In this bulletin:

• Four killed in Afghanistan bombing
• French special forces officer killed in Afghanistan
• Musharraf Accuses Some Afghans of Conspiring Against Pakistan
• Where the Taleban Train
• Dozens dead in Pakistan clashes
• Taliban stop tribal elders from visiting govt official
• Pakistan committed to terror war but more work needed: Bush
• Bush visits two hot spots in South Asia
• Bush U-turn on Iranian pipeline
• U.S. Military Deaths in Afghanistan
• Mounting dangers leave Canadians split over Afghanistan mission: Bring troops home, say 48 per cent in poll
• Norway to keep troops in Afghanistan
• Karzai launches anti-polio campaign
• Afghan women encouraged to begin worshipping in mosques
• 942kg of narcotics torched in Herat
• Non-payment of salaries: Teachers boycott classes
• Work resumes on Kunar - Jalalabad road
• PRT-built schools inaugurated in Herat
• Four years after fall of Taliban, leader's power barely extends beyond the capital
• Afghan project a noble cause

Four killed in Afghanistan bombing

Kandahar (AFP) - A roadside bomb ripped through a government vehicle, killing a district intelligence chief and three bodyguards in troubled southern Afghanistan, an official said.

Mohammad Ali Barak, intelligence chief of insurgency-hit Helmand province's Nad Ali district, was killed when a remote-controlled device hit his vehicle, district administrative chief Asadullah Sherzad said on Saturday.

Three bodyguards travelling with him in the car were also killed in the attack in the restive province, a hotbed of Taliban violence over the past four years since the toppling of the regime.

The attack was carried out by Taliban loyalists, Qari Mohammad Yousuf Ahmadi, a purported spokesman for the ousted regime told AFP from an unknown location. "We carried out the attack. The intelligence chief and several other soliders were killed," Yousuf said.

Remnants of the Taliban who were overthrown by a US-led invasion in late 2001 continue to wage a guerrilla-like insurgency against the US-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.

Thousands of people -- many of them militants -- have been killed since the toppling of the Taliban. The violence mainly blamed on the remnants of the Taliban killed more than 1,700 people in 2005, while another 100 have died this year.

Most of these attacks occur in the southern and eastern parts of the country, a tough terrain along the Pakistani border.

French special forces officer killed in Afghanistan

Paris (AFP) - A French special forces officer was killed in clashes with Taliban forces in southern Afghanistan, the defence ministry and the military said in a joint statement.

The statement gave no details of the death of the officer of a marine commando unit, the second French soldier to be killed in action in Afghanistan. Some 200 French special forces troops under US command are fighting guerrillas of the former Taliban regime in southeast Afghanistan, the statement said.

Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie had sent her condolences to the family of the dead officer, who was not identified.

Musharraf Accuses Some Afghans of Conspiring Against Pakistan - By Stephanie Ho Washington 05 March 2006 - VOA

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is lashing out at elements in Afghanistan's government he says are trying to lay all the blame on his country for failing to capture wanted al-Qaida terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.

More than four years have passed since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States stunned Americans and grabbed world headlines. Although the mastermind behind the attacks, Saudi-born Osama bin Laden, has not been caught, he is believed to be hiding out in the mountainous region near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. There have been frequent clashes on both sides of the border with suspected al-Qaida and Taleban militants.

During his trip to South Asia, where he stopped in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, President Bush noted both countries are involved in efforts to catch bin Laden.

"I am confident he will be brought to justice," said President Bush. "What is happening is that we have got U.S. forces on the hunt, not only for Bin Laden, but anyone who plots and plans with bin Laden. There are Afghan forces on the hunt for, not only bin Laden, but those who plot and plan with him. We have got Pakistan forces on the hunt."

As both Afghanistan and Pakistan work to strengthen their relationships with the United States, bin Laden's whereabouts and the efforts to find him can sometimes be a sensitive subject.

Recent media reports said Afghan intelligence agents believe bin Laden is in Pakistani territory. In an interview on CNN's Late Edition program, Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf alleged that there are elements in the Afghan government that intentionally try to make his country look bad.

"I am totally disappointed with their intelligence, and I feel there is a very, very deliberate attempt to malign Pakistan, by some agents," said Pervez Musharraf.

An animated President Musharraf suggested Afghan President Hamid Karzai is out of touch. "President Karzai is totally oblivious of what is happening in his own country," he said. "So, therefore, I would say he should pull up his intelligence. He should pull up his Ministry of Defense."

Speaking on the same program, NATO Supreme Allied Commander James Jones said he is not aware of any new information regarding bin Laden's whereabouts, but noted President Bush's assurances during his visit to the region that the al-Qaida leader will eventually be captured.

"But I do agree with the president [Bush] that, if he [bin Laden] is still alive, there is reason to believe that we will eventually be successful," said James Jones.

General Jones said one of the most important factors in that success is good working relationships across both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border. More than 8,000 troops in NATO's International Security Assistance Forces are in Afghanistan, conducting peacekeeping and development operations. Pakistani authorities said Sunday, dozens of militants were killed in clashes near the Afghan border.

Where the Taleban Train

Quetta serves as training ground and staging post for insurgents on their way to Afghanistan.

Institute For War and Peace Reporting
By Abdullah Shahin in Quetta (ARR No. 205, 3-Mar-06)

The turbans in black or white, the long beards and the omnipresent "pirhan-tunbon", the baggy trousers and long shirts that are the traditional Afghan dress, tell me I'm in Afghanistan in the late Nineties, during the Taleban regime.

But this is 2006, and I am in Quetta in Pakistan. Quetta, the capital of the Pakistani province of Baluchistan, lies about 200 kilometres southeast of Kandahar, across a porous border. Many of my fellow countrymen have made the journey here. In fact, some sections of the city seem to be populated almost entirely by Taleban who fled after the United States-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.

Now they lie in wait in Quetta, plotting their return. Over the last year, Kandahar has seen an alarming rise in suicide bombings and attacks on troops and government installations. In the past three months alone, there have been more than 20 acts of violence, leaving dozens dead, hundreds wounded, and an entire province terrorised.

Quetta provides a ready supply of young men prepared to wreak havoc in Afghanistan, local observers tell me. There are eight major madrassas or Muslim religious schools in Quetta, each with over 1,000 students or "taleban" in the original sense of the word. In addition, there are hundreds of private madrassas, some with just 100 students, often occupying unmarked, rented houses.

It is these private schools that are a major source of the fighters who are now carrying out insurgent operations inside Kandahar, according to these observers.

One 23-year-old madrassa student, wearing the characteristic black turban of the "taleb", spoke to me on condition of anonymity. “I am preparing for jihad here, until I am sent to Afghanistan,” he said. “Jihad is my duty and martyrdom my hope.” Another Taleb, 25-year-old Saadullah, explained why he had decided to wage jihad in his homeland.

“I was recruited by one of my friends who told me terrible things about the Afghan government,” he said. “I was also told that the Americans were always abusing people, killing them, going into their homes and insulting their religion.”

Mullahs did their part, too, he added, preaching fiery sermons against the Afghan government and the American occupiers during Friday prayers. Saadullah said he was dispatched on a mission to Kandahar to fight both Afghan and foreign troops.

“I was to carry out a suicide attack on an Afghan National Army base in Kandahar,” he said. But at the border, the friend who was supposed to be accompanying him on the mission gave him 30 US dollars, wished him luck, and headed back to Quetta.

“I thought, ‘Why am I to die while you go back to Quetta?’” Saadullah recalled. “Why are these people not doing jihad themselves? They're just taking advantage of the emotions of young people. They are liars. "I came back and I will never have anything to do with them again.”

With Pakistani police a rare sight in much of this city, Quetta residents say that the Taleban operate with impunity. They run offices and openly recruit candidates for insurgent operations in Kandahar.

One resident called Abdullah, 40, said the city contains a number of prominent Taleban leaders such as military commanders Mullah Dadullah and Mullah Abdul Ali Dubandi. “The whole world knows that the Taleban are trained in Pakistan but they ignore it. The Taleban are all over Quetta,” he said.

When you walk through the streets of Quetta, you hear Taleban religious songs blaring out of music stores. These incendiary chants, called "tarana", call on youths to join the jihad, kill infidels and repel the occupiers. Such recordings were banned a few years ago, but now they are back.

“Pakistani police used to close down shops that played Taleban songs, but now no one is afraid. The mullahs are very strong,” said one shop owner. A bookseller who did not want to be named said, “The Taleban are putting out magazines. These publications used to be banned, but now they're published openly and we sell them in our stores.”

The magazines, like the songs, contain open calls to violence. “When you read them, you just want to grab a gun and go to jihad,” said the bookseller. Mullahs here openly incite their followers to attack the current Afghan government. In Friday sermons, they encourage the congregation to join the struggle.

“These attacks should continue. Our struggle is legal. We want to install an Islamic regime in Afghanistan,” said one mullah in the Chawlo Bawlo area of the city. Some city residents claim that the Pakistani military is playing a role in training the would-be insurgents.

“The Pakistani military headquarters in Quetta is the main Taleban training base,” said Tariq, 31, a resident of the Askari Park area. “I've seen with my own eyes that Taleban were taken there for training. One of my relatives was among them.”

Military officials refused to comment on the allegation. Governor Owai Ahmad Ghani, speaking on Pakistani television, flatly denied that the Taleban were operating in Quetta and rejected claims that Pakistan was interfering in Afghanistan.

“The Afghan government is weak. It can't control the remote areas of its country, so it accuses Pakistan of meddling in its affairs,” he said. Taleban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, in an exclusive interview with IWPR, said the stories of Taleban bases inside Pakistan were just propaganda. “People think Pakistan is our friend, but it is not true,” he said. “Pakistan is an ally of America, not of the Taleban.”

The Taleban had no need of foreign bases, he insisted, adding, “The Taleban are sons of Afghanistan. They are in Afghanistan and they will fight in Afghanistan.”

But Afghan officials remain convinced that Pakistan is serving as a major operations base for the increasingly frequent insurgent attacks that threaten to destabilise the southern part of their country.

In mid-February, Afghan president Hamed Karzai led a high-ranking delegation to Pakistan, telling officials there that Afghanistan would no longer tolerate support for terrorists from across the border. While he stopped short of outright accusations, Karzai made it clear that he expected Pakistan to make serious efforts to halt the flow of personnel and weapons across the border.

“If [the attacks] don’t stop, the consequences… will be that this region will suffer with us, exactly as we suffer. In the past we suffered alone. This time everybody will suffer with us,” Karzai told reporters.

Assadullah Khalid, governor of Kandahar province, has repeatedly alleged that Pakistan is behind the recent wave of attacks. In particular, he blamed Pakistan for a suicide bombing that killed 27 and wounded 40 in Spin Boldak in January.

“Pakistan is responsible for the past two decades of war,” he said. “Pakistani police are guarding the houses of the Taleban. We have evidence indicating that memorial services for the suicide bombers are being held in Pakistan.”

Even some Pakistani politicians and analysts agree that their country is heavily involved in creating mayhem on its neighbour’s territory. “Pakistan does not want stability in Afghanistan,” said Hasel Bizenjo, leader of the Baluch National Party, which represents ethnic Baluchis. “Pakistan wants Afghanistan under its influence.”

Awrangzeb Kasi, a Pakistani political analyst in Quetta, said he believes that there are special terrorist training camps in Pakistan. “There have been terrorist camps in Pakistan for 26 years, where Inter Services Intelligence [ISI] provides training” he said. “The Pakistani government is always saying that it supports peace in the region, and that it will arrest al-Qaeda leaders, but it is really not doing anything.”

Abdul Rahim Mandokhel, the Quetta-based deputy leader of Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami, an ethnic Pashtun party in Pakistan, agrees. “It is clear that these terrorists are trained and supported by Islamabad,” he said. “Pakistan can stop these terrorists, but it doesn’t want to.”

Dozens dead in Pakistan clashes

MIRAN SHAH, Pakistan (AP) 03.05.06 -- Pakistan's army retaliated with helicopter gunships and artillery after pro-Taliban tribesmen clashed with security forces Saturday near the Afghan border. At least 49 people were killed in the fighting, a spokesman said.

Anger has been stirring among the tribesmen since a military strike on a suspected al Qaeda camp earlier this week in the nearby village of Saidgi.

Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, the army spokesman, said 25 militants were killed in Miran Shah and 21 in Mir Ali, but he added the toll could be higher. Three government troops also died and about 10 were wounded, he said.

An intelligence official in the area said a fourth soldier was killed late Saturday in Miran Shah, and the body of a fifth was found in Mir Ali on Sunday. The fighting petered out early Sunday, the official said on condition of anonymity because of the secretive nature of his job.

Intercepts of radio communications between militants involved in the fighting in the towns of Miran Shah and Mir Ali in North Waziristan tribal region suggested 80 or more fighters had died, security and intelligence officials said on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to comment to media.

The violence came as President Bush visited the capital, Islamabad, about 190 miles to the northeast, and voiced solidarity with Pakistan's President Gen. Pervez Musharraf in fighting terrorism.

Pakistan has deployed about 80,000 troops along the Afghan frontier but has failed to establish government control in tribal regions that have resisted outside influence for centuries.

Waziristan is known as a hotbed of al Qaeda and Taliban militants who draw support from the local Pashtun tribal people. Many of the rebellious tribesmen involved in Saturday's unrest were believed to be Islamic students who are sympathetic with the hard-line Taliban militia.

Military officials said 45 people, including foreign militants, were killed in Wednesday's attack by helicopter gunships and ground forces on Saidgi, about 10 miles from Miran Shah. The tribesmen claim local people died in the attack.

Saturday's fighting began in Mir Ali, when tribesmen opened fire on vehicles carrying paramilitary rangers, an army officer said.

The fighting spread to nearby Miran Shah, where about 500 tribesmen traded fire with paramilitary forces in the bazaar and, according to security officials, occupied some government buildings. Both sides could be seen firing mortars and assault rifles. Some mortar shells hit closed shops.

Soon after the clashes started, phone lines to the town went dead.

The army spokesman said the tribesmen started firing rockets at a Frontiers Corps base in Miran Shah and the army responded with artillery fire. Officials said helicopter gunships also targeted the tribal fighters' positions.

"We think about 25 militants have been killed. It could be higher," Sultan told The Associated Press.

A senior intelligence official, who declined to be identified, said the army had destroyed a hotel in Miran Shah bazaar that the tribal militants had used as a position for firing rockets.

Sultan said the militants were led by a local cleric Maulvi Abdul Khaliq, who this week called for a jihad, or holy war, against Pakistan's army.

Earlier Saturday, Khaliq had demanded that authorities stop killing "innocent" people in military operations and urged local elders, in an announcement broadcast from mosques and loudspeakers mounted on pickup trucks, to stop contact with the local government as a protest against the Saidgi operation.

Bazaars and government offices closed after the announcement and 500 families left town fearing a showdown, said a local intelligence official, who declined to be named because he is not authorized to comment. Another official in the town said many families had left in haste, without packing many belongings.

Taliban stop tribal elders from visiting govt official – Daily Times (PAK)

MIRANSHAH: Senior Taliban commander Maulvi Abdul Khaliq issued on Friday “a new executive order” to bar “tribal elders” and “spies” from visiting the North Waziristan political administrator.

The order, which comes a day after hundreds of Taliban seized government buildings, was passed during Friday sermons in Miranshah, said eyewitnesses. “I ask all tribal chieftains and spies to not visit the political agent,” said Khaliq. He added the Taliban Shura would recommend punish to violators of the order. However, the Taliban leader allowed laymen to visit the government offices to address their problems.

A statement from the Governor’s FATA Secretariat named the cleric as “masterminding” Thursday’s occupation of key government buildings in Miranshah where state writ was almost non-existent. “The mastermind of (Thursday’s) disturbance was Maulvi Abdul Khaliq, who is running Darul Uloom Gulshan in Miranshah. He called the people to come out on streets against the government.”

“This man has lost so much popularity because of his extremism that people did not allow him to lead the funeral prayers for a local tribesman, Muhib, killed in Wednesday’s clash in Saidgai,” the statement read.

Also, the cleric supporters detained a local tribal journalist for a news report against him. Abdul Samad, correspondent of Peshawar-based Urdu daily in Miranshah, was called to the cleric’s seminary for the statement that the Governor’s FATA Secretariat issued late on Thursday evening, the newspaper’s management told Daily Times.

“Our correspondent was allowed to go home after clarifying that he had nothing to do with the statement. The cleric has also banned the sale of three Urdu newspapers that carried the official statement,” the management added.

Pakistan committed to terror war but more work needed: Bush

Islamabad (AFP) - US President George W. Bush, on the final leg of a first South Asian tour, praised Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf for his commitment to the war on terror but said more work was needed to defeat Al-Qaeda.

Bush reaffirmed what he called the broad and lasting strategic partnership between Washington and Islamabad, forged after the Islamic extremist network's deadly September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

Military ruler Musharraf said Pakistan and the US had strengthened their ties and were looking forward to a new era of cooperation, yet admitted to "slippages" in the fight against militants.

"President Musharraf made a bold decision for his people and for peace after September 11 when Pakistan chose to fight terror," Bush told a joint press conference after talks with Musharraf lasting more than an hour.

The Pakistani leader has survived three assassination attempts since he abandoned Islamabad's support for Afghanistan's Taliban and backed the US-led military operation to topple the ultra-conservative regime.

"Part of my mission today was to determine whether or not the president is as committed as he has been in the past to bringing these terrorists to justice, and he is," Bush said.

"He understands the stakes, he understands the responsibility and he understands the need to make sure our strategy is able to defeat the enemy."

Unprecedented security surrounding Bush's first trip to Pakistan illustrated the scale of the terror threat in Pakistan, with police shutting down the centre of the city and two US Black Hawk helicopters circling overhead.

When asked about concerns that Pakistan has not done enough to crack down on extremists, Bush replied: "There is a lot of work to be done in defeating Al-Qaeda. "The president and I know that, we spent a good while this morning talking about what needs to be done."

Musharraf thanked the United States for its support both in the war on terror and expressed regret at a suicide attack that killed a US diplomat a day before Bush's arrival, saying it was timed "very viciously".

Musharraf said his talks with Bush had "revived and maybe strengthened" the strategic relationship with the United States and said that Pakistan had the strategies to deal with the twin problems of terrorism and extremism.

"If at all there are slippages it is possible in the implementation part. But as long as the intention is clear, the resolve is there and the strategy is clear, we are moving forward towards delivering and we will succeed."

Pakistan was also grateful for US aid following last October's devastating South Asian earthquake, which killed more than 74,000 people, Musharraf said.

In a joint statement issued after the talks the two sides resolved to "increase their efforts to reduce the threat of terrorism regionally and internationally."

Bush also urged his Pakistani counterpart to hold "open and honest" elections in 2007 and told him that democracy was the way to defeat terrorism.

The US leader's visit has sparked demonstrations by thousands of people and a strike led by Islamists opposed to Musharraf, who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999.

On Saturday Pakistani police detained opposition leaders and placed politician and former cricketer Imran Khan under house arrest to thwart a planned protest march to Islamabad from the nearby city of Rawalpindi.

Khan told AFP that his detention showed Bush "agrees with Musharraf's version of democracy, which is that you can clamp down on anyone who protests against you."

For Pakistan the visit was a chance to consolidate its relationship with Washington, after Bush hailed a new strategic partnership with Islamabad's traditional rival New Delhi that he earlier said could "transform the world".

Bush clinched a landmark nuclear energy deal with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during a three-day stay in India before coming to Pakistan. He made a surprise visit to Afghanistan on Wednesday.

Pakistan says it wants a "similar" arrangement despite a proliferation scandal involving its disgraced top nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan.

Bush said Saturday he had no objections to an Iranian linked pipeline to supply natural gas to India and Pakistan. However, he indicated that the United States was unlikely to agree a civilian nuclear deal with Pakistan like it had with India.

Bush was later due to attend a state banquet -- which opposition legislators have vowed to boycott -- and to watch a cricket match between young Pakistani players.

Bush visits two hot spots in South Asia

Islamabad (Reuters) - Getting U.S. President George W. Bush into not one but two battlegrounds in the war on terrorism -- Pakistan and Afghanistan -- stretched his security detail but Bush was adamant about going despite the risks.

In doing so, he offered a boost to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, both struggling to contain Islamist militants trying to destabilize their governments.

The trouble for Musharraf and Karzai is that many of their countrymen see them as lackeys of Bush, a U.S. president whose own job approval ratings at home have fallen below 40 percent due largely to the Iraq war and a bungled response to Hurricane Katrina.

By making the trip, Bush may well have been within several hundred miles of Osama bin Laden, the elusive al Qaeda leader who Bush wanted "dead or alive." Many intelligence analysts believe bin Laden is hiding in the remote mountains along the Pakistan border with Afghanistan.

Some in the Bush entourage wondered whether Bush would alter his schedule after a suicide car bombing in Karachi killed a U.S. diplomat a day before he was due to arrive in Pakistan.

The Texan, whose presidency has been dominated by fighting Islamist militancy, quickly scotched any doubts. "Terrorists and killers are not going to prevent me from going to Pakistan," he told reporters in New Delhi.

As a security precaution, Air Force One brought Bush to Pakistan's military's Chaklala Air Base outside Islamabad under cover of darkness, window shades ordered closed.

There were scores of U.S. security personnel waiting on the runway, with barbed wire and parked buses strategically placed to stop any would-be attacker breaking through.

As a further precaution, tactics were used to make it unclear to the press pool with Bush whether he traveled from the air base to the heavily fortified U.S. embassy by motorcade or by helicopter where he stayed on Friday night.

Aides said Bush insisted on going in order to demonstrate U.S. solidarity with Musharraf, who has survived several assassination attempts since becoming one of the United States' key allies since the September 11 al Qaeda attacks.

Bush's visit to Afghanistan carried risks as well. He said he had wanted to go there ever since the Taliban was toppled from power in late 2001, and finally got his chance, but it was no surprise that the White House kept the trip secret until just a few hours before Bush was due to land.

After flying over the barren mountains of Afghanistan, Air Force One dropped quickly, banked hard and landed at high speed at Bagram Air Base.

Helicopters flying remarkably low to the dusty ground to avoid chances of any militant getting lucky with a rocket-propelled grenade then took Bush and his entourage from Bagram to Kabul.

On board one of the choppers, reporters were jarred when door gunners sprayed machinegun fire out at the barren countryside. Who they were firing at was unclear. It might have been a test fire. But it was a clear sign Bush had entered hostile territory.

Bush U-turn on Iranian pipeline – BBC

President George W Bush has indicated the US has dropped its staunch opposition to a proposed gas pipeline from Iran to India via Pakistan. Mr Bush said on his visit to Pakistan he understood the need for natural gas in the region and that the US argument with Iran was over nuclear weapons.

The $6bn project for the 2,600km (1,625 mile) pipeline will bring Iran revenue, Pakistan transit fees and India energy. The nations hope to start construction in 2007, with key talks due this month.

The US had previously stated it was "absolutely opposed" to the gas pipeline, even indicating Pakistan and India could face sanctions if the project got under way.

But in Islamabad, Mr Bush said: "Our beef with Iran is not the pipeline, our beef with Iran is... they want to develop a nuclear weapon and I believe a nuclear weapon in the hands of the Iranians will be very dangerous for all of us."

He said he had discussed the pipeline with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and understood "the need to get natural gas in the region, that's fine". Mr Bush said his secretary of energy would visit Pakistan to discuss Islamabad's energy needs.

However, Mr Bush indicated there was no current likelihood for a civilian nuclear deal between the US and Pakistan similar to the one he has signed with India.

Mr Bush said: "We discussed the civilian nuclear programme and I explained to him that Pakistan and India are different countries with different needs and different histories."

The US-India deal gives Delhi access to US technology although it has not signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.

Pakistan said it had asked for similar treatment but Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri accepted things "do not happen overnight". Two years ago Pakistani scientist AQ Khan admitted leaking nuclear secrets to countries such as Iran, Libya and North Korea.

U.S. Military Deaths in Afghanistan

(AP) - As of Mar. 3, 2006, at least 216 members of the U.S. military have died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to the Defense Department. Of those, the military reports 133 were killed by hostile action.

Outside the Afghan region, the Defense Department reports 56 more members of the U.S. military died in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Of those, two are the result of hostile action. The military lists these other locations as: Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba, Djibouti, Eritrea, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Philippines, Seychelles, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey and Yemen. There was also one military civilian death and four CIA officer deaths.

Mounting dangers leave Canadians split over Afghanistan mission: Bring troops home, say 48 per cent in poll - by Mike Blanchfield, Ottawa Citizen; CanWest News Service OTTAWA -

With casualties mounting daily, a new poll shows Canadians are sharply divided about the country's stepped-up military combat mission in Afghanistan. The IpsosReid poll, conducted for CanWest News Service and Global News, found 52 per cent of Canadians feel the 2,200 Canadian Forces troops deployed to Kandahar are on a vital mission and should stay the course, while 48 per cent said the troops should be brought home as soon as possible.

The poll also found 54 per cent of those surveyed support the use of Forces personnel for "security and combat efforts against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan." But that number is down significantly from January 2002, when Canadian troops first deployed to Afghanistan.Four years ago, 66 per cent of those surveyed supported a combat role. The telephone survey of 800 respondents was conducted Thursday and Friday, the same days as a fatal road accident that killed one Canadian soldier and a second was seriously wounded in a suicide bomb attack.

The poll had a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. Ipsos Reid president Darrell Bricker said the numbers show the government must clearly explain to Canadians why it is necessary for their soldiers to be in harm's way in Afghanistan because as casualties mount, it will become icreasingly harder to make the case for the mission. "Clearly what we're seeing, given that the numbers have dropped in the last four years on this, quite clearly the message isn't as compelling as it was four years ago. It's a harder sell to make," said Bricker. "There is a very good reason for being there.

And if you can articulate it clearly, those numbers can go back in the opposite direction." Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay said Friday the government would stay the course in Afghanistan, because the Conservatives supported the mission last year when they were in opposition,0 and they will stand behind it as the government. But MacKay offered no indication of how the government will try to resell the need to be in Afghanistan to the Canadian public, where support appears to be wavering in the face of almost daily news of increased threats to Canadian troops in Kandahar. MacKay did say there have been high-level meetings with Gen.

Rick Hillier, the chief of the defence staff, over the last few days. “We have extremely competent professional troops on the ground, doing the important work to elevate the people of Afghanistan in their struggles there," said MacKay. "We don't intend to back away from that commitment. We're going to be there, and we're going to be there with our allies to support his mission." Canada assumed command this week of an expanded international mission in southern Afghanistan, under NATO, that will partner its troops with British and Dutch forces, some 6,000 in all, to counter Taliban and al-Qaeda insurgents in the lawless southern part of the country. The mission is the most hostile undertaken by the Canadian Forces since the Korean War half a century ago.

Former Defence minister Bill Graham and Hillier tried to warn Canadians last year this mission was a radical departure from the Forces traditional peacekeeping role and would entail casualties. Canada's military involvement in Afghanistan is now the cornerstone of the country's foreign policy, with military officials within Canada and its coalition partner countries predicting long-term military involvement of up to 10 years or more. But it is in only in the last week that some polls have questioned whether Canadians really understood the risks. However, Bricker said when Quebec is taken out of this recent poll, support for the mission actually rises throughout Canada.

A total of 70 per cent of Quebec respondents said Canadian troops should be brought home, while another 67 per cent of Quebecers said they object to Forces troops being used in combat missions against al- Qaeda and the Taliban. Meanwhile, Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta offered much stronger support for the Afghan mission. A clear majority of Ontarians (63 per cent), Albertans (58 per cent) and British Columbians (55 per cent) said troops should stay in Afghanistan.

As for whether they should be used in combat missions, the answer was yes from 65 per cent of Ontarians, 60 per cent of British Columbians, 58 per cent of Albertans and 54 per cent from Saskatchewan and Manitoba. "It's a tale of two nations on international affairs," said Bricker. "It goes back to just about everything, whether it is the conscription crisis in the First and Second World Wars. ... All through Canadian history, Quebec has been decidedly less interventionist than the rest of the country."

Norway to keep troops in Afghanistan - News.com –Australia - From correspondents in Oslo - 04mar06

NORWAY will maintain its military contingent in Afghanistan despite an attack on a Norwegian base in which six Norwegian servicemen were injured, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said overnight.

"Norway is going to stay in Afghanistan with troops," Mr Stoltenberg told a press conference in the presence of visiting NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.

"It was very serious when the base with Norwegian soldiers was attacked not many weeks ago, but we are not going to change our approach," Mr Stoltenberg added.

Norway is a member of NATO and its Afghanistan contingent is part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) serving there.

The six Norwegian soldiers received minor injuries when stones and a hand grenade were hurled during a demonstration at a base at Maimana in northern Afghanistan, in protest against the cartoons in a Danish newspaper depicting the Prophet Mohammed.

Karzai launches anti-polio campaign - Pajhwok report

KABUL, Mar 4 (Pajhwok Afghan News): President Hamid Karzai Saturday launched the anti-polio campaign by administering drops to some children in the Presidential Palace, says a press release issued here.

The release said about 7.2 million children, below five years of age, would be administered polio drops across the country during the recent campaign.

The three-day anti-polio drive will launch from Sunday during which 40,000 volunteer will go from door to door to give anti-polio drops to children. The drops will help strengthen resistance power of children against polio.

The president urged parents to cooperate with the visiting teams by giving drops to their children to avoid them from the disease. Polio attack can create permanent disability among children.

Afghan women encouraged to begin worshipping in mosques

KABUL: Saturday, 4 March, 2006 - Afghanistan’s women’s minister led a group of women to Friday prayers in what she said was a historic move aimed at encouraging women in the devout Islamic nation to start worshipping at mosques.

Women in Afghanistan, whom the previous Taliban government banned from leaving their homes without a male escort, do not traditionally pray in mosques even though this is not specifically against Islam.

Women’s Minister Masooda Jalal led about 40 women to pray at Kabul’s Hazrat Ali mosque, the first in the city to build a special section for female worshippers.

“We want to start a historical movement to give women the opportunity to practice their religious praying within the mosques, outside of their houses,” she said.

While women can pray in mosques in other Islamic countries, this was very rare in Afghanistan, Jalal said. “Some believe that the mosque should belong only to men but we want to make it gender sensitive,” she said.

The post-Taliban constitution adopted in January 2004 provided for equality between the sexes and women should begin exercising their right to worship in mosques, she said.

“It is a social activity, it is encouraging women to come out of their houses,” she added. “We expect women in the provinces, in the districts, in the villages to start coming out and doing their religious practises within the mosques.”

A UN rights report last year said women were still generally viewed as the property of men in Afghanistan and suffered widespread and persistent rights violations, including forced marriages, murder in the name of honour, and sexual and domestic violence. – AFP

942kg of narcotics torched in Herat

HERAT CITY, March 4 (Pajhwok Afghan News): About 942 kilograms of narcotics seized in a string of raids by law-enforcement personnel were torched in the western Herat province on Saturday morning, officials said.

The drugs, mostly opium, were burnt in the presence of Afghanistan's deputy interior minister, the UK ambassador, a US embassy representative and a number of local officials

Deputy Counternarcotics Minister General Daud said: "I laud Herat police and other officials who successfully preventing poppy cultivation and took measures to contain drug-trafficking. Poppy cultivation was still on in three districts of the province, which can affect other areas."

He added the government was determined to banish poppy cultivation and crack down on the drug commerce: "Some police officials were also arrested for involvement in the illicit business," he revealed, without giving their names.

UK Ambassador to Kabul Rosalind Marsden, who described the burning of the narcotics a success in the fight against drugs, said: "Poppy cultivation was a big challenge to Afghanistan's stability and I assure you the UK, with the cooperation of the US, is supporting Afghanistan in curbing the drug trade."

Non-payment of salaries: Teachers boycott classes

LASHKARGAH, Mar 4 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Teachers at the largest high school for boys in the southern Lashkargah city Saturday boycotted classes to protest non-payment of salaries over the last three months.

About 20 teachers went on strike, refusing to teach around 2,000 pupils at the main school of Helmand. The schoolteachers complained they had been going without pay for the last three months.

One of the striking teachers, Shah Wali, said they could not afford to continue with their jobs in the prevailing circumstances. He argued teachers were paid ridiculously low salaries ($60 a month) and that too after inordinate delays.

Another teacher, Abdul Wahid Khan, remarked: "We have to feed our children and meet other family needs. We will be better-off doing manual jobs in the city instead of teaching that doesn't guarantee in-time salary payment."

Mahmood Shah, who asked the students this morning to leave the school, told Pajhwok Afghan News they would not resume their duties unless the government cleared their salaries.

The school headmaster Shadi Khan defended the boycott, contending he could not force the staff to teach without payment.

Students warned they would stage demonstrations if their teachers were not paid. Burhan, heading home before the school was closed for the day, vowed: "We will hold marches in support of the teachers if their boycott continues."

However, Helmand Education Director Haji Muhammad Qasim claimed the teachers' salaries were released regularly, and that their protest was unjust. He explained the teachers were demanding payment for extra coaching (overtime).

The director said he was awaiting a response from the Education Ministry to a letter he sent to Kabul on the issue of extra payment to the teachers. But in Kabul, Deputy Education Minister Seddiq Patman said they had released more than enough money to the Helmand Education Department.

Education remains in a perilous state in the lawless southern zone including Helmand, where schools lack even basic facilities. To make matters worse, insurgents have stepped up arson attacks in recent months, torching schools and warning teachers and students to stay away from educational institutes.

Work resumes on Kunar - Jalalabad road

JALALABAD, March 2 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Construction of the Kunar - Jalalabad road, which was halted for some time, was resumed on Thursday. Contract of the 122-kilometre road was earlier awarded to a Turkish company, CBS but the rest of the work will be completed by an Indian company.

The project would be completed at the cost of $40 million, which is being provided by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Director of the Public Works Department engineer Arif criticised the CBS for its sub-standard work. He said officials of the company would not consult the provincial government.

He said the Indian company was also constructing the third class road. Highways linking provinces must be first class, he suggested.

Speaking to Pajhwok Afghan News, project manager of the Indian company hoped they would complete the work in 13 months if the security situation remained satisfactory. He said their company was busy reconstructing roads leading to Helmand, Taloqan, Kabul and Kandahar.   

Residents of the area have welcomed resumption of construction work. Hafizul Haq Qarizada, resident of the Behsud district of Nangarhar, told this scribe despite lapse of two years, only five per cent work had been done.

He said due to the uneven road, not only transporters overcharging them, but the less than 20 kilometres distance take them more than one hour to reach Jalalabad.

PRT-built schools inaugurated in Herat

KABUL, March 4 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The Italian-led Provincial Reconstruction Team in Herat, placed under the International Assistance Security Force (ISAF), has completed work on an ambitious construction project to build and equip two schools in the Qarabagh District of the province.

Completion of the project, the first of its kind in Herat, took six months and was carried out almost entirely by the Italian PRT - from planning through to final construction. The two schools costing over 200,000 dollars will enable 4,000 children from Qarabagh to receive full-time education.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, organised by the Herat Education Department, Italian Army Colonel Dario Ranieri, commanding officer of the PRT, said: "We are proud to have played such a key part in the construction of these two new schools, and in the wider reconstruction programme to rebuild the Afghan education system. Before the schools were built, children in Qarabagh were taught in tents."

The opening ceremony was attended by the Gurlan district chief, the Herat governor, directors of education, agriculture, water supply and irrigation, the police chief and ISAF's regional coordinator Brigadier General Danilo Errico.

After the ceremony, Italian military personnel and members of the Civil-Military Cooperation team distributed 1700 backpacks to the children, who expressed enthusiasm for the new schools by sitting behind new desks.

Four years after fall of Taliban, leader's power barely extends beyond the capital - Declan Walsh in Kabul and Ewen MacAskill Thursday March 2, 2006 The Guardian

Standing behind George Bush inside his Kabul palace yesterday, Hamid Karzai radiated the trappings of a powerful president: a confident smile, massed security guards and the legitimacy bestowed by the 2004 election in which he won 55% of the vote. He appeared proud as Mr Bush praised Afghanistan for its progress over the past five years.

But outside the palace walls, Mr Karzai's hold on power vacillates sharply. Kabul is a showcase for post-Taliban achievements - growing school attendance, women freely walking the streets and a billion-pound aid industry. But for all its progress, the capital feels like an overcrowded garrison town. Electricity is sporadic, crime is soaring and running water is scarce. Taxis from other cities are turned away at the city limits for fear they might carry militants or suicide bombers. At night the streets are largely deserted, save for twitchy policemen.

Beyond Kabul, Mr Karzai's control ranges from minimal to non-existent. "You have a government but you do not have a state, with institutions and infrastructure," Ayesha Khan, an associate fellow at the foreign affairs thinktank Chatham House, based in London, said yesterday.

Afghanistan is important for Mr Bush and Tony Blair. It is difficult for them to claim the 2003 invasion of Iraq as a success, given the daily horrors. But Afghanistan is not so out of control. There has been visible progress since the 2001 US-led occupation. The biggest success has been the presidential election, in which voter turnout was 70%, of which 42% were women, and the parliamentary and provincial elections in October and November last year, which attracted a turnout of 53%, of which 43% were women. Fears that the remnants of the Taliban and other fighters would disrupt the polling proved groundless.

Other successes include the return of millions of children to school, the rebuilding of 72 hospitals, clinics and women's healthcare centres and health programmes and campaigns which have led to the near-eradication of polio. About 3.5 million refugees, emboldened by news of relative peace, have returned home.

A Kabul to Kandahar highway is a testament to western aid, a smooth corridor of tarmac replacing a bone-jarring track. But as the road heads south, Mr Karzai's grip on power shifts from a sweaty handhold to virtual lawlessness.

North of Kabul security appears better, maintained by the US-trained Afghan National Army, which has more than 30,000 soldiers, backed up by Nato peacekeepers. The British patrol Mazar-i-Sharif, the Germans are in Kunduz, where a bicycle bomb killed a German soldier and two Afghan civilians last week, and the Italians in Herat, where business with nearby Iran is prospering.

But the relative stability of the north is illusory. Mr Karzai has yet to confront the warlords who control most of Afghanistan and have a track record of double-dealing. His inner circle promised that if he won the election he would rid the government of these warlords. But they remain in place. The Uzbek leader, Abdul Rashid Dostum, has the ministry of defence, while the "Lion of Herat", Ismail Khan, was handed the ministry of energy. Mr Karzai has brought them into the political centre, but there has been no reciprocity: Kabul's power does not extend to their fiefdoms.

The violence-ridden southern and eastern provinces are largely devoid of international aid and funded by drug money. The ubiquitous poppy fields feed the heroin habits of Europe and Russia. UN surveys - a new one is to be published today - show huge increases in production since the fall of the Taliban.

The last year has seen a surge in attacks that have killed almost 100 Americans. Aid workers barely venture beyond the cities of Kandahar and Jalalabad. Schools have been attacked and teachers killed.

Testifying in Washington on Tuesday, the director of the Defence Intelligence Agency, Lieutenant General Michael Maples, told Congress: "We judge insurgents now represent a greater threat to the expansion of Afghan government authority than at any point since late 2001, and will be active this spring."

The insurgency is part-Taliban and Pashtun resistance against Kabul and part inspired by al-Qaida, whose leadership, including Osama bin Laden, is thought to be hiding on the border with Pakistan.

One piece of good news for Mr Bush is that the US military presence will drop this spring from 19,000 to 16,000, to be replaced in the south by Nato forces, mainly British. General James Jones, Nato's supreme commander, said on Tuesday he expected these troops to be attacked as their mission expands. "It's logical to say that we will be tested. I think we will pass that test," he said.

Unlike the US military in Iraq, he was optimistic about Afghanistan. "I do not believe there is the capacity for an insurgency of a cohesive nature in this country. The will of the Afghan people is to do exactly what we are helping them do," he said. The point was reinforced by Hikmet Cetin, the Turkish diplomat who is Nato's senior civilian representative in Kabul, who noted the sudden appearance of suicide bombing as a tactic in Afghanistan in January. "Suicide bombing is not part of the culture of this country. They are trying to train people to do it, but I don't think it will be like Iraq," Mr Cetin said.

Afghan project a noble cause – Editorial - London Free Press

With a suicide bombing that injured five Canadian soldiers yesterday coming on the heels of our nation’s 10th death in Afghanistan since 2002, there will be inevitable calls to end our military’s participation there.

But to do so would fly in the face of everything on which Canada prides itself in international affairs.

Certainly, the Afghanistan campaign, which now includes 2,300 Canadian troops, is not a peacekeeping mission. Nor was it ever portrayed as such. But it is also much more than an intervention to track down Taliban and al-Qaida terrorists.

Afghanistan is a nation shattered by more than 25 years of warfare, from its invasion in 1979 by the former Soviet Union, to the guerrilla warfare between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance, and the post 9/11 U.S. intervention.

Portions of that nation lie in ruins. For Afghanistan to have any chance of returning to some sort of normalcy, order must be restored so the rebuilding process can proceed.

Canadian Gen. Rick Hillier told a Toronto newspaper this week that his army’s work there involves negotiating with people, training Afghan police and soldiers, co-operating with the international community and engaging the Taliban to keep it from blocking the work of rebuilding a nation.

While it’s not peacekeeping in its strict definition, it is close to the role Canadians have come to cherish for their soldiers. And the Canadian presence is welcomed by many Afghans because they know the withdrawal of foreign military protection would lead to an escalation of violence.

The needs of Afghanistan are immense, from addressing high infant mortality rates to extreme poverty. Hillier says progress has been made in the north, but the biggest need now is in the south.

Our Afghan campaign got off to a bad start with the public when four Canadian soldiers were killed and eight others injured in an April 2002 friendly-fire incident involving a United States F-16. They were the first Canadian fatalities in a combat zone since the Korean War.

It didn’t ease Canadian resentment when we learned one of the two pilots involved had been told to hold his fire until the target had been identified, but responded that he was “rolling in in self-defence.” He dropped a bomb instead of vacating the area until the target was identified.

Then came the ill-fated U.S. campaign in Iraq (based on the discredited premise Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction), and with it a stigma for anything related to President George W. Bush’s self-declared “war on terror.”

While ferreting out terrorists is part of the Canadian mission in Afghanistan — and a justified one since Canada is on al-Qaida’s hit list — the bigger job is magnanimous in nature.

It’s about bringing safety and security to a country that has seen too little of either in the last 25 years, so its people have a chance to realize what we take for granted. It will not be accomplished overnight.

[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.]