In this bulletin :

• Five dead as bomb hits Afghan police convoy
• Karzai says world unsafe without Pakistan's help
• Violence in Afghanistan: gunmen on motorcycle kill ex-police chief
• Swedish troops take command of ISAF in Afghanistan
• Dutch boost troop presence in Afghanistan
• First Lady Toasts Afghan Author
• Hundreds honour soldiers killed in Afghanistan, Memorial ceremony at Manitoba's CFB Shilo
• Stick with mission, envoy urges
• Injured soldier calls time in Afghanistan 'pretty special'
• Afghanistan commentary
• Partnership Key to Progress in Afghanistan, U.S. General Says
• Rice Thanks Australian Troops for Work in Afghanistan, Iraq
• Pakistan bans two Afghan TV channels
• FEATURE-Taliban, poverty fueling Afghan opium boom
• Military watching for signs of Taliban offensive: general
• Afghan police arrest men with letters from Mulla Omar and Zawahri
• Feature: Where government job is a life risk
• UNHCR pledges to assist Afghan refugees' voluntary return
• Afghan family cries for fallen father

Five dead as bomb hits Afghan police convoy

By NOOR KHAN KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) - A roadside bomb hit a convoy carrying the bodies of four men believed to be Macedonians kidnapped in southern Afghanistan a day after the remains were recovered, a provincial governor said. Five policemen were killed and three wounded.

Kandahar Gov. Asadullah Khalid said the bodies of the foreigners were found late Thursday in a mountainous region in the Maywand district of Kandahar province.

"We sent an investigation team to the Maywand area where we found the bodies of the four foreigners in the mountains," Khalid told The Associated Press.

Khalid did not explain how he knew the four bodies were those of the Macedonians, employees of the German company Ecolog abducted last Saturday in either Kandahar or neighbouring Helmand province.

But he said the hunt was launched after a purported spokesman for the Taliban claimed this week that it had shot the Macedonians and abandoned their bodies near a main road between the two provinces.

"The police (convoy) bringing the dead bodies of these four foreigners was hit by a roadside bomb on the highway between Kandahar and Maywand," Khalid said. "One of the vehicles was hit and the others in the convoy continued on to Kandahar with the bodies."

The bodies were being transported to Kabul, he said.

At Ecolog's head office in Duesseldorf, Germany, company spokesman Marc-Oliver Huhnholz said he could not confirm that the bodies of the missing employees had been found.

"We are still in contact with officials but they haven't confirmed to us that they have found the bodies," Huhnholz said. "We are still waiting for information."

Ecolog provides sanitation services at U.S. and Afghan army bases.

Meanwhile, a roadside bomb hit a convoy of NATO troops in northeastern Afghanistan on Friday, damaging one vehicle but causing no casualties, an official said.

The blast happened at 10 a.m. in Fayzabad, the capital of Badakhshan province, and the second of three vehicles in the convoy sustained minor damage, said Lieut. Riccardo Cristoni of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.

Cristoni would not disclose the nationalities of the people travelling in the convoy, but said German personnel run a reconstruction team in the province.

The German Defence Ministry confirmed the explosion.

Provincial deputy governor Shams-ul Rahman said the remote-control bomb was planted near a bridge built under the auspices of the NATO reconstruction team.

Karzai says world unsafe without Pakistan's help

Daily times, Pakistan 03/17/2006

• Pakistan Foreign Office says Afghan president should address concerns to Islamabad, not media
• Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah played down the row with Pakistan, calling only for continued cooperation

KABUL - Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday demanded Pakistan's full cooperation in the fight against terrorism, saying that without Islamabad's help the world would never be safe.

The Afghan leader said at a media conference with visiting Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper that the world must unite against militancy because "terrorism can affect any one, anytime and anywhere". "Pakistan and Afghanistan are the central pieces in this war against terror and unless there is sincere, intense, systematic cooperation from all sides, the world would not be safe," Karzai said.

"Therefore it is extremely important that our brothers in Pakistan join us in the most intense manner — that is the need of the hour in the fight against terrorism," he said..

Foreign Office spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam criticized Karzai's comments and said he should direct his concerns to Pakistani authorities and not the media. "It doesn't help the United States, the war against terror and Pakistan-Afghan relations," Aslam said. "Nobody should doubt Pakistan's sincerity to fight terrorism."

Afghanistan's Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah on Tuesday played down the row with Pakistan over efforts to fight cross-border terrorism, calling only for continued cooperation. Abdullah, visiting Malaysia to seek greater business investment, acknowledged Pakistan had contributed "a lot" to the fight against militants blamed for a surge of attacks in his country.

Pakistan has "arrested many members of Al Qaeda which, had they not been arrested, they would have been a problem for Pakistan, and they would have been a problem for Afghanistan, and for stability in our region," he told a press conference. "But I think we need to continue to work together in order to overcome this problem," he said.

"Has there been cooperation? Yes. Do we need to continue our cooperation in this field? Yes, of course." Asked about the recent suicide attack on Afghan Senate chief Sebghatullah Mujadidi, which the target has blamed on Pakistan, Abdullah refused to address the allegations.

"There is no doubt that terrorists are behind these things. In anything on the specifics of it, of course once the investigation is done, the official position of the government will be said," he said.

Violence in Afghanistan: gunmen on motorcycle kill ex-police chief

PRAVDA (Russia) / March 17, 2006

Gunmen firing from a motorcycle killed a former police chief as violence surged in a southern Afghanistan Taliban stronghold, police said Friday.

Abdullah Khan was killed Thursday afternoon while driving his car in Argandab, a town in the southern Zabul province about 160 kilometers (100 miles) northeast of Kandahar, said Zabul province Police Chief Ghulam Nabi Malakhail.

Two unidentified gunmen on a motorcycle fired at Khan's car and then fled the scene, said Malakhail.

No motive was known for the slaying of Khan, who was replaced 18 months ago as a district police chief in Zabul, which borders Pakistan.

Police late Thursday also raided a home and detained three suspected Taliban members in Zabul's provincial capital of Qalat, about 60 kilometers (40 miles) south of Argandab, Malakhail said.

It was not immediately clear if the detained men had been involved in any of the recent spate of attacks across southern Afghanistan targeting either foreign troops or local security forces.

The United States, which leads a 21,000-strong coalition of international forces hunting Taliban and al-Qaida militants in Afghanistan, believes that militants now pose the greatest threat to the new Afghan government since late 2001. Washington expects attacks to increase in the coming months, reports the AP.

Swedish troops take command of ISAF in Afghanistan

KABUL: Swedish Troops took command of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) from their British counterparts in Northern Afghanistan, says BBC Radio today.

All the high ranking officials of ISAF took part in the ceremony which was held at Mizar-e-Sharif for the change of command.

They pledged to cooperate with local security personnel to maintain a peaceful atmosphere for the reconstruction process.

ISAF Commander in Afghanistan, Col. Sam Stron, pledged to give top priority to collect illegal arms for controlling law and order.

He hoped that the people would welcome the disarmament drive because some armed groups were aerating problems for the masses.

He noted that Sweden enjoys a history of cordial relations with Afghanistan and it is the responsibility of the Swedish forces to restore peace in the area.

He urged the afghan officials to share secret information and trust each other, which is vital for the restoration of peace.

Col. Sam told the Swedish troops that their duty would be hard due to many security related problems.

The Swedish forces would take charge of Provincial Reconstruction Commission work in Balkh, Jauzjan, Sar-e-Pul and Samangan provinces. They will also work for the disarmament process.

Dutch boost troop presence in Afghanistan

SHEBERGHAN, Afghanistan, March 17 (UPI) -- Eighty Dutch troops arrived in southern Afghanistan Tuesday as the vanguard of a larger commitment.

Xinhua news agency reported on March 16 that the troops would eventually number roughly 850, who will deploy with other International Security Assistance Force peacekeepers in the country's turbulent southern region, where they will establish two camps.

British and Canadian troops will join the Dutch troops and make up the majority of the expanded ISAF presence in southern Afghanistan.

The overall security situation in the country remains unsettled.

On March 14 ISAF posted a press report on its website stating that the largest cache of weapons ever found in Afghanistan has been given to the UN's Disarmament of Illegally Armed Groups initiative.

The website reported of the Sheberghan discovery: "ISAF experts have assessed the contents of the cache and initial findings suggest the presence of one bunker of detonators, two bunkers containing a total of 80 tons of Russian TNT, one bunker with 15,000 Anti Personnel and 10,000 Anti Tank mines, however, this is not confirmed at this time. A fifth bunker is also in the process of being assessed and examined."

First Lady Toasts Afghan Author

Thursday, March 16, 2006
WASHINGTON, (AP) -- First lady Laura Bush gave her imprimatur to a best-selling book about family, life and children in Afghanistan, as the author of "The Kite Runner" described the return to his war-ravaged country after a 27-year absence.

In remarks at the Afghan Embassy, Mrs. Bush said she and President Bush "really, really enjoyed," reading the tender story of hope and renewal about two young brothers who bond by flying kites in 1970s Afghanistan.

The first lady, on hand for the Afghan Children Initiative benefit dinner, said she recommended the book Thursday at a White House tea.

Author Khaled Hosseini said that with democratic elections in Afghanistan and efforts to rebuild the country, "there is reason to be optimistic," but he said the key to the country's future lies in educating its children.

Mrs. Bush said, "Education will give them a chance to succeed. We can all have a great impact on all of these children and their families."

Among those at the dinner were the Afghan Ambassador Said T. Jawad; Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld; Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez.

The dinner was sponsored by the U.S. Afghan Women's Council.

Stick with mission, envoy urges

Ambassador warns rebuilding will take years `Very noble cause' to help restore his devastated country

Mar. 17, 2006. 07:42 AM OAKLAND ROSS FEATURE WRITER

Building a prosperous and stable Afghanistan will require blood, sweat and years, and Canada's role could be vital, especially over the long haul, says the war-weary nation's ambassador to Ottawa.

"If a country is to recover from being a failing state, you need to help it," Omar Samad said in an interview yesterday while visiting Toronto. "It is so critical for a country like Canada to have its troops there. It is equally important for Canada to be in Afghanistan to help us rebuild certain sectors of our society."

The envoy said his government is keen to discuss extending Canada's commitment of development assistance to Afghanistan — pegged at $620 million over seven years — beyond its current limit of 2009.

Canada has 2,200 troops patrolling the countryside around the city of Kandahar, among the most treacherous sections of real estate in the land.

Yesterday, Samad praised Canadian troops and encouraged Canadians to continue supporting their mission in his country, despite early casualties and the grim prospect of more to come.

"It's a very noble cause," he said. The question for Canadians, he said, is whether "to run away from danger while it challenges us or are we going to join with the Afghani people and resist it?"

Canadian troops have already come under attack in the Kandahar region, a hotbed of support for the radical and authoritarian Taliban that ruled Afghanistan until being overthrown by a U.S.-led invasion in late 2001.

While in power, the Taliban were closely linked to Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorist network, and the two groups continue to share common aims and to co-operate militarily. Both have sought safety in neighbouring Pakistan, using that country's territory as a base for incursions into Afghanistan.

Yesterday, Samad offered a mixed assessment of Pakistan's role in combating the terrorists.

"They have done a very good job of tracking down and eliminating the Al Qaeda elements," he said. "We think they can do a better job of denying the Taliban sanctuary, arms, training and support."

Prior to the 9/11 attacks, Pakistan's government openly supported the Taliban and changed its position only under intense U.S. pressure to do so.

This week, Canadian troops stationed in Kandahar fired on and killed an apparently innocent Afghan man in a rickshaw that reportedly strayed too close to a Canadian patrol.

Regrettable as they are, Samad said such tragedies are probably inevitable in wartime and are not likely to imperil Canada's mission in his country.

"The Afghan people are very understanding and very appreciative that troops are there from other countries," he said. "They understand there will be casualties on both sides. Tragic incidents will happen, but the mission has to go on."

Afghanistan has known little but war and disruption since the mid-1970s and Samad said it will take many years for the country to recover from the political, social and economic damage it has suffered.

"The Afghan people are tired of war, tired of living under extremist and intolerant rulers," he said. "But it will take years for a democracy to mature."

In the meantime, he said, it is essential for countries such as Canada to extend their help, by providing military security and by contributing to the huge task of economic reconstruction.

Samad said it will be three or four years before his country's police and military will be capable of countering terrorist insurgents without foreign help and even longer before Afghanistan can do without foreign troops entirely.

Among other challenges is the illicit cultivation of poppies for heroin and opium. Samad sees no easy solutions to the drug trade but said he believes it can be overcome in time, perhaps "up to a decade."

Now 44, the urbane and articulate Samad fled his country in 1980 during its occupation by the Soviet Union and lived in the United States until late 2001, when he went home to help rebuild. He arrived in Ottawa as ambassador in 2004.

Like many other Afghans, Samad is deeply distressed by his country's abiding torment but is hopeful of better times.

"I look forward to the day when Canadians will look at Afghanistan as a tourism destination."

Hundreds honour soldiers killed in Afghanistan, Memorial ceremony at Manitoba's CFB Shilo

CFB SHILO, Man. — Two Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan were remembered by mourners Friday as men of courage who were devoted to their mission and to the people around them.

Hundreds, including Manitoba Premier Gary Doer and Lieut.-Gov. John Harvard, came to the base to pay tribute in a memorial ceremony for Cpl. Paul Davis and Master Cpl. Tim Wilson.

Wilson, from Grande Prairie, Alta., and Davis of Bridgewater, N.S., died in Afghanistan March 2 after their armoured vehicle collided with a taxi and rolled just outside Kandahar.

Davis’s friend, Cpl. Shane Schofield, told the mourners that he’ll remember Davis for his big grin, his questionable golf prowess and for his undying love for his wife Melanie and their two daughters.

“Five minutes with Paul meant that you spent three minutes hearing about his daughters,” said Schofield.

“Every second of every day in everything Paul did was for his wife and family. His family provided him inspiration, which was seen every day through Paul’s actions.”

He remembered while serving with Davis in Bosnia that someone always had to be dispatched to round him up for the daily debriefing session.

They would find him, he said, “waiting to call Mel to refresh his spirit.”

“Paul James Davis was a great man who only wanted what every man wanted from life — to grow old with the love of his life, Melanie, and to watch his daughters grow up and make him proud like he knew they would.”

Master Cpl. Tim Wilson’s friend, Sgt. Guy Britten, remembered him as a principled man who loved being a soldier.

“Tim was about truth,” he said.

“He was true to his troops, true to his integrity, true to his peers, true to his honour and without a doubt true to being a soldier.”

He said Wilson led quietly by example and would have been uncomfortable with the large formal memorial ceremony.

“In the military, when we hear of anyone being referred to as an excellent soldier, we think of their abilities to fight, their ability to lead through adversity while upholding moral and physical courage. Simply put, Master Cpl. Tim Wilson was that quiet professional.”

He said comrades will remember — and miss — “looking over to see Tim’s devilish grin shining out from underneath layers of cam (camouflage) paint.”

“He just always had that good spirit to him.”

Davis died in the crash while Wilson succumbed to his injuries two days later at a U.S. military hospital in Germany.

Five other Canadian soldiers were injured in the crash.

Injured soldier calls time in Afghanistan 'pretty special'

CBC news Fri, 17 Mar 2006-An Edmonton-based soldier says he'd go back to Afghanistan despite being injured in a suicide bombing in January.

"The whole time over there was pretty special," said Pte. William Salikin, who suffered serious head injuries in the attack and is recovering in Edmonton.

Two other soldiers were wounded and Glyn Berry, 59, a senior Foreign Affairs officer, was killed.

Salikin, 22, was on his first tour of duty in Afghanistan and just weeks away from returning home to Edmonton when he was injured on Jan. 15.

Speaking to reporters in Edmonton Thursday, he said he doesn't remember much about the incident.

"Mostly what I recall is everything just a little bit before the accident – like five minutes or so – and waking up in the ICU."

FROM JAN. 15, 2006: Medic emerges as heroic figure in Afghan convoy tragedy

Despite the danger and his injuries, Salikin said he enjoyed his tour in Afghanistan and would go back if he could.

Salikin adds that support from Canadians means a lot to the soldiers in the region.

Blog spoke of pre-blast dream

The young soldier used to keep a blog, or online diary, about his experiences, calling it "Stories From the Gan." A few days before the blast, he wrote about a dream he'd had.

"I woke this morning with a gut-wrenching pain of guilt or betrayal or something," he wrote. "I dreamt about a nationwide catastrophe that shifted around everything I knew to be sacred at the time."

Doctors don't yet know if Salikin will ever be able to return to active duty.

However, he said he has no plans to leave the military.

Shortly after the blast, medical staff at a U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, placed the native of Grand Forks, B.C., in an induced coma to help his head injuries heal.

He was discharged from the University of Alberta Hospital three weeks ago and is now at home in Edmonton.

Salikin will be undergoing physiotherapy as an outpatient

Afghanistan commentary JAN BURTON

Toronto -- Perhaps Jim McMaster is right (The Afghanistan debate -- letter, March 15). Maybe we should start "pulling our troops out of Afghanistan immediately." That way, Afghanistan can go back to being just another Third World bloodbath to which no one pays any attention. The vast majority of Afghans don't want that to happen.

Canadians prefer "peacekeeping," where we send our troops in after the combatants have already agreed to stop shooting. That way our troops are safer and we can pretend that we stopped the war.

Definitely not the same Canada that stormed Juno beach.

If we are unwilling to suffer casualties in a UN-sanctioned mission against religious extremists who abuse their own people and trample on every human right we hold dear, then there's no point in Canada even having an army.

Partnership Key to Progress in Afghanistan, U.S. General Says

WASHINGTON: Partnership is the key to progress in Afghanistan, says Army Major General Benjamin Freakley, commander of the U.S. military’s Combined Joint Task Force 76, currently leading security operations in that nation.

"As we enter this fifth year of operations in Enduring Freedom, we can see significant accomplishments. And while there’s still a great amount of work to be done, we think that also this nation of Afghanistan clearly is moving forward every day," Freakley told reporters in a March 16 press briefing from Bagram, Afghanistan.

Freakley said that the Combined Joint Task Force is focused on three major operational objectives: security, governance and reconstruction.

The U.S.-led Combined Joint Task Force is 21,000 strong, including 15,000 U.S. troops and 4,300 allied troops, primarily from Canada, the United Kingdom, Netherlands and Romania, who are working closely with the 27,000-member Afghan National Army and the country’s 55,000 police to coordinate combined operations against armed militants.

The provincial reconstruction teams, comprising military forces and personnel from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture are working with local Afghan governors to support area infrastructure projects and to strengthen local government and civil society in every district and province in the country.

USAID also works with nongovernmental organizations and other foreign governments to provide humanitarian aid and to repair and rebuild communities shattered by decades of conflict.

The continuing threats in Afghanistan are complex, said Freakley, and come from several sources.

In southern Afghanistan, Taliban militants continue to operate from isolated safe havens in Afghanistan and from locations along the border with Pakistan, while across the country, the Joint Task Force encounters foreign extremists "motivated primarily by al-Qaida" who are providing funding, arms and training to various militant factions. Coalition forces also are seeing incidents of suicide bombing and use of improvised explosive devices that parallel insurgent tactics seen in Iraq, he said.

In the interior regions, drug traffickers and criminals paid by al-Qaida or Taliban remnants to attack Afghan and coalition forces are a significant challenge, Freakley said, adding that criminal organizations tied to opium trafficking are particularly worrisome because they fund militant activity and force farmers to continue raising poppies instead of diversifying into other, more beneficial crops. Afghan authorities recognize the danger of the confluence of narcotics and terrorism and are making progress in eradicating opium crops, he said.

The Joint Task Force also contends with smaller local militant groups, such as the Haqqani network that operates around Khost, and the Hezb-e Islami Group, led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyr, in the north, he said.

Throughout Operation Enduring Freedom, the Afghan military and police forces have grown in size and capability as effective partners to coalition forces.

"The Afghan National Army and the coalition forces have the initiative. We’re taking the fight to the enemy, and we’ll continue to help extend this government by prosecuting this fight against the different groups," he said.

Rice Thanks Australian Troops for Work in Afghanistan, Iraq

Secretary cites shared belief in value of individual rights, democracy

The United States is grateful to Australia for its support in Afghanistan and Iraq, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says.

In remarks during a visit with Australian troops at Victoria Barracks in Melbourne, Australia, March 17, Rice said Australia is a good friend and ally of the United States with a shared belief in the value of individual rights, freedom and democracy.

Rice said the overthrow of both the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq has given the people of those countries the chance to build stable democracies, which in turn make the world more secure.

Democracy "is the only system in which differences can be resolved in a dignified manner," the secretary said.  She noted that the Iraqis have had "years of history in which they settled their differences by coercion or by force or by brutal repression."

"[N]ow instead, they're trying to settle their differences through politics and it's hard," she said.  But the Iraqis have demonstrated "every time people have tried to drive them apart, they try to come together. And so we have to express confidence in them; that they are going to take this opportunity for a better future."

Pakistan bans two Afghan TV channels

People's Daily - Mar 16 4:14 PM
Pakistan on Thursday put a ban on two Afghan private TV channels and asked cable operators in the southwestern Balochistan province to stop the channels from telecasting their programs as they were involved in anti-Pakistan propaganda.

Abdul Jalal Khan, an official of the Pakistan Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA), said in Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan, that the two Afghan stations were involved in baseless propaganda against Pakistan. PEMRA regulates functions of private TV and radio channels.

The private Tolo TV and Ariana TV channels blamed Pakistani security forces for trying to kill former Afghan President Sibghatullah Mujaddadi, the official said.

Mujaddadi survived a suicide attack in Kabul on March 12, which killed four people including two attackers. Taliban have claimed responsibility for the attack.

Jalal Khan said the Afghan TV channels were using abusive language against Pakistan in their programs.

Cable operators in Quetta said they stopped airing programs of the two stations on Thursday.

Cable operators in the northern city of Peshawar also air Afghan TV channels but the decision has not yet been extended there.

A PEMRA official said in Islamabad that Afghan channels had not got telecast rights and that was why they were banned.

Afghan refugees and Pashtoons in Pakistani's Balochistan and the North Western Frontier Province watch the channels.

The ban was imposed at a time when tension heightened after Mujaddadi blamed Pakistan's intelligence agency for the suicide attack.
Source: Xinhua

FEATURE-Taliban, poverty fueling Afghan opium boom

17 Mar 2006 By Yousuf Azimy-LASHKAR GAH,

Afghanistan, March 17 (Reuters) - Afghan farmer Abdul Ghani looks over his field carpeted in small, green plants and knows this crop will feed his family.

His field is covered in opium poppies, now only leaves about 10 cm (four inches) high and yet to flower.

Ghani explains his simple logic that makes him part of an illicit industry that the government says is funding terrorism and threatens to destroy the country.

"We're very poor people. To feed our families we grow poppies," said the weather-beaten 50-year-old with a grey beard and turban. His two sons, one 11, the other 12, stood by as they took a break from weeding.

Ghani said he grew wheat and vegetables such as tomatoes, but got a pittance from those crops compared with the opium he sold to traffickers, who appeared on motorbikes and in trucks at harvest time.

"We can't support our families with what we get for our wheat but we can with the income from poppies."

Ghani's field is at the epicentre of Afghanistan's drugs crisis, in the flat Helmand river valley in the southern province of the same name.

For hundreds of years networks of canals brought water to fields and orchards, producing rich crops, but the irrigation system has collapsed over years of conflict.

Now only opium brings wealth.

Taliban insurgents encourage opium growing and roam the mountains that rise from the valley in the north, and across vast tracts of lawless desert that stretch south to the Pakistani border, officials say.

Ensuring security so anti-drug efforts can go ahead in the province that produces a quarter of Afghan opium will be a main task of 3,300 British troops who will soon be based here.

They will have their work cut out.

"The Taliban have promised the farmers to protect their poppy fields," provincial governor Mohammad Daoud told a small group of reporters this week. "They have assured the farmers they will not allow the government forces for eradication."

"First security must be in place, there must be no Taliban there, then the eradication campaign will start."

ERADICATION EFFORTS
Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium. The heroin refined from it floods city streets across the world.

Production has ballooned since the Taliban, who banned opium at the end of their rule, were ousted in 2001.

The drug gangs have taken advantage of insecurity, weak or non-existent policing, rampant corruption and a reluctance to go after powerful figures involved in drugs but supporting the U.S-led war against the Taliban.

With international pressure mounting to tackle drugs, efforts to eradicate the $2.8 billion a year industry have begun early this season to allow farmers time to replant a legal crop.

Teams have been ploughing poppy fields under but only a fraction, at most 10 percent countrywide, can be destroyed, experts say.

The United States and Britain, which fund and oversee drug efforts with the government, also stress getting tough with traffickers and providing farmers with alternatives.

For now at least, they agree with President Hamid Karzai who has ruled out aerial spraying of herbicide over poppy fields.

Karzai's more gentle approach has had results.

Farmers planted more than a fifth less opium last year, largely because of his efforts to shame them and appeals that they stop, coupled with the threat and fear of eradication.

But the U.N. anti-drugs office says production is up again this season in almost half of provinces, including Helmand.

RAISING THE RISK
U.S. ambassador Ronald Neumann recalls his visit to Helmand in the 1960s - when his father was the envoy - and the United States helped rehabilitate the irrigation system that turned the valley green.

Now he's back and the United States is again helping Helmand fix its canals as part of long-term efforts to fight drugs and the Taliban.

"There is more linkage here in Helmand between the drug trade and the Taliban and terrorism than there is anywhere else in Afghanistan," Neumann told reporters during a visit to the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, this week.

Long-term, the answer to drugs was alternative livelihoods, meaning the restoration of the rural economy -- the canals, roads and electricity.

In the meantime, eradication and action against those involved had to convince farmers of the risks, he said.

"You have to raise the risk and the cost of growing poppy even as you provide alternatives," he said.

Farmer Ghani is not risking much: just the money and time spent on his field, if authorities destroy it.

He'd stop growing opium if he got help, he said.

"This isn't something we can eat and we're not opium addicts. If the government helps us, we won't grow it."

Military watching for signs of Taliban offensive: general

Thu Mar 16, 1:54 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US military is seeing the movement of unarmed military-age young men in     Afghanistan as the snows melt in the mountains amid concerns the Taliban may step up attacks, a top US commander said.

It not yet clear whether the men, who have been spotted in groups as large as 10 to 15, are fighters or simply looking for work in rural areas, said Major General Benjamin Freakley, the US ground commander in Afghanistan.

"We don't know quite frankly if we're going to tag them as Taliban yet," he told reporters here in a video conference from Afghanistan.

"But we're certainly watching for indications of warnings of an increase in improvised explosive devices or suicide bombers and of direct fire attacks against the coalition and Afghan forces," he said.

Statements and open source reporting indicate the Taliban is stepping up its activities, he said.

"We haven't seen any legions of men moving around," Freakley said.

"When I say we've seen some military age men moving around that could be one to two that we are questioning, all the way up to maybe 15 to 20."

The Taliban has not attempted operations with large numbers of fighters for several years now because of the superior US firepower and intelligence capabilities, he said.

But improvised roadside bombs have become common and suicide bombings have been introduced as well, and the military is looking for links to     Iraq.

"We continue to watch this," he said. "Some leaders like Mullah Omar, who is the Taliban leader, have been calling for suicide bombings to take place."

"With regards to IEDs clearly we're starting to see some tactics, techniques and procedures you could draw the conclusion that may have come from training in Iraq," he said.

"But how they got that, how that training was passed, where that bombmaker came from and how the bombmaker passed those techniques on we're still trying to get full awareness of," he said.

Afghan police arrest men with letters from Mulla Omar and Zawahri
Daily Times - Mar 16 3:27 PM

JALALABAD: Afghan police said they arrested two suspected Taliban insurgents on Thursday carrying letters from the movement’s fugitive leader and Al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri.

The Afghan nationals were arrested separately close to the border with Pakistan in Nangarhar province, said Mohammad Ibrar, border security forces provincial deputy chief. “One of them was carrying letters from Mullah Omar and Ayman al-Zawahiri,” said Ibrar. The man had served as a district chief in Nangarhar during the 1996-2001 Taliban regime, he said.

The second man was arrested with some 500 ‘night’ letters which asked people not to cooperate with the ‘illegitimate government’ and to obey orders of Mulla Omar and Ayman al-Zawahiri, he added. Night letters are anonymous leaflets which are occasionally distributed in Afghan towns and villages by militant groups. Ibrar said the men, whom he did not identify, did not appear to be linked but were carrying documents that could help to point to enemy networks in the country. AFP

Feature: Where government job is a life risk

LASHKARGAH, Mar 17 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The threat of ever-increasing insurgency in southern Afghanistan is forcing Afghan officials to shift to big cities leaving behind their permanent residences in smaller cities, twons and villages.

Helmand is one of the lawless southern provinces where the scourge of insurgency is looming large in the outskirts and Taliban are flagrantly killing and dragging out officials, including teachers, doctors and security personnel from their houses and forcing them to quit their jobs.

Majority of officials having homes in the districts have not met their families for the past three months fearing attacks from Taliban, who have recently distributed night letters warning officials to quit their jobs or face death.

They say visiting their houses is a risky job as Taliban are enjoying clout in several districts and they have killed about 50 government officials, including three district chiefs, two local intelligence chiefs, several police officers, teachers and police constables, over the past four months.

Ghulam Rasul Khan, a police official and resident of the Marja area, said he had not gone to his house for the past two months as stay at hom for him was not free from life risk. "Several of my colleagues have been gunned down inside their houses in the night."

Another official of the intelligence department Mirwais Jan said he did not met his family for the past four months. Mirwais is resident of the Nad Ali district. He said government officials did not side any party. They are serving the people whether it was the government of Taliban, mujahideen or the present one.

Mohammad Zarif, 23, resident of the Sangin district, told Pajhwok, one of his family members had been elected to the provincial assembly. They were threatened by Taliban following which they left the area and were now living in Lashkargah.

"I can't go to Sangin to see my family and am living here for the past two months. My fault is that one of my relatives is a member of the provincial council," lamented Zarif.

An official of the public health department, who wished not to be named, said: "By God, the government has no control in the districts and Taliban are in charge of those areas after the dark falls." How can the government officials go to the their houses in in such a situation, he questioned.

Ghulam Nabi Haqmal, resident of the Ainak area of the Nava district and technician at the Khplawak Radio, told Pajhwok his father had advised him to quit the job. "I have no choice but either to say goodby to the job or abandon my family living in the countryside," he argued.

Sahibzada, resident of the Aab Bazan village of the Grishk district and an employee at the transport department, said an unprecedented number of government officials had been killed by rebels during the existing government. "We can do nothing. Just passing our days at the mercy of God."

On the other hand, a large number of government officials have migrated to Lashkargah for fear of insecurity in their respective areas.

Ajeer Gulab Shah, resident of the Nad Ali district, is one of them. "I shifted to Lashkargah along with my family becuase I received several death threats from unidentified people." He referred to a fresh incident in which armed men gunned down a government official in front of his house in the same district.

The fear further intensified after Taliban distributed night letters in districts and surrounding villages of Helmand threatening officials of dire consequences if they did not quit the government jobs.

One such night letter obtained by this news agency says: "Anyone who gets money from the government or the US, whether he is clergy, grower, officer etc, the mujahideen of the Islamic state willd not spare him and will be punished according to the sharia (Islamic law)."

Asked to comment on the insecurity and harrassment of government officials, provincial Governor engineer Mohammad Daud said the security officials were active and they were killing the miscreants to ensure peace in the province. "They (Taliban) casualty figure is double in each clash with the government forces," contended the governor.

Discussing the lawlessness in the province, security chief Colonel Asadullah Sherzad argued that being a border province, Helmand was vulnerable to terrorist activities. "The government is not sitting with its hands crossed. We are striving hard to maintain security and ensure peace in the province," said the security chief. Abdul Samad Rohani

UNHCR pledges to assist Afghan refugees' voluntary return

KABUL, Mar 16, 2006 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- The UN refugees'agency UNHCR would continue to support the voluntary repatriation of Afghan refugees as over 1,200 refugees have returned home with the agency's support so far this year, spokesperson of the agency said Thursday.

"Since the beginning of 2006, UNHCR has assisted more than 1, 200 Afghan refugees to return home voluntarily under its voluntary repatriation operation, now in its fifth year," Mohammad Nadir Farhad told Xinhua.

UNHCR expects to assist some 600,000 refugees to return from Pakistan and Iran in 2006, he said.

"More than 700 refugees have returned from Pakistan so far this year and the remaining 500 from Iran," Farhad added.

He also put the number of returnees from Pakistan since 2002 at as high as 2.7 million and the number from Iran at nearly 840,000.

Commenting on the slow return of refugees this year, the official said the repatriation program would get momentum in June, as the weather in Afghanistan is still cold now.

The UN Refugee Agency, he added, would pay a travel grant of between 4 U.S. dollars to 37 U.S. dollars depending on the distance to their destination inside Afghanistan plus 12 U.S dollars to each family to help them start their lives back home.

There are 2.6 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan currently and the UNHCR expects to repatriate 400,000 of them this year while more than 1 million others are in Iran.

The refugees'return began with the collapse of Taliban regime in late 2001 but the process has slowed down due to limited job opportunities and continued militancy in the country.

Even some of the returnees re-emigrated to neighboring countries for lack of shelters and high price of accommodation is beyond the reach of common people in the ruined Afghan capital Kabul.

"I am going to Iran to earn some money and support my family as I could not get a regular income in my country," said Ishaq, a man standing behind Iran's embassy gate to receive visa.

Afghan family cries for fallen father

The Toronto Star / March 17, 2006 ROSIE DIMANNO

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN-Semem Gul slaps at her face and thrashes at her chest. Her keening rises to a fever pitch, echoing off the crumbing mud walls of the courtyard, spilling into the narrow alleys of Shahidan Chawk, one of the city's most impoverished neighbourhoods.

She is now, because of an unidentified Canadian soldier, a widow in Afghanistan, and there's no worse fate for a woman in this country.

"I don't have a husband! I have nobody to protect me! What am I to do?

"You say sorry? What does sorry mean to me? Will sorry feed my children?"

The youngest of those six children, Shahab, adds his pitiful mewling to the sobbing in the room, where a dozen of Semen Gul's female relatives have gathered, rocking and swaying with grief.

Shahab, only 4 years old, was in the motorized rickshaw when his father, Nasrat Ali, was shot in the chest - a fatal wound, as it turned out -by a Canadian infantryman on patrol late Tuesday night.

The child himself fell out of the small vehicle in the panic that ensued, and there are abrasions on his forehead.

"Is my father not coming home?" the uncomprehending youngster asks a Toronto Star reporter who has been invited into the single-room household, the only journalist the widow has agreed to see.

Shahab's sisters, 11 and 14, weep as they gather the boy in their arms. An older brother, the man of the family now at age 22, looks on, an impotent rage darkening his features.

Nasrat Ali, a poor Shiite who barely eked out an existence making tin pots and pans, had just been buried after his corpse was ritualistically washed by relatives. More than 1,000 mourners had attended the funeral at Amam Bargah mosque — the imam counselled against violence and retribution.Nasrat Ali's photograph, photocopied, has been posted throughout the mosque compound — a handsome man, clean-shaven in what looks like it might have been an official ID, perhaps something from a passport.

"Look, no beard," a relative points out. "Not Taliban, not Al Qaeda. Just Afghan."

Whether justifiable or not, a Canadian soldier has taken the life of what was palpably an innocent civilian, an Afghan who had returned to his country only three years ago after living for nearly two decades in neighbouring Iran. As Shiite exiles, the Ali family fled Soviet occupation, warlords, the Taliban, finally coming home after the U.S.-led coalition put a Pashtun leader in the presidential palace.

They thought it was safe now.

They were tragically wrong.

"I know the Canadians are here to help," says Semen Gul, composing herself, speaking through an interpreter. "I don't hate Canadians. But I can't forgive them. You cannot come to our country and kill us."

The widow is surely entitled to compensation for the loss of a husband and father, aged 45. When pressed, she names a figure: $30,000 (U.S.) "Enough to buy a house and a shop for my eldest son.''

An independent agency, the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service, is examining the incident to determine whether compensation is merited, and the soldier who fired the fatal shot has been removed from duties pending the outcome.

But what's become obvious is that there are two wildly different versions of the events that transpired at about 11 p.m. Tuesday night, as the Ali family was coming home from dinner at the home of a relative.

Canadian commanders assert that the rickshaw taxi in which the victim was travelling ignored repeated and explicit warnings — shouts, hand gestures and a spotlight trained on the vehicle — to stop, and was shot upon when less than a metre from a patrol parked at the side of the road. They also said the vehicle had blown past an Afghan checkpoint just before approaching the patrol at speed.

Semen Gul and her children insist that's not the way it happened at all.

There were seven people in the rickshaw, she said, six family members (including a daughter-in-law and her baby) and the driver, while oldest son Farid Ahmed followed behind on his bicycle.

The rickshaw, moving slowly — it's maximum speed is 20 km/h — was just coming around the sharp curve of a spoked road that leads into one of Kandahar's major roundabouts, said Gul. From that angle, as the Star confirmed after visiting the scene, the driver would not have seen the parked patrol until it was about 15 metres away.

The Afghan checkpoint, however, is apparently moved in the evenings from the centre of the roundabout to the entry-point of the two roads leading into it, and allegedly all vehicles are checked after 9 p.m.

"I lived for many years in Iran. I know all about police checkpoints," said Gul, 40. "We were not stopped by the Afghans. And there was no warning shot from the Canadians, no shouting, no shots fired in the air, no light shining on us. There was only this sudden gunfire — three shots — and my husband falling out of the rickshaw into the street."

Lieut. Derek Basinger, chief of staff for Task Force Afghanistan, told reporters on Wednesday that a medic on the vehicle had immediately examined the victim, that the wound did not look life-threatening, and that Afghan police quickly arrived, removing Nasrat Ali to hospital.

Gul says the medic didn't come out of the patrol vehicle for 15 minutes, while her husband — still conscious — lay bleeding in the road; that the Canadians troops ignored family pleas that Nasrat Ali be taken right away to hospital. "I was begging, please, take him to the American hospital. They wouldn't do it."

Afghan police, when they finally arrived, put her husband in a second rickshaw for the trip to the hospital, leaving her behind, Gul added.

Nasrat Ali was not armed. There were no weapons or explosives in the rickshaw.

However, threats against multinational troops — particularly in Kandahar province, whence the routed Taliban originally arose — have increased sharply and Canadian troops here are clearly bracing for more attacks from insurgents.

Yesterday, fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar purportedly sent a statement to the Associated Press, promising that a large number of Afghans were signing up as suicide bombers

"This year, with the beginning of summer, Afghan soil will turn red for the crusaders and their puppets and the occupiers will face an unpredictable wave of Afghan resistance," the statement read.

Reminded of the danger for the troops, Semen Gul shook her head.

"You think we are all Taliban or Al Qaeda. Could they have not fired at the tires or the sky? If there had been a warning, we would have stopped, of course, we would have stopped. It would be stupid not to stop.

"They do not have the right to shoot at Afghans. Let them shoot at people in their own country, not here."

Last night, after repeated requests from media, Maj. Scott Lundy, spokesperson for the multinational brigade, made a brief statement essentially re-asserting the military version of events — based on information given by soldiers in the patrol — and refusing to speculate on the divergent recollection of the civilians involved.

"I think it's fair to say there will be some Afghans living in Kandahar city who will be concerned ... It's the normal reaction to a death. As far as we're concerned, it's regrettable. But again, we would hope that the public will understand that there were ... a lot of factors involved and the decision of the crew to take the actions it did, that was done pretty much at the spur of the moment.

"So now we'll let the investigation determine how all of this played out."

Earlier in the day, Maj. Erik Liebert, deputy commanding officer of the Provincial Reconstruction Team — a satellite of Task Force Afghanistan located on the outskirts of Kandahar city, from which the patrol had emerged — said Canadian military authorities would be contacting the victim's family within the next day or so "to express our condolence and possibly arrange for a small gift, if that's appropriate in the cultural circumstances."

The formal mourning period for Nasrat Ali — called a fatha — will conclude tomorrow.

Yesterday afternoon, when the Star's van fell in behind another Canadian patrol travelling through downtown Kandahar, a soldier riding in the back of the vehicle could be seen draining a bottle of water and then pinging the plastic container off the head of a young Afghan male walking along the street.

"You see," an Afghan in the car pointed out. "You see how they treat us?"

[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.]