In this bulletin:

• President Karzai Emphasizes the Significance of Further Coordination of Efforts in the Fight Against Terrorism
• Karzai: Taliban poses no long-term threat
• Large parts of Afghanistan under Taliban control: Omar
• 22 Pakistanis killed in Afghanistan
• Taliban chief outdoes Zarqawi in cruelty: Report
• Suicide attack near main US base in Afghanistan
• UN sounds Afghanistan opium alert
• Afghanistan and Its Future
• 5 aid workers kidnapped in eastern Afghanistan released, police say
• Afghan vote headache for Prodi
• 'Taleban truce' in tribal region

President Karzai Emphasizes the Significance of Further Coordination of Efforts in the Fight Against Terrorism - Date of Release: 24 June 2006

Arg, Kabul –H.E. Hamid Karzai, President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, stressed the need for further coordination in the fight against terrorism during a special meeting of Government and international community representatives on security and development issues in the south of Afghanistan at the Gulkhana Palace this morning

The meeting was attended on the Government side by Ministers of National Defence and Interior,

National Security Advisor, Senior Advisor to the President on Economics, Director of NDS and Chief of Staff to the President and on the international community side by Ambassadors of Britain, Canada and the Netherlands, Representative of the Embassy of the United States of America, Commander of ISAF and Commander of the Coalition Forces in Afghanistan.

The President was given a briefing on counter-terrorist operation that is currently underway in the different provinces of Afghanistan.

The President instructed increased coordination with the international forces during the counter-terrorist operations. Specifically, the following were emphasized:

-         To enhance the role of tribal structures and community elders in counter-terrorist operations.

-         To ensure a safe environment for development projects and support to the communities

-         To identify the deeper causes and dynamics of terrorist activities

The President also emphasized the following:

-         Military operations by the Coalition forces should be conducted in coordination with the national police and army.

-         The local authorities and institutions should be consulted prior to any military operations. The role of tribal elders and chiefs is of vital importance.

-         Maximum caution should be exercised during the counter-terrorist operations and every effort should be made to avoid harm to the civilian population.

-         Efforts should continue to enhance the capacities of Government institutions, especially the national police and army.

-         Besides the tactical campaign against terrorism, attention should be paid to a strategic response of terrorism

Released by the Office of the Spokesman to the President - Islamic Republic of Afghanistan

Karzai: Taliban poses no long-term threat

By TINI TRAN Associated Press Sun Jun 25, 5:21 PM ET

KABUL, Afghanistan - The Taliban do not pose a long-term threat to Afghanistan's stability, President Hamid Karzai said Sunday.

Karzai spoke after the release of an audio recording purportedly of fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Omar saying the Afghan government did not have the wisdom to solve the nation's crisis. A self-described Taliban spokesman denied the recording aired on Pakistani television was authentic.

The U.S. military said two coalition soldiers had been killed in combat that also left about 45 militants dead. U.S.-led forces are waging their largest anti-Taliban offensive to date across southern Afghanistan to quash the deadliest campaign of militant violence since the Islamists' ouster in 2001.

The recording aired by independent Pakistan station Geo TV was apparently made during a recent meeting of Taliban leaders in Helmand province, the network said.

"They cannot solve the issue of Afghanistan based on their wisdom and thinking," said the speaker purported to be Omar.

The station reported that the recording also included Omar's claim that the Taliban control large areas of the country. A purported Taliban spokesman denied that the voice was Omar's.

"This is not issued by the Taliban. It is prepared by the television station itself," Mohammed Hanif, who often makes statements on behalf of the Taliban, told an Associated Press reporter in Pakistan.

Hanif also denied that Omar had led a meeting of Taliban commanders in Helmand province. Geo said the recording came in an e-mail from purported Taliban figures in the capital, Kabul.

Omar last was heard from in July 2005, when he vowed that the Taliban would continue to fight coalition forces.

Karzai did not comment on the tape's authenticity during an interview with CNN. But he said that if Omar is "really in charge," he should emerge from hiding and "face the danger that he is causing to hundreds of young people in Afghanistan and Pakistan."

"It needs guts to do what he's talking about, and he doesn't have it," Karzai told "Late Edition."

Omar led the Taliban in the capture of Kabul in 1996. Following the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, an American-led military campaign invaded Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban for harboring al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and his group.

Karzai said Omar and the Taliban do not represent a threat to his government. "They exist in the form of attacking schools, attacking children, killing innocent people," he said. "They are no match for our power."

The two coalition soldiers died at a hospital after they were wounded during a four-hour gunbattle Saturday, the U.S.-led coalition said in a statement. Another coalition soldier also was wounded. The identities of the slain soldiers were not released.

The coalition estimates about 250 insurgents have been killed since Operation Mountain Thrust got under way earlier this month to stop a wave of suicide attacks and ambushes.

At a meeting Saturday in Kabul, Karzai emphasized to key Western officials the need for international troops to work more closely with tribal leaders and community elders during military operations, his office said.

The president told Western diplomats and the heads of NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan that the international community should examine the root causes of terrorist activities.

He again warned that maximum caution was needed to avoid civilian casualties during military operations.

The meeting followed strong statements from Karzai last week that the current approach of hunting down Taliban militants has failed to address the root causes of terrorism such as funding, training and recruitment.

In eastern Afghanistan, a police official said five Afghan aid workers, including two doctors and an employee of a Swedish aid organization, had been kidnapped.

Two doctors, an employee of the aid agency Swedish Committee for Afghanistan and two local government workers were kidnapped Thursday while driving in Nuristan province, said Ghalamullah Nuristani, the provincial deputy police chief.

Abdallah Fahim, spokesman for the Public Health Ministry in Kabul, said the five hostages were still alive and that police and Afghan troops were looking for them.

Large parts of Afghanistan under Taliban control: Omar - Dawn (Pakistan) / June 26, 2006 issue

ISLAMABAD, June 25: A private television channel on Sunday broadcast what it said was an audiotape from the fugitive leader of the ousted Taliban militia, Mulla Omar, claiming his fighters still controlled large parts of Afghanistan.

The authenticity of the tape could not be independently verified. The network said it had been sent the voice clip via email from Afghan capital Kabul.

A purported Taliban spokesman, Mohammed Hanif, quoted by the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press denied that Mullah Omar had issued any new audiotape.

The man said to be Omar was purportedly addressing a Taliban military council in the southern Afghan province of Helmand and claimed that his movement still held sway over large parts of Afghanistan.

“Losing the capital of Afghanistan does not mean that Taliban have finished,” the network’s translation quoted him as saying.

Addressing Afghan President Hamid Karzai but not naming him directly, the man said: “If today the American military abandons you, you have no standing. Russia’s military also came to Afghanistan — remember its fate.”

The man said that Afghanistan was a Muslim country where believers were in a majority and outsiders would never be able to impose their ideology there. “The rulers of Kabul would not be able to run the country with the wisdom of others, and God willing they would be destroyed,” he said.—- Agencies

22 Pakistanis killed in Afghanistan - Indo-Asian News Service

Islamabad, June 26, 2006 - Twenty-two Pakistani tribesmen from South Waziristan have been killed in Afghanistan in the current offensive by US-led forces and the Afghan security forces.

Those who died were found in action in Paktia and Paktika provinces of Afghanistan, the hotbed of the Taliban activities that Kabul has been busy thwarting, The Nation newspaper reported.

Pakistan officially denies the involvement of its nationals in Afghanistan, but has blamed the role of "a few individuals" for the border between the two countries being poorly guarded on the Afghanistan side.

This has been the cause of a slinging match between the two neighbours involving the two presidents, Hamid Karzai and Pervez Musharraf.

North and South Waziristan have witnessed free movement of Taliban fighters. The area is supposed to have sheltered Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and Taliban chief Mullah Omar at different times, says the western media.

Those who were killed in the operation were from the Mehsood tribe and belonged to Ladha, Makin, Sarogha, Tiarza and other tribal areas. The dead were laid to rest in their native areas, the newspaper said, quoting an online report.

Taliban chief outdoes Zarqawi in cruelty: Report - The Times of India

[Monday, June 26, 2006 09:43:38 am PTI ] NEW YORK: Mullah Dadullah Akhund commands the Taliban in southern Afghanistan and he is now trying to outdo slain al-Qaeda leader Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi in viciousness and cruelty, a media report said.

In one video, Dadullah is seen blasting away at an unseen target with heavy machine guns and another sequence shows him blessing young men being apparently sent to carry out suicide bombings in Afghan cities and military bases, Newsweek said.

But the most chilling video is the footage of his men slitting the throats of six Afghans, one by one, on suspicion of their being spies for the Americans.

The report said that this year's armed push by the Taliban has been the biggest and bloodiest since they lost Kabul in 2001, and Dadullah is believed to be spearheading it.

The surge in suicide bombings, school burnings and guerrilla ambushes has killed more than 100 Afghan civilians and at least 40 coalition soldiers, including 24 US troops.

For the first time in memory, Taliban guerrillas under Dadullah have succeeded in capturing government installations in the remote south, if only for brief periods, it said.

Newsweek says some of those raids are documented in the new recruitment videos it obtained from an Afghan involved in making copies for distribution.

Villagers told the magazine that ever-increasing numbers of Taliban fighters are roaming the countryside, entering villages at night - sometimes even in broad daylight - and warning inhabitants not to cooperate with the Americans or their allies, on pain of death. Dadullah's own men don't want to risk his anger.

Suicide attack near main US base in Afghanistan - Jun 26

KABUL (AFP) - A suicide car bomber blew himself up near a convoy at the biggest US base in Afghanistan, wounding two children, as the number of coalition soldiers killed in the past week rose to seven.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the suicide blast near the Bagram air base north of Kabul, saying the attacker was acting in revenge for the killing of two of his brothers in a traffic accident involving a US military vehicle.

The latest violence comes amid some of the worst insurgency-linked bloodshed in Afghanistan since the Taliban regime was ousted in late 2001 by a coalition led by the United States.

Police said a station-wagon laden with explosives had veered towards a coalition convoy less than a kilometre (half a mile) outside the gate of the Bagram base and exploded.

The body of the suicide bomber was scattered about the blast site in chunks next to the mangled wreck of the vehicle that carried the bomb. "Two children were wounded," said Yousuf Stanizai, spokesman for the interior ministry that handles police matters.

A coalition spokesman at Bagram, about 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of Kabul, confirmed there had been a bombing outside the gate but could not immediately confirm if it was a suicide blast. There were no coalition casualties, Lieutenant Colonel Paul Fitzpatrick told AFP on Monday.

A purported Taliban spokesman, Mohammad Hanif, said the blast was carried out by an Afghan man who had "sworn to take his revenge from Americans since his two brothers were killed in the American accident."

He was referring to a May 29 crash in which a US military truck from Bagram lost control after a brake failure and ploughed into a dozen civilian cars at the northern entrance of the city. Several Afghans were killed.

The crash set off a day of rioting that was the worst violence the capital had seen since the Taliban were toppled. At the end of the day, about 20 people were dead.

The attacker used "Taliban facilities" to carry out the attack, Hanif told AFP by satellite telephone from an undisclosed location. The sprawling Bagram base is home to thousands of troops and many of the warplanes that the military dispatches for operations across the country.

Meanwhile the latest coalition fatality came during combat operations in eastern Afghanistan, the coalition said Monday. The soldier, whose nationality was not released, died from wounds sustained in the battle in Kunar province bordering Pakistan on Sunday.

The coalition announced at the weekend that two more of its soldiers had died from wounds received in a battle in southern Kandahar province in which around 45 Taliban fighters were killed.

And on June 21 four US soldiers were killed in clashes with militants in Nuristan province. Forty-four coalition soldiers have now died in combat in Afghanistan this year, around half of them Americans.

Almost 200 rebels have also been killed in the past two weeks as part of Operation Mountain Thrust in the troubled south, the biggest coalition and Afghan army anti-Taliban drive yet, according to Afghan figures.

While Taliban-linked attacks are still focused in southern and eastern Afghanistan, they are increasing in other parts of the country, adding to fears of a Taliban comeback five years after the extremists were toppled.

But President Hamid Karzai said in an interview with CNN Sunday that the resurgent militia was no threat to his government or the international coalition fighting in the country.

"They exist in the form of attacking schools, attacking children, killing innocent people, killing clergy, harassing road workers, engineers. They are no match for our power. They are no match for our fighting ability," he said.

Separately, Taliban rebels late on Sunday freed four health workers and a public works employee whom they abducted at gunpoint at the weekend in the northeastern province of Nuristan, a governor and the militia said.

UN sounds Afghanistan opium alert - BBC News / Monday, 26 June 2006

Opium production in Afghanistan could surge again this year and the demand for cocaine in Europe is higher than ever, a UN watchdog has concluded. It says that efforts to stamp out opium growing in Afghanistan are being hampered by persistent lawlessness.

The UN Office of Drugs and Crime report says that Taleban insurgent attacks are helping drug gangs exploit insecurity. But the report said opium production went down last year for the first time since the Taleban were toppled in 2001.

The report says there are now "state efforts" in place to destroy poppy cultivation, in addition to incentives for farmers to grow alternative crops.

"Worldwide efforts to reduce the threat posed by illicit drugs have effectively reversed a quarter-century-long rise in drug abuse that, if left unchecked, could have become a global pandemic," the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Antonio Maria Costa, said in a statement released along with the report.

"Afghanistan's drug situation remains vulnerable to reversal because of mass poverty, lack of security and the fact that the authorities have inadequate control over its territory," Mr Costa said.

The BBC's Sarah Morris in Washington says that the UN report emphasised two weaknesses in efforts to control the spread of global drugs. They are the demand for cocaine from Europe, and for cannabis worldwide.

The report said that too many professional, educated Europeans use cocaine and often deny their addiction. And drug abuse by celebrities was often presented uncritically by the media which sent a confusing message for young people.

"A coherent, long-term strategy can reduce supply, demand and trafficking... if this does not happen, it will be because some nations fail to take the drug issue seriously and pursue inadequate policies," Mr Costa said.

Afghan Leader Losing Support - Foreign, Local Allies Cite Weak Karzai Leadership By Pamela Constable Washington Post Monday, June 26, 2006

KABUL, Afghanistan, June 25 -- Many Afghans and some foreign supporters say they are losing faith in President Hamid Karzai's government, which is besieged by an escalating insurgency and endemic corruption and is unable to protect or administer large areas of the country.

As a sense of insecurity spreads, a rift is growing between the president and some of the foreign civilian and military establishments whose money and firepower have helped rebuild and defend the country for nearly five years. While the U.S. commitment to Karzai appears solid, several European governments are expressing serious concerns about his leadership.

"The president had a window of opportunity to lead and make difficult decisions, but that window is closing fast," said one foreign military official in Kabul who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

"This is a crucial time, and there is frustration and finger-pointing on all sides," the official said. "President Karzai is the only alternative for this country, but if he attacks us, we can't help him project his vision. And if he goes down, we all go down with him."

In markets and mosques across the country, Afghans are focusing discontent on Karzai, 48, the amiable, Western-backed leader whose landslide election in October 2004 appeared to anchor a process of political reconstruction and stability that began with the U.S.-led overthrow of the Taliban in late 2001.

Since then, public confidence in his leadership has soured with reports of highway police robbing travelers, government jobs sold to the highest bidder, drug traffic booming and aid money vanishing. There are no public opinion polls here, but several dozen Afghan and foreign observers expressed similar views.

Since April, an aggressive Taliban offensive across the south has resulted in the deaths of 600 people. In the past four days, more than 150 insurgents have been reported killed in battles with Afghan and foreign troops in the southern provinces of Uruzgan and Kandahar.

Late last month, a riot in Kabul, in which protesters attacked foreign facilities for hours as police vanished from the streets, raised concerns among many people here that the government is too weak to protect even the capital.

"In the past year, security has gotten worse and worse," said Sayed Tamin, 42, a tailor in a working-class Kabul district who was hemming a pair of pants. "The Taliban have been able to come back because the government is weak. There is corruption in high places and nothing for the poor. People are very, very disappointed."

Hamida, 32, waited on a bench for alterations. She said she was visiting from Zabol province in the south. "My husband was a school principal, but the Taliban threatened to kill him, so he quit and now he is sitting at home," she said. "We women cannot leave our houses. The police come under attack at night, and we only see foreign soldiers once in a while. There is no one to protect us."

Karzai and his advisers have taken bitter umbrage at the criticism, saying they have tried their best to govern and secure the country under nearly impossible conditions. They accuse their foreign allies of unfairly blaming the president for problems he did not create.

At a news conference Thursday, Karzai strongly criticized his government's foreign allies, saying they had long ignored his pleas for more help to build the nation's security forces. He suggested that they needed to make a "strategic reassessment" of the anti-insurgent fight here and look to causes beyond Afghanistan's borders. The president has previously accused Pakistan of harboring and aiding insurgents.

Karzai bristled at international criticism that greeted his recent naming of 13 police officials, some of whom have been accused of human rights abuses. "This is our decision, and what we do is suitable for Afghanistan," Karzai said.

Foreign officials and analysts said the appointments went directly against their advice and were made on the basis of ethnic and political balance, rather than professional qualifications. Some feared they also were a sign of Karzai's submission to powerful opponents who seek to destabilize his government.

"This shows a bazaar mentality toward governing," said a European official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "He's making decisions for short-term stability that go against his own interests and the long-term interests of building the country. As a result, international support for him is eroding, and it could become a real rift at the worst possible time."

Another area of disagreement has been Karzai's recent suggestion that local "community police" forces might be created to protect remote, vulnerable areas where security forces have little presence. To many foreign observers, this raises the specter of reviving Islamic and tribal militias, after four years of costly international efforts to disarm, demobilize and reintegrate them into civilian life.

International advisers here said such moves were making it increasingly difficult for them to defend Karzai at a time when his government is facing its most serious armed threat since he took office under U.N. auspices in early 2002. The NATO alliance is preparing to deploy thousands of troops across the volatile south, the ethnic and religious heartland of the Taliban movement. There are currently more than 20,000 U.S. troops in the country.

While no one is suggesting that any imminent withdrawal of foreign military or economic support is likely, some European governments -- which do not share Washington's investment in Afghanistan as a role model for a modern Muslim democracy -- have begun to question the wisdom of costly long-term economic commitments and the risk of ongoing high battlefield casualties.

"There is an awful feeling that everything is lurching downward," said a Western diplomat, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "Nearly five years on, there is no rule of law, no accountability. The Afghans know it is all a charade, and they see us as not only complicit but actively involved. You cannot fight a terror war and build a weak state at the same time, and it was a terrible mistake to think we could."

Aides to Karzai said the president has been unfairly criticized. They described drug smugglers with powerful sport-utility vehicles and rockets outrunning police with rifles in old Russian jeeps, and districts of 60,000 inhabitants that have only 45 police officers. They said ideas such as recruiting local police were creative attempts to solve urgent security needs.

The aides said that while Afghans have a right to be impatient with the slow pace of institutional reforms and alarmed by the growing insurgent threat, the foreign powers often failed to treat Karzai as a legitimate president and tried to micromanage his government. They said the current insurgency has erupted in places that were dangerously neglected by foreign aid agencies and troops for the past several years.

Karzai's top priority had been to unite a country that was deeply fragmented after years of civil war and repressive Islamic rule, said Jawed Ludin, Karzai's chief spokesman. That goal sometimes has meant compromising with adversaries in ways that might appear weak to outsiders.

"We acknowledge there have been failures of governance, of police reforms, of institution-building. But the main problem is terrorism," Ludin said. "We know people are unhappy, but it is very unhelpful for our friends to blame him personally for the problems of a country that is crippled and starting from scratch."

In his rare public appearances, the president has continued to project bonhomie and self-confidence. He recently flew to Konar province in the east, where he encouraged schoolgirls to become doctors and run for president, and to Kandahar city in the south, where he visited hospitalized civilians who were wounded in a U.S. airstrike against Taliban fighters.

This week, aides said, he is receiving hundreds of tribal elders from Helmand and Kandahar provinces in his heavily guarded palace, hoping to persuade them to be patient while Afghan and foreign forces try to root out insurgents and restore peace to the region.

But according to a variety of observers, such palace pep talks no longer carry the credibility they did two years ago, before Islamic insurgents began burning schools, and drug traffickers and former militia commanders began building opulent mansions.

In the modest Kabul tailor shop, Mohammed Jan, 50, snipped a pattern with shears. He said he brought his family back from Iran two years ago "because we were told there was democracy. Instead the old warlords are back," he said. "At night people are robbed at home. In the day they are robbed at the ministries. I feel cheated and full of sorrow."

Afghanistan and Its Future- EurasiaNet 06/26/2006 By Ahmed Rashid

Five years after Western countries promised Afghans to rebuild their country, Afghanistan is on the brink, facing its worst crisis since the Taliban were overthrown in 2001.

Afghan dignitaries and Western diplomats are scathing in their criticism of President Hamid Karzai's inability to govern effectively or punish those in his administration who are corrupt, dealing in drugs or close to the Taliban. In turn, Karzai has lashed out at the West's refusal to help his government with more money and troops much earlier on.

Ordinary Afghans have no doubt that the Taliban virus is spreading. Taliban have been reported just 25 miles from the capital, distributing at night written death threats to those who help the government.

Taliban attacks have taken place in the north near the border with Central Asia and in the west near Iran, hundreds of miles from the main battleground in the south. Every day a school is burnt down or a teacher killed by the Taliban.

Over 500 Afghans have been killed in the past six weeks in the south where some 6,000 US, Canadian and British troops under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are battling the Taliban. Afghans remember that a similar death rate in 1992-93, amidst civil war, heralded the arrival of the Taliban who promised peace and security.

Karzai is now seen by many Afghans and Western diplomats as betraying the reform and nation building agenda set out by the Bonn agreement in 2001 and reverting back to rule by fiat on tribal and ethnic lines.

Since the May 29 riots that shook Kabul, he has ordered two corrupt former governors in the south, both linked to the drug trade, to rearm their illegal militias in order to fight the Taliban.

It took several months of persuasion by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and the Foreign Office to get rid of one of them - Sher Mohammed Akhunzada, the governor of Helmand province in southwest Afghanistan - before British troops were deployed in the region. Now Akhunzada is back with a 500-man militia force, while his brother remains deputy governor.

The Dutch went through a similar process to get rid of another governor before their troops were deployed in the southern province of Uruzgan. NATO is furious and so are the Japanese who have spent over nearly $100 million funding the disarmament of 62,000 militiamen. Tokyo threatened to cancel Karzai's visit to the Japanese capital later this month. Meanwhile, the United Nations program to continue disarming the militias is now at a standstill.

Karzai has also appointed 13 police officers widely known for brutality and corruption to key posts and bought back as an adviser General Mohammed Fahim, a powerful former warlord and defense minister who was sacked two years ago after extraordinary Western pressure.

''The government has to base their actions on good governance and not reliance on the old commanders,'' said Tom Koenigs, the UN Secretary General's Special Representative to Afghanistan. ''The army and police have to be loyal not to commanders but to the constitution, which is why we are against forming uncontrollable militias and parallel forces,'' he added.

Karzai has also ignored the newly elected parliament, which is emerging as a watchdog over government excesses, and this week his office tried to clamp down on the Afghan media.

Karzai has charged that the US and the West have failed to provide enough resources and soldiers much earlier on when they were needed. ''The unhappiness between us and the international community,'' is because, ''we did not get the assistance and cooperation that is necessary for a strategy for counterterrorism,'' Karzai said at a June 22 press conference.

Karzai has also accused the West of ignoring the sanctuary provided to the Taliban by Pakistan, while officials say the militias are needed to beef up the beleaguered police force in the south. ''There are 40 policemen to protect 80,000 people in Uruzgan, what do you want us to do?'' asked a senior Afghan intelligence official.

A senior US official admitted that the police training program is three years behind schedule, but stated that by December Washington will provide $1.2 billion to equip 60,000 police nationwide with vehicles, radios and weapons.

Afghan officers are also furious that the US will now only train and arm a 50,000-man Afghan army compared to the 70,000 soldiers first promised. Moreover, from this year, the Americans are making the cash- strapped Kabul government pay soldiers' salaries –- hardly a way to win hearts and minds.

Karzai is certainly right about the West's failings. With much hoopla just four months ago, the government of British Prime Minister Tony Blair orchestrated the Afghanistan Compact, which promised a five-year, $ 10.5 billion development program for Afghanistan, but which conveniently ignored the failures and false promises made by the West since 200I.

It is clear that the slow delivery of Western aid has wrecked the political will in the government, demoralized Afghans and given fuel to Taliban propaganda. Predicted one European ambassador: ''The next few months will be critical."

Editor's Note: Ahmed Rashid is a Pakistan-based journalist and author of the book "Taliban: Militant Islam and Fundamentalism in Central Asia."

5 aid workers kidnapped in eastern Afghanistan released, police say - The Associated Press 06/26/2006

KABUL - Five Afghan aid workers, including three employed by a Swedish agency, were released after four days in captivity, a police official said Monday.

The five - two doctors and an employee of the aid agency Swedish Committee for Afghanistan and two local government workers - were kidnapped Thursday while driving in the eastern Nuristan province, said deputy provincial police chief Ghalamullah Nuristani.

Their abductors released them late Sunday after efforts by police and tribal elders, said Mohammed Asel Totakhil, the province's police chief.

''The elders were warning the kidnappers, 'The people and police will take strong action against you, you have one chance to release the hostages,''' Totakhil said. No details were released on the kidnappers.

The five had traveled to inaugurate a health clinic in a remote village and on the return trip were kidnapped in a mountainous area in the Kamdesh district, Nuristani said. The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan had no immediate comment.

Afghan vote headache for Prodi

Govt split over refunding mission, centre right won't help (ANSA) - Rome, June 26 - Italy's peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan is providing Premier Romano Prodi with one of his worst headaches since coming to power last month .

The Italian parliament must approve more cash to keep the mission going before the end of June but the Prodi coalition is badly split between a pro-American 'anti-terrorist' camp and several parties who want to pull out of the country .

The far left of Prodi's nine-party coalition has made no bones about its refusal to even contemplate a continued Italian military presence in the troubled country, where there has been a resurgence of attacks by the Taliban Islamists whose government was toppled by US and Afghan forces in November 2001. Taliban offensives have forced the NATO-led coalition to beef up its forces, with Europe taking up some of the slack from the United States, which is withdrawing some troops .

Prodi's centrist and moderate leftist allies think Italy should stick to its international obligations and help stop Afghanistan falling back into chaos .

Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema indicated earlier this month that Italy would send more troops in response to a NATO request, but has since backtracked .

Prodi's most recent statement, after a NATO summit in Brussels last week, was "no decision has been made on raising or lowering troop numbers" .

The centre-right opposition has said it will not come to Prodi's aid as it did when it came to refunding previous missions in the Balkans, but some observers think the small centrist UDC party could vote with the government, making up for the lack of votes from the leftist rebels .

But one of the two Communist parties in the coalition warned Prodi Monday that it would not accept "variable majorities". It issued a clear threat to Prodi "not to accept the UDC votes" .

The other Communist party said it had been elected on a pacifist agenda and would never betray its voters . The government has called a meeting Tuesday in the Senate, where it has a wafer-thin majority .

The government would only risk falling if it attached a confidence vote to the funding measure . This tactic is often used to bring rebels back into line, but observers say it is too risky for Prodi .

A possible result, pundits say, is that the government will fail to obtain fresh funding for the Afghan mission, causing Prodi and D'Alema severe international embarrassment and further straining relations with Washington after Italy's decision to withdraw from Iraq .

The Prodi government did not make that decision, which it inherited from ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi, but it has sped up the pace of the pull-out slightly .

Prodi has also distanced himself from Berlusconi by returning Italy to the centre of the 'old Europe' camp once criticised by American Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. On a visit to Afghanistan ten days ago, Italian Defence Minister Arturo Parisi said Italy would continue to back Afghanistan's progress towards full democracy and stressed that the Afghan mission was different from the Iraq one because it had an international mandate from the United Nations.

Parisi did not mention raising troop numbers, but he responded to government leftists by saying that Italy "attaches great importance to the political stabilisation of central Asia, and Afghanistan in particular." "We know we have to continue to work with the authorities, supporting them with a military presence capable of guaranteeing security in every corner of the country," he said, adding that Italy felt an "imperative civic duty to prevent terrorism from finding sanctuary in Afghanistan". Italy has some 1,300 soldiers stationed in Afghanistan. About a thousand are with ISAF in Kabul and the rest in the northwestern city of Herat, where Italy currently commands one of the Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) NATO is using to fan out across the whole of the country. There has recently been a surge in attacks, mostly in southern Afghanistan, by the Taliban .

NATO is scheduled to complete a move south next month as it doubles its forces from 9,000 to 16,000. Prodi's government was said to be considering sending hundreds of troops to Afghanistan as it withdraws its 1,600-strong contingent from Iraq by the autumn. The US is cutting its troops in Afghanistan from 19,000 to 16,000 as other NATO countries - mainly Canada, Britain, the Netherlands and Romania - boost their ISAF contingents. Italy has lost five soldiers since NATO took command of ISAF in August 2003. Two were killed near Kabul last month, sparking renewed calls from Prodi's more leftist allies to pull Italy's troops out .

'Taleban truce' in tribal region - BBC News / Sunday, 25 June 2006

Militants in Pakistan's tribal region of North Waziristan have announced a month-long ceasefire. A spokesman for the militants announced the truce in a telephone call to the BBC from an undisclosed location. He said the truce was to encourage dialogue with the government, and demanded troops withdraw from the area.

The government has described the truce as positive. Dozens of tribal militants and government troops have been killed in clashes in the area this year.

The militants, also known as local Taleban, have set the government four main conditions. They want a withdrawal of army troops from the region within a month, and the removal of all new check posts from North Waziristan, their spokesman Abdullah Farhad told the BBC.

He also demanded the restoration of salaries and jobs and other incentives for local tribes and the release of tribesmen arrested during military operations against al-Qaeda and Taleban fighters in the region.

The governor of North Western Frontier Province, Ali Mohammad Jan Aurakzai, said a decision on these conditions would be taken in talks with the militants. He promised to reciprocate with a goodwill gesture but did not elaborate.

Tens of thousands of Pakistani security forces are battling Taleban and al-Qaeda supporters in the country's restive tribal belt along its border with Afghanistan.

The "Pakistani Taleban" have risen over the past year to take control of large parts of Waziristan. A similar ceasefire was announced last year in South Waziristan, since when violence has decreased significantly.

North Waziristan is the most conservative region in the seven tribal agencies that constitute Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) and is seen as a hotbed of Taleban activity.

Plan to win over Afghans - The Times, UK 06/25/2006 By Christina Lamb in Sangin

A DOG tears at the flesh of a dead donkey sprawled on a baked-earth field as the merciless afternoon sun beats down. On every corner men with beards and turbans stand watching as British paratroopers on foot patrol spread out across the town.

Unlike most of Afghanistan, Sangin offers no welcoming smiles. This is the heartland of the country's narcotics industry and the Taliban and nobody wants to be seen as a friend of the British. As we walked through the closed bazaar, I felt distinctly uneasy.

Captain Jim Philippson, the first soldier to die in the southern province of Helmand, was killed nearby this month in the fiercest battle that British troops have experienced since they arrived in April. Last week more than 30 people were massacred in Sangin, including women and children. The latest Taliban tactic is to don police uniform and set up roadblocks.

"We're taking the campaign into the heartland of the Taliban and we're seizing the initiative back from them," said Lieutenant-Colonel Stuart Tootal, Commander of 3rd Battalion the Parachute Regiment in Sangin yesterday. "We have to be in places like Sangin if this is going to work."

The fact that the British have already established a presence in hostile territory which has been largely under Taliban control is being paraded as a success. But Sangin also highlights the enormous difficulties of the mission. In this parched land starved of development, it is not surprising that the Taliban have found support. Locals admit that they are paid to grow poppies and fight for the Taliban. They argue that they have no alternative.

There are no roads, just stony desert tracks through a series of mud-walled compounds and the bazaar, which is shut except for a man selling motorcycles. But it feels as if eyes are everywhere — most of them ringed with the black kohl eyeliner that the Taliban favour.

"This is hard terrain and the Taliban have the advantage of local knowledge," said Corporal Tom McDermott. "We don't know if people are friend or foe until they fire."

We pass an irrigation ditch where men are bathing. They scowl as British snipers take up position along the bank. A small group is gathered on a corner in front of a two-storey building over a pharmacy and tension grows.

"This is the bad part. We've had information about guys with rocket launchers," said McDermott.

"We definitely have a sense that we're being watched," said Lieutenant Tom Fehley, platoon commander, pointing out that the same motorcycle has passed our patrol three times.

Suddenly a white Toyota Corolla packed with people comes to a halt below. "He's got a weapon in the front!" McDermott shouts. Immediately the paratroopers spread out and take positions on the stony ground.

The operation in Sangin illustrates the nature of the insurgency confronting the British. So hostile is the territory that nobody travels by road. Troops and supplies are dropped by helicopters which hover low so that everyone can jump on or off. They always fly in pairs.

There is so much dust that sometimes it forms a "hot-fog" in which visibility is less than 10 metres. One paratrooper nearly lost his sight after dust behind his contact lens caused an ulcer.

"It's very complex," Tootal admits. "It's tribal, it's narco-related, it has religious sensitivities and Taliban all mixed in and there are no clear-cut divisions between who is enemy and who is not."

His men provide the main combat force in Helmand and it was 3 Parachute Regiment A company under Major Will Pike, who were called in to secure Sangin on Wednesday after the massacre. They arrived as the sun was rising and although they did not have to fight their way in as expected, they know there are Taliban nearby.

"We know they will try and take us on and we're ready," said Pike. After two lengthy firefights in the past three weeks in which the paras have come out on top, he says his men feel confident. "We've shown what we can do to them," he added.

However, all the men say they have been surprised at both the commitment and organisation of the Taliban, using the same tactics that they themselves would use.

"This is the biggest challenge I've faced in 14 years in the army," said Pike, whose company was previously stationed in Iraq. "The Taliban have certainly been more keen to have a fight than we expected. What we really need to do is get the local people on our side."

To try to win over the people of Sangin, British officials yesterday held a shura, a meeting of local tribal elders. Once the area had been secured, Colonel Charlie Knaggs, the British commander, and Mohammed Daud, the governor of Helmand, flew in to sit cross-legged under a mulberry tree with about 50 bearded men, and ask them what they wanted.

Voices were soon raised. The main complaints were over lack of development and security. "Look at this place, we have nothing. We need bridges, schools, clinics," said Mohammed Safir.

"I can't understand all this political talking," countered Haji Azizullah, one of the most senior tribal leaders. "I just understand how to grow poppy and we're worried the British want to destroy that and then we can't feed our families." Others nodded in agreement.

"People here have a pretty stark choice — either they want the government or the Taliban," said Knaggs. "They're in a pretty nasty situation. They're held hostage by the poppy and the druglords on one side and also held hostage by the Taliban. They can see very little viable alternative.

"Our challenge is to convince the people and win them over, and a lot of that is providing a secure environment so that the (Afghan) government and NGOs (non-governmental organisations) can then come in with development work."

The Department for International Development has pledged £30m to Helmand but most aid agencies consider the province too dangerous a place in which to operate.

At the end of the shura, the governor gave the elders three days to decide whether they would support the Taliban or the government. But he said the fact that only 50 had come from a large district showed how nervous people were. "They are scared," he said. "They feel the British will go and the bad guys will still be there."

Daud is worried that the high number of casualties from the ongoing Operation Mountain Thrust, a US-led operation to flush out the Taliban from southern Afghanistan, might make the job of the British harder by turning people against foreign troops. It was reported yesterday that 80 militants had been killed.

The governor also questions whether with 3,300 men — of whom only 800 are combat troops — the British have enough forces to stay in places until they are secure. "It's no good having meetings like this in a compound when the reality is you can't even go 1km down the road either way," he said.

"You have to tailor your campaign to what you have," the Commander of 3 Para replied. "The way we patrol and develop here is obviously going to take a bit of time but just the fact that we're here in Sangin shows a start."

[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.]