In this bulletin:

• 16 Killed In Afghan Chopper Crash
• Bombing raids and clashes kill 25 Afghan militants
• Afghanistan: Security Council voices fear on violence as UN envoy talks of insurgency
• Taliban returning via Pakistan - Afghan UN envoy
• Foreign fighters again a threat in Afghanistan: UN envoy
• NATO says Afghan aid too slow
• Taliban goes for cash over ideology
• Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan condemn attacks against Lebanon
• Afghan capital faces power shortage as US aid scaled back
• Canada 'right' to be in Afghanistan, says Bill Clinton
• Prodi Government Stakes Survival on Afghanistan Mission Vote
• Ottawa sees progress despite Afghan strife
• INTERVIEW - Afghanistan needs more troops, says envoy to U.S.
• Afghan Farmers Resentful
• Afghanistan invited to SAARC meetings
• Over 5,000 tons grapes exported from Kandahar
• Generals urge Musharraf rethink
• Effort to Install Taliban Government in Afghan-Pak Tribal Areas

16 Killed In Afghan Chopper Crash - KABUL, Afghanistan, July 27, 2006

(AP)  A Russian-made helicopter crashed in bad weather in eastern Afghan mountains, killing all 16 on board, including at least two American civilians and two Dutch military officers, officials said Thursday.

The cause of the crash was unclear. The Mi-8 civilian chopper went down on Wednesday, about 22-25 miles northeast of Khost city, a region where al Qaeda and Taliban militants are believed to be active.

A purported Taliban spokesman claimed the hard-line militia's responsibility, but a Dutch military official said it looked like the crash was an accident.

Afghan army and coalition troops who hiked to where the chopper went down in rugged mountains have recovered 12 bodies and are searching for four more, Col. Tom Collins, a coalition spokesman, told reporters in Kabul.

"There are no survivors," Collins said. "The terrain in this area is extremely difficult and we are now working hard to recover the remaining crew and passengers."

Collins said those on board included a mix of Afghans and foreigners, including at least two Americans.

The Dutch military said two of its officers, a lieutenant colonel from the air force and an army sergeant, both serving with a NATO-led security force, were on board.

"It looks bad, and by that I mean that the helicopter has crashed, not, as we had hoped, made a hard landing," said Dutch Defense Ministry spokesman Lt. Col. Nico van der Zee in The Hague. "It's beginning to look like the people have died."

There have been no fatalities before among the more than 1,500 Dutch forces in Afghanistan.

The helicopter was operated by a logistics firm, Tryco. A Tryco official in Kabul said the chopper was rented by Fluor, a U.S.-based company doing construction work in Khost province, about 90 miles south of the capital, Kabul.

The 16 people on board reportedly included atleast three crew.

A Western diplomat, who was not authorized to speak to media, said there was confusion over who had been on board the helicopter as the passenger manifest listing their names had been kept on the aircraft. It was flying from Kabul to Khost.

Collins said there was no indication yet what caused the crash, but Van der Zee said it looked like an accident.

"It was in a mountainous region in very bad weather, rain and mist which reduced visibility. That points toward it being an accident such as flying into a mountain or something like that," he said.

However, he added that the military had not yet ruled out the chopper being shot down.

In an e-mail to an Associated Press reporter in Pakistan, Muhammad Hanif, who claims to speak for the Taliban, claimed its militants had shot down the chopper on Wednesday afternoon with an unspecified "new weapon."

Hanif's exact ties to the Taliban leadership are unclear. In the past, claims of responsibility made in the name of the hard-line militia have sometimes proved false or exaggerated.

Maj. Luke Knittig, a spokesman for a NATO-led security force in Afghanistan, said the Dutch officers were going to Khost to study security arrangements at a U.S.-run base, to help them as they establish their own camps in restive Uruzgan province where most of their troops in Afghanistan are deployed.

In Kabul, Gen. Abdul Rahman, deputy chief of Afghan border police, said a team of border police had reached the crash scene on Wednesday afternoon and found at least four bodies. He said the bodies were burned and dismembered. A coalition quick reaction team reached the site on Thursday.

There have been a series of fatal helicopter crashes in Afghanistan over the past year from accidents or hostile fire.

In January, another Mi-8 transport chopper chartered by the Red Cross crashed high in snowy mountains in Kapisa province north of Kabul, killing all seven on board. The bodies were only retrieved in June.

In May, 10 U.S. soldiers died when their CH-47 Chinook crashed in the mountains of eastern Kunar province during combat operations against militants near the Pakistan border. There was no sign the crash was caused by hostile fire.

In June 2005, all 16 U.S. troops on board a Chinook died in Kunar when it was hit by a militant's rocket-propelled grenade.

Bombing raids and clashes kill 25 Afghan militants - By Mirwais Afghan, July 26, 2006

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Twenty-five militants were killed by U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, officials said on Wednesday, as the U.S. military prepares to hand over security responsibilities in the violent south.

British military spokesman Captain Drew Gibson said coalition forces had dropped three bombs on militant targets in Musa Qala district of Helmand province, where thousands of British soldiers are based as part of a NATO-led mission.

Helmand's police chief Nabi Mullahkhail said 15 Taliban insurgents were killed and 20 others wounded in Tuesday night's operation in the southern drug-producing province.

Several people who said they were from Musa Qala phoned journalists to say that most of those killed in the attack were civilians. A Taliban spokesman, Qari Mohammad Yousuf, said only one militant was killed in the raid and the rest were civilians.

Asked about the reports of civilian deaths, Gibson told Reuters the bombs had been dropped on "legitimate targets."

NATO will take over command from the coalition in the south on Monday, extending its control over security to all of the country except the east. It will be NATO's biggest ground operation since its formation over 50 years ago.

Afghanistan is going through its bloodiest phase of violence since the ousting of the Taliban government in 2001, with most attacks occurring in the south. The coalition says it has killed more than 600 militants since the start of June.

In another two incidents in Helmand on Tuesday the coalition said it had killed seven militants.

Afghanistan's defense ministry said a further two militants had been killed in combat in the south on the same day, and a third insurgent was killed in the southeast. On Wednesday, an Afghan soldier was killed by an explosion in Helmand province.

U.S., British and Canadian troops, along with Afghan forces, have been battling the Taliban in Helmand since March. Six British troops have been killed in the region since mid-June.

The Taliban and drug gangs have operated unmolested in Helmand for years and are fiercely resisting efforts by foreign and government forces to extend their authority.

In Zabul province, another to come under NATO control on Monday, police said a civilian construction worker was killed and three others wounded on Wednesday in a Taliban ambush.

Afghanistan: Security Council voices fear on violence as UN envoy talks of insurgency – UN release

26 July 2006 – Expressing concern over the worsening violence in Afghanistan, the Security Council today reaffirmed its support for the Government and the armed forces as they battle what the top United Nations envoy to the impoverished nation called an “insurgency” that seeks to restore life under the Taliban.

The Council also expressed its support for the work of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and Operation Enduring Freedom troops in working alongside Afghan forces, according to a statement read to the press by Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sablière of France, its President for July.

“They recognise once again the inter-connected nature of the challenges in Afghanistan and reaffirm that sustainable progress on security, governance and development, as well as on the cross-cutting issue of counter-narcotics is mutually reinforcing, and welcome the continuing effort of the Afghan Government and international community to address these challenges,” the statement said.

The 15-member body welcomed the Government’s efforts to ensure democratic debate, “expressed hope” the pace of reform will accelerate and also applauded efforts made under the Afghan Compact, a multi-billion dollar blueprint for partnership between the Government and the international community to bolster security, economic development and counter-narcotics efforts that was adopted in January.

The press statement followed a closed-door Council briefing by Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s Special Representative to Afghanistan Tom Koenigs. He later told reporters there was an insurgency in the south of the country, emphasizing this has to be dealt with using both military and political measures.

“At the moment we have a situation in five provinces of the south of an insurgency, of a movement that wants to overthrow the actual Government and re-establish what Afghanistan had under the Taliban, and the term also implies that the solution cannot be only a military or police solution but must be a political solution,” he said.

Mr. Koenigs said there were “different groups of fighters” arrayed against the Government and international forces, including “the old and highly ideological leaders of the terrorist Taliban movement [and] cross-border fighters who are young people trained in fundamentalist madrassahs, those who have historically made up the big amount of the Taliban.”

“Plus there are now in Afghanistan young people without other alternative or people forced into the ranks and files of the Taliban and there are people either alienated or frustrated by Taliban controversies or Afghan Government movements which they contravene.”

Taliban returning via Pakistan - Afghan UN envoy - 27 Jul 2006 Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS, July 26 (Reuters) - The Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan is backed by foreign money, terror networks and fighters coming over the border from Pakistan, the top U.N. envoy in Afghanistan said on Wednesday.

But Tom Koenigs, the special U.N. representative, said the Pakistan government was not backing the Taliban, as it once did, because the militant Islamists were a threat to its stability as well.

"We face a Taliban movement, which has apparently recovered and has to be answered by a series of measures, political as well as military," he told reporters after briefing the U.N. Security Council.

Koenigs called the Taliban an insurgency that had taken hold in five Afghan southern provinces rather than just carrying out "some isolated terrorist acts."

In the past three months, hundreds of people have been killed in hit-and-run raids and suicide bombings by Taliban guerrillas and their Islamic allies in the most intense period of the insurgency since the Taliban were removed from power in 2001 for harboring Osama bin Laden.

Helped by villagers resentful of foreigners and poorly paid Afghan government forces, their aim is to regain power to replace the government of President Hamid Karzai. Some 8,000 NATO troops have begun to deploy in the south.

Koenigs, a German diplomat, said the Afghan government and its allies needed to focus on development and good government, or "it will not be possible to end this insurgency."

He recalled that the 2001 Bonn conference, which set up a road map for a new government in Afghanistan, excluded the Taliban from a peace deal so they had no compulsion about reorganizing themselves.

"The Taliban were driven out of the country," Koenigs said of the American-led invasion after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. "They are defeated, but they have not been destroyed."

But he said their re-emergence could not be accomplished without outside financial support from international terrorist networks and unnamed nations as well as porous borders.

"There are international elements in it -- cross-border fighters coming from the neighboring country and being trained and also financed from other countries and in other countries," Koenigs said.

But he said he did not know who financed them and that not "even the CIA" knew where Al Qaeda got its money. (additional reporting by Jeremy Laurence in Kabul)

Foreign fighters again a threat in Afghanistan: UN envoy - Jul 26

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - The UN envoy for Afghanistan warned that foreign fighters had again become a major threat as the country fights off a mounting Taliban-inspired insurgency.

The warning came as the UN Security Council expressed renewed concern over the resurgence of the Taliban and called for greater military and political support for the government.

The UN envoy, Tom Koenigs, said the Taliban, overthrown in a US-led invasion in 2001, was rediscovering its strength as it fights back from bases in southern Afghanistan.

He said the fighting in Afghanistan now had to be called "an insurgency" rather than just "isolated acts of terrorism".

"There are international elements in it, there are cross border fighters coming from a neighbouring country and being trained and also being financed from other countries," Koenigs told reporters after briefing the Security Council. "This is a threat, and this is a challenge also in the diplomatic area."

Koenigs did not name the countries involved but made it clear that the fighters are entering Afghanistan through Pakistan. He said the fighters were coming across the "southern border".

The Taliban, he said, has "had the opportunity to regain strength, to reestablish their leadership over this movement and to reconquer their structures.

"This is impossible without the support of third parties -- let it be international terrorist networks, let it be countries that do not control part of their territory," said Koenigs.

"What is necessary is close cooperation between Afghanistan and Pakistan on this subject and it is necessary for the international community to 'dry out' the finances of this movement," he added.

"There is no indication that any government, openly or covertly, supports the Taliban because the Taliban are a threat to the stability of any country."

Koenigs said he had met Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf who had admitted he was "concerned about the threat of the Talibanisation of Pakistan".

Jean-Marc de La Sabliere, French ambassador and president of the Security Council for July, read a council statement after the meeting.

"The Security Council expressed concern about the security situation in Afghanistan against a backdrop of increasing activity by the Taliban and other groups," said the statement.

The council "welcomed moves toward democracy" made by the government of President Hamid Karzai "and expressed hope that the pace of reform will accelerate."

Koenigs said the Taliban "has to be answered with a serious of measures, political and military" by the international community.

He said it was not possible to "strike a deal" with the hardline militia because it had not attended talks but that the Afghanistan government's reconciliation programme has to be "reinvigorated".

"Not everyone fighting there can be treated as a terrorist, so in the end there must be political measures to counter this insurgency."

NATO is to take charge of the international military operation in southern Afghanistan in coming days -- from the current US commanders -- and the number of coalition forces in Afghanistan is to double to more than 18,000.

NATO says Afghan aid too slow - Jul 27, 2006 - By Mark John

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The failure by major donors to follow through on aid pledges to Afghanistan could undermine its efforts to quell an insurgency in the impoverished Muslim state, NATO warned on Thursday.

The alliance is set to takeover military operations from the U.S.-led coalition in the violent south of the country on Monday, thrusting it into what will likely be the toughest combat mission in its history.

A crucial part of NATO's strategy is to provide protection for development projects aimed at wresting local support away from the Taliban, but the alliance raised concerns that cash pledges to fund those projects were not coming through.

"We are putting a lot of people's lives on the line," said NATO spokesman James Appathurai of the plan to double troop levels of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) force to some 18,000 by the end of the month.

"It makes no sense to invest very heavily in the military resources for peace but not put in the civilian resources to make that peace stable," he told a news briefing.

Dozens of international donors pledged some $10.5 billion (5.6 billion pounds) for Afghanistan reconstruction over the next five years at a conference in London in January. But Appathurai said they appeared to be dragging their heals on delivering the cash.

"Disbursement of funds has not been implemented as quickly or as effectively as we hoped," he said.

Appathurai said NATO was looking to supply Afghanistan's poorly-resourced national army with weaponry such as small and medium arms, and called on other organisations such as the European Union to do more to help train local police.

Alliance ambassadors on Wednesday gave provisional approval for plans to take charge of security in south Afghanistan. The plans must now be approved by the 11 non-NATO members of ISAF.

"We are not expecting any difficulty at all," said Mark Laity, NATO's spokesman in Kabul, adding that alliance military authorities were expected on Friday to give final approval to the mission to come into effect on or around July 31.

NATO is taking over security in the south at a time when Afghanistan is going through its bloodiest phase of violence since the ousting of the Taliban in 2001.

Until now, ISAF has operated in the capital, Kabul, and the safer north and west of the country while U.S. troops have borne the brunt of fighting the insurgency in the south and east.

More than 1,700 people have been killed since the start of the year in attacks, mainly in the south, by Taliban guerrillas and U.S.-led coalition operations.

But Laity rejected media comment that NATO had grossly underestimated the extent of the violence in its planning.

"When you meet the reality on the ground you have to adapt. So, were our predictions perfect? No. But were they so far away from what we expected that we had to go back to the drawing board and start again? No." (Additional reporting by Jeremy Laurence in Kabul)

Taliban goes for cash over ideology - By Rachel Morarjee in Helmand, Afghanistan Financial Times (UK) / July 26, 2006

The Taliban has found a way to recruit fighters that is less about winning hearts and minds and more about the enduring appeal of cold hard cash.

They are paying fighters up to $12 (£6.50) a day to fight the fledgling Afghan National Army, which pays only $4 a day to its soldiers in the field, according to military officials.

"The Taliban are supported by Pakistan and they get money from the drugs trade, so they get more pay than our soldiers," said Colonel Myuddin Ghouri of the national army's 205 Corp.

While the ANA has the advantage of superior equipment and the same medical treatment as UK troops, its soldiers often have to risk their lives far from home.

"If you were a lad in the hills and you were offered $12 to stay local or you could take $4 and fight miles away from home, which would you do?" said Lieutenant Colonel David Hammond, an officer with 7 Para who is training Afghan officers in the southern province of Helmand as part of a mentoring scheme.

The pay difference is making it harder to recruit soldiers to the 38,000-strong ANA, which has faced a much better equipped and funded insurgency sinceJanuary.

Western officials have estimated that the Taliban's forces have risen from 2,000 last year to 6,000 this year. The Taliban claims to have 12,000 men. Afghan defence ministry officials believe funds for the insurgency are flowing over the border from Pakistan and possibly from Arab countries.

The multi-ethnic Afghan National Army has been one of the success stories of the post-September 11 era and is hugely popular with most Afghans. However, Afghan officials in Kabul say the pay of Afghan soldiers will remain a problem.

"Basic pay of $70 a month was a lot of money three years ago, but it's harder to recruit people to fight in a bitter insurgency now," said one Afghan official.

Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan condemn attacks against Lebanon - Dushanbe, July 27, IRNA

Heads of three regional countries, Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan, here on Wednesday night, at the end of their tripartite talks, strongly condemned Israel's attack against Lebanon, asking for an immediate, unconditional end to the aggressive, occupational move.

The Tajik President Imomali Rakhmonov told the reporters at the joint press conference, "We are seriously concerned about the deteriorating security conditions in the Middle East, particularly more so due to Israel's attack against Lebanon that has claimed the lives of hundreds of innocent civilians so far."

Rakhmonov added, "We hereby ask for an immediate end to those attacks, and the solving of the dispute through negotiations." He emphasized, "According to latest reports, most of the victims of Israeli attacks are the Lebanese children, youngsters, women, and elderly folks."

The Tajik President considered the death of UN officials in Israeli attacks as another blot on that usurper regime's reputation. He said that according to the articles of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) communique, all OIC member states are urged to cooperate to solve the crisis in Lebanon.

Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai, too, at the press conference while condemning the Israeli attacks, voiced his harmonious stand with his Iranian and Tajik counterparts on the issue and asked for putting an immediate end to the bloodshed there.

He said, "We feel sad about the death of dozens of civilians in Lebanon and ask for solving the crisis through diplomatic channels." The IRI President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, too, said at the joint press conference, "The standard bearers of human rights failed in the test measuring their truthfulness in Lebanon."

He added, "Iran, Tajikistan and Afghanistan have in their joint communique also condemned any type of relations based on hegemony, and condemned resorting to military force to push forth demands." The official tripartite summit, the second of its kind, was held in Tajikistan's capital city, Dushanbe, in which the Iranian, Tajik and Afghan heads of state exchanged viewpoints on transportation, political and economic matters, campaign against narcotics and terrorism.

President Ahmadinejad had arrived in Tajikistan on Tuesday and President Karzai on Wednesday evening, both atop high ranking political and economic delegations.

Afghan capital faces power shortage as US aid scaled back

KABUL, July 27, 2006 (AFP) - Afghanistan's capital is facing an acute electricity shortage that officials say will only get worse in winter as US financial support for its power-generating plants is being scaled back.

In the heat of summer there are only a few hours of city power each day with most offices and homes relying on fuel-guzzling generators for their electricity needs.

"We don't have the budget to buy fuel for our generators and our water-run power plants are not fully working due to drought," energy ministry planning director Gula Jan Khan told AFP this week.

"So we can't provide the power needed for the capital," he said, amid increasing anger from a public that expected more development than has been delivered in the five years since the fall of the extremist Taliban regime.

Currently the government can provide only four to five hours of power during the night. "In winter we'll only be able to provide a few hours every other night," Khan said.

The US government's aid arm USAID last year provided 70 million dollars for fuel for power generators that mainly serviced the capital.

This year it had only provided 20 million as the government had not issued an emergency call for help, US ambassador Ronald E. Neumann said last month.

"There is room here for other donors," Neumann said, adding the US government wanted to put its attention on development needs in the insurgency-plagued south.

"We felt that we needed to concentrate on things like the project in the south where no other donor will work rather than having our money simply burned in areas where other donors can be asked to help," he said.

Despite a flood of billions of dollars in aid by the international community to Afghanistan following the 2001 fall of the Taliban, the war-torn country's power sector has seen little development to the public's frustration.

Only about 10 percent of Afghanistan's population, estimated to be above 25 million, has access to power, mainly in the big cities. The rapidly growing capital depends on generators with some areas having no power at all.

A 200-million-dollar project funded mainly by India, the Asian Development Bank and Germany is under way to import electricity from Central Asian countries such Uzbekistan and Tajikistan although this could take years to bear fruit.

Canada 'right' to be in Afghanistan, says Bill Clinton

Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - CanWest News Service

Halifax — Canada is "absolutely" right to be fighting in Afghanistan, and the consequence of abandoning the war against the Taliban will turn out to be far more serious than the continued loss of Canadian lives if we stay, says Bill Clinton, the former United States President.

"I think your people have done an astounding job there," he said during a speech Wednesday night inside a hockey stadium in downtown Halifax.

Clinton acknowledged the war in Afghanistan is "becoming less popular" in Canada, partly because of the stream of dead and injured Canadian soldiers coming home from Kandahar. "But you can’t go there without casualties," he said.

If Canada and other NATO nations pull their armies out, he said, "the price we’ll pay in the long run — including the lives of our military personnel —would be greater. As awful as this is, it’s not nearly as awful as things would become if we left."

Clinton was brought to Halifax Wednesday by Frank McKenna, the former New Brunswick premier and former Canadian ambassador to Washington. Following his speech, Clinton sat in a leather armchair on an expansive stage, answering at length questions put to him by McKenna.

Asked if Canada should continue its mission in Kandahar, Clinton said because of the dangerous work of U.S., Canadian and other forces — including special forces and intelligence agents and "people you don’t know" — al Qaida has "nowhere near the operational solidity it did at the time of 9/11.

"Afghanistan is tough," he added. "But it would be a travesty if a genuine Muslim democracy were allowed to collapse and the Taliban were allowed to re-establish its control, particularly over women and girls, and al Qaida were allowed to come back in.

"We don’t have enough bodies there. There are 40,000 (U.S. and NATO) troops in Afghanistan and about 120,000 in Iraq. That’s the fundamental problem there."

Asked what he made of Israel’s military strikes on Lebanon and Hezbollah, Clinton reminded the audience that many Arab and Persian Gulf states have not criticized Israeli military action in recent days, because they too fear Hezbollah and Shia extremism in the region.

Clinton echoed calls for a ceasefire, and an international U.S. and NATO force to be brought into the area. But he made it clear that he believes the fault of the current crisis lies with Hezbollah:

"We’ve got to get these forces — Hezbollah and Hamas —to decide if theyíre going to play politics, or play war.

"The Israelis aren’t perfect, but they’re in a tough neighbourhood," he said. "They gave up the Golan and Gaza, and every time they give, they get bashed."

Clinton’s speech was his only public event during a two-day visit to Nova Scotia. Today he will join McKenna and dozens of other well-connected corporate and political figures at the exclusive golf-dinner-and-networking event McKenna hosts each summer in the Maritimes.

This year the group — whose invited guests reportedly include U.S. ambassador to Canada David Wilkins and Liberal leadership candidate Scott Brison — is gathering at the sleek Fox Harbour Golf Resort in Wallace, N.S., the luxurious estate owned by Tim Horton’s founder Ron Joyce, on Nova Scotias Northumberland Strait.

Previous guests at the annual McKenna summits have included former U.S. president George Bush Sr., Allan Gotlieb, the former ambassador to the U.S., members of Atlantic Canada’s Irving, McCain and Sobey families,and a handful of former Canadian premiers.

Clinton also attended the McKenna summit in 2004.

Prodi Government Stakes Survival on Afghanistan Mission Vote

July 27 (Bloomberg) -- Prime Minister Romano Prodi is staking the survival of his two-month old government on two confidence votes in the Senate today and tomorrow to extend funding for Italy's soldiers in Afghanistan.

The votes will force dissenting allies to support funding foreign missions, including Afghanistan, or cause the government to collapse. Prodi has just a two-vote majority in the Senate, without accounting for as many as seven votes from honorary life senators. The first confidence vote will start at 9 p.m., with the second one, on a different part of the bill, held tomorrow.

Prodi's narrow win in the April elections and tensions within his eight-party coalition, which includes both communists and Christian Democrats, pose a constant threat to his government. Provided the votes go his way, Prodi will face an even tougher fight at the end of the year, when he tries to pass as much as 20 billion euros ($26 billion) in deficit-reduction measures as part of the 2007 budget.

``This government walks on a razor's edge,'' said Raffaele De Mucci, a professor of political science at Rome's Luiss University. ``The real test to the administration is going to be the budget document.''

Sixteen of Prodi's senators from six different factions want Italy's 1,300 soldiers brought home. They signed a document today pledging to support the government in a confidence vote even though they opposed the mission in Afghanistan. The agreement with the rebellious senators follows weeks of negotiations.

``The problem is the government is on the verge of collapsing every time there's a major issue up for discussion,'' said Salvatore Zecchini, a professor of international economy and policy at Rome's Tor Vergata University. ``Still, I wouldn't bet on the immediate downfall of this government. It's keen to remain in power and it's doing all it can to stay afloat.''

The opposition condemned the confidence votes as a means of settling an internal dispute and pledged to vote against the government. The opposition had said it would support the Afghanistan-funding bill.

``It would have been more credible to our foreign partners to have passed this measure with the backing of a broad section of parliament,'' said Senator Renato Schifani, chief whip for the Forza Italia party in the upper house. ``Instead, the opposition is using this vote to calm a rebellion in its ranks.''

The measure being voted on allocates spending 488 million euros to pay for 8,000 military participating in missions in 28 different countries, not just Afghanistan, for the next six months. In Prodi's first speech after taking office, he announced the withdrawal of Italian soldiers from southern Iraq, fulfilling a pledge that he made during his election campaign.

Ironically, Italy is the only country so far to have promised a ``substantial'' number of soldiers for a UN-backed peacekeeping force that may eventually be created to help end fighting between Hezbollah and Israel. Prodi also hosted an international conference on the Middle East crisis yesterday in Rome.

The announcement has put pressure on the dissidents to line up behind the prime minister because most of them have traditionally opposed Israeli policy, including past incursions into Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.

Critics say the dissidents are more concerned about visibility than they are ideologically opposed to the Afghanistan mission.

``This is a problem of individual egos,'' said Senator Furio Colombo, a member of the foreign relations committee and the largest party in the coalition, the Democrats of the Left. ``If they deny their votes to the government, it will collapse or appear weaker and weaker. This government could be heading for a sudden death or a slow death.''

Prodi enjoys a broader majority in the Chamber of Deputies and the survival of his government will likely depend on how well he can manage the Senate. Just two weeks after the elections and a month before his government was sworn in, it took four rounds of voting to elect the prime minister's choice to preside over the chamber, Franco Marini.

The government two days ago survived another confidence vote in the Senate, passing a decree that includes mid-year deficit cuts and a package of measures to liberalize some of the country's long-protected professions. Taxi drivers, pharmacists, lawyers and bread makers all protested against opening up their fields to greater competition, and the taxi drivers won a compromise after staging a series of wildcat strikes.

Industry Minister Pierluigi Bersani said the liberalization process will continue this fall to include banks, insurance companies and other large businesses, a step that is bound to spark new protests.

Government spending reductions may also cause problems when the budget is discussed. The government plans to raise 35 billion euros to cut the deficit and help economic growth in the 2007 budget, mostly by cutting spending on pensions, health care, local governments and the civil services.

Ottawa sees progress despite Afghan strife

Ambassador points to economic growth as reason for optimism amid the violence

GRAEME SMITH – Globe and Mail

Canada believes that Afghanistan has made progress toward recovery over the past six months, Ambassador David Sproule says, despite the violence that has convulsed the beleaguered country.

While acknowledging that the threat posed by insurgents has grown since the major deployment of Canadian troops earlier this year, Mr. Sproule made a detailed argument in favour of an optimistic view.

"We're counting our blessings," he said in a telephone interview. "I think we've made a lot of progress."

That's an unusual sentiment among observers of Afghanistan these days. The United Nations estimates that the recent fighting has killed three or four times as many Afghans in the first half of this year compared with last year. This spring, the number of deaths climbed past the 1,000 mark, which academics usually consider the threshold between low-level conflict and outright war.

This summer, reports from Kabul suggested the growing instability threatens the position of President Hamid Karzai, who has been quarrelling with his foreign advisers and growing more vocal with his accusations that insurgents are helped by Pakistan.

But none of these things add up to a bleak picture in Afghanistan, Mr. Sproule said, as ISAF -- the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's International Security Assistance Force -- prepares to take over from the U.S.-led coalition next month.

"Over the last six months, I think a lot of the focus in the media has been on the security situation and the challenge that's being mounted by the other side, which, I think, the coalition forces and ISAF are meeting very well.

"They're meeting it from a military standpoint but it's being supplemented very heavily by development work and institution-building."

The international community has also responded to criticism of the Afghan police, Mr. Sproule said. The force's own officers have complained that the police lack manpower, need basic supplies, and suffer from widespread corruption.

"Police training is a little further behind than army training, but we realized that and we've quickened the pace in the last six months," Mr. Sproule said.

Some diplomats in Kabul have privately expressed frustration with Mr. Karzai, who has recently been making decisions -- such as the appointment of police chiefs who don't fit standard hiring criteria -- that the foreigners view as appeasements to radicals.

In a speech last month, Mr. Karzai lamented the deaths of Taliban soldiers who fight the coalition, and suggested that foreign soldiers should focus instead on cutting off the insurgency's sources of money, weapons, and recruits. "Even if they are Taliban, they are sons of this land," the President said.

The comments don't mean Mr. Karzai has split with his foreign advisers, Mr. Sproule said.

"President Karzai has expressed concern about the security situation in the south, and [he asked] 'Can we be doing more on the development and institution-building side?' And we've agreed, and are working with him to ensure those aspects are more pronounced."

When asked whether Canada has devoted enough soldiers and money to the cause, the ambassador sounded confident.

"I think so," he said. Canada has recently increased its assistance to Afghanistan to $100-million a year, he said, making it Canada's largest foreign-aid program.

"We've put a lot of thought into this. I think we have the right number of soldiers, and the level of our development assistance, while very large, is necessary. It's necessary because development and institution-building is what's going to sustain what we're doing."

Already, he added, the foreigners' help has revived Afghanistan's economy. "Do you know the per capita income in the last four years has more than doubled? Did you know the GNP [Gross National Product] has more than doubled? I mean, those are hard facts that cannot be ignored."

INTERVIEW - Afghanistan needs more troops, says envoy to U.S. - Thursday July 27, 8:32 AM

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Afghanistan needs more mobile foreign troops as it suffers its bloodiest phase in nearly five years, with militants gearing up to test NATO-led forces, the country's ambassador to the United States said on Wednesday.

Said T. Jawad said Afghanistan had come a long way since it became the front line for the war on terrorism when U.S.-led forces ousted the ruling Taliban and began to root out Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda group, blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks.

"But we are not out of the woods," Jawad told Reuters ahead of a speech to New York's Afghan community on Thursday. "We are facing challenges. Afghan people are determined to win this war, but we are facing some serious bumps on the road."

"What we need is to have more mobile and agile international forces to respond very quickly to the daily attacks of terrorists," he said, adding that more investment was also needed in the reconstruction of the country.

A NATO-led international force is due to expand military operations into southern Afghanistan and take over command in the area from the United States on Monday, extending its control over security to all of the country except the east.

The coalition force in Afghanistan says it has killed more than 600 militants since the start of June. Most of the militant attacks have been occurring in the south, near the border with Pakistan.

"We see Taliban coming to Afghanistan in large numbers and there are a variety of reasons why we are witnessing that spike in terrorist activities", Jawad said.

"(The NATO forces) show the consensus of the international community on the need to stay focused and help Afghanistan, but also provide an opportunity for terrorists to attack Afghan and international forces and test the military might of NATO."

Jawad said the spike in violence could also be blamed on the inability of the Afghan police and army to combat the problem and on Afghanistan's location in a "tense" region.

"The terrorists are still able to have access to training grounds, financial resources and ideological safe havens outside Afghanistan borders", he said, adding that he does not believe Osama bin Laden is hiding in Afghanistan.

But while Afghanistan was still facing serious challenges, Jawad said the country's double-digit economic growth, the enthusiasm of the people in electing a president, the return of millions of children to school and the homecoming of millions of Afghan refugees showed how far the nation had come. "I cannot wait to see what we will achieve within in a generation," he said.

Afghan Farmers Resentful - Embassy, July 26th, 2006 - NEWS STORY By Lee Berthiaume

Hamid Karzai's senior economic adviser says while eradicating poppy production is good, farmers aren't being given new sources of income and resent having their livelihoods destroyed...

Canada and other countries are spending more effort eradicating poppies and opium in Afghanistan rather than providing farmers with an alternative to growing the drug, according to a senior Afghan official.

"Certainly eradication has received a lot more attention," said Ishaq Nadiri, senior economic adviser to Afghan President Hamid Karzai. "The key thing is that the alternative livelihood is not the way they have designed it."

Speaking to Embassy during a one-day visit to Ottawa last week, Mr. Nadiri said more needs to be done to make Afghanistan's agricultural industry more profitable to farmers, as well as to develop other industries that will create jobs.

"Because if they do not have gainful employment, they will resort to the production of narcotics and other activities or idleness, which feeds into the insecurity," Mr. Nadiri said. "We have not had that and we need to develop new ideas and principles to carry this forward."

Canada has spent or pledged to spend $1 billion in aid in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2011, including $15 million in rural reconstruction aid announced by Prime Minister Stephen Harper on June 15. At the same time, Canadian soldiers have been actively destroying poppy fields in the country, which has brought criticism from some quarters.

"Most of these farmers do not want to [grow poppies]," Mr. Nadiri said. "But the alternatives to poppy is not anywhere to be seen. And consequently they get angry when their livelihood is destroyed because there is no alternative."

So far there has been little to no Canadian investment in Afghanistan, which he said has a lot of potential in two sectors Canada is known for: Mining and construction.

Mr. Nadiri said Canadian aid has been instrumental in helping disarm and demobilize Afghan fighters and clear landmines from the countryside, but as time passes and new challenges arise, there must be changes to the way Canadian aid is used.

"As the situation changes, it has to be examined," he said. "I think we can certainly increase the effectiveness of the aid and apply it as the evolution of society takes place. We must examine at all times that we are spending effectively the money that the Canadian population is giving."

However, he defended the government's decision to keep military troops in Afghanistan, saying that his government appreciates the sacrifices being made by Canadian soldiers, but withdrawing would plunge the country back into war and forfeit the investments already made.

"If security is not involved, all the investments will be lost," he said, noting instability in one country has a ripple effect around the world. "This is a fight for Canada as well as Afghanistan."

CIDA spokeswoman Patti Robson said Canada has already allocated $28 million to support alternative livelihoods projects, including a three-year $18.5-million in Kandahar that started this year and a similar project in northeast Afghanistan that started last year and will cost $7.3 million.

In addition, "Approved projects are funded and implemented according to the project agreements that set out timelines, goals and reporting requirements. CIDA regularly meets with development partners, including the government of Afghanistan and other donors, in consultative forums to review and assess progress on projects," wrote Ms. Robson in an email.

Afghanistan invited to SAARC meetings

KABUL, July 26 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The government of Bangladesh, which is the current chair of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), has extended an invitation to Afghanistan to attend the forthcoming meetings of the associations' standing committee and council of ministers in Dhaka next week .

The SAARC members have recently given its nod to allow Afghanistan membership in the seven-member organisation. "The government of Bangladesh, as the current chair of SAARC, has invited Afghanistan to attend the meetings as special guest to familiarise itself with the process," said a reputed Pakistani daily quoting diplomatic sources .

Afghanistan would not be participating in the deliberations but would attend the meetings as observer, the sources were quoted as saying .

The last SAARC summit in Dhaka had approved Afghanistans request for the

membership of the regional grouping, and had directed the standing committee to evolve a mechanism to induct it as a new member .

The meeting of the standing committee, comprising foreign secretaries of the seven-member alliance, is scheduled for July 31. It will be followed by the council meeting on August 1 and 2, said the report .

They are routine half-yearly review meetings but this time around they assume special significance as modalities of Afghanistan membership and criteria for granting observer status to China and Japan will be finalised. Besides, the requests by the United States and South Korea for the observer status in the association will also be considered.

Over 5,000 tons grapes exported from Kandahar - Saeed Zabuli 

KANDAHAR CITY, July 27 (Pajhwok Afghan News): More than five thousand tons of grapes and huge quantity of dry fruit have been exported from Kandahar over the past 10 days, officials said.

In an exclusive interview with Pajhwok Afghan News, provincial chief of the AICC Dr Abdul Raziq Mama said the grapes were exported only from the Panjwai district.

Panjwai, Zharai, and Mewand districts of Kandahar are popular for their bumper grape produce. The three districts yield 60 per cent of the total grapes produced in the country.

A fortnight back, tribal elders and growers from the three districts had complained traders were not turning up to buy the fruit (grapes) due to insecurity. They demanded of the government to take immediate steps for its export.

But Mama said grapes worth five million US dollars had so far been exported to Pakistan, from where it would be transferred to Bangladesh, Singapore and Japan.

On special instructions of President Hamid Karzai, grapes from Panjwai were exported in the first phase, said Mama, adding export from the district was in full swing and an average of 24 trucks load of the commodity cross border into Pakistan.

Abdul Raziq said they had also held talks for export of over two lakh tons grapes to Arab countries. Besides, dry fruits worth $4.2 million had also been exported during the current quarter. They included almonds, pistachios, raisin and herbs, informed the AICC chief.

President of Fresh Fruits Sellers' Union Haji Nanai Agha is satisfied with handsome value and exports of grapes but what irks him is the teasing of traders by police officials at a number of check posts on Kandahar - Spin Boldak Highway.

Agha complained the traders had to drop 500 afghanis at each police post from Kandahar City to Spin Boldak. Otherwise, they were stopped and the vehicles are subjected to undue searches. He demanded of President Karzai and the provincial authorities to stop police officials from teasing the traders.

Haji Fazal Rahman, a grower from Panjwai, said suitable market and timely export of the fruit could produce good effect on the economy of the province. Handsome earning from fruits could attract people to grow fruits instead of poppies, Rahman believed.

Generals urge Musharraf rethink - By Barbara Plett BBC News, Islamabad
Wednesday, 26 July 2006

Pakistan's beleaguered president General Pervez Musharraf has suffered another blow, this time on the domestic front. He was already being criticised for his foreign policy - by the Americans for not doing enough to stop Taleban infiltration into Afghanistan across Pakistan's border, and by India for harbouring Islamist militants allegedly involved in the recent Mumbai bombings.

Now a group of retired generals, sitting and former politicians and academics has urged him to end the military's role in politics by separating the two offices of state he holds.

"The office of president of Pakistan is also a political office, and combining the presidency with the office of army chief of staff politicises the latter post as well as the army," said a letter leaked to several local newspapers this week.

It was addressed to the president, the prime minister and heads of political parties. It called for a neutral caretaker government to ensure free and fair parliamentary elections due next year.

And it urged "conciliation rather than confrontation", reflecting widespread concern that President Musharraf's continuing exclusion of Pakistan's main opposition parties may lead to violence.

"Despite the existence of elected legislatures and the prospects of the next elections, there is a deficit of trust and credibility that marks virtually all political relationships," said the letter. "Increasing polarisation reflects the dangerous forces of exclusion and dominance."

There's nothing new in the demands - they've been made repeatedly by commentators and opposition politicians. What's significant is who made them. The group includes prominent figures in the Pakistani establishment, including retired intelligence chiefs and generals, some of whom are close to the president.

"One wonders why their conscience did not prick when they were in uniform," noted a laconic editorial in the Dawn newspaper. Another wit acidly observed that there are few so revolutionary as generals out of work.

But signatories dismissed the cynicism. They said the letter was the result of months of discussions held by a working group on civil-military relations. When participants decided to draft the letter, it took six months to agree the text.

"The letter is significant in the sense that people from diverse backgrounds have come to a consensus," says Dr Hasan Askari Rizvi, a political analyst and one of the signatories.

"It shows that a good number of generals have become tired of the Musharraf system." A retired lieutenant general, Talat Masood, agrees. "We were motivated by a fear that the status quo is untenable and may be dangerous," he told the BBC.

"We think that the more you involve the army, the more polarisation will increase - between the military regime and civil society, and between the provinces and the central government. "We had a strong view that this is not the way forward for the future of Pakistan."

Having released the letter, what comes next? "We're hoping that the debate can continue," said Mr Masood. "And rather than confrontation, the government can find some flexibility to accommodate the opposition."

But confrontation is what seems to be looming. Ahead of next year's elections the two main opposition parties have agreed on a so-called charter of democracy committed to getting the military out of politics.

And Pakistan's powerful Islamist parties are talking about a rolling campaign of street protests to oust the president. There is also rising popular discontent over soaring prices of essential commodities and endless power cuts in what has been a particularly hot summer.

That is what makes the letter important. It's another sign that the order set in place seven years ago by Gen Musharraf's coup may be coming to a close, or at the very least, that more and more people want it to.

Effort to Install Taliban Government in Afghan-Pak Tribal Areas - OpEdNews.com - Original Article at July 26, 2006

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_muhammad_060726_effort_to_install_ta.htm - By Muhammad Khurshid

Taliban are reemerging in the landscape of world politics as Pakistan has started negotiation with them through some tribal elders or maliks. According to reports, Pakistan has been urging the Taliban to stop fighting against the government forces in tribal areas. In return they will be given a share in the government.

Some of the reports say that the government of Pakistan has offered huge amounts to the Taliban for stopping fighting. The people of the tribal areas, the victims of double standard politics for a long time, are helplessly watching the situation unable to do anything. If they say something they are being sent to jails or even killed.

The government of Pakistan has closed the tribal areas for national and international journalists as it was busy in an ugly game in the areas.

NWFP governor Ali Muhammad Jan Orakzai, who is himself a tribal, has been heading the campaign. It is interesting to note that the same gentle manwas the crops commanders when Pakistan moved troops to tribal areas for purging the the areas of foreign terrorists. Now he is the governor at the time when negotiation is being held with terrorists and Taliban.

Most of the tribesmen have been asking the question, "Why are the religious fanatics being imposed on them?" Educated and enlighted elements in the tribal areas are being pushed to the wall. The governor has started visits to tribal areas where he is wooing the tribesmen to accept the Taliban.

During a speech the governor said that peace was the foremost requirement and urged the tribesmen to cooperate with the govt. in this regard. He particularly referred to the negative perceptions created about FATA and stressed the tribesmen to remove this stigma of dishonor, which was in fact bringing a bad name to even the peaceful, loyal and sensible tribesmen.

Under the law of the land Frontier Crime Regulation (FCR), the tribal areas affairs will be run by the elders and maliks. But the government has not been abiding by this law which caused deterioration of conditions in the areas.

There are reports that the Taliban have been recruiting the tribesmen to be used as suicide bombers, but no attention is being given to the issue.

Most of the tribesmen have demanded of the United States to take notice of the injustice being made with them. The tribesmen are capable to flush out the terrorists and foreign elements from their soil if they are given the chance.

According to a tribal elder, it is better to tackle this issue at this point otherwise it will furthur spoil the situation in the world. There are still some terrorists in the tribal areas who are planning terrorist attacks in the world.

[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.]