” said Abdul Salam Hikmati, a member of the psychologists' association in Herat. “This results in the child becoming alienated from society."

Rahima Halimi, who heads the children’s rights section of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission’s Herat branch, said, "Violence against children is widespread both in the home and at school, and has a negative impact on children's minds. We have voiced the problem several times to the officials concerned, but no measures have been taken."

Apart from banning schools from administering physical punishment, Ismailzada said education officials are planning other steps to bring about change.

"Students' councils will soon be established in schools so that pupils will have a right to voice their problems. Parents’ associations will also be set up shortly. If students do anything wrong, the problem will be resolved with their families rather than by beating them," he said.

Until these changes happen, pupils like Masooma, 11, will go to school only as long as their parents make them. "Our teacher beats me until blood comes out of my nails,” she said. “I am not an animal. I go to school to study, not to be beaten. "I don't want to go to school, but my parents force me to."

Sadeq Behnam and Sudabah Afzali are IWPR contributors in Herat.

[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.]