In this bulletin:

• Taleban play down Zarqawi death
• Zarqawi's death will not weaken Iraqi resistance: Mullah Omar
• UK soldiers 'killed 21 Taleban'
• 13 killed in new Afghan violence (CNN/AP)
• NATO Moves to Tighten Grip in Afghanistan
• 4 Injured in Collision
• NATO renews vow to Afghanistan but calls for help to rebuild it
• Prisoner hand-off policy in Afghanistan defended
• Osama bin Laden keeping a low profile
• to Iraq via Peshawar and Afghanistan - By Ismail Khan (DAWN)
• Blair calls on world to unite over Iraq and Afghanistan
• Day blames Internet, not Afghan involvement, for terror threats
• Robotic Vehicle To Help Clear Mines In Afghanistan

Taleban play down Zarqawi death – BBC

Afghan Taleban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar says Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's death will not weaken efforts against the West in Afghanistan, reports say. The al-Qaeda leader in Iraq was killed in an air raid north of the town of Baquba on Wednesday evening.

A statement issued in the name of the Taleban leader mourned Zarqawi's death and hailed him as a "martyr". The statement was forwarded to news agencies by a Taleban spokesman, Mohammad Hanif.

"I give good news to Muslims around the world, the resistance against the crusader forces in Afghanistan and other parts of the Islamic world will not be weakened," the statement said. The statement was read out over a satellite phone by the Taleban spokesman.

It quoted Mullah Omar saying that he and "all the brothers of the sacred resistance movement in Afghanistan" were "deeply sad" over Zarqawi's death. "Zarqawi's martyrdom will not weaken the resistance movement in Iraq. Many, many more young men can become Zarqawi.. The successors... can be even stronger than him."

The BBC's Bilal Sarwary in Kabul says Zarqawi knew Mullah Omar in the late 1990s when he set up a training camp in western Afghanistan. Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Thursday that Zarqawi had been responsible for the deaths of thousands of Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Zarqawi spent some time in Afghanistan fighting against Soviet forces. He returned to Afghanistan for a longer spell when the Taleban were in control of the country. He left after the US-led invasion in 2001. Zarqawi continued to play a role offering support to militants in Afghanistan fighting US and other foreign forces in the country.

Zarqawi's death will not weaken Iraqi resistance: Mullah Omar

Kandahar (AFP) - The death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi will not weaken the Iraqi resistance as there are thousands ready to take his place and "even accelerate" the struggle, a statement attributed to the Taliban chief said.

Mullah Mohammad Omar also expressed sadness over the death of Zarqawi, the Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, in an air strike on Wednesday in the statement read to journalists in a satellite telephone call by a purported Taliban spokesman.

"I and all Muslims of Afghanistan's resistance are very sad by the martyrdom of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi," the statement read out by Mohammad Hanif said on Friday. Nonetheless there would be no decrease in war "against the crusade invasion".

"Zarqawi's martyrdom will not weaken the Iraqi resistance as this is a national resistance -- any youth can become Zarqawi," it said.

"Today he has trained thousands of youths in this struggle. Zarqawi achieved his will and goals. He wanted to forge a massive resistance against Americans and he did that.

"Today if Zarqawi is not there, he has left behind thousands of youths who will even accelerate this resistance," the statement said.

"The lieutenants of the late Zarqawi are not weaklings but could be even stronger."

Zarqawi was killed in a joint US-Iraqi raid. US F-16 war planes dropped two 500-pound bombs on him and some associates as they were huddled in a meeting at a safe house.

Al-Qaeda has long been an ally of the Taliban regime that ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 and is believed to be working alongside the movement now waging an increasingly deadly insurgency against the new government.

The regime was ousted by a US-led coalition in November 2001 for not surrendering Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden for the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

There are rare statements released in the name of the fugitive Taliban leader who has been in hiding since the collapse of the Taliban regime.

UK soldiers 'killed 21 Taleban' - BBC

Twenty-one Taleban fighters have been killed in a clash with British soldiers in southern Afghanistan, the BBC has been told. The six-hour battle took place in the southern province of Helmand on Sunday.

Reports say the troops came under fire from the militants when they were on a routine search operation. British troops have recently begun setting up bases in Helmand. They are part of an expanded Nato deployment in southern Afghanistan.

The fighting took place in the village of Nowzad. Earlier, British officials said only five Taleban had been killed. The BBC's Paul Wood in Helmand says the soldiers were jumping off helicopters when they came under fire. No British soldier was injured in the fighting.

Afghan soldiers also fought along with British troops. British commanders say it is significant that the Taleban stood and fought and that they earned the grudging respect of the parachute regiment soldiers.

According to British sources, the Afghan police fired indiscriminately putting civilians at risk and when confronted by the Taleban they broke and ran. Our correspondent says the incident shows that the British army is involved in an active counter insurgency campaign in Helmand, not just in reconstruction work.

One of the main reasons behind the deployment of 3,300 British troops in the province is to help the newly-formed Afghan National Army (ANA) fight the increasingly violent militant groups based around the Pakistan border and curb the drugs trade that funds them. Helmand produces nearly 20% of the world's opium.

The Taleban in Helmand have been promising the locals protection for their poppy fields against the poppy eradication programmes - in return for support for their attacks against Western troops. In February, nearly 16 militants were killed in a battle between Afghan troops and Taleban fighters in Helmand.

13 killed in new Afghan violence (CNN/AP)

Suspected militants on a motorbike gunned down two Afghan aid workers as fresh violence across the country left 13 people dead, including a provincial security chief and a senior police officer, officials said Friday.

A third aid worker was wounded in Thursday's attack in northern Balkh province, said Sher Jahn Durani, spokesman for the provincial police chief. The militants opened fire on the three workers after they left in a car from a village in Chimtal district where they were helping farmers, Durani said.

It wasn't immediately clear who was behind the attack, and Durani did not have the full name of the Afghan aid agency the victims worked for. The attack follows the shooting deaths late last month of three female Afghan workers for ActionAid International in neighboring Jawzjan province.

Meanwhile, in western Farah province, two gunmen riding in a car opened fire on the provincial security director as he was walking in a market in the town of Bala Buluk Thursday, killing him, said Sayed Aga Saqib, the provincial police chief.

In neighboring Herat province, militants with assault rifles ambushed the commander of a battalion of border police, killing him and three bodyguards, said Abdul Salam, chief of Shindand district where the attack happened on Thursday evening.

Also Thursday, three Afghan soldiers were killed when their convoy hit a mine or roadside bomb in eastern Paktia province, said Gen. Murad Ali, a regional corps commander.

In Kapisa province, north of Kabul, a gun battle between suspected militants and Afghan soldiers on Thursday killed three militants and wounded four, said Gen. Zahir Azimi, the Defense Ministry spokesman. One militant was arrested.

More than four years after their hard-line regime fell, Taliban militants have stepped up attacks this spring, and more than 400 people have died in violence since mid-May, many of them militants killed in fighting with Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces.

Militants often target aid workers and officials to undermine the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai, and the violence has hampered rebuilding of the war-shattered nation.

Meanwhile, 33 Afghans who were captured during security operations in southern and eastern Afghanistan have been released from detention at the main U.S. military base north of Kabul, an official said Friday.

Syed Sharif Yousafi, spokesman for a national reconciliation commission, said the men had been held for between four and 22 months and were freed Thursday from the detention facility at Bagram Air Base where several hundred suspects are held.

Freed detainees said there had been several protests by Bagram inmates in recent months, and American soldiers had suppressed them using an unidentified gas that briefly induced fatigue and made it difficult to breathe. The U.S. military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the allegations.

"I was in custody for 11 months at Bagram Air Base. Three times we staged protests," demanding to know why we were being held and what would happen to us, said Abdul Rahman, 50, who comes from eastern Paktika province. He said the last protest happened about a month ago.

Rahman said he was held in a cage holding 18 to 20 men. During the protests, Americans with face masks had entered the cage and released gas from a tank that made it difficult to breathe and caused all the inmates to feel tired and lie down.

He said that soon after, the Americans gave water to inmates to revive them, although in the latest protest, three inmates had required medical treatment.

NATO Moves to Tighten Grip in Afghanistan – NY Times

BRUSSELS, June 8 — NATO defense ministers meeting here on Thursday reaffirmed their plans to expand the alliance's control of southern Afghanistan in the face of increased resistance by Taliban fighters and drug traffickers.

NATO has been progressively increasing the number of its troops and its reach in Afghanistan. That operation has emerged as a major test of the alliance's ability to respond to new security challenges far from Europe.

Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak of Afghanistan said Taliban fighters had stepped up their attacks to "take advantage of this time of transition." The NATO secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, said that allied troops would be tested and that they would "react robustly."

The plans for Afghanistan were a main subject at the meeting, which also dealt with plans to establish a NATO Response Force to deal with new crises, among other initiatives that are to be formally ratified when allied leaders hold a summit meeting in November in Riga, Latvia.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld began the session by telling the ministers of the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. "The minister thought, and I think, that this is positive news for the Iraqi people," said Henk Kemp, the Dutch defense minister.

NATO has deployed a 9,700-troop force in Afghanistan that experts expect to grow to 16,000, with 6,000 deployed in southern Afghanistan, one of the most restive regions.

The troops in Afghanistan are officially part of the International Security Assistance Force and are under a British commander, Lt. Gen. David Richards. General Richards recently said the arrival of NATO troops would make it possible to better control southern Afghanistan.

NATO is deploying double the number of the American troops they are replacing in the south.

"They have been relatively short of troops, of boots on the ground," General Richards recently said about the Americans.

Experts had been concerned that the rules of engagement might vary significantly among the allies. Some countries have restricted where or how their troops can be used.

An American military officer who was not identified because he was not authorized to discuss the subject publicly, said there would be no such restrictions on operations in the south, which will involve Australian, British, Canadian and Dutch troops. The deployment in the south is scheduled to be completed by August.

While NATO is deploying troops, the United States will keep 20,000 in the country under a separate American chain of command. The Americans are retaining responsibility for the volatile eastern region that abuts some of the most lawless areas in Pakistan. Those are widely believed to be a sanctuary for Taliban forces and leaders of Al Qaeda.

The NATO operation will eventually move into a new and even more ambitious phase when the alliance assumes responsibility for all of Afghanistan. At that point, a new joint headquarters will be established, and General Richards will turn over his responsibilities to an American officer.

The timing of that phase remains uncertain. Mr. Rumsfeld said it would depend on how NATO forces did in southern Afghanistan. "It is more fact based rather than calendar based," he said.

4 Injured in Collision

KABUL, Afghanistan, June 8 (AP) — A United States military vehicle collided with a minibus on Thursday outside the Afghan capital, injuring four civilians 10 days after another crash involving American forces set off deadly riots.

The unrest following the other accident, on May 29, was the worst here since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, with hundreds of people rampaging through the city screaming, "Death to America!" About 20 people were killed in the riots.

There were no reports of violence after the accident on Thursday, which was on a road between Kabul and the American military headquarters in Bagram.

Col. Bob Elliott, one of the five American soldiers in the vehicle, a Toyota Land Cruiser, said it had hit the minibus while trying to pass another vehicle. "We apologized," Colonel Elliott said. "We said, 'Hey, it's our fault.' We were trying to pass the vehicle and we didn't allow enough distance."

Two of the injured were hospitalized and listed in serious condition. The other two had minor injuries. A soldier provided first aid. No Americans were hurt.

NATO renews vow to Afghanistan but calls for help to rebuild it

Brussels (AFP) - NATO renewed its pledge to help bring stability to Afghanistan but urged the Kabul government and international partners to work harder to restore the confidence of disenchanted Afghans.

"Let no one doubt NATO's resolve nor doubt our capability to carry out this mission because that is exactly what we will do," said NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, at a meeting of the alliance's defence ministers.

As NATO tries to spread the influence of President Hamid Karzai's government outside the capital Kabul, it has been met with a deadly wave of attacks by members of the former Taliban regime and their allies.

Anti-US riots also rocked Kabul late last month after a US military truck crashed into several vehicles and troops at the scene shot into a crowd when they were stoned -- a sign of growing frustration at the troop presence.

The Taliban, ousted by a US-led coalition in 2001 for harbouring Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, has recently run rampant in southern Afghanistan, a region that NATO is scheduled to take control of by the end of July.

Confident that NATO will accomplish its mission, de Hoop Scheffer urged the United Nations, the European Union, and the Group of Eight major industrial powers to focus efforts on rebuilding the shattered central Asian nation.

"More resources are urgently needed for reconstruction and development," he said. "You cannot only give emergency aid and assistance but it should be structural as well."

He also urged Afghanistan, represented at the Brussels talks by its defence minister Abdul Rahim Wardak, to better fight corruption and rebuild confidence.

Wardak said the government had a "moral duty" to "take maximum advantage of this environment of international cooperation". Both NATO and Afghan forces are struggling to assert authority.

In a nearly two-week stretch last month, several major clashes erupted in the south and suicide bombings, which are now regular, killed around 400 people, including more than 30 civilians.

But Wardak was confident that security would improve within two months, saying that once NATO has completed its move into the volatile south "I think you will see a drastic change in the security situation".

Some 7,000 troops from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) are due to set up base in the south and take over some of the responsibilities of US forces in the region.

All around Afghanistan ISAF has been trying to restore confidence and infrastructure by setting up civilian-military reconstruction teams -- phase one in the north, phase two in the west and now phase three in the south.

Germany operates five such provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs) and its defence minister, Franz Josef Jung, said this model is one he hopes to see spread throughout Afghanistan, perhaps by the end of the year.

"It is very important to expand our experience in the north onto the process being undertaken throughout the whole of Afghanistan," he said.

NATO officials do not appear dissuaded by the increasing violence but some prefer caution to rushing headlong into phase four in the east.

"Phase four ought to ... depend on: have we fully resourced stage three and are you in place and how is it going," said US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Dutch Defence Minister Henk Kamp said: "We will take another two months to deploy and during those two months we will see what is going on there. And based on our experiences we will take our decisions on what we have to do."

NATO officials have expressed little surprise at the surge in violence. "We could hardly expect insurgents to sit idly by while we put thousands and thousands of more troops into the south, which is going to make their life infinitely more difficult and worse," said Kabul-based spokesman Mark Laity.

Prisoner hand-off policy in Afghanistan defended - Actions fuel terror threat, critics say - Jun. 9, 2006 TONDA MACCHARLES OTTAWA BUREAU

OTTAWA—Top military and government officials reject criticisms that Canada's policy of handing off prisoners to Afghan authorities is fuelling the terrorist threat.

Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay and Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day dismissed those concerns yesterday, as did Canada's chief of defence staff, Gen. Rick Hillier.

Rather than fuel any possible grievances, Canada's presence in Afghanistan is "reducing the possibility of terrorist activity because we're helping the people of Afghanistan to deal with a lot of the terrorist organizations that were encamped there and were training there," said Day.

Canada currently has about 2,200 troops leading an international military force in the Kandahar region of southern Afghanistan.

MacKay told a parliamentary defence committee this week that the conflict in Afghanistan is not a conventional war, so the Geneva Convention that protects the rights of prisoners-of-war does not apply "as a treaty."

Nonetheless, he and Hillier stressed Canadian troops respect "the spirit" of the convention in notifying the international Red Cross of prisoner transfers, so they may be monitored.

And while there are no formal provisions for Canadian government follow-up, MacKay said his "understanding" is that "inquiries are made regularly" by Canadian military and diplomatic officials in Afghanistan.

Some critics, such as University of Ottawa law professor Amir Attaran, say Canada is ignoring the issue at its peril.

Attaran is a constitutional lawyer and immunologist who advocates human rights, global health and development as a means to greater global security. He said the detention policy is "part of the source of anger behind those who are involved in home-grown terrorism."

Canada is "stuck in an Afghan deployment" on the premise that it is providing security in order for development to follow, he said. But Canada is refusing to detain people "safely in a prison where there is not torture, where the Afghans are trained properly in interrogation methods that are more humane."

Hillier said he has no concerns about Canada's agreement to hand over detainees to Afghan security forces, saying Canadian soldiers have demonstrated "professionalism during those incidents."

"It (Afghanistan) is their country, under their laws and their government. We hand the prisoners to them, the detainees to them. It's the right thing to do."

Osama bin Laden keeping a low profile

Islamabad (AP) - Tracking down Osama bin Laden has proven tougher than getting to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi because the top al-Qaida leader keeps a lower profile, surrounds himself with far more faithful followers and has more places to hide, intelligence experts say.

The mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks avoids using satellite phones and the Internet. He is believed to be holed up along Pakistan's border with Afghan in rugged, remote terrain, protected by loyal tribesmen.

Al-Zarqawi was killed Wednesday just 30 miles from the Iraqi capital. In late April, he was featured in a videotape firing a machine gun in the desert and talking to insurgents.

"Osama bin Laden is a far more difficult leader of al-Qaida to be caught as compared to al-Zarqawi," said Talat Masood, a retired Pakistan army general. "Firstly, bin Laden is not involved in day-to-day operations and we believe that he enjoys the support of much more loyal people."

Al-Zarqawi had a $25 million bounty on his head — the same amount offered by the United States for information leading to bin Laden.

Henry Crumpton, the U.S. ambassador in charge of counterterrorism, last month called parts of Pakistan's border region a "safe haven" for militants. He said bin Laden was more likely to be hiding there than in Afghanistan.

According to a senior Pakistani security official, bin Laden avoids using the Internet or satellite phones.

Bin Laden "has seen the fate of those who used satellite phones. He has seen that many such people were arrested by us, and they included some close associates of the al-Qaida chief," the official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of his job.

The official said Pakistani forces, in cooperation with U.S.-led coalition troops in Afghanistan, were working to get closer to bin Laden, but "so far we don't have any clue on his whereabouts."

The Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman, Gen. Zahir Azimi, said he hopes al-Zarqawi's death will invigorate the hunt for bin Laden. "The hunt for Osama continues," he said.

A written statement purportedly from supreme Taliban leader Mullah Omar on Friday mourned al-Zarqawi and vowed to keep fighting in Afghanistan.

Omar was "deeply sad over the martyrdom of Abu Masab al-Zarqawi" but his death would not weaken the resistance in Iraq, "as it is the people's resistance and every youth can become al-Zarqawi," the Pashto-language statement said.

"I want to assure the Muslims across the world that we will not stop our struggle

More than 20,000 U.S.-led coalition soldiers are deployed in Afghanistan pursuing Taliban and al-Qaida fighters. Pakistan has 80,000 soldiers in its Waziristan tribal region, the area regarded as the most likely hiding place for bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri.

The two leaders are now fairly disconnected from al-Qaida's activities, said a senior Western diplomat in Islamabad, who agreed to discuss the matter only if not quoted by name because of the sensitive topic.

"They've been able to escape detection as they aren't communicating and aren't effectively involved in al-Qaida operations. It makes it very hard to run them down, but moves them significantly from an operational role to a symbolic one," he said.

"It doesn't make any sense to talk of getting closer to them. One day they will be killed or captured, and it will happen like that," the diplomat said, snapping his fingers.

A written statement purportedly from supreme Taliban leader Mullah Omar on Friday mourned the death of the al-Zarqawi and vowed to keep fighting in Afghanistan.

Omar was "deeply sad over the martyrdom of Abu Masab al-Zarqawi" but his death would not weaken the resistance in Iraq, "as it is the people's resistance and every youth can become al-Zarqawi," the Pashto-language statement said. "I want to assure the Muslims across the world that we will not stop our struggle.

to Iraq via Peshawar and Afghanistan - By Ismail Khan (DAWN)

PESHAWAR: Few in the small Arab community knew Ahmad Fadil Al Khalaileh, who later came to be known as Musab al-Zarqawi, when he arrived in Peshawar in 1989, towards the fag-end of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, to take part in the holy war against the Red Army.

Like other Arabs landing in Peshawar, the Jordanian stayed at Baitushuhada or the House of Martyrs in Peshawar’s posh Hayatabad residential area. The ‘safe house’, also known as midway house, was operated by fellow Jordanian scholar, Abdullah Azzam’s Maktabal Khidamat.

According to one account, Zarqawi had little combat experience; the only time he took part in an action was in Khost, south-eastern Afghanistan, under the command of Abu Al Harith Al Salti. He spent much of his time writing for an Arabic magazine, Al Bonian Al-Marsoos, owned and run by Ittehad-i-Islami Afghanistan chief Professor Abdur Rab Rasul Sayyaf.

Prof Sayyaf had close ties with Saudis and Arab radicals. Later, he aligned himself with the Northern Alliance against the Taliban and is now a member of the Afghan parliament.

It was during his stay in Peshawar that Zarqawi came into contact with another radical scholar, also a Jordanian, Isam Al Barqawi alias Abu Muhamad Al Maqdassi.

Maqdassi is said to have had a profound impact in the making of Zarqawi’s as a radical Salafi. Maqdassi himself had been influenced by the teachings of Abdullah Azzam, a fiery speaker, who had gained prominence in the Arab radical circle long before Osama bin Ladin emerged on the horizon. Azzam was assassinated in a car explosion outside a mosque in the University Town of Peshawar in November 1989.

In 1992, both Zarqawi and Maqdassi returned to Jordan where he set up ‘Baitul Imam’ or the house of the leader to help returning Jordanian veterans of the Afghan war.

In March 1994, Zarqawi and Maqdassi were arrested and both of them were sentenced to 15 years in prison on charges of trying to overthrow the government.

Zarqawi was, however, released in 1999 under a general amnesty by King Abdullah and he immediately returned to Peshawar. He lived in a house in Hayatabad, opposite the beautiful Bagh-i-Naran, for about six months.

One account says that the Jordanian militant stayed with his sister who was married to another Jordanian, Saleh Al-Hami alias Abu Qadama. (Incidentally, Qadama was arrested by Jordanian police on Thursday, while he was giving an interview to Al Jazeera on the death of his brother-in-law).

There are conflicting reports about later events. One account says that Zarqawi was arrested and detained in Peshawar after his visa had expired, while according to another account, he was forced to flee to Afghanistan following a crackdown on Arabs in Peshawar.

In Afghanistan, Mr Zarqawi set up a training camp near Jalalabad in the eastern Nangrahar province. He moved and relocated to Herat in western Afghanistan to train between 80 and 100 Jordanians and Syrians.

It is interesting that all this while Zarqawi had declined to take baya’t or oath of allegiance to Osama bin Laden and ran his own organisation under the banner of Tawheed Wal Jihad.

Zarqawi had his first brush with the Americans in Herat, when the invading troops raided a hospital. Zarqawi was wounded and he left Afghanistan along with scores of his comrades.

Investigators in Peshawar said that Zarqawi and some of his comrades moved to Shakai in South Waziristan and stayed in the house of two Spirkai Wazir tribesmen, Edda Khan and Dawar Khan. Both the tribesmen have been in the custody of military authorities since May, 2004.

During his stay in Shakai, an area that served as sanctuary for foreign militants till the army regained its control, Zarqawi befriended the late militant commander Nek Muhammad and his successor Maulavi Muhammad Omar.

It is not clear as to how long did he live in Waziristan but investigators say that he left Pakistan via Balochistan in 2002 and reached Iraq via Iran stopping over in Mashhad for a while.

In Iraq, he was believed to have teamed up with Kurdish Ansarul Islam led by Mullah Krekar. It was a coincidence that Zarqawi happened to be in Iraq when the US invaded the country in March 2003. He took no time in resurrecting his Tawheed Wal Jihad and teamed up with hundreds of Iraqi veterans of the Afghan jihad to take on the United States and shoot to prominence, overshadowing Osama bin Laden.

Blair calls on world to unite over Iraq and Afghanistan

LONDON: British Prime Minister Tony Blair called Thursday for the international community to overcome its divisions on Iraq and Afghanistan and take a united stand against terrorism.

Blair said that the Al Qaeda terror network would continue to fight hard to destroy the democratic process in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He said the world therefore needed to come together behind the United Nations mandates in those countries to combat Al Qaeda’s values of “violence and hatred”. He added that defeating terrorist extremists in Iraq would be a blow to their ideals everywhere.

“Whatever the debate over the original decision to remove Saddam, for the past three years since his removal, a struggle of a different nature has taken shape,” Blair told reporters at his monthly press conference in his Downing Street office. “In Iraq and in Afghanistan, Al Qaeda has taken a stand. “They know that if progress and democracy take root in those two previously failed and terrorised states, then their values of violence and hatred against those who disagree with them will in turn be uprooted. “That’s what they fought and why they will continue to fight very hard.

“But it’s also why we should fight back and do so as a unified, international community, putting behind us the divisions of the past and uniting under the UN mandate in both Iraq and Afghanistan,” Blair said. “This terrorism is a global movement. Their attack in Iraq has only ever been part of a wider attack that they have carried into conflicts and countries the world over.” AFP

Day blames Internet, not Afghan involvement, for terror threats - CanWest News Service, Friday, June 09, 2006

OTTAWA -- Extremist Internet sites are to blame for terrorists targeting this country, not Canada's military presence in Afghanistan, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said Thursday.

"Worldwide, there's a tiny percentage of individuals who, unfortunately, are affected by bizarre and horrendous items on the Internet that lead them to various ideologies," Day said.

"The fact we're in Afghanistan means we are reducing the possibility of terrorist activity, because we're helping the people of Afghanistan to deal with a lot of the terrorist organizations that are encamped there and training there."

Authorities arrested 17 people last weekend in connection with an alleged plot to bomb targets in Ottawa and Toronto, including Parliament Hill and the Toronto Stock Exchange.

Day said Canadian soldiers are doing good work in many areas, including stemming the flow of heroin out of Afghanistan. There are currently about 2,300 Canadian Forces personnel based in Kandahar.

Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay later dismissed suggestions the Canadian policy of handing prisoners over to Afghan authorities, despite allegations of torture and mistreatment, is fueling more hate.

"What we are doing at every turn is reinforcing the need for Afghan army officials to comply with the Geneva convention, to comply with international conventions of which they are signatories," he said. "Canada's place in all of this is to see that we're doing our level best to ensure fair treatment."

The comments come as some analysts argue Canadian activities in the war-torn country are drawing attention from Islamist extremists. In an interview Wednesday, a leading expert on suicide terrorism said threats will continue as long as troops remain in Kandahar.

"Canadians should expect that the longer their combat forces stay in Afghanistan, or go to any other Muslim country, the greater the risk of an attack," said Robert Pape, director of the University of Chicago's Project on Suicide Terrorism and author of Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism. "That doesn't mean they should necessarily cut and run, but it's important to get a better measure of the costs and benefits of a policy."

Day's opinion also runs counter to an assessment by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service obtained recently by CanWest under the Access to Information Act which said activities in the war-torn country have increased Canada's profile among terrorists.

"Canada remains at the forefront in the fight to disrupt extremist activity, both domestically and internationally," it said.

"Canada's counter-terrorism efforts, however, including its well-publicized intelligence and law enforcement efforts and the deployment of military forces to Afghanistan, make it a high-profile target."

Still, the Conservatives are not alone in brushing off the Afghan connection. Liberal Leader Bill Graham said following the Toronto arrests that threats to Canada would exist whether the military was in Afghanistan.

"I'm afraid that if we don't succeed, the threats will get bigger," Graham said. "The success of our forces in Afghanistan are more and more important, as shown by what happened this weekend."

He added terrorists are a "small group of people determined to disrupt people who don't accept their values. That has nothing to do with our conduct."

Robotic Vehicle To Help Clear Mines In Afghanistan - Aviation Now / June 8, 2006

A robotic minefield-clearing vehicle has been developed by Air Force researchers and engineers to aid in Afghanistan air base expansion and route clearing, the Air Force says.

The Mine Area Clearance Vehicle (MACV) was perfected by the 823rd Rapid Engineer Deployable Heavy Operational Repair Squadron Engineers (Red Horse) at Hurlburt Field, Fla., and the Air Force Research Laboratory at Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla. The $2 million project, which took a year and a half to complete, will see its first fully functional MACV deployed by July for full operational testing.

Two operators from up to a mile away will use laptop software and a control box to guide the vehicle through a minefield. One will steer and control the MACV's functions while the other monitors gauges and the cameras mounted outside the vehicle to make sure it's headed in the right direction, Chief Master Sgt. Mark Lewis, the Red Horse squadron's chief of airfields, said in a news release.

Before the robotics were installed, two operators were required to ride inside the vehicle's cabin. Red Horse heavy equipment operators will run the robotic MACV as part of a larger process involving explosive ordnance disposal technicians and mine detection dogs, making the process faster and safer, Lewis said.

"Manual mine clearing is a very slow and tedious process. So by having the robotic machine go in and flail the ground, that speeds up the initial clearing, which leads to faster construction," Lewis said. "The MACV simply makes it safer for everyone involved."

The MACV uses spinning chains with heavy carbide steel "knuckles" on the end to flail the ground and hopefully detonate any anti-personnel or anti-tank mines. The Air Force hopes to provide two robotic MACVs for every active duty Red Horse unit, Lewis said.

The Red Horse squadron has almost a dozen operators trained on the MACV and owns the pilot unit. So it's developing standard operating procedures and will craft a standardized lesson plan and study guide to train other active duty units and Guard and Reserve Red Horse units, Lewis said.

[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.]