In this bulletin:

• 'Al-Qaeda' arrests in Afghanistan
• 20 suspected Taliban killed in Afghanistan
• NATO Shifts Afghan Focus to Drug Lords
• NATO embarks on 'toughest mission' in Afghanistan
• NATO gears up for mission in Afghanistan
• Italian forces to remain in Afghanistan — for now
• Eighteen Taliban killed in Afghanistan
• Afghan envoy seeks action against 'rapist'
• Osama's a scaredy-cat: pal
• Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan set up trilateral panel
• Tampa Police Department donates bullet-resistant vests to Afghanistan
• VP in Afghanistan's Herat to inaugurate development project
• Religious police trigger heated debate in Afghanistan (Reuters)

'Al-Qaeda' arrests in Afghanistan
Saturday, 29 July 2006 BBC News

US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan say they have detained four suspected al-Qaeda militants in the eastern part of the country.

The militants were picked up during an operation near Sal Kalay area of Khost province, a coalition spokesman said.

The troops faced no resistance during the operation, and there were no casualties, he added.

Al-Qaeda and Taleban militants have mounted a series of attacks in Afghanistan in recent months.

Coalition spokesman Col Thomas Collins said Saturday morning's raid in Khost "should put all terrorists on notice.

"The purpose of the operation was to capture al-Qaeda operatives who have been involved in the planning of attacks against Afghan and coalition forces in eastern Afghanistan," he said.

"Each day we gain greater intelligence and greater ability to find terrorists who offer nothing to the Afghan people but fear and intimidation."

Coalition forces said some arms and a briefcase of "extremist-related" documents were recovered from the scene.

Most of the violence linked to the al-Qaeda and Taleban militants 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.

July 30, 2006

20 suspected Taliban killed in Afghanistan

By MATTHEW PENNINGTON, Associated Press Writer Sun Jul 30,

U.S.-led coalition forces and Afghan police killed 20 suspected Taliban in the latest fighting to hit southern Afghanistan, as NATO on Sunday prepared to take command in the insurgency-wracked region.

Afghan forces also killed six militants in southeastern Paktika province, an Afghan official said.

On Monday, the U.S. anti-terror coalition is to formally hand over control of security operations to a NATO-led force that has deployed about 8,000 mostly British, Canadian and Dutch troops in the south.

The deployment has coincided with the deadliest upsurge in fighting since U.S.-backed forces ousted the Taliban regime in late 2001 for hosting Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

On a visit to Afghanistan on Sunday, French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said many Taliban fighters were crossing from Pakistan to stage attacks.

"We need real cooperation from Pakistan, but it seems very difficult for them. The border is a very difficult region and we ask Pakistan to make some more effort to control it," she told reporters in Kabul.

Pakistan, a key U.S. ally in its war on terrorism, says it does all it can to patrol the porous Afghan border.

On Saturday, a joint force of coalition and Afghan troops killed 20 suspected Taliban militants who had attempted an ambush in Shahidi Hassas district of Uruzgan province, a coalition statement said. There were no casualties among coalition or Afghan forces.

Afghan soldiers and police killed six Taliban fighters and captured eight Sunday during a clash in southeastern Paktika province's Waza Khwa district, said Said Jamal, spokesman for the provincial governor. No further details were available.

In Kandahar province, three militants blew themselves up Saturday as they laid an explosive on a road, said Daoud Ahmadi, a spokesman for the provincial governor. Another suspected Taliban died Sunday when a land mine he was planting north of Kandahar city exploded, Ahmadi said.

Taliban-led fighters have escalated roadside bombings and suicide attacks this year, and have also mounted brazen attacks on several small towns and district police stations — a tactic rarely seen in the previous four years.

International forces, backed by the Afghan army, have meted out a tough response.

Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Zahir Azimi said a 50-day operation dubbed Mountain Thrust has resulted in the deaths of at least 613 suspected militants. Some 87 others were wounded and about 300 arrested, he said.

Azimi said between 13 and 16 civilians had also died.

He declined to give details of Afghan and coalition casualties. According to an Associated Press count of coalition figures, at least 19 coalition troops have died in Afghanistan during the same period.

British Lt. Gen. David Richards, commander of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, said Saturday that Operation Mountain Thrust would wind down as NATO takes over in the south, but its force will "keep up the tempo" of operations against insurgents.

NATO brings a new strategy to dealing with the Taliban rebellion: establishing bases rather than chasing militants, and is hoping to win the support of local people by creating secure zones where development can take place.

But questions remain whether they can quell the violence enough to allow aid workers to get to work in a lawless and impoverished region, where about a quarter of Afghanistan's huge opium crop is grown.

Azimi dismissed concern that there would not be enough troops on the ground. He said the Afghan army would maintain three brigades of about 3,000 troops each in the southern provinces of Kandahar, Helmand and Zabul, supporting the NATO forces.

NATO Shifts Afghan Focus to Drug Lords

By REUTERS New York Times

KABUL, Afghanistan, July 29 (Reuters) — NATO’s expansion into southern Afghanistan will take aim at drug warlords who are the cause of growing violence, the force’s commander said Saturday.

NATO will embark on the biggest mission in its history on Monday when it takes over security from the American-led military coalition in six southern provinces, extending its authority to almost the entire country.

Lt. Gen. David Richards of Britain, the NATO commander, said he hoped to see improvements in the south in three to six months, which would allow the 26-nation NATO alliance to proceed with the final phase of its deployment into the east by the end of the year.

General Richards said at a news conference in Kabul, the capital, that the violence in southern Afghanistan was inextricably linked to drugs.

“Essentially for the last four years some very brutal people have been developing their little fiefdoms down there and exporting a lot of opium to the rest of the world,” General Richards said.

“That very evil trade is being threatened by the NATO expansion in the south,” he added. “This is a very noble cause we’re engaged in and we have to liberate the people from that scourge of those warlords.”

Afghanistan is going through the bloodiest phase of violence since the fall of the Taliban government in 2001, with most attacks occurring in the south.

NATO’s expansion in the south signals the end of the American-led coalition’s big offensive there, which started last month and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people, including militants, civilians, soldiers and government officials.

The Taliban, rebels tied to the country’s former rulers, and drug gangs have operated freely in the south for years and are putting up fierce resistance.

Afghanistan is the world’s top producer of opium and its derivative, heroin. Opium poppy cultivation is increasing in the south, and it profits have helped finance the insurgency, according to security analysts.

General Richards said NATO, with up to 9,000 troops from 37 countries, would not target the opium farmers, but would try to provide security to foster development of an “alternative economy.”

NATO embarks on 'toughest mission' in Afghanistan

Mon Jul 31, 1:47 AM ET AFP

NATO took command of security operations in southern Afghanistan, embarking on its most ambitious mission and hoping a new approach would break a grinding Taliban insurgency.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) took authority from a US-led coalition that ousted the Taliban from government in 2001, with the occasion to be marked at a ceremony in southern Kandahar city later Monday.

The NATO force would continue efforts of the coalition to "provide security as well as reconstruction projects and humanitarian assistance," ISAF said in a statement.

The transfer brings around 8,000 British, Canadian, Dutch, US and other troops under ISAF command in six provinces in the south, expanding the number of its troops nationwide to 18,000.

ISAF, which has been under NATO command since 2003, has already been operating in western and northern Afghanistan and the capital Kabul.

The move into the south demonstrates the international community's commitment to war-ravaged Afghanistan, the commanders of both forces said.

"NATO is here for the long-term, for as long as the government and people of Afghanistan require our assistance," ISAF commander, British Lieutenant General David Richards, said in the statement.

"Today's transfer of authority demonstrates to the Afghan people that there is a strong commitment of the part of the international community to further extend security into the southern province," said coalition commander Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry.

The south, the Taliban's heartland and from where the movement rose to take control of most of the goverment by 1996, sees the worst of the insurgency with regular suicide and roadside bombings, most of them directed at troops.

Military officials also admit that the insurgents are better organised than ever, able to launch attacks on coalition bases.

ISAF spokesman Major Luke Knittig this week said move into the volatile south was the alliance's "toughest ground mission, if not the toughest mission overall".

The force is hopeful however it can make a difference with a stronger emphasis on rebuilding, while the coalition maintains a force focussed on counterinsurgency work.

"That doesn't mean we will not fight," Britain's Richards told reporters at the weekend.

But he hoped "the people's own desire to defend what they see developing in front of them ... will enable us to achieve success" over a "reasonable" period of time.

NATO has urged the international community to match their troop deployments with development aid, with a lack of reconstruction and effective policing seen as one of the reasons for a surge in Taliban violence this year that has left hundreds of people dead.

The alliance's Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer warned in an interview with the Financial Times Monday that Afghanistan could again become a breeding ground for terrorists without greater international help.

NATO "will do its job but you have to do yours as well in assisting the Afghan people and government, but also in preventing the country from becoming a stronghold for terrorists who want to run and destroy our society," De Hoop Scheffer said.

The operation is NATO's most ambitious undertaking, eclipsing the air campaign against Serbia in 1999 when then strongman Slobodan Milosevic tried to crush an ethnic Albanian uprising in Kosovo.

Later this year ISAF will extend its command across the whole of Afghanistan by moving into the country's east.

NATO gears up for mission in Afghanistan
By MATTHEW PENNINGTON Associated Press / July 29, 2006

KABUL, Afghanistan - A massive U.S.-led military offensive to root out Taliban militants in southern Afghanistan will wind down as NATO takes command of security in the volatile region starting next week, a top general said Saturday.

The 8,000-strong NATO force of mostly British, Canadian and Dutch troops formally takes over in the south from the U.S.-led coalition Monday.

Operation Mountain Thrust will wrap up as NATO steps in, though it will "keep up the tempo" of operations against the insurgents, said British Lt. Gen. David Richards, commander of NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.

Since June 10, more than 10,000 Afghan and coalition forces have fanned out across the south in response to an upsurge in Taliban attacks. The coalition said it has killed 600 insurgents, while at least 19 coalition troops have died during the same period, according to an Associated Press count of coalition figures.

Richards said he did not expect the coalition — whose primary goal was to fight global Islamic militants like al-Qaida that are active in eastern Afghanistan — to operate for much longer in the south, where the insurgency is led by the Taliban.

NATO brings a new strategy for dealing with the Taliban rebellion, establishing bases rather than adopting the coalition tactic of chasing down militants. It wants to bolster the weak government of President Hamid Karzai and win the support of local people by promoting much-needed development.

Richards said he hoped that within three to six months there would be signs of progress, creating secure zones in which aid workers could operate in a region mired in the drug trade and poverty.

Reconstruction would help people see "the fighting is worth something," Richards told a news conference in Kabul. "I hope people who now are often being intimidated into supporting the Taliban" would have the extra resolve to reject them.

He said NATO forces would be "really, really careful" to avoid civilian losses, but would be as tough in defending themselves as the coalition had been.

Civilian deaths during coalition military action — often involving air power and heavy weaponry — has complicated the NATO force's task of winning over a skeptical Pashtun tribal populace.

Italian forces to remain in Afghanistan — for now

By Kent Harris, Stars and Stripes European edition, Saturday, July 29, 2006
The Italian military’s mission in Afghanistan appears to be alive for at least another six months.

Italy’s Senate voted Thursday evening to approve more than 130 million euros ($171 million) to fund the troops and their mission, though not without some controversy — including charges that the vote wasn’t valid.

Despite some opposition from the far left, Prime Minister Romano Prodi’s center-left coalition approved the measure 159-0 by instituting a vote of confidence in the government. The opposition, led by former Prime Minster Silvio Berlusconi, has two fewer seats in the body and decided to abstain from voting on the issue. The final tally, according to members of the center-right opposition, fell one vote shy of a legal vote. The ruling coalition dismissed that charge and called the vote valid.

Asked for reaction, a public affairs officer from the U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. missions in the Middle East, said the approval of funds was welcome.

“The contributions of all our coalition partners cannot be overstated,” said Capt. Matthew Hasson. “We are deeply appreciative for their contributions and sacrifices in fighting terror and promoting democracy throughout the Middle East.”

Senators were set to vote on the entire package of funding for Italian overseas missions Friday, and there were signs that members of both the right and left of the political spectrum weren’t happy.

A group of 16 senators in Prodi’s coalition repeated their opposition to the country’s continued mission in Afghanistan.

“We will vote today on the confidence vote for the government,” Gigi Malabarba was quoted as saying in an online report from Agenzia Giornalistica Italia. “But we would like to reiterate our ‘no’ to the Italian military mission in Afghanistan, which we have always been against.”

With only a relatively small group of senators voting against the measure, it was likely to pass anyway, because Berlusconi and his allies had signaled their support of the measure. Berlusconi was prime minister when the Italian troops were sent to the country.

But, according to various media reports, the left-center coalition wanted to show it could pass the measure without any support from their opponents. So it resorted to a vote of confidence. If the vote had failed, the government would have effectively been toppled and new elections could be called.

The opposition, which had said that the measure wouldn’t pass without its support, decided to abstain. Some members of the Northern League, at the far right of the political spectrum, held up a sign calling Prodi a dictator. According to another report on the AGI Web site, one Northern League senator, Massimo Polledri, was tackled by security guards anxious to avoid a fight when he approached some ruling coalition senators during debate.

The group of 16 senators on the left said another vote in a few months to extend the mission further would be “unacceptable.”

The country’s Chamber of Deputies had overwhelmingly voted to support the mission last week, with the right joining the left in a 549-4 verdict.

At stake is funding for about 1,800 Italian troops. Most are deployed to the relatively peaceful west of Afghanistan, with another large contingent in the country’s capital of Kabul.

Eighteen Taliban killed in Afghanistan
Sat Jul 29, 5:37 AM ET

KABUL (AFP) - At least 18 Taliban militants and three policemen have been killed in the latest fighting in insurgency-plagued Afghanistan.

Fourteen rebels were killed on Friday in a "clearance operation" in southern Helmand province's Garmser district, which was briefly over run by Taliban militants early this month, the interior ministry said Saturday.

"During the operation 14 enemy were killed," spokesman Yousuf Stanizai said. Two other rebels were seized in Baba Jee district of the same province on Friday.

In the northeastern province of Kapisa, meanwhile, police killed four Taliban militants including a "famous commander" on Friday while also losing one of their own men, Stanizai said.

The fighting lasted for three hours, he said, without naming the rebel commander.

In the same province, Taliban insurgents attacked a highway police patrol, killing one policeman and injuring four others, he said. In a later hunt for the attackers, police captured two suspects.

Meanwhile two policemen guarding an archaeological site in northern Balkh province were killed and another was wounded when unknown assailants attacked them overnight, provincial police spokesman Sher Jan Durani said.

The policemen were part of a 50-man guard who were sent from Kabul in April to protect a historical site in Dawlatabad district of the province, the spokesman said.

Durani did not say who was believed to be behind the attack on police.

The Taliban -- which harboured Al-Qaeda, the network led by Osama bin Laden -- were driven from power in Afghanistan in late 2001 in a US-led military offensive. They have since been waging a bloody insurgency.

Afghan envoy seeks action against 'rapist'

PESHAWAR, July 28 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Abdul Khaliq Farahi, Afghanistan's Consul-General in Peshawar, has called upon the government of Pakistan to take action against a former union council nazim for allegedly raping an Afghan girl living in Sethi Town of the city.

Addressing a news conference at the Afghan consulate, Farahi said Feroza, 16, and her family contacted him on Wednesday and informed him about the shameful treatment she had been subjected to by Malik Sajjad Khan, a member of Pakistan Peoples' Party (Sherpao group) and former nazim of the Sethi Town union council.

He said Feroza, living in a rented house next to Malik Sajjads residence, was seven months pregnant. Malik Sajjad was owner of that house, he added. The victims' father had died and she was living there with her mother and four younger sisters.

The consul-general said after committing the 'crime' some seven months ago, the accused had promised Feroza that he would solemnise nikah with her, but later he refused to do so. On Wednesday, Malik Sajjad forced her family out of the rented house. He said Ferozas 17-year-old brother Haroon had been missing for several months.

Farahi said he had apprised the provincial ministers for social welfare and Haj, Auqaf and religious affairs and they had assured of prompt legal action against the accused. The diplomat said he had also informed the Pakistans foreign office.

Osama's a scaredy-cat: pal

He'd jump, run from blasts
BY JAMES GORDON MEEK NEW YORK DAILY NEWS July 28, 2006
WASHINGTON - Osama Bin Laden talks tough, but other mujahedeen laughed at him in Afghanistan because he would get scared and bolt when under fire, a new documentary reveals.

"When Bin Laden used to hear the explosions, he used to jump. He used to run away," his longtime friend Hutaifa Azzam says on "CNN Presents: In the Footsteps of Bin Laden."

"I still remember that me, and my elder and younger brothers, we used to laugh," says Azzam, the son of Bin Laden's mentor in radical Islam, Abdullah Azzam.

Abdullah Azzam and Bin Laden jointly created a mujahedeen support organization that later became Al Qaeda.

Azzam was assassinated in 1989, with Hutaifa's two brothers, in a bombing tied to Egyptians close to Bin Laden.

Hutaifa's CNN interview - as well as interviews of others who had known Bin Laden from childhood to when he made the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list - was his first with a Western broadcaster.

The documentary, airing Aug. 23, is based on CNN terrorism expert Peter Bergen's book, "The Osama Bin Laden I Know."

Bin Laden's friends describe a man who shed the materialism of a millionaire to become a survivalist.

He readied himself for a life of jihad by idolizing celluloid gunfighters like Peter Graves in the TV show "Fury" and kung fu star Bruce Lee.

"We would watch cowboy movies, karate movies ... action movies," remembers schoolmate and soccer pal Khaled Batarfi.

To toughen themselves, Bin Laden and his pals galloped across the sands of Arabia without food or shelter.

"We had our dates with us in our pockets and water - that's it. We sleep on the sand," says Jamal Khalifa, whose sister was Bin Laden's first wife.

Though heir to a billion-dollar construction firm, Bin Laden slept on the floor and shunned air conditioning and cold water, Bergen says on the program.

But not everyone in Bin Laden's family liked life on the run after he declared war on the U.S. Bergen says Bin Laden's son Omar, in his mid-20s, was so upset by the 9/11 attacks that he left Afghanistan and moved home to Saudi Arabia.

"[Omar] basically said to his father, 'These attacks were dumb, they were stupid. Now we've got this 800-pound gorilla after us,'" Bergen says. "He washed his hands of his father."

Speaking to the Daily News this week from Kabul, Bergen said Bin Laden "overreached on 9/11 and now surrounds himself with yes-men and believes his own propaganda that the U.S. is weak. ... Unfortunately, he's still perhaps the most important leader in the Arab world."

Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan set up trilateral panel

TEHRAN: Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan will soon establish a cultural co-operation commission, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has announced.

On his return from a visit to Turkmenistan and Tajikistan, where he had gone to attend the Dushanbe Summit, Ahmadinejad said, "the heads of the commission will be cabinet ministers from the three countries and it will be convened twice annually at ministerial and once at summit level."

Six co-operation documents in the fields of economics and culture were signed during the trilateral summit.

The first meeting of the commission will be convened within the next two months in Kabul.

Describing the meeting of the presidents of three countries in Dushanbe as "an important part of his trip", Ahmadinejad said the three countries have plenty of cultural commonalties.

He added that Iran has common borders with Afghanistan, which in turn has common borders with Tajikistan and therefore a large volume of business transactions and transportation can take place through Afghan territory.

Ahmadinejad said there is plenty of ground for co-operation among the three countries, especially in the fields of transportation and energy.

He also opened Iran’s trade and industry exhibition in Ashkhabad and inaugurated the Bajgiran border terminal during his Turkmenistan visit.

Tampa Police Department donates bullet-resistant vests to Afghanistan

Andrew Delancey Tampa Bay's 10 News (USA) July 28, 2006

Tampa, Florida - A police department in Afghanistan will soon have 400 bullet resistant vests, thanks to the Tampa Police Department.

This morning, more than 400 vests were packed in boxes and loaded onto a truck for delivery.

They're being donated because the manufacturer's warranty is expired, but the police department says the vests are still good.

Captain Luis R. Adan, Tampa Police Department - “Even though the warranty has expired these vests are still very effective. They're practically as effective as brand new vests. Instead of disposing the vests we made the decision to donate these vests to the emerging police forces in either Iraq or Afghanistan.”

The military said a newly formed police department in Afghanistan needs the vests the most.

They're on their way to a military base in Pennsylvania, then Afghanistan.

VP in Afghanistan's Herat to inaugurate development project
Kabul, July 29, IRNA

Vice-President for Executive Affairs Ali Saeedlou, heading a delegation, arrived in western Afghan city of Herat, Saturday.

Saeedlou was welcomed at Herat airport by Afghanistan's First Vice-President Ahmad Ziya Massoud, Iran's Ambassador to Kabul Mohammad-Reza Bahrami and Herat Governor General Ali Anvari as well as staff of Iran's consulate in Herat.

The vice-president is in Afghanistan to attend the inaugural ceremony of a connecting route from Herat to Maymana, Afghanistan's Fariab province, and construction of a railway road from Khaf city to Herat.

Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister for Asia and the Pacific Affairs Mehdi Safari and Deputy Minister of Road and Transportation Hamid Behbahani as well as Governor General of Iranian northeastern province of Khorassan Razavi Mohammad-Javad Mohammadizadeh are accompanying Saeedlou on his Afghanistan visit.

Religious police trigger heated debate in Afghanistan (Reuters)

29 July 2006

KABUL - Afghans are deeply divided over plans to revive a religious police body, with some saying it harks back to violent Taleban rule while others feel it is just what Afghanistan’s recalcitrant society needs.

Under the Taleban, the religious police patrolled the streets, punishing women if they went out without wearing an all-enveloping burka and men who trimmed their beards or were caught listening to music.

The force, officially known as the Department of Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, was disbanded after the Taleban were ousted in 2001.

President Hamid Karzai has said he has no objections to the proposal by a government-appointed council of clerics to revive the department.

It is expected to be put soon before the parliament, where opinion is deeply divided.

“I respect the name of Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice because it is derived from (Islam’s holy book) Koran but I oppose the creation of the department because it reminds me of the era of violence (of the Taleban),” Shukaria Barakzai said.

“I will speak against this proposal in the parliament. I will definitely vote against it,” the outspoken woman MP told Reuters on Saturday.

“Afghanistan is an Islamic country, our constitution is Islamic, no law can be framed against Islam. Therefore, there is no need of such a body,” said Mir Ahmad Joyenda, a Kabul MP.

Conservative MP Qari Rahmatullah said it was the duty of an Islamic state to have such a body “to persuade people towards good and dissuade them from evil”.

But he said the department should not be as strict as the Taleban body, criticising its brutal tactics.

 Alcohol ban

Under the Taleban, the religious police also clamped down on social crimes such as theft, bribery, prostitution and punished those who sold and consumed alcohol.

“The moment I heard it on radio, it reminded me of the Taleban’s time. I have very bad memories of that time,” said Gul Ahmad, an unemployed 40-year-old in Kabul.

But Zabihullah, a 25-year-old mobile phone dealer, said he supported its revival.

“I agree with this department. I am an alcohol drinker. If this department stops shops from selling alcohol, then I will not find it.”

Karzai’s support for the body appears to be part of his efforts to keep representatives of all shades of opinion on board and to deflect criticism that he is heavily West-leaning.

The proposal has been widely criticised outside Afghanistan.

“The US government should make clear to the government of Afghanistan its staunch opposition to this proposal,” said Felice Gaer, chairwoman of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.

[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.]