In this bulletin:

• President Karzai Condemns the Killing of Macedonians and Afghan Policemen
• Former Afghan governor shot dead by Taliban
• Former governor among 15 killed in Taliban attacks
• Nine Afghan police die moving bodies
• Afghan bandits kill 22 in Iran, as Britain, US blamed
• Afghan chief vows "unimaginable" violence
• Afghan police arrest men with letters from Mulla Omar and Zawahri
• First Dutch troops arrive in Afghanistan
• Deadly H5N1 Bird Flu Confirmed In Afghanistan
• Afghans await protective suits for bird flu cull
• Jilted; Pakistan and America
• Prepare for long Afghan stay: Powell
• Who's really locked up in Guantanamo?
• Pakistan asks Taliban to aid security
• Afghanistan's mighty women MPs
• Afghan lawmaker speaks up for women
• Afghanistan's feared woman warlord
• UNHCR pledges to assist Afghan refugees' voluntary return
• Geopolitical Diary: The Growing Opposition to Musharraf
• UK "quartermaster" for Pakistan militants jailed

President Karzai Condemns the Killing of Macedonians and Afghan Policemen - Date of Release: 18 March 2006

Arg, Kabul – H.E. Hamid Karzai, President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, strongly condemned the killing of four nationals of Macedonia and nine Afghan policemen.

In his reaction to the death of the Afghan policemen the President said, “They were the real sons of Afghanistan who lost their lives for the sake of peace and freedom in their country.”

“The instructors and executors of this barbaric act of terrorism who receive instructions from foreign sources wish to spread terror across Afghanistan. The terrorists must know that their defeat is inevitable as their acts of barbarity reveal their real agenda to the Afghan people.”

The President, on behalf of the people of Afghanistan, expressed his heartfelt sympathies and condolences to the people and Government of Macedonia and to the families of the Afghan policemen.

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

Former Afghan governor shot dead by Taliban – Daily Telegraph 18/03/2006

Taliban gunmen have shot dead the former governor of an Afghan province along with four of his guards, and hours later tried to kill the province's current governor.

The administrative chief of Ghazni province's Andar district said the gunmen shot Taj Mohammad, the former governor of Ghazni and an outspoken opponent of the Taliban, near his home.

Four of Mr Mohammad's bodyguards were also killed. A Taliban commander, Mullah Abdul, claimed responsibility for the attack. It was reported that two suspected Taliban members had been arrested over the incident.

The Taliban have killed several prominent opponents over the past year, including pro-government Muslim clerics. Mr Mohammad, widely known as Qari Baba, had been involved in the war against Soviet occupying forces in the 1980s and was Ghazni governor in the 1990s and again after the Taliban were ousted.

Former governor among 15 killed in Taliban attacks - Mar 18

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) - At least nine policemen, a former governor, his four companions and a security guard were killed in separate attacks in Afghanistan blamed on the Taliban, officials said.

A bomb blast Friday killed nine policemen who were escorting the bodies of four Albanians kidnapped by Taliban fighters last week in an area between Kandahar and neighbouring Helmand province in the south.

Initial reports had said five policemen were killed in the attack in Maiwand district but Kandahar's governor on Saturday revised the toll upwards to nine. "The new information we have got indicates that nine policemen were killed in Friday's attack," governor Asadullah Khaled said on Saturday.

On Saturday, suspected Taliban rebels killed former Ghanzi province governor Taj Mohammad, known as Qari Baba, and his four companions in the southern province, one of the hotbeds of the Taliban.

"I confirm that Qari Baba and his four companions were killed this morning," local police official Habibullah Jan said. Baba was working as an advisor to the current governor of Ghazni, Sher Alam.

Jan blamed the attack on remnants of the Taliban and their Islamic allies, including those loyal to former Afghan prime minister and warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, now on the US most wanted list. "Taliban and Hekmatyar's men are believed to be behind this cowardly attack," Jan said.

The Taliban were removed from power in late 2001 in a US-led operation after the hardline regime did not surrender Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, wanted for the September 11 attacks in the United States.

Also on Saturday, an attempt to kill Sher Alam failed while two of the attackers were shot dead by his security personnel. "A group of Taliban attacked our convoy near Gulan district," Alam said. He said no one was hurt in his convoy and in retaliatory fire his bodyguards killed two Taliban. The rest of the attackers escaped.

Late Friday suspected Taliban attacked a private construction company site in southern Afghanistan that left one security guard dead while two others were reported missing, officials said.

The men, who were guarding a reconstruction site for a private Afghan company, came under attack by dozens of suspected Taliban militants in Zabul province, police chief Ghulam Nabi Mullahkhil said. "One of the guards was killed in the attack and two others are missing," Mullahkhil said.

A purported Taliban spokesman, Mohammad Yousuf Ahmadi, said the attack was carried out by the movement.

In another attack also claimed by the Taliban, four Afghan soliders were wounded in a clash with Taliban fighters in Zabul, a local commander said. The soldiers were in "bad condition" in a local hospital, Zabul military commander Rahmatullah Raufi said.

The Taliban are waging a bloody insurgency against the new government and its foreign allies. The violence left about 1,700 people dead in Afghanistan last year, many of them militants.

Nine Afghan police die moving bodies

Kandahar (Reuters) - A blast killed nine Afghan policemen as they were bringing back the bodies of four Macedonians kidnapped and killed by the Taliban and dumped in a valley, the Kandahar provincial governor said on Saturday.

In a separate incident, the Taliban claimed responsibility for killing a powerful former governor of the eastern province of Ghazni, who was shot dead along with four bodyguards.

Kandahar Governor Assadullah Khalid had said on Friday five policemen had been killed after the bodies of the Macedonians were discovered hidden under brush and sticks in a valley near the border with Helmand province.

"At first, the information we got was five policemen were killed and three wounded," Khalid told Reuters. "But after the bodies were brought to Kandahar, we found that nine policemen had been killed," he said.

Several police vehicles were returning with the bodies when one was hit by a blast, apparently caused by a mine, he said. Three policemen were wounded.

Violence has increased in Afghanistan in recent months, especially in the south and east, as the Taliban and allied militants step up their battle to oust foreign forces and overthrow the Western-backed government.

The Taliban have vowed to step up violence, including more suicide bomb attacks, in coming weeks as the weather warms up and snow blocking mountain passes melts. U.S. commanders have also said they expect an increase in insurgent raids and bombs.

NATO members including Britain, Canada and the Netherlands are sending thousands more troops to Afghanistan while the United States is hoping to trim its 18,000-strong force by about 3,000.

The Taliban said they kidnapped the Macedonians, who were working for a services company, on March 11. A Taliban spokesman later said they had been killed on the orders of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and their bodies dumped.

"These people had come to Afghanistan at America's behest, therefore they should be sentenced to death," Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf quoted the order as saying.

An official at the Ecolog cleaning contractor in Kabul said the Macedonians worked for the company. U.S.-led forces overthrew the Taliban in late 2001 after they refused to hand over Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the September 11 attacks on the United States. (Additional reporting by Yahya Nabwi and Saeed Ali Achakzai)

Afghan bandits kill 22 in Iran, as Britain, US blamed

Tehran (AFP) - A group of Afghan bandits with links to US and British security services has killed 22 people in Iran's southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan, Iran's police chief said.

Brigadier General Esmail Ahmadi-Moqaddam was commenting on police reports that "a group of armed bandits who crossed the Afghanistan border killed 21 people and injured another seven innocent people driving in their vehicles" between the border city of Zabol and Zahedan, the provincial capital.

Sistan-Baluchistan's deputy governor general for security, Mohsen Sadeghi, later raised the death toll to 22 and said that "according to the reports we got one of the seven injured people is in a critical condition."

"A number of victim's families have told us that their relatives have been taken hostage, but we cannot confirm it yet," he added.

Ahmadi-Moqaddam told state television "we have information that the bandits in Sistan-Baluchistan area had some meetings with the British and the American security services.

"These services have dictated plans to the bandits on how to destabilise the area. They are trying to spread disputes between Shiites and Sunnis. This is a terrorist action against innocent civilians," he told reporters upon arriving at Zahedan's airport.

Ahmadi-Moqaddam said the bandits had killed Shiites, who were stopped at a mock checkpoint. "There is the possibility that the bandits have escaped to Afghanistan since the area is close to the border," he added.

Sistan-Baluchistan, a mostly Sunni Muslim province in predominantly Shiite Iran, is notoriously lawless and is a key transit route for opium and other drugs from Afghanistan and Pakistan headed for Europe and the Gulf.

Some three month ago, a group of Iranian soldiers was kidnapped near the border with Pakistan by a hardline Sunni Muslim group operating in the unruly border area. They were later released.

Iranian officials and media had initially said the kidnappers were bandits, drug traffickers or dissident tribesmen.

Afghan chief vows "unimaginable" violence - Reuters 03/16/2006

KANDAHAR - Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar vowed a ferocious offensive against U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, saying on Thursday they would soon face unimaginable violence.

An insurgency that has killed more than 1,500 people since the start of last year has intensified in recent months with a wave of suicide bombings, including at least 12 this year.

Ten U.S. troops have been killed in combat this year and U.S. commanders have said they expect violence to increase in coming months as the weather warms, snow on mountain passes melts, and Afghanistan's traditional fighting season begins.

"With the arrival of the warm weather, we will make the ground so hot for the invaders it will be unimaginable for them," Omar said in his message, read by Taliban spokesman Mohammad Hanif over the telephone from an undisclosed location.

The fugitive Taliban leader, who carries a $10 million (5.7 million pounds) reward, also said a stream of young Afghans were volunteering for suicide missions, the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press news agency said.

Last week, Afghan President Hamid Karzai called for more Pakistani cooperation in fighting militants after Islamabad derided Kabul's accusations that Mullah Omar was in Pakistan.

On Wednesday, Afghanistan's Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah said he was sure the Taliban leader was not in Afghanistan, although Taliban spokesmen insist Omar is leading the insurgency from his homeland.

"Mullah Omar is not in Afghanistan, that's as much as I can say with a degree of certainty," Abdullah told Reuters during a visit to the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur.

Afghan officials complain that the Taliban use Pakistan's tribal regions as a springboard for attacks, and despite Islamabad's denials, many suspect Pakistan harbours long term ambitions to have a pro-Pakistan government in Kabul.

A U.S. commander said last week an upsurge in violence was expected as U.S. and NATO forces extend their reach into parts of Afghanistan where the insurgent presence is greater.

"We anticipate that we are going to see a fairly violent spring and summer and then an improvement in overall conditions," U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Robert Moeller, U.S. Central Command director for plans and policy, told a congressional hearing.

The 26-member NATO alliance is preparing to expand its International Security Assistance Force mission -- already in the north, west and in the capital Kabul -- to the more volatile south and ultimately the east, raising its troop numbers to 16,000 from 9,000.

About 18,000 U.S. troops in the country are targeting Taliban and al Qaeda forces, but the United States hope to cut numbers by several thousand as NATO forces take on more responsibilities and the Afghan army becomes stronger.

Pakistan has deployed around 80,000 soldiers in frontier areas to try to stop militants moving across the border, and it coordinates with U.S. and Afghan forces on the other side.

The Taliban took power in Kabul in the mid-1990s with Pakistan's backing. Under U.S. pressure, Pakistan abandoned support for the Taliban in late 2001, after its leaders refused to surrender al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden following the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

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

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

First Dutch troops arrive in Afghanistan

BRUSSELS, March 16 (Xinhuanet) -- The first detachment of Dutch troops have arrived in Afghanistan, Dutch media reported Thursday. The group of about 80 quartermasters will be preparing the Dutch quarters at the United States air force base in Kandahar.

The unit will build camps for the 1,200 troops who will join the Uruzgan unit of the International Safety Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. The troops are expected to take over tasks from the Americans in the southern province of Uruzgan.

The commander of the Dutch armed forces, General Dick Berlijn, addressed the quartermasters before they left. He warned that they could become the target of attacks in southern Afghanistan and wished them and their commander Colonel Henk Morsink good luck.

The Dutch deployment is part of a NATO expansion into the south of Afghanistan, where Taliban and al-Qaida fighters are most active. The 26-member military alliance will extend its mission -- already in the north, west and in the capital Kabul -- to the south and ultimately the east, raising its troop numbers to 16,000 from about 10,000.

Dutch Defence Minister Henk Kamp said Wednesday that his ministry is considering procuring mine detectors to protect troops in Afghanistan, as land mines placed alongside roads which are detonated by insurgents via remote control devices pose serious danger to Dutch soldiers.

The Dutch special forces, which operate under U.S. command in the fight against terrorism, will assist the quartermasters, Kamp told Dutch parliamentarians Wednesday. The Dutch commandos and marines stationed in the province of Kandahar will carry out reconnaissance operations in Uruzgan, he said. Enditem

Deadly H5N1 Bird Flu Confirmed In Afghanistan - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

KABUL, March 16, 2006 -- The United Nations and the Afghan government have confirmed an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu in Afghanistan.
In a joint statement they said H5N1 has been confirmed in six samples of dead birds. It wasn't immediately clear where the samples were found.

Experts earlier had said they were concerned that the H5N1 strain would appear in Afghanistan, given the country's poor infrastructure for animal and human health.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu has killed millions of birds and about 100 people around the world 2003. Most of the human victims caught the disease from very close contact with infected birds.

Afghans await protective suits for bird flu cull - By Robert Birsel

KABUL, March 17 (Reuters) - Afghanistan cannot start culling chickens in areas where H5N1 bird flu has broken out until teams get protective clothing, an Agriculture Ministry official said on Friday.

The official in charge of efforts to fight bird flu in Afghanistan said he hoped U.S. forces could supply some protective suits so a cull could be launched as quickly as possible.

The deadly strain of bird flu has been confirmed in the capital, Kabul, and the eastern province of Nangarhar. The government and the United Nations said on Thursday culling would begin with immediate effect.

"We plan to start the culling. We're waiting only for protective clothing," said Azizullah Osmani, chief of the ministry's veterinary department.

Afghanistan was one of four Asian countries to confirm the presence of H5N1 bird flu on Thursday. It was also confirmed in Denmark and might have appeared in Israel.

The flu has killed just over 100 people since late 2003, most of them in Asia. Experts fear the virus could mutate into a form that passes easily between humans nd trigger a pandemic that could kill millions.

There have been no human cases in Afghanistan, but there is concern that with veterinary and health sectors still recovering from decades of conflict, the country could struggle to contain an outbreak.

Several dead chickens had tested positive for the H5 subtype of avian flu in two other Afghan provinces, Laghman to the east of Kabul and Wardak to the west. Tests are being done at a laboratory in Italy to determine if it was the H5N1 strain.

A spokesman for the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation said no new suspected cases had been reported but a cull in affected areas was vital. "The government should start immediately," he said.

Osmani said he needed about 100 protective suits for two-person teams that will fan out in the affected areas, catching and culling birds.

Inquiries were being made with the U.S. military to see if they could supply some, he said. A spokesman for the U.S. military, which has been battling Taliban and other militants in Afghanistan since late 2001, said he was not aware of a request.

The government had approved an initial $500,000, largely for public information campaigns and was planning to import vaccines for poultry, said another official involved in the anti-flu campaign. But Afghanistan was going to need help to battle the virus, he said.

"Afghanistan is doing its best to combat this but needs the assistance of the international community," said Mostapha Zaher, director of the Afghan environmental protection agency. Afghanistan's poultry production is small-scale with an estimated 12 million chickens in the country, he said. It was essential that farmers get compensation for culled birds, he said.

Jilted; Pakistan and America - The Economist 03/17/2006 - George Bush comes and goes. And a nation goes into a sulk

AFTER George Bush's "historic" visit to India, his brief stop in Pakistan on March 3rd-4th was bound to be an anticlimax. But it turned out worse than that. It left Pakistan's large anti-American lobby with plenty of grist to mill into accusations of hypocrisy, fickleness and untrustworthiness. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, champion of the alliance with the United States, and a man Mr Bush calls "my buddy", found himself looking more beleaguered than ever.

Mr Bush made history in India by rewriting the global rules governing nuclear power and weapons to make an exception for his hosts. Pakistan, which, like India, exploded nuclear bombs in 1998 and has never joined the global non-proliferation regime, is receiving no such favour. Of course, its record on proliferation is so nefarious that this was never on the cards. But there could be no starker example of the higher priority America now attaches to its relations with India.

Pakistani officials argue that, in substance, Mr Bush's visit brought them almost all that had been planned for it. The only failure was in not signing an intended "Bilateral Investment Treaty", because of some outstanding differences. (So, wags said, India got a great nuclear deal; Pakistan not even a little BIT.)

However, even Tasnim Aslam, who speaks for Pakistan's foreign ministry, concedes that public perception of the visit was "extremely negative". There was already a long list of popular grievances with America: the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and an American air-strike in January inside Pakistan's territory, aimed at alleged terrorists, but also killing civilians. Against this background, big popular demonstrations last month over the publication in Europe of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, whipped up by Pakistan's Islamist parties, were transformed into alarming protests against General Musharraf and America.

In Islamabad, Mr Bush said he had come to see if General Musharraf was as committed as before to bringing "terrorists to justice". "And he is," he concluded. Pakistan says it has 80,000 soldiers deployed across the remote, rugged and lawless Afghan border region, where many believe Osama bin Laden to be hiding. But this week has seen a bitter row with the Afghan government. It complained that Pakistan was not doing enough to stop militants from mounting cross-border attacks. General Musharraf furiously made exactly the same accusation in reverse.

So Mr Bush's visit, instead of celebrating Pakistan's staunch friendship and military help, highlighted its ambiguous role in the "war against terrorism". Just before Mr Bush arrived, a bomb attack on the American consulate in Karachi killed four people. During the president's stay, Pakistan's army was fighting one of its biggest battles yet, in which more than 140 people were killed, against pro-Taliban fighters in the tribal area of North Waziristan, next to Afghanistan.

For America, which says it wants to spread democracy, it is an embarrassment that General Musharraf remains army chief, and has only ever won rigged elections and referendums. So this week the Americans talked about the importance of free and fair elections being held when they are due, in 2007. But the leaders of the two main secular opposition parties remain in exile. The opposition, including even the Islamist parties, say they have had enough of General Musharraf, and are campaigning for a caretaker government to oversee proper elections.

The general himself is also facing a dangerous insurgency in Baluchistan, one of Pakistan's four provinces, and looks rather isolated. Mr Bush, however, offered little help. He made it clear that he would not do much to push India to make concessions on the general's great foreign-policy endeavour: the search for a just settlement of the dispute over Kashmir. From Pakistan's perspective, the peace process with India already looks as though it has stalled. If, as seems increasingly likely, a Pakistan-based group is blamed for the bombings in Varanasi this week (see box on previous page), it may now go into reverse.

Prepare for long Afghan stay: Powell - Toronto Star 03/16/2006 - Tells Canada not to set timeline for pulling out Toronto protest greets ex-U.S. secretary of state

Canada should prepare for an "extended" military campaign in Afghanistan and not put a time limit on its military stay there, Colin Powell told a crowd of more than 2,500 Wednesday night at Roy Thomson Hall. "We all should be prepared for something that's going to be extended," the former U.S. secretary of state said. "I think it would not be the appropriate course of action now to put a time limit on it, because it's situational."

There are Taliban elements that want to continue the fight, he said. Political developments and the Afghan troops' ability to more actively defend themselves are other factors that could prolong Canada's campaign, he said.

Gen. Rick Hillier, chief of the defence staff, told the Toronto Star editorial board earlier this month that he believes there will be high-level international pressure on Ottawa to keep troops in Afghanistan after the scheduled pull-out date early next year.

"It's a controversial issue here (but) I hope that Canada will stand behind what their troops are doing in Kandahar," Powell said. "We have to stick together."

Canadian forces assumed control of Afghanistan's southern province this past February, and last week troops launched a major offensive into insurgent-occupied territory.

Three Canadian soldiers have been killed this year and 25 hurt in various other incidents. Powell told the audience that Canada will be expected to maintain its current 2,200-strong contingent indefinitely.

"It need not be at the same level as it is now. I wouldn't suggest that 2,200 Canadians have to be there for 10 years, five years," he said. Powell was the keynote speaker at the Canadian-American Relations Conference, which was hosted by Global anchor Kevin Newman. Frank McKenna, Canada's former American ambassador, also spoke at the event.

About a dozen anti-war activists protested outside Roy Thomson Hall, claiming that Powell was a war criminal responsible for more than 100,000 deaths in Iraq since the U.S. invaded in 2003. His speech was filled with personal anecdotes including his adjustment to private life after leaving his post as secretary of state.

Powell said wars in Europe and Asia have been prevented because countries such as Canada and the United States stood together and that solidarity must be continued in the war against terrorism. We need to be "prepared to take risks for peace," he said.

There is no secret America was hurt when Canada decided not to take part in the war in Iraq, Powell said. "We can't walk away from this ... we promised Iraqi people that they would have peace and freedom," Powell said, admitting that after defeating Saddam Hussein's regime, mistakes were made that allowed the insurgency to get away.

Powell justified new security measures, such as a new counter-terrorism law that would require passports be shown at Canada-U.S. borders by 2008. He said that after Sept. 11, America needed to shift into defensive mode to protect itself.

For the most part, Powell avoided addressing the perceived growing rift between Canada and the United States. But McKenna didn't shy away from the issue. "I would not have known relationships were strained," if I wasn't reading Canadian media, McKenna said. Americans have a "benign neglect" for Canada, which isn't a bad thing, because they're largely preoccupied with domestic issues.

Like any relationship, there will be challenges, Powell said, but like in the past Canada and the United States will work through them. Sarkh Doz. ''This is the work of our enemies."

While some teachers have quit, most of Helmand's 1,500 teachers are defying the threats. For some, it is a matter of patriotism; for others, the security of a $50 monthly salary.

''Of course we are afraid," said one teacher, Abdul Hakim. ''But this is our duty. For the sake of the next generation, our country, and our children, we cannot quit our jobs."

Hakim, a man with piercing gray eyes under a dark turban, teaches 12-year-old boys at a school in Garmser district, a 90-minute drive south of Laskhar Gah. An atmosphere of fear pervades the town.

The police station is peppered with bullet holes since an attack by the Taliban in December that left nine dead. The town's school for girls is shut, Hakim said, and one of his colleagues who had received a night letter fled to Laskhar Gah. But the boys' school has not been targeted by the Taliban and remains open.

The Taliban's anti-education offensive is consistent with its virulent opposition to schooling for girls. But the campaign also serves a broader purpose -- to erode the tenuous authority of Karzai's government.

''This is not just about girls. The Taliban are against all education," said Sardar Muhammad of Mercy Corps, one of just five relief agencies operating in Helmand. ''Ignorant people are easier to control. When they were fighting their way to power [in the mid-1990s], only the uneducated were sent to the front."

The climate of terror also suits the province's drug barons with whom the Taliban have allied in recent months, local officials say. As a result, heroin and opium flow across the border into neighboring Pakistan and freshly trained insurgents travel from Pakistan in the opposite direction.

At his office, the newly appointed governor of Garmser, Haji Abdullah Jan, displayed an antitank mine rigged to a remote control device intended to kill him along a roadside earlier this month. ''Some villagers called me with a warning. Otherwise I would have driven into it," he said.

As NATO forces prepare to assume control in the south, securing the schools of Helmand will soon be a task for British paratroopers, about 2,500 of whom are expected to start arriving in early May, backed up with Apache attack helicopters. But the British commander in Laskhar Gah, Colonel Henry Worsley, said their principal role was to train and support the fledgling Afghan security forces. ''In a place like Garmser we might help mount a check post, put a soldierly look on it, and tell them how to defend it," he said.

Haji Karim Khan, 65, considered his family's educational history. Four decades ago, he graduated from Kabul University, he said. During the bloody Soviet occupation, just one of his sons completed secondary school.

Now his six grandsons may not even make it that far -- they have just been moved to the town of Goreshk since all four local schools closed down. The people of Helmand say the Karzai government has abandoned them, he said.

''You just hear a small item at the end of the news saying the situation in the southwest is bad these days. But that is not enough. They need to tell us what they are going to do," he said.

Who's really locked up in Guantanamo? - By Tom Malinowski, TOM MALINOWSKI is Washington advocacy director of Human Rights Watch - The Los Angeles Times / March 16, 2006

BY NOW, just about every American ally in the world has said the United States should close its detention camp at Guantanamo Bay. God forbid, responds President Bush, for the camp holds terrorists caught on the battlefield fighting the U.S. and who would kill again the moment they are released.

Yet it's an open secret that the administration itself is trying to make Guantanamo go away by releasing some prisoners and shipping the rest to other countries. What the administration has resisted with real fury are not the calls to close the camp but those to open it - through the release of information and the scrutiny of courts.

The reason may be that the more that is learned about these prisoners, the more holes appear in the president's narrative of a tough and triumphant fight against Al Qaeda. Instead, when the full story is told, Guantanamo may come to stand as much for incompetence as it does for injustice.

Last week, under court order, the Pentagon released the transcripts of several hundred hearings held to decide whether Guantanamo prisoners were in fact "enemy combatants." Classified evidence was deleted, but what emerges is how insignificant most of these prisoners are. Fewer than half were caught on battlefields in Afghanistan or by U.S. troops. A majority were turned over by Pakistan (often for cash bounties). Few "combatants" are even accused of having fought. Many are held simply because they were living in a house associated with the Taliban or working for a charity linked to the group.

It seems that U.S. forces, inundated by thousands of captives after the Afghan war, didn't have enough experienced interrogators and interpreters to sort out the actual terrorists from Arabs unaffiliated with Al Qaeda. But they were under pressure to get results and unwilling to believe that their Pakistani allies could deceive them. Prisoners who claimed to know nothing were subjected to increasingly brutal treatment until some confessed or accused others.

According to Pentagon documents, Mohammed Al-Qahtani, the alleged 20th 9/11 hijacker, accused 30 fellow prisoners of being Osama bin Laden's bodyguards - after Qahtani was tormented by weeks of sleep deprivation, isolation and sexual humiliation. That the Pentagon finds confessions obtained this way credible is, well, incredible. How many false leads has it chased, and how much lifesaving intelligence has been lost?

What the administration doesn't want to face is that, as the small fish were taken to Cuba, Pakistan arranged escape routes from Afghanistan for more dangerous jihadists - presumably those with cash or connections to Pakistani intelligence services - including several hundred flown out of the city of Kunduz before it fell to U.S. forces. The Pakistani military maintains close links with Al Qaeda-linked militant groups created to wage war in Kashmir and Afghanistan, and the Taliban continues to hold sway over Pakistan's tribal areas on the Afghan border. Bush should devote the resources needed to stabilize Afghanistan and tell Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to end, finally, the military-Islamist alliance that has made his country the new home base for Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

In the meantime, here's the score: the U.S. got Guantanamo, the Pakistanis got paid and Al Qaeda and the Taliban mostly got away. Michael Scheuer, the former head of the CIA's Bin Laden unit, recently told the National Journal that less than 10% of Guantanamo prisoners are high-value Al Qaeda operatives with any knowledge of terrorism. Of those turned over by Pakistan, he said: "We absolutely got the wrong people."

That doesn't mean the camp's prisoners are all innocent farmers. Even if they weren't fighting the U.S., many went to Afghanistan to help the Taliban build its "pure" Islamic state - precisely the kind of men Al Qaeda tries to recruit as cannon fodder. Some could become killers if released. But does that make them different from hundreds of thousands of other angry young men throughout the Muslim world who believe in the same cause? There is no shortage of potential suicide bombers. Guantanamo does nothing to solve that problem. It probably makes it worse.

Pakistan asks Taliban to aid security - By UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL Published March 15, 2006

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Pakistani tribal elders in South Waziristan have asked local Taliban to open an office in the area to improve security, the BBC reported.

Well-known religious scholar Mawlawi Abbas said the function of the Taliban office would not be to implement Islamic Law, but to improve security, the BBC's Urdu language service reported Tuesday.

Abbas was on the Pakistan government's wanted list a year ago, but was removed after promising not to take part in, or encourage others to take part in, attacks on security forces.

Local residents, concerned about growing incidents of crime, assault, murder and drug trafficking, could report crimes to the Taliban office in Wana, which would then deal with the perpetrators.

Two months ago, video footage released from North Waziristan showed the headless bodies of members of a criminal gang, whom local Taliban had punished. Abbas said the local government did not object to the plan.

The tribal areas border Afghanistan, where U.S. and Afghan troops hunt for the remnants of the Taliban and members of al-Qaida, who have staged a bloody comeback and frequently carry out attacks on the Afghan and coalition forces, and target civilians.

Afghanistan's mighty women MPs - World Peace Herald 03/17/2006 By Marilyn Angelucci

KABUL - The Afghan parliament includes 64 women and each and everyone has an incredible story. I had the honor of meeting a few of them the other day and I was amazed at the strength and conviction that each one possesses.

One of them is from one of the northern provinces, very conservative and backwards. She was the first women to teach in the university there as a science profession. At the age of eighteen she was given to a mujahideen commander as his second wife. It was her father that arranged the marriage. She was miserable and led a lonely life; he didn't come home very often. When she was still young she was widowed and left with one daughter.

Her strength pulled her through her difficult times. Her family supported her to run for the post of parliamentarian and she is desperate to make a difference for her constituents many of them suffering now as she had.

There was another woman from a larger and more progressive province, if there is such a thing in Afghanistan. She won the hearts of her people because she is a woman of action. She found two young girls living in a container with little food and only potato sacks covering them in the winter cold. There father was there but he was an addict and had no way or mind to care for them. She gave them a banana to eat and they said that they had only eaten the peels until then and didn't know how the inside of the fruit tasted. She took them into her home and is raising them as her own. This experience encouraged her to run for parliament because she wanted to help change things. She encourages her people that together they can find a way to solve their problems.

The third lady is from one of the most conservatives provinces. She said that there are very few girls' schools in her province and child marriages are still common. She wants to change this situation and says that in five years she sees 60-70% of the women in her province participating as an equal in society.

These women have high ideals and a strong conviction but how can they fulfill their promises to their people? It's a long road ahead and they need help. Many of them have no idea how to go about solving the problems but only have a sincere and fervent desire. You see if they don't satisfy the ones that elected them the people will lose their confidence, not only in them as individuals but in the democratic process and look for another solution. It's a fragile time for the new government in Afghanistan and they need our help. It would be a disaster if these good hearted people failed after they suffered so much to get this far.

Afghan lawmaker speaks up for women - East Bay visit draws often-hostile crowd critical of 'sectarian' viewpoints - By Aman Mehrzai,

FREMONT — Afghan Parliamentarian Malalai Joya knew she would face a divided crowd of mostly Afghans before she spoke Thursday at the Century House on Fremont Boulevard.

But she got more than she expected after a group of young Afghan men started protesting a few minutes into her speech, holding banners that read "Malalai (does) not represent women of Afghanistan."

"What have you come here for?" interrupted one man. Heads turned to see the group of men lined up in the back of the room, protesting Joya.

"I have come here to speak for the women and success of Afghanistan," Joya responded nervously. "You can come up here and beat me if you like. (I suggest) if you're going to do it then do it, but I ask you to take your seats and let me speak my voice, then you can respond when I am finished."

Joya is known for speaking out for women's rights, but she is also critical of policies within the Karzai regime. Joya said she came to the Bay Area as part of a larger U.S. and Canadian tour to express her views to the Americanpeople from a woman's perspective.

She first spoke at the University of California, Berkeley at an event sponsored by the Gender and Women's Studies Department. Joya is critical of the electoral process in her country, saying that warlords used intimidation tactics of force and bribery to get people to vote for them.

"People don't talk about the bad things happening, they don't focus on the extreme corruption that could endanger our country from falling apart," Joya said. With many members of the government opposed to her views, Joya said she worries for her safety.

"Those who are in power know that I will expose them," she said. "They don't want me here to speak out. The president of Parliament gave a speech to encourage us not to tell the problems of Afghanistan to the West. I am concerned for my life. People have tried to kill me before, and I am not sure if I will be alive to ever come back."

Throughout her speech in Fremont, supporters and opposers clapped and voiced outrage. At one point, however, even those who opposed Joya applauded her encouragement for national unity.

Joya's critics said she offers a sectarian view that does not represent the majority. "Joya herself is part of the former communistic Maoist views of China, that is against religion and capitalism," said a person who asked that his name not be used. "Her views are representative of one of many sects within Afghanistan today."

Although she once went to a Revolutionary Afghan Women's Association school as a refugee, Joya denies being a part of any group at all. "I am against corruption," Joya said. "Whether it is from a communist, Islamist, former Mujahideen or drug dealers. I don't favor anything except for the success of our country by ridding it of corruption."

Afghanistan's feared woman warlord - 1 6 March 2006 BBC News - By Tom Coghlan / In the Darisujan Valley, Baghlan province

Amid the brooding mountains on the borders of Baghlan province, Afghanistan's only female warlord clings to her remote fiefdom. But the years are catching up with Kaftar, "The Pigeon", as Bibi Ayesha is known, and the Afghan government and its international backers want her to hand in her guns.

"My eyes have become misty," says Kaftar, complaining that she can no longer shoot straight. But she has lost none of the enthusiasm for violence that fed her reputation for cruelty during Afghanistan's wars.

"I am still wishing for a fight," she said, dismissing any notion that women's roles in Afghan society would preclude front-line battle service. "It makes no difference if you are a man or a woman when you have the heart of a fighter."

Her only concession to social mores is that she insists that a male relative accompany her into battle, in line with Afghan tradition for women outside the home.

At the end of a bone-juddering two-hour drive up a river bed from the nearest settlement, Kaftar's fortified house clings to the steep valley wall. Inside the 55-year-old sat flanked by her four surviving sons; tough looking men who are her loyal lieutenants. Two others have been killed in battle.

She has fought the Taleban, the Russians and many a local rival in the mountains of Narin district, which is dotted with the wrecks of old Soviet and Taleban tanks.

She claims to have 150 men under her command, while the UN estimates that she has weapons for at least 50. Now the officials of the UN Disbandment of Illegal Armed Groups programme (DIAG) say they are hoping to begin disarming her in the coming months.

Like many of the estimated 2,000 illegal armed groups in Afghanistan that are still resisting the call to disarm, Kaftar is unlikely to give up her weapons easily.

She insisted she has already given away all her guns, apart, she added, from the Russian Makarov pistol that hung in her shoulder holster. She said she was particularly upset about giving up an ancient British Lee-Enfield rifle in a previous disarmament drive. It was the weapon of choice across the region before the arrival of the ubiquitous Kalashnikov.

The DIAG inspectors are sceptical. Many a commander has attempted to fob off the disarmament campaign with ancient or unserviceable arms, whilst hiding their stocks of up-to-date munitions. The home of one supposedly disarmed commander in Baghlan disappeared in a massive explosion last year, taking much of the surrounding village with it. A stock of unstable ammunition hidden under the house was the cause.

While the neon lights, internet cafes and mobile phone shops in Kabul point to a rush towards modernity in Afghanistan's cities, in remote rural Afghanistan the old feudal order persists; an often violent culture of blood feud and local justice where the reach of central government is weak or non-existent.

"Zar, zan, zamin" - gold, women, land - in the words of the old Afghan proverb provide the motivation for the violence that underpins local life. "People get killed over little things, water and land," said Kaftar with a shrug. On the way up to her house we asked a local man if Kaftar was at home.

"She's up there alright," he replied darkly. It transpired that the man's brother had been killed by one of Kaftar's sons and the feud was unresolved.

"Once you give away your guns people don't care about you anymore," said Qari Alam, 50, who used to have command of a number of bands in the Northern Alliance that fought the Taleban, including that led by Kaftar.

He voluntarily handed in his weapons, including a number of tanks, a year ago and now helps to negotiate between the government and the many still armed commanders in the region.

"The commanders are afraid to disarm because they have so many enemies," he said, "and many people fear the return of the Taleban. Kaftar was a cruel commander. She has a great many enemies."

Bandits prey upon travellers in the area. The most notorious, Abdul "Awal" (Abdul "Number one") is a second generation brigand; his uncle was caught and had his arm and leg cut off by a local commander as a warning to others.

But Abdul continues to ply the family trade regardless. Kaftar says she has no fear of him. "The bandits are afraid of her and her sons, not the other way round," said Qari Alam.

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.

Geopolitical Diary: The Growing Opposition to Musharraf - Stratfor 03/17/2006

Pakistani forces blew up a seminary -- the Khalifa Madrassa in North Waziristan agency, part of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas -- on Wednesday. It was the third religious seminary to be demolished in the area in the past two weeks, since Islamabad launched another wave of anti-jihadist operations. The previous day, Afghan President Hamid Karzai had demanded Pakistan's full cooperation against al Qaeda and Taliban elements, saying that without it, the world would not be safe.

Islamabad and Kabul have been waging a war of words since U.S. President George W. Bush's recent visit to the region. Islamabad has bitterly criticized statements from Afghan leaders that Pakistan is not doing enough, but the pressure it is feeling is coming not only from Karzai but the Bush administration as well. Thus, the Pakistani military launched operations against jihadists in the tribal belt shortly before Bush's March 3 visit. The fact that there was a bombing in Karachi hours before Air Force One was to touch down in Islamabad practically forced Islamabad's hand.

President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's attempts to respond to external pressures, however, are only deepening his domestic problems, which seem to be worsening by the day. The pressure Bush applied about democratization, the deaf ear he turned to Islamabad's demands on Kashmir and the nuclear deal he sealed with India just before his arrival have caused Pakistan's opposition parties to conclude that the love affair between Washington and Islamabad is over. Put differently, the opposition groups are sensing an opportunity to bring down the Musharrafian system.

Public anger at Musharraf's handling of the jihadist war certainly runs deep. U.S. strikes against al Qaeda militants, carried out on Pakistani soil, are viewed as violations of the country's sovereignty that Musharraf has permitted. And furthermore, counterterrorist offensives have been the cause of many civilian deaths: The severity of the fighting in the most recent operation by Pakistani troops forced many North Waziristan residents to flee the area.

Islamist, conservative, liberal and ethnic political groups now are trying to leverage public resentment against the regime in order to forge a broad political movement. The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), Pakistan People's Party Parliamentarians (PPP-P) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) have all said that they intend to boycott any elections held in 2007 under the Musharraf regime. Instead, they have called for an interim caretaker government to conduct the elections, with an impartial election commission. PPP-P and the PML-N members also are thinking of resigning their seats in the current parliament and are trying to get their exiled leadership to return to the country.

The Pakistanis' disgust with Musharraf has been benefiting Islamist political groups since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. What is fairly new about the situation, however, is that now conservatives and (to a lesser degree) liberals are seeking to exploit the fallout from anti-jihadists efforts to their advantage as well. The conservative-liberal opposition coalition called the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) is, however, wary of joining hands with the Islamist MMA coalition, fearing that the Islamists would overpower them in such a union. Among other things, the ARD's leadership is in exile, and the MMA is firmly entrenched in the existing political system. It is little wonder, then, that ARD members have proposed resigning their seats in parliament, while the MMA is lukewarm at best on such a move.

These schisms among the opposition are a source of comfort for Musharraf, but he still is under considerable pressure to turn things around, and soon: A mere guarantee of weakness among his opponents will not secure the survival of his regime.

UK "quartermaster" for Pakistan militants jailed - Reuters 03/17/2006

LONDON - A British man, who bought equipment which might have been used in attacks on coalition troops in Afghanistan, was jailed on Friday after he admitted being a "terrorist quartermaster", UK police said.

Mohammed Ajmal Khan, 31, bought material that was sent to and used by the proscribed Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a Pakistan-based militant group fighting in Indian-ruled Kashmir and that Britain says has links to al Qaeda. The group was banned in 2002 after being blamed for a bloody attack on the Indian parliament which brought Pakistan and India close to a fourth war.

British police said Khan had provided material for the group when it was planning and conducting operations in Afghanistan in 2002-3 when coalition forces were involved in heavy fighting in the region.

"Khan is a terrorist," said Peter Clarke, head of the UK's anti-terrorism branch said in a statement. "He has been trained in violence. He went to great lengths to buy terrorist equipment, some of which could well have been used against British forces."

London's Snaresbrook Crown Court heard that Khan had access to more than 20,000 pounds ($35,000) to buy equipment, which included 1,000 sq metres of Kevlar -- a material used to make armour plating for vehicles and for bullet proof armour.

He was also involved in buying remote high tech videos and a global positioning system which were used to test an unmanned aerial "drone".

British police said such drones laden with explosives had been shot down by Indian and Pakistani forces in the region and that the LeT had claimed on its Web site to have used them successfully in attacks.

He had been trying to buy night vision and thermal imaging equipment when arrested in 2003 and also worked closely with Masaud Khan and Seifullah Chapman -- both given long jail terms in the United States in 2004 for terrorism-related offences.

Mohammed Khan received eight years for conspiring to enter into "an arrangement as a result of which money or other property is made available or is to be made available for the purposes of terrorism". He was also given a further year in jail for being in contempt of court.

[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.]