In this bulletin:

• NATO to Boost Troop Numbers in Afghanistan
• Nato promises new Afghan tactics
• Three dead, 12 injured in Kandahar suicide blast
• Afghanistan wants more Pakistan help on terrorism
• Karzai to visit Japan in early July: reports
• Taliban a "tactical threat" to Afghanistan: top US general
• Afghan police kill 7 comrades, defect to Taliban
• Police chiefs of 26 provinces replaced
• Afghanistan traffic accident regrettable but no excuse for riots, UN envoy says
• U.S. envoy applauds Afghan police clear-out
• Channel more funds through Afghan government: UK minister
• Ontario arrests a wake-up call that underscores Afghan importance: soldiers
• Violent Wake-Up Call
• The day that changed Afghanistan
• AP: U.S. to Give Iran Nuclear Technology
• Afghanistan's young cricket team ready for England and more

NATO to Boost Troop Numbers in Afghanistan - By Benjamin Sand - Voice of America, Islamabad 05 June 2006

NATO says it will double its troop strength in southern Afghanistan as it takes over security operations there from the United States next month. The planned handover comes amid a spike in violence across the region and growing concern about NATO's ability to beat back the insurgents.

The NATO commander in Afghanistan says the number of troops in the south should rise from 3,000 to 6,000 by the end of July. Speaking to reporters in Kabul Sunday, Lieutenant General David Richards said his troops will take a more development-oriented approach than the U.S.-led coalition.

"We will take an approach that is more people-focused, try and establish what they most wish and gear our security operations around facilitating for example, more roads, irrigation, etcetera," said Richards.

The handover comes as Taleban insurgents intensify their attacks across southern Afghanistan. More than 400 people have been killed since mid-May and the Taleban has reportedly seized control of several remote locations in Kandahar and Helmand provinces.

Local officials say support for coalition forces has declined throughout the region, especially as coalition troops mistakenly killed a number of civilians during recent combat operations.

General Richards acknowledged that progress in the south could take time but promised NATO troops would stay the course. He said NATO's new approach is, in part, meant to regain popular support.

"We are determined to demonstrate to all Afghans that there is a viable alternative," he said. "There is a choice and a brighter future available to them and their children. "

By the end of July NATO's countrywide troop strength is expected to rise from around 9,000 to more than 17,000. But unlike coalition forces, the NATO peacekeepers have not yet been involved in major counter-insurgency operations. They have focused primarily on maintaining security, not pursuing terrorists.

As a result, many local officials in restive areas like Kandahar are questioning NATO's ability to effectively replace the more battle-tested coalition troops. But security analysts say the peacekeepers have the advantage of being unencumbered by the coalition forces' local reputation for heavy-handed tactics.

Professor William Maley is the Director of the Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy at the Australian National University in Canberra and the author of several books about Afghanistan. He says NATO's new approach could help reverse the recent slide in security in the southern provinces.

"As long as the deployment of NATO does not create the impression within Afghanistan that what one is witnessing is a kind of loss of momentum of international commitment," he said.

The United States is scheduled to withdraw some of its 23,000 soldiers serving in Afghanistan later this year. But the U.S. military says a reduction in troop numbers will not weaken its counter-insurgency operations.

Nato promises new Afghan tactics - BBC News Sunday, 4 June 2006

The Nato commander in Afghanistan has pledged to use new tactics to win over the support of disenchanted Afghans. Lt Gen David Richards said Nato soldiers would be a "people-friendly force" when they take over security in the south from US forces in July.

He said troops would "accept more risk" when driving, to prevent a repetition of rioting in Kabul last week after a US road accident killed several people. Meanwhile, UK troops say they have killed five suspected Taleban fighters.

A British military spokesman said there had been an "intense battle" after UK troops had come under fire in a village in north-western Helmand province. There were no UK casualties, the British army said and two suspected Taleban fighters had been taken into custody.

Earlier the Taleban said they carried out a suicide attack in Kandahar city. The attack left four civilians dead. The BBC's Bilal Sarwary in Kabul says that for the last four years many people in southern and eastern Afghanistan have been complaining of aggressive tactics used by American troops.

These have included house-to-house searches in which doors are broken down and male soldiers searching Afghan women. There has also been widespread anger over a number of bombing operations in which civilians have been killed.

"We will be a very people focused and a very people-friendly force," Lt Gen Richards said at a news conference in Kabul. "I will use military power not necessarily just to defeat the Taleban but just as importantly to secure the future of their villages and their localities."

The British commander also referred to last Monday's fatal rioting in Kabul that began after a US military vehicle crashed into a number of cars, killing several people.

He said there were too many people among the US-led forces, the Nato forces and others in the international community who "drive too quickly and in an inconsiderate way". He said: "We are all determined to improve that so the people here don't look on us as people who don't care about the Afghans."

Earlier on Sunday a suicide bomber killed four civilians and injured 13 in the southern city of Kandahar. The attacker rammed into a convoy of Canadian troops, a BBC journalist with the troops says.

Earlier reports had said the target of the attack was the governor of Kandahar province, Assadullah Khalid, who was travelling close by. Mr Khalid and the Canadian troops were unhurt. The Taleban say they were behind the attack.

Reports from the scene say the mangled body of the suicide bomber was visible in the charred wreckage of the black vehicle. The BBC's Paul Wood, who was on one of the vehicles in the convoy of Canadian troops, says the vehicle used by the attacker was driven at speed at the Canadian convoy from a side road in the centre of the city.

It exploded between the last two vehicles of the convoy. The blast was deflected by the armour of Canadian vehicles into the nearby crowds. The explosion shattered the windows of several shops, with one said to have been destroyed.

The number of suicide attacks recorded in Afghanistan has shot up since the US-led invasion which toppled the Taleban in late 2001. There were five recorded suicide attacks in 2004, 17 in 2005, and 2006 has already seen 21 such attacks.

About 900 people have been killed in the Afghan insurgency since the beginning of this year, with half of that total dying in May.

In another incident, the director of health in the province of Paktika, Edi Mohammad, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen as he was leaving his home on Saturday.

Our correspondent says the Taleban and al-Qaeda-led militants are targeting prominent public figures, such as doctors and religious leaders, to try to weaken support for the government in rural areas.

Three dead, 12 injured in Kandahar suicide blast - Saeed Zabuli KANDAHAR CITY June 4 (Pajhwok Afghan News)

Several people, mostly civilians, were killed and injured as a powerful suicide blast rocked the Kandahar City, which is also capital of the southern Kandahar province, Sunday morning.

The explosion took place in front of the Eidgah Mosque of the city around 9:20am as a convoy of Canadian forces was passing through the area. Witnesses said the bomber was sitting in a pick-up, which exploded as the convoy was passing through.

Hospital sources said they had received three dead and 12 injured people. Dr Qayum Pukhla, Director of the Mirwais Hospital, told Pajhwok Afghan News so far (till 10am) they had received three dead and 12 injured people in the emergency unit of the hospital. He said condition of three of the injured was precarious.

Akhtar Gul, an eyewitness, told Pajhwok Afghan News: "A Datsun vehicle blew up as the Canadian convoy passed through the area." He said he had seen several civilians laying in pools of blood. Several of them were motionless and believed to be dead while others were crying for help.

He said body of the bomber was shattered into pieces while eight other people, including dead and injured, were shifted to hospital. Several shops in front of the Eidgah Mosque also caught fire as a result of the explosion and smoke and flames could be seen billowing from the site of blast, he added.

A shopkeeper, introducing himself as Baryalay, told Pajhwok Afghan News they were sitting in the shop when the big bang was heard. As they came out, there was smoke and flames of fire all over while several shops in their neighbourhood were on fire.

No comments were released by the coalition forces or the Afghan government about the blast so far. Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. Purported spokesman Qari Yousaf Ahmadi said the attacker's name was Azim Khan, resident of the Kandahar province.

Ahmadi said target of the attack was the provincial governor and Canadian forces. Saying that they did not know about the losses to the Canadian forces, the spokesman said one of their vehicles had been damaged.

Meanwhile, the Interior Ministry, in a statement released in Kabul on Saturday, condemned the attack and said the target was Kandahar governor, who escaped unhurt.

The ministry's press office said three people, including a woman, were killed and 13 others suffered injuries. The statement said the governor was on way to his office when the explosion took place. It was the handiwork of enemies of the state, who did not want peace and stability in the country, said the statement.

Afghanistan wants more Pakistan help on terrorism - June 6, 2006

TOKYO (Reuters) - Afghanistan wants more help from Pakistan in dealing with terrorism, which it blames for security problems in the southern part of the country, its foreign minister said on Tuesday.

Violence has surged in Afghanistan in recent weeks to its worst since the 2001 overthrow of the hardline Taliban government, and Afghan officials have alleged that al Qaeda and Taliban fighters were operating from Pakistan territory - charges that Pakistan has rejected.

"Clearly we have a security problem in the south, but this is a cross-border problem because the sources of terrorism using terrorism as an instrument of foreign policy are outside of our borders," said Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta.

Spanta, speaking at a gathering in Tokyo sponsored by a foreign-affairs think tank, did not specify a nation but said last month that Taliban and al Qaeda leaders were organising the insurgency in Afghanistan from the safety of Pakistan.

"We need to have a friendly and peaceful relationship with all of our neighbours, and we hope that our brothers and sisters in Pakistan do more against terrorism," he said.

Spanta said the Taliban were not involved in last week's riots in the Afghan capital of Kabul, which erupted after a U.S. military vehicle was involved in a fatal accident, and he acknowledged that local police forces had been caught off guard. "The insurgency police were not ready for such a situation like that, but now the situation is under control."

The United Nations said on Monday that Afghanistan's police force needs rapid reforms and that last week's violence, in which seven died in addition to the five killed in the accident, had damaged Afghanistan's reputation. On Tuesday, a Taliban suicide car bomber rammed a U.S. coalition convoy in southeast Afghanistan, wounding some troops, the U.S. military said.

Pakistan nurtured the Taliban when they emerged in the Afghan south in the early 1990s, but it officially cut support after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. Still, remnants of the group as well as al Qaeda still have support among Pakistan's Islamist opposition parties as well as the Pashtun ethnic group.

Spanta said that the presence of foreign troops in his nation was essential for now despite the Kabul riots, which are seen as the worst anti-foreign upheaval in the city since the ouster of the Taliban.

"Now our national interest to have a secure, prosperous and democratic Afghanistan is linked with the presence of the soldiers," he added.

Ka rzai to visit Japan in early July: reports

Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso and his Afghan counterpart Rangin Dadfar Spanta agreed in principle on Monday that Afghan President Hamid Karzai will visit Japan in early July, Kyodo News reported.

The agreement was reached during the foreign ministers' talks in Tokyo on the sidelines of the one-day Central Asia plus Japan Dialogue.

Aso told Spanta that Japan remains committed to making Afghanistan a model of postwar reconstruction, and Spanta said Karzai, who has visited Japan in February 2003, promised to come to Japan and is looking forward to making a meaningful visit, Japanese Foreign Ministry officials were quoted as saying.

Rangin Dadfar Spanta attended the Central Asia plus Japan Dialogue as an observer. Source: Xinhua

Taliban a "tactical threat" to Afghanistan: top US general - June 5, 2006
NEW DELHI (AFP)

Washington's top general warned the Taliban posed a threat to Afghanistan but said the US was determined to defeat the rebels in the war-ravaged nation.

General Peter Pace, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, at the start of his three-day trip to New Delhi, urged nuclear rivals India and Pakistan to work together to fight the Taliban.

"The Taliban is not a strategic threat that could unseat the government in Afghanistan but it is definitely a tactical threat which can create problems," Pace said after talks with Indian military leaders.

The Taliban insurgency has stepped up in the past few months with rebels increasing attacks.

The general's warning came as Taliban rebels stormed a police checkpoint in southern Afghanistan earlier Monday and killed five policemen and abducted four others.

Pace, however, insisted the rebels were suffering heavy combat losses. "The problem for the Taliban is that they are now large a target and in the past two months they have lost 300 men," he said.

"Afghanistan's neighbours need to work together to take out these safe havens," Pace said and warned: "The United States is committed to success in Afghanistan as well as in Iraq."

Pace said Indian commanders briefed him about New Delhi's apprehensions on rival Pakistan's policies on Afghanistan. "We did discuss our mutual perceptions of the region and on Afghanistan it was brought to my attention that the Taliban has sanctuaries in Pakistan," Pace said.

"But Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf is fighting hard to clear those territories," the US general said. India-educated Afghan President Hamid Karzai on several occasion has urged Pakistan to do more to rout the Taliban on its territory, saying Islamabad should treat the extremist forces in the same manner it was dealing with the Al-Qaeda network.

Rebels loyal to the former Taliban regime, which was toppled by a US-led invasion in late 2001, are still waging an intense insurgency against the 20,000 coalition troops and thousands of Afghan soldiers.

Violence linked to the Taliban claimed almost 1,700 lives last year, including nearly 100 US soldiers along with many militants.

Afghan police kill 7 comrades, defect to Taliban - Jun 5

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Five Afghan police shot dead seven fellow officers as they slept, before defecting to join Taliban guerrillas fighting in southern Afghanistan, a provincial official said on Monday.

Sunday night's incident outside Qalat, the provincial capital of southern province of Zabul, comes amid the bloodiest period in an insurgency raging since U.S.-backed forces toppled the militants' government in 2001.

"The seven policemen were asleep when the other five jumped, killed them, took their arms and joined the Taliban," provincial spokesman, Gulab Shah Alikhail, told Reuters.

He said provincial officials were hunting the five policemen and had "intelligence" that they had joined the Taliban. While there have been many cases of police running away from the Taliban, hitherto there have been no reports of police defecting to the guerrillas.

More than 400 people, most of them militants, dozens of Afghan security forces, and at least 17 civilians and four foreign troops were killed in the fighting last month.

Last week, the Taliban attacked a district headquarters in neighboring Uruzgan province, killed more than 10 police, captured up to 40 others, but released 20 of them after getting "commitments that they would desert the government."

A few days later, U.S.-led coalition forces and Afghan troops recaptured the district. The Taliban have vowed to overthrow President Hamid Karzai's Western-backed government and drive out foreign forces from Afghanistan. The surge in the insurgency comes as NATO members have begun deploying thousands of peacekeeping troops in southern provinces where the Taliban are most active.

Police chiefs of 26 provinces replaced – KABUL June 5 (Pajhwok Afghan News)

In a move to improve performance of the police and other departments under the Interior Ministry, police chiefs of 26 provinces have been reshuffled.

The major change in the recent shake up is the removal of Kabul police chief Jamil Junbish and appointment of Mir Amanullah Guzar in his place. In another surprising move, a woman named Aziza has been appointed as head of the passport department.

A press release issued by the Interior Ministry here on Monday, said the new postings were approved by President Hamid Karzai on recommendations of the Interior Minister Zarar Ahmad Moqbil.

Speaking to Pajhwok Afghan News, spokesman for the ministry Yousaf Stanizai said the reshuffling was part of the ministry's plan to bring reforms in the department.

According to General Nazar Muhammad Nekzad, who is heading reforms commission of the Interior Ministry, the newly appointed individuals were picked from among the 219 people who attempted a written examination and appeared in an interview. Their appointment to the slots is based on their ability and professional skills.

Nekzad said the reforms programme was supported by the United States, Germany and some other countries. Salaries of the newly appointed officers would range from $70 to $750 as per their position, performance and qualification, said the release.

Nekzad said the new officers would work on the posts for a probationary period of one year. If their performance was found satisfactory, they would stay on their slots; otherwise the officers would cease to work on those positions.

Police chiefs of only eight provinces have retained their existing posts while the rest of 26 provinces have been replaced by new faces. Some of them included: Abdul Basir, police chief of Nangarhar, Abdul Jalal (Kunar), Khan Muhammad (Balkh), Muhammad Ayub (Khost), Tafsir Khan (Ghazni), Syed Aziz Ahmad (Kandahar), Noor Muhammad Paktin (Zabul), Nabi Jan (Helmand) and Muhammad Ayub (Heart).

In addition, Abdul Qayum has been appointed as head of the human rights branch of the ministry in Kabul, Syed Muhammad Qudoosi, head of the administration department in the ministry, while commanders of all the eight border police brigades have also been replaced.

According to the Interior Ministry, The Afghan government aims to form a 62,000 strong police force, of which 55,000 have been trained while the rest would be appointed in the future.

Afghanistan traffic accident regrettable but no excuse for riots, UN envoysays - U.N. News Service;  5 June 2006

5 June 2006 - Expressing sympathy to the law-abiding people who were
affected by last week’s rioting in Kabul, the United Nations envoy in
Afghanistan today said the traffic accident which led to the unrest was no
excuse for the looting and destruction which followed.

“Last week can only be described as a tragedy – for the family and friends
of all those who lost their lives or were injured, those who had their
homes, shops and offices looted and for the damage that these events have
caused to the reputation of Afghanistan,” the Special Representative of the
UN Secretary-General in Afghanistan, Tom Koenigs, told a Kabul news
conference.

The riots were caused by an incident involving the apparent brake failure
of a truck in a United States convoy and the UN Assistance Mission in
Afghanistan (UNAMA) was awaiting the results of official investigations, he
said.

“While we understand the distress and emotion of people caused by this road
traffic accident, there can be no excuse for the subsequent wanton attacks
and destruction caused to people who had nothing whatsoever to do with this
unfortunate accident,” Mr. Koenigs said. “Those who looted shops,
businesses and international agencies working for the progress of
Afghanistan did not act on behalf of the vast majority of Afghans who are
decent, law-abiding citizens.”

He said the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), which he heads,
was raising with the Afghan National Police the matter of its failure to
contain the disturbances. UNAMA did not see the unrest as a rejection of
the international presence in Afghanistan, but as the consequence of
decades of war, he added.

Nonetheless, if the country was to move forward, mob violence had to be
replaced by the rule of law, he said.

While he could not quantify how much damage the riots have done, a number
of investors and businesspeople, both Afghan and international, have said
that the problem in Afghanistan has been the insecurity, especially for
small businesses.

“Afghans who have become rich in the United States and also for patriotic
reasons want to invest here have told me that the security situation is key
for their investment because, patriotic or not, nobody wants to lose his or
her investment,” Mr. Koenigs said.

U.S. envoy applauds Afghan police clear-out - Reuters 06/05/2006
By Simon Cameron-Moore

KABUL - A week after the worst riots in Kabul since the fall of the Taliban, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan praised the replacement of senior police officials, while a U.N. envoy called for rapid reform of the force.

For many Afghans, corrupt officials, often linked with factional commanders who helped fight the Taliban, represent an even greater threat to their security than a Taliban insurgency that is going through its bloodiest period in 4 ½ years.

"The (new) police list, I think, will remove a number of officials who ought to be removed," U.S. ambassador Ronald E. Neumann told journalists on Monday.

Neumann said fostering a strong government would depend on breaking down political, factional, tribal and ethnic structures that undermine the Afghan state, and the changes in the police would be a step toward reducing those power structures.

A night-time curfew imposed after the riots on May 29 was lifted on Sunday, but Afghan troops ordered onto the streets of the capital after the police's failure to maintain order were still deployed around the city.

President Hamid Karzai's government announced at the weekend that more than 80 precinct and departmental heads of the police had been replaced, including Kabul's police chief.

The clear-out had been planned in advance, although officials said privately the timing was brought forward after the ineptitude shown during the disturbances, when some police were even seen taking off their uniforms and joining the rioters.

Neumann said the new officers had been appointed based on written and oral examinations conducted by German, U.S. and Afghan law enforcement officials. Germany has been in charge of rebuilding Afghan police capacity after the Taliban's removal.

But the government remains dogged by corruption, and the Interior Ministry has a particularly poor reputation, as have several provincial governors, analysts say.

In Zabul, one of the southern provinces worst affected by the Taliban insurgency, a local government spokesman told how a handful of police killed their colleagues and joined the rebels.

"The seven policemen were asleep when the other five jumped, killed them, took their arms and joined the Taliban," the official told Reuters.

Police in the southern provinces are badly paid and poorly armed, and often come from villages sympathetic to the Taliban.

In Kandahar, there is widespread criticism of the police by the local people, and Neumann said the force down there was due for some big changes, including substantial reinforcements.

Separately, 400 students in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif boycotted classes and refused food as part of a strike to protest against the attempted rape of two women in a university hostel by a pair of drunken policemen, Imamuddin Sultani, a senior provincial police official told Reuters.

The U.N. special envoy for Afghanistan condemned the police response during the Kabul riots as "weak and disappointing".

Envoy Tom Koenigs told a news conference Karzai's government needed to introduce "fast reforms" in the judiciary and police and push ahead with disarming illegal groups.

The May 30 riots were sparked by a fatal road accident in the capital, when a U.S. military truck ran out of control down a hill, crashing into vehicles and killing at least five people.

At least seven more were killed in the bloody aftermath of the crash, as rioters rampaged through central Kabul. They looted shops, besieged a private television station and burnt the offices of a U.S. aid group before reaching the gates of parliament and the U.S. embassy.

Afghan officials accused U.S. troops of firing into a crowd of hundreds of stone-throwing rioters, killing at least three.

Ambassador Neumann said a U.S. military investigation was continuing, and there would be no cover-up, but any wrong-doing by U.S. troops would be dealt with under U.S. military law, rather than Afghan.

Channel more funds through Afghan government: UK minister

KABUL: Britain pressed donor nations on Sunday to channel more funds through the Afghan government so that it can set priorities for spending and become more accountable to its people.

Hilary Benn, Britain’s Minister for International Development, was visiting Kabul a week after the capital was rocked by the worst anti-American riots since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001. The US military bore the brunt of Afghans anger after one of its trucks killed five people in a road accident. President Hamid Karzai’s dwindling popularity was also evident in the unrest, as many Afghans are impatient to see an improvement in living standards that he has so far failed to deliver.

“The only way to help Afghanistan successfully rebuild the country is to support the elected representatives of the Afghan people,” said Benn, adding that 70 percent of Britain’s aid would go directly to the government to spend on education, health care and reconstruction.

“I would urge other donors to give more funding directly to the government of Afghanistan. This ensures that money is spent according to Afghan priorities, in a way that is accountable to the Afghan electorate, and helps build the government’s capacity.”

A World Bank report released in January said 75 percent of $3.1 billion of international aid spent in Afghanistan last year was spent outside government channels.

Among the reasons for donor countries reluctance to let the government have more control over funds are concerns over transparency and a perception that Afghanistan’s political economy has been allowed to develop around corruption and drug money, analysts say. Benn also announced an extra 60 million sterling for Afghanistan in 2008/09. His department is currently spending 70 percent of its 102 million sterling ($189 million) budget in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan’s fledgling parliament on Saturday approved the government’s budget for the fiscal year that started on March 21. The ordinary budget is $831 million, while $1.37 billion was allocated for development projects. Some 75 percent of the total budget comes from Western donors, many of which have also sent thousands of troops to Afghanistan to help fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda remnants. Reuters

Ontario arrests a wake-up call that underscores Afghan importance: soldiers - June 5, 2006.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CP) - Canadian soldiers stationed in Kandahar say recent arrests that may have foiled massive terrorist attacks in southern Ontario underscore the importance of their mission in Afghanistan - and should wake up Canadians to the fact that their country isn't isolated from problems elsewhere in the world.

"We're trying to keep the wolves away from their doors," said Master Cpl. Richard Weiss. Police allege 17 people were involved in a plot to fashion explosives out of three tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertilizer - three times the quantity used in the Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people in 1995. The explosives were to be used in unspecified attacks against Canadian targets.

Twelve of the men charged in Friday's massive police operation, who range in age from 19 to 43, live in Toronto, Mississauga and Markham, Ont.. Five are youths who cannot be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

The charges allege that the men knowingly participated in a terrorist group and either received or provided terrorist training in Toronto and several other Ontario communities.

Two of the men charged - Mohammed Dirie, 22, and Yasin Abdi Mohamed, 24 - are already imprisoned in Kingston, Ont., after they were caught trying to smuggle guns across the U.S. border last August.

Cpl. Bryan Trochim said the fact that the men were all from Canada should convince people that fighting the Taliban adds to Canada's security as well as Afghanistan's.

"It does kind of bring home the point a little bit more that these guys are in your backyard. Every time you think about anything that's happening anywhere around the globe, it could easily be your home any day."

Cpl. Mike Emslie was careful not to be too alarmist over the arrests. "It doesn't change anything for me right here, right now. I still feel that we are safe and our country's safe. We do everything to protect (our home) and everything here as well."

But Capt. Nathalie Auger, a nurse, said Canadians tend to assume the problems of the world won't affect them. Last weekend's arrests prove that assumption wrong, she said. "When we looked at 9-11 people got rocked a little bit because it was south of the border, but I don't think people thought it could go north," she said.

"I'm here to support the troops that go out, but the guys and girls that go outside the wire every day, this is why we're here - partly - so that we can come here and help stabilize the country so that it doesn't spread further than these borders and doesn't come over to Canada and endanger our friends and families back home."

The possibility of large-scale terrorism in Canada should only add urgency to the Afghanistan mission, said Pte. Christy Laidlaw, a light armoured vehicle driver just back from Panjwai, where fighting has been concentrated over the past weeks.

"It makes the mission more important," she said. "They want to come to our home." "Sometimes I think people are too complacent back home," said Weiss. "They don't realize what we're trying to do over here. I hear people saying they want us to be out of here - well, there's a reason we're here.

"I've got family back there, so the more I do here, quite possibly, a little contribution will make a difference back there." If terrorists do attack Canada, it won't deter soldiers like Laidlaw.

"We're not going to stop, they're not going to scare us out of our mission," she said. "I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing and the rest of the Canadian soldiers are too."

Violent Wake-Up Call - Newsweek

After last week's riot, and with the Taliban resurgent, Karzai is under mounting pressure to take charge. By Ron Moreau, Sami Yousafzai and Joe Cochrane Newsweek International June 12, 2006 issue - Urbane, dapper hamid karzai has always come off well in the international spotlight. But the Afghan president looked decidedly uncomfortable last week as he addressed his own nation following a riot in Kabul on May 29—triggered by a deadly traffic accident between a U.S. military convoy and civilian vehicles that killed seven people. The violence was the worst to strike the capital since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001. The mob's rage was directed partly at the U.S. military—but also, surprisingly, at Karzai himself. In one of Ka-bul's main squares, protesters burned a huge portrait of the president.

The 48-year-old Karzai has been running Afghanistan for four and a half years. He became the country's first democratically elected president in a landslide victory two years ago. But with the southern part of the country racked by a mounting Taliban insurgency, and economic progress slow and spotty at best, Afghans seem to be turning on their once popular leader. "The rioting was more anti-Karzai than anti-American," says author and Afghan expert Ahmed Rashid. "There's real anger against the president for the lack of reconstruction, for a lack of good governance and for his inability to control corruption and drug trafficking."

Part of the problem is that expectations were so high. To most Afghans and his international supporters alike, Karzai once seemed the ideal man for the job. While respected as a Pashtun tribal leader, he also represented a break with the country's traditional past—a president rather than a warlord, more concerned with the national well-being than lining his pockets. And he was perceived, rightly, as America's man, able to keep billions in reconstruction aid flowing.

Now, however, many Afghans, including many ethnic Pashtuns, decry his cautious governing style. They blame his timidity for allowing corruption to flourish once again in Kabul, and for doing little to stop the nationwide drug trade. Meanwhile, the Taliban have stepped up attacks in the south. "It's quite clear President Karzai wants to govern as the ruler of all Afghans and not displease anyone—but he has," Francese Vendrell, the European Union's special representative to Afghanistan, told NEWSWEEK. "He has not been able to act firmly. Many provincial governors are incompetent and corrupt, and many police chiefs are linked to the drug trade and criminal groups."

Of course, the picture is not all bleak. Billions of dollars have poured into Afghanistan since the Taliban's ouster, and some 23,000 American soldiers and 9,000 NATO peacekeepers are securing the country and training Afghanistan's fledgling Army and police. Girls are going to school in record numbers. Kabul is awash in secondhand cars brought in from neighboring Iran. New commercial buildings and ornate residences are sprouting. The latest consumer goods appear on store shelves.

But the good life is available to only a few. For most Kabul residents, electricity and running water are scarce, raw sewage runs in the streets, roads are broken, unemployment is high, especially among the young, and officials are corrupt. Some complain that they have to pay the equivalent of a $15 bribe simply to get a mandatory national identity card, in a country where the average annual income is less than $800. Of roughly $10 billion in aid pledged by international donors since 2001, only half has actually been distributed. (In February, 60 nations pledged an additional $10.5 billion.)

In the insurgency-racked south, poor villagers wonder where even that development money went. Mostly because of security issues, ethnic Pashtun farmers have seen little construction of roads, irrigation canals, clinics and schools. To make matters worse, they are caught between an increasingly aggressive Taliban and the nervous Afghan and Coalition soldiers who are tracking the militants. The opium trade is booming. Lacking agricultural input like seed, fertilizer and loans, many farmers have no choice but to grow hardy opium poppies for local traffickers who finance the cost of planting. (In March, the International Narcotics Control Board issued a report saying that crop-substitution efforts in Afghanistan had failed.) Emboldened Taliban members are increasingly visible in villages, preaching in mosques in hopes of taking advantage of peasants' frustrations. A Taliban spokesman boasted to NEWSWEEK last week that the insurgents are getting more weapons, more recruits and that "any fear the people may have had of helping the Taliban has vanished."

Karzai, who spends much of his time trying to balance competing political interests, has been slow to react to these problems. He has continued to tolerate Pashtun warlords who were toppled by the puritanical Taliban in the 1990s for their rampant misrule. He has appointed several as advisers, provincial governors and security officials, even in the face of widespread allegations of human-rights abuses, complicity in the narcotics trade and corruption. "The president has not been tough with these guys," says Ahmad Nader Nadery of Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission. "Apparently for Karzai, concerns about security and internal political stability take precedence over good governance." Adds a Western diplomat in Kabul, who declines to be named because of the sensitivity of his comments: "There's a widespread perception that the president too often consults people from the old jihadi generation whom most Afghans have firmly rejected." It took a concerted international lobbying effort over many months to force Karzai to transfer the notorious governors of Helmand, Uruzgan and Kandahar provinces early this year in advance of large NATO troop deployments to the southern region this summer.

It's unfair to blame Karzai alone for the country's failures. A large portion of aid money never gets into government hands, going largely to foreign NGOs and contractors. What's more, Taliban attacks against aid workers—five Afghan NGO employees were killed last week—have prevented foreign development groups from working in most of the insurgent-infested southern provinces. In a poll last December, 83 percent of respondents gave favorable marks to Karzai's performance. But that was six months ago—before the Taliban's spring offensive. "He's not as popular as he was," says Shukria Barakzai, a female member of Parliament. "But there's really no alternative."

The government's most immediate challenge is to beat back the Taliban insurgency. Coalition forces are currently engaged in major operations in Kandahar, Helmand and Uruzgan, where weak or nonexistent governance has created a power vacuum. Amitabh Dubey, an analyst with the Eurasia Group, says that U.S. and NATO troop levels in the south have been "inadequate." Without a local military base, he notes, provincial governors must rely on the warlord militias to resist the Taliban. "That's quite a nasty bind." Dubey also says that the rise of competent Taliban leaders—in particular Jalaluddin Haqqani—have led to a revival of the Taliban, who are aided by sympathetic governments in the Pakistani provinces of Baluchistan and Northwest Frontier, on the other side of the border. "I don't think there's any doubt the Taliban has grown in size and influence in some areas of the south," says Col. Thomas Collins, spokesman for the U.S.-led Coalition forces. "There are some areas that are not governed."

The big question is: in the wake of last week's upheaval, does Karzai know he's got a serious political problem? By the weekend he finally took some action, firing or transferring 80 top police officials. But earlier, in a taped TV address, he had labeled the rioters "opportunists and agitators." That may be partly true, but ignores the very real concerns and complaints of many Afghans about his performance and government. "Karzai should treat this as a wake-up call," says author Rashid. "But if his people are telling him this was a conspiracy, he will not learn the lesson that changes have to be made."

The changes most Afghans want to see—better governance, less corruption, more security—are not only the president's responsibility. International donors will have to find ways of delivering more bang for the aid buck. And Karzai will have to build stronger, cleaner provincial governments in the south if he wants to permanently marginalize the Taliban. "It's a problem that [must] be solved with more than military forces," says Collins, the Coalition spokesman. Otherwise, Afghanistan will start sliding back into the chaos from which its people are desperate to escape. With Zahid Hussain in Baluchistan

The day that changed Afghanistan - Asia Times Online;  3 June 2006
By M K Bhadrakumar

The eruption of anti-government, anti-American rioting on Monday in Kabul
has inevitably led to post-mortems about what happened. This in turn has
led to the drawing up of checklists of failures on the part of the
"international community" (read the United States and the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization - NATO) and the Afghan government in their inability to
provide troops, security and funds for reconstruction and nation-building
to the Pashtun tribes in southern Afghanistan.

A few additional details have also been thrown in as regards Afghanistan's
drug economy, the nexus between drug traffickers, "warlords" and corrupt
bureaucrats, the pompous lifestyle of the expatriate community singularly
unmindful of the extreme poverty surrounding their sequestered life, and of
course the venality that comes in the wake of any invading army.

The story is complete. It is utterly familiar. This was how Saigon used to
be in the 1960s.

But these accounts meticulously count the trees - leaving one to wonder how
dark and deep the woods might be. Therefore, when Tim Albone, correspondent
for The Times of London in Kabul, wrote that he believed the riots could
mark a turning point in the Afghan situation, it caught attention as a
unique description. Albone wrote:
I've been in Kabul for nine months and there has never been anything like
this before. There is a real feeling in the air that today Kabul changed.
There has been a lot of fighting in the south but this has been mainly
between the militias and the American forces ... I've spoken to friends who
work in Iraq and they say that there was one day when it all changed. That
could be the case here ... They [Afghans] have realized that they can take
on the police and take on the Americans - they could easily do it again.
What distinguishes Monday's rioting is that Kabul is a largely Tajik city.
It seems the agitators carried posters of Ahmed Shah Massoud, the legendary
"Lion of Panjshir" who led the Northern Alliance during the anti-Taliban
resistance and was assassinated by al-Qaeda on the eve of the September 11,
2001, attacks in the US and eliminated from the political equations with
clinical precision, just as Afghanistan's need of his leadership would have
become most pressing.

The agitators in Kabul burned banners of President Hamid Karzai. The
violent incidents had heavy anti-Karzai and anti-American overtones. It is
a very bad sign indeed that the Tajiks, who constitute about 30% of
Afghanistan's population, are openly turning against Karzai, caricaturing
him as an American puppet.

Yet the groundswell of Tajik alienation should not have come as a surprise.
Anger was building up at the systematic neglect that the Afghan government
meted out to Panjshir (Massoud's power base) over the recent period.

Any serious observer of the Afghan scene would have noted as far back as
March that something fundamental was changing in Afghan political
alignments. Former president Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani, the politically
astute Tajik leader who founded Jamiat-i-Islami as an offshoot of the
Muslim Brotherhood in the late 1960s, and played a key role in the Afghan
jihad, refused point-blank to put blame on Pakistan for the growing
instability in Afghanistan.

Instead, he went on to exonerate Pakistani officials - this at the end of
March, when Karzai was mounting a virulent campaign that Pakistan was
supportive of the Taliban's resurgence.

More important, Rabbani did this in the course of an interview with the
Pakistani media. He was evidently carrying his message across to the
Pakistani audience - conveying in subtle terms his antipathy toward the
dispensation in Kabul and at the same time renewing his old links with
Peshawar and Islamabad.

It takes time and effort to comprehend the quicksands of Afghan politics.
Not many would even know that Rabbani, who headed the mujahideen government
in Kabul (which was overthrown by the Taliban in 1996), also had covertly
funded the Taliban militia in the late-1994-early-1995 period. In Rabbani's
estimation at that time, the Taliban were capable of vanquishing Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar, who was the principal adversary of the Rabbani government.

The twin pillars of Jamiat-i-Islami ideology - Islam and Afghan nationalism
- are also, curiously, the driving force behind today's Afghan resistance
spearheaded by the Taliban. Herein lies the "terrible beauty" (to borrow
the words of W B Yeats) of what happened in Kabul on Monday.

Rabbani recently spelled out his political platform in some detail during
an interview with a publication from Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan.
Some extracts from the interview hold the key to the shape of things to
come in the Afghan political landscape. Rabbani said:
Westerners, because of their corrupted culture, want to prevent things that
are beneficial to the Muslims. Besides, they entice us toward things that
are harmful to our [Muslim] society. For example, why shouldn't an Islamic
country such as Iran use nuclear technology? It does not want to make any
nuclear bomb, but wants to use nuclear technology. The goal of Westerners
is that an Islamic country should not develop. Thus, all these cries of
conspiracy and uproar are because Islamic countries should be denied the
fruits of development, they should rather serve as markets for those
countries so that they get raw materials, produce goods and sell them back
to Islamic countries.

Now, Americans have shown their attitude to human rights in Abu Ghraib and
Guantanamo. It is surprising that they disallow girls from going to schools
wearing a headscarf. But they will not get away with this in Afghanistan... We consider this a conspiracy against our religion, our freedom and
security. They talk about women's issues, while thousands of women die, and
nobody cares for them. But that does not stop them from talking about
"moral corruption". They haven't come here for the reconstruction of
Afghanistan, but they have come here to corrupt us ...

The regime that rules our country stands against the wishes of the entire
nation ... In Afghanistan, our policies should be defined by our nation,
not by any foreign country. The current Afghan government's policies are
not acceptable to the Afghan people. We must protect our freedom. If a
foreign country gives aid, that should be without any strings attached. If
the donors put conditions, we should not accept such aid.
It does not require much ingenuity to see that Rabbani's platform can
easily converge with that of the Taliban-led Afghan resistance - or of
Hekmatyar. In fact, the Canadian daily Toronto Star reported recently that
clerics in Kabul mosques had been urging worshippers to join the resistance
against Karzai's government and the occupation troops.

The report said, "Some imams here [Kabul] believe the time is ripe to call
for holy war [jihad]." There have been reports of weapons from the northern
regions in the possession of erstwhile Northern Alliance elements finding
their way to the Taliban in the south. Political divides are getting
blurred.

Much of the Tajik alienation has arisen out of the easing out of two
important Tajik leaders, Mohammed Fahim and Yunus Qanooni, from Karzai's
government. These leaders enjoy grassroots support among Tajiks. The
summary fashion in which Karzai removed them from office humiliated the
"Panjshiris" as a whole.

In fact, it was in the most bizarre way conceivable that Karzai chose to
sack the charismatic former foreign minister, Abdullah (another close aide
of Massoud), from his post in March. According to Abdullah, he was
intimated about his removal by telephone while he was on an official visit
to Washington. Abdullah said he had met with Karzai just before leaving
Kabul for Washington but the latter assured him that his portfolio wouldn't
be affected in any cabinet changes.

"It [removal from cabinet] did come out of the blue because no one had
talked to me or consulted me about it beforehand," Abdullah claimed.

Yet another factor of disaffection among the Tajiks is the deliberate
attempt by the Karzai government to limit the Tajik presence in the Afghan
National Army. To add to Tajik resentment, Karzai has subjected Panjshir to
"benign neglect" by not allocating any substantial development funds for
the region's reconstruction. Karzai's political intention would have been
to bring the cradle of Tajik nationalism to its knees, while at the same
time pandering to Pashtun chauvinism with a view to consolidating a power
base in the Pashtun regions in the south and southwest.

But the tactic has not worked, as the Taliban's resurgence shows.
Meanwhile, Karzai's ties with the Tajiks (who were his erstwhile allies and
supporters in the 2002-05 period) soured. Karzai may be unwittingly
preparing the ground for a consolidation of pan-Afghan nationalism.

The indications are that Karzai has also alienated other Northern Alliance
groups. It is intriguing as to where exactly Rashid Dostum, the Uzbek
leader from the northern Amu Darya region, currently stands in political
equations.

Karzai appointed Dostum as chief of staff in March in a smart move aimed at
removing him from his power base in the north and bringing him to live and
work in Kabul. It soon began to dawn on Dostum that his job carried more
rank than responsibility. Feeling belittled, he stormed out of Kabul and
returned to his native Shibirghan. The relatively placid northern provinces
have since become volatile.

The paradox is that Karzai is winning all the petty political skirmishes.
He choreographed the entire spectacle in April leading to the resounding
endorsement of his cabinet appointees by parliament. He deftly manipulated
the internal divisions in the newly elected parliament and capitalized on
its inexperience. The Brussels-based think-tank International Crisis Group,
which was supportive of Karzai, criticized him for preventing the Afghan
parliament from becoming a viable working body.

No matter the post-mortem reports regarding the eruption of violence in
Kabul on Monday, the shift in political templates is the central issue. It
seems a critical mass is developing around which an Afghan resistance
transcending ethnic divides may take shape. Against this background, NATO
is not helping matters by posing as a lone ranger.

Almost all Afghan ethnic groups enjoy kinship with neighboring countries.
Therefore, in any enduring Afghan settlement, Afghanistan's neighbors must
be made stakeholders. NATO, on the other hand, is wasting precious time,
lost in the thought of making 2006 a "pivotal year" in its history.

True, NATO has come into physical possession of a country far away from
Europe, where it is at liberty to act without the prying eyes of
international law. NATO is understandably keen to prove its grit in
safeguarding Western interests in tough conditions - and indeed to claim a
raison d'etre for itself.

But the riots in Kabul are a reminder that Afghanistan is a country that is
deceptively easy to invade but almost impossible to occupy. The unseemly
haste with which all fair-skinned Westerners had to run for cover on Monday
showed that discretion would be the better part of valor.

M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service
for more than 29 years, with postings including ambassador to Uzbekistan
(1995-98) and to Turkey 1998-2001).

AP: U.S. to Give Iran Nuclear Technology - Jun 06 By GEORGE JAHN / Associated Press

VIENNA, Austria - A package of incentives presented Tuesday to Iran includes a provision for the United States to supply Tehran with some nuclear technology if it stops enriching uranium _ a major concession by Washington, diplomats said.

The offer was part of a series of rewards offered to Tehran by European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, according to the diplomats, who were familiar with the proposals and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were disclosing confidential details of the offer.

The package was agreed on last week by the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia _ the five veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council, plus Germany, in a bid to resolve the nuclear standoff with Iran.

Afghanistan's young cricket team ready for England and more - Jun 5, KABUL

AFP - Afghanistan's eager young cricket side leaves for their first tour of England this week convinced they have what it takes to make their mark in the home of cricket -- and the world.

The seven-match county club series starting on June 11 comes after a rush of successes that have been a fillip for the game's popularity in this country.

In March in India, Afghanistan hammered an MCC XI featuring former England captain Mike Gatting.

And on Sunday a watered-down side with just three players from the national team thrashed a British-dominated side from the NATO-led force stationed in Afghanistan in a morale-boosting send-off game in Kabul.

For coach Taj Malik the exposure was good experience for his players, most of whom picked up the game in refugee camps in cricket-mad Pakistan that housed millions of Afghans forced to flee their conflict-ridden homeland.

"The Afghanistan team will not be a joke," Malik said on the sidelines of the tightly secured 20-overs-a-side match on Sunday against the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

"Our players have completed a 15-day training camp. They are ready to compete ... All the Afghans in London are very keen and are waiting for the team."

But Malik's true ambitions lie further afield, with the Asian Cricket Council Trophy in Malaysia in August in which the two finalists will go into the World Cup qualifying round in 2011.

And then there is the target of all-important Test-playing status by 2012. It's heady stuff for a destitute country where the game only began to catch on about 10 years ago, before going into decline during the 1996-2001 rule of the sport-loathing Taliban. The new national team still practises on a concrete wicket.

The Afghanistan Cricket Foundation was set up in 1995 in part as an effort to persuade young men involved in the civil war raging at the time to "pick up the ball and put down the gun," said one of the founders, Allah Dad Noori.

"When I saw the situation of my country, all the suffering, I thought, 'What can I do?'," he said at a training session in the city's main stadium.

"At first they were not interested in the game but slowly, slowly you catch the monkey... I have seen people leave fighting and come and play cricket," Noori said.

Now about 340 clubs nationwide are affiliated to the foundation and cricket's popularity is growing, although not yet rivalling that of the national sport -- the more brutal horseback contest called buzkashi, played with a goat's carcass.

Opposite the stadium, groups of young men bowl and bat in a corner of a large dusty field largely given over to football. Some of them wear bright uniforms emblazoned Australia; others use concrete blocks as a wicket.

They are all excited about Afghanistan's prospects for the game. "But we need a great coach, like England or Australia has," said Ajmal Karimi, 22. Afghans hold back their enthusiasm for cricket because of distaste for long-time political rival Pakistan, he said.

Farhad Haidery, 20, said this hostility would make for great contest. "That is my dream -- if God is willing, we will play Pakistan."

Among the Pakistan-raised stars of the Afghan team is middle-order batsman Mohammad Nabi, 20, who made 116 not out against Gatting's MCC XI.

"As I left off in Mumbai, I will continue from there and do my best," Nabi said of his first-ever visit to England. The ISAF team that met the Afghan side on Sunday were impressed.

"They are a young, incredibly talented team ... there is so much enthusiasm, it's fantastic to see," said Captain Ed Sutthery. "There are going to be some very surprised county players."

[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.]