In this bulletin:

• Afghan suicide blast kills two, wounds Canadian
• Coalition kills up to 27 militants in Afghanistan
• Dutch raise suicide attack fears with Pakistan
• Pakistan 'is a top failed state'
• UK troops take over Afghan duties
• Govt to secure Indians in Afghanistan
• Finally approved!!!
• Karzai to attend ECO conference in Azerbaijan
• Air Arabia to launch service for Kabul on May 4
• Construction work on road begins in Kabul
• Economic and social rights in Afghanistan
• Afghanistan's parliament, like a newborn', struggling to understand the basics
• Afghanistan set to open oil & gas sector to bids
• Gatwick airline blocked over Afghan jet deal
• Afghan women get down to business
• Military says in full control of Waziristan
• The return of Taliban

Afghan suicide blast kills two, wounds Canadian - Reuters 05/02/2006

KABUL - A suicide car-bomber attacked foreign troops near the Afghan capital Kabul on Tuesday, killing himself and a passer-by and wounding a Canadian soldier, police said.

Violence has intensified in Afghanistan in recent months with scores of people killed in clashes and roadside and suicide blasts as NATO members build up troop numbers in the dangerous south.

The blast on a main road just to the northeast of Kabul killed a man with a donkey cart beside the road, said provincial police official Maulana Sayedkhail.

He said he did not know the identity of the foreign troops targeted but another police officer, Ajab Gull, said a Canadian soldier had been wounded.

A NATO spokesman said the force was investigating. NATO peacekeepers had sealed off the site of the blast but a Reuters reporter who got to the scene said he saw a human head on the road and another body nearby.

One car was destroyed in the blast and another vehicle, that was apparently being driven by foreign troops, was slightly damaged and had its windows smashed, the reporter said.

Coalition kills up to 27 militants in Afghanistan - May 2, 2006

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Canadian and Afghan forces killed as many as 27 militants and captured three in fighting throughout Afghanistan over the weekend, officials said on Monday.

A coalition patrol on Saturday killed between 15 and 20 militants carrying assault rifles and grenade launchers, who were ''moving with the intent to set up an ambush'' in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, a military statement said. No coalition forces were hurt, it said.

Lt. Tamara Lawrence, a spokeswoman for the U.S.-led coalition, said the coalition troops were Canadian. Americans and British forces also are deployed in the volatile south of Afghanistan, a hotbed of Taliban activity.

On Sunday, the Afghan army killed four militants and arrested another in a two-hour gunbattle in Uruzgan province, which sits north of Helmand province, said Gen. Rehmatullah Rausi, Afghan army commander for the southern provinces. No government forces were hurt.

Also Sunday, in the eastern part of the country, soldiers killed three militants and captured three more during a clash in Kunar province. Militants also shot and killed an Afghan army sergeant in an ambush on his convoy Sunday north of Kabul. AP

Dutch raise suicide attack fears with Pakistan
Tue May 2, 2006 6:09 PM IST

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - The Netherlands asked Pakistan on Tuesday to supply whatever intelligence it could to combat the threat of suicide attacks on Dutch troops being deployed in Afghanistan over the coming months.

Foreign Minister Bernard Bot said during a visit to the Pakistani capital of Islamabad that up to 1,600 extra troops were being sent on a two-year mission to Afghanistan's central Uruzgan province as part of a beefed up NATO-led peacekeeping force.

"The request I made is that, in the exchange of information, we be as open and frank as possible," Bot said, adding: "We are concerned about the increase of suicide bombers because that constitutes a direct threat to our troops."

Violence has intensified in Afghanistan in recent months, with scores of people killed in clashes, and roadside or suicide blasts as NATO members build up troop numbers.

Several NATO members have been checking with the Pakistani government over its security arrangements on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

Despite having stationed around 80,000 troops on the border, Pakistan is often criticised for not doing enough to curb Taliban fighters using its territory as a base from which to attack Afghan and Western forces.

During a war of words between Islamabad and Kabul earlier this year, Afghan officials said suicide bombers were recruited and trained on Pakistani soil.

Pakistan's Foreign Minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri on Tuesday proposed that U.S. and Afghan forces could fence and mine their side of the border, if they didn't like Islamabad's earlier suggestion that Pakistani troops should do the fencing and mining.

"If the Afghans do not want that, let the Americans and the Afghans mine it on their side, fence it on their side. Let there be no excuses," Kasuri said.

Pakistan 'is a top failed state' – BBC 5.2.06

Pakistan and Afghanistan are among the world's top 10 most vulnerable states, according to a new study. The report - compiled by the US Foreign Policy magazine and the US-based Fund for Peace think-tank - ranked 146 nations according to their viability.

Judged according to 12 criteria, including human flight and economic decline, states range from the most failed, Sudan, to the least, Norway. Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka are rated 19th, 20th and 25th respectively.

The top 60 positions in the list were occupied almost exclusively by African, Middle Eastern, and Asian countries. India was ranked 93rd, Bhutan came 39th and the Maldives were not mentioned.

The second annual "failed states index" was based on "tens of thousands of articles" from different sources gathered over several months in 2005 and reviewed by experts, its authors said.

FAILED STATES 2006 - TOP 10 (2005 standing)

1. Sudan (3)*

2. DR Congo (2)*

3. Ivory Coast (1)*

4. Iraq (4)*

5. Zimbabwe (15)*

6. Chad (7)*

(Tie) Somalia(5)*

8. Haiti (10)*

9. Pakistan (34)*

10 Afghanistan (11)*

Each nation was given an overall score based on the 12 criteria:

mounting demographic pressures

massive movement of refugees and internally displaced peoples

legacy of vengeance - seeking group grievance

chronic and sustained human flight

uneven economic development along group lines

sharp and/or severe economic decline

criminalisation and delegitimisation of the state

progressive deterioration of public services

widespread violation of human rights

security apparatus as "state within a state"

rise of factionalised elites

intervention of other states or external actors

Pakistan moved from 34th last year to ninth in the new report - one of the sharpest changes in the overall score of any country on the list.

The contributing factors were Pakistan's inability to police the tribal areas near the Afghan border, the devastating earthquake last October in Kashmir and rising ethnic tensions, the report said.

Afghanistan, ranked 10th, faces different problems from Iraq, which despite the presence of US-led troops came fourth, the report said.

Educated exiled Afghans had been slow to go home following the ousting of the Taleban in 2001, but poor refugees had returned from Pakistan and Iran in large numbers, the study said. "The result is a capital city busting at the seams but short of trained administrators."

India might have the edge over China (57) in the long run, the report's authors suggested. Pauline Baker, president of the Fund for Peace, told the Associated Press news agency that India had greater social mobility and was more decentralised than its more populous neighbour.

UK troops take over Afghan duties - BBC News Monday, 1 May 2006

A contingent of British forces has taken over security duties in one of the most dangerous Afghan provinces. The soldiers have replaced US forces in the Taleban-dominated southern province of Helmand, as part of an expansion of peacekeeping operations by Nato.

Hundreds of British troops are already in Helmand and the full complement will eventually number more than 3,000.

The handover comes as US-led coalition forces said they had killed "15-20 enemy fighters" in Helmand on Saturday.

Control was transferred in a ceremony at a base in the province capital, Lashkar Gah, where a union flag replaced the US flag flying over the site.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan, two suicide bomb attacks were reported on Monday. The attacker was killed - and a passer-by and a foreign soldier injured - in one blast near a US-led coalition convoy in the town of Tirin Kot in southern Uruzgan province, police said.

In eastern Khost province, a man died when explosives strapped to his body went off prematurely, security officials told the BBC.

Two other would-be suicide bombers were hurt but escaped in the incident west of Khost city, officials said.

Violence has been risen sharply in recent months, with a series of roadside bombings against security forces and suicide attacks, mostly in southern and eastern Afghanistan.

Brigadier Ed Butler, commander of UK forces in the country, said he was well equipped for a "challenging mission".

The troops are taking command of Helmand's Provincial Reconstruction Team - one of more than 20 such teams charged with stabilising the country outside the capital, Kabul.

Last week Taleban fighters told the BBC they planned to target and kill British troops in Helmand, one commander labelling the British "an old enemy of Afghanistan".

But Brig Butler said the problems his troops face were "more fundamental" than Taleban or al-Qaeda insurgents.

"We're starting to understand that the nature of the problem is... about tribal issues, it's about water and land rights, it's about feudal and historical matters."

He said British troops had a "very clear" mission and would not go "looking for trouble". He said Britain had made a "long-term commitment" to the country, and he was determined to "make a difference" to the lives of ordinary Afghans.

The Conservatives have called for clarity over Britain's deployment, saying the government has given "confusing" statements on the nature of the mission.

Shadow Defence Secretary Liam Fox said he wanted to know if the soldiers would be countering insurgents, or "are they going to be there purely for reconstruction, are they going to be anti-narcotics?"

Defence Secretary John Reid denied there was any confusion, saying the mission was "to protect the reconstruction and development of the Afghan economy, democratic government and security forces".

He added: "However, it will be necessary to protect that development against terrorists who seek to destroy all three of those elements, or to attack British troops."

Monday's handover of power in Helmand was described by the Ministry of Defence as of "symbolic significance" because Britain does not yet have its full task force in the province.

The army's 3,300-strong deployment to Helmand, led by 16 Air Assault Brigade, will be completed by June.

There are already about 2,000 British soldiers in Afghanistan as part of the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) and US-led coalition forces.

Govt to secure Indians in Afghanistan - NDTV.com, India Tuesday, May 2, 2006 (New Delhi):

Union Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee said India is considering providing more cover to its nationals working in Afghanistan.

Mukherjee while talking to reporters, in the wake of engineer K Suryanarayana’s killing by the Taliban, said the initiative was part of fresh measures to beef up security in the war-torn region.

He said steps such as adding more Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) commandoes to give armed cover to its nationals could be worked out.

At present about 200 ITBP personnel are providing proximate security cover to all the Indian nationals working in Indian-aided projects.

Afghan army and police forces look after the general area protection to those working on projects across the land-locked nation. According to reports around 2,000 workers are estimated to be involved in Afghanistan.

The projects range from building highways, power transmission lines, telecom, Radio and TV stations, hospitals, schools and other sites.

Describing the killing of Suryanaryana as brutal, Mukherjee said such dastardly acts by the Taliban would not be able to cow down India. (PTI)

Finally approved!!!

KABUL, May 1 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The lower house of parliament Monday approved the three disputed ministers in light of the recommendations and definition of the article 106 of the Constitution by the Supreme Court.

President Hamid Karzai had nominated 25 ministers, including old and some new faces, and forwarded their names to the lower house for trust vote under the Constitution. The parliament rejected five ministers, approved 17, while fate of the three ministers was hanging in balance as the MPs disputed over the definition of 'majority'.

In face of the continued stalemate over the issue, President Hamid Karzai invoked article 121 of the Constitution and referred the matter to the Supreme Court. The president requested the apex body to explain and resolve the imbroglio in light of the article 106.

After receiving response from the Supreme Court, speaker of the lower house of parliament Younus Qanuni announced the three ministers as 'approved' during the Monday session.

Soon after the announcement, some MPs tried to start a discussion on the issue once again, but the speaker asked them to respect the SC's decision. "We have already agreed that we will accept any solution recommended by the Presidential Office or the commission," Qanuni said.

Later, Finance Minister Anwarul Haq Ahadi briefed the parliament on the proposed annual budget that has to be approved soon by the lower house of parliament. The budget is to be discussed tomorrow.

The three ministers included Minister for Urban Development Yousuf Pashtun, Minister for Refugees Affairs Ustad Akbar and Minister for Communications Amirzai Sangeen

Karzai to attend ECO conference in Azerbaijan

KABUL, May 2 (Pajhwok Afghan News): President Hamid Karzai will leave for Azerbaijan on Thursday to attend the two-day meeting of the Economic Cooperation Organisation (ECO) in Baku, capital of the neighbouring country.

Presidential spokesman Khaliq Ahmad told Pajhwok Afghan News on Tuesday Karzai would meet heads of states and governments or representative of the member countries and inform them about the business opportunities in Afghanistan.

Khaliq said the president would also meet his counterpart from Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and Pakistani Premier Shaukat Aziz. He will discuss bilateral relations and cooperation with the leaders.

The issue of electricity supply from Iran, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan will also come under discussion during his parleys with representatives of the three countries.

Air Arabia to launch service for Kabul on May 4

KABUL, Apr 30 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The region's first low-fares, and the National Carrier of the United Arab Emirates will start services from Sharja to Afghanistan on May 4.

A statement released by Air Arabia here on Sunday said the company would begin services with fleet of A320. The aircraft featured 162 seats in all economy configuration and had in-flight entertainment, the release added.

Like low-fare airlines around the world, the fares would be based on demand and supply, and would start with USD 123-one-way Kabul to Sharjah. In addition, surcharges (fuel & insurance) of USD 53 would be applied, making the total fare payable for the Kabul-Sharjah sector USD 176.

Officials of the two Afghan airline companies of Ariana and Kam Air, currently operative in the country, said they were weak enough to challenge foreign airline companies with little facilities they had in hand.

Chief of the Ariana Airline Company Dr Mohammad Nadir Atash, told Pajhwok Afghan News:" Ariana Airline Company will suffer loss with the arrival of new Arabic Company." With its current aircraft Ariana could not challenge Arabic Airline Company, he said.

However, he insisted for sound competition with foreign airline companies by buying new aircrafts and providing quality services to customers.

Currently, Ariana Airline Company arranges flights to India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Russia, Germany, Kuwait and UAE. By the same token, head of the Kam airline company Zmary Kamgar said they could not challenge Arabic Airline Company.

Air Arabia was a governmental company, but did not pay tax in UAE, he said, adding "Though we are national company, the government gets 10% tax from us for landing, parking and flights."

Foreign Airline companies would win and domestic companies would fail, unless the government helped the national companies, he added.

However, he said they were trying for betterment in their services and planed to send a delegation to UAE on May 1 for purchasing an aircraft having 148 seats. Presently, foreign international airline companies such as PIA and Indian Airline and Iran Asman are functional in Kabul.

Construction work on road begins in Kabul

KABUL, Apr 30 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Construction work of the 8.5 kilometer road from Bagrami to Ahmadshah Baba project started here on Sunday and would be completed in six months, officials said.

Kabul municipality press officer Mohammad Ishaq Samadi told Pajhwok Afghan News the road had 60 meters width. The project would cost $16m that municipality would provide from the development budget, he added. Unavailability of the budget delayed work on the road for sometimes, he Samadi contended.

36,000 plots had been distributed to the people in Ahmad Shah Baba residential project.

Economic and social rights in Afghanistan - May 2006

Source: Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission
Date: 01 May 2006

1. Introduction

The purpose of this report is to provide a preliminary assessment of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan s protection of selected economic and social rights, based on Afghanistan s national and international human rights commitments.

The foundation of economic and social rights is the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which Afghanistan ratified in 1983.(1) This Covenant provides details of the scope and content of a State Party s legal obligations in relation to the economic, social and cultural rights of their populations.(2) Other international treaties to which Afghanistan is a party also protect economic and social rights, such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Section 1.3 below).

This report presents an analysis of data collected through systematic monitoring of the human rights situation (Human Rights Field Monitoring), by the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 29 provinces throughout Afghanistan. The basis of the analysis is information collected on key indicators for economic and social rights, from almost 8,000 interviews conducted between April and December 2005. Using this information, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission is able to draw some preliminary conclusions and make recommendations to the Government and International Community towards improving their protection and realization of economic and social rights in Afghanistan.

It is important to note that this report is focused on selected human rights and does not attempt to provide an exhaustive overview of the situation of human rights in Afghanistan.

The main issues covered in this report are:

- The right to an adequate standard of living household vulnerability;

- Child labour;

- The right to property and the right to adequate housing;

- The right to water;

- The right to health;

- The right to education;

- The right to participate in development;

- The right to an effective remedy;

- Priorities for the future.

Each issue covered is detailed in a separate section which includes an explanation of the indicators used, presentation of data, conclusions drawn, and relevant government obligations. Examples of potential violations of each right have also been included. These have been identified by the Human Rights Field Monitoring teams during interviews and are the subject of further follow-up by AIHRC.

This introduction outlines the mandate and role of AIHRC in terms of monitoring human rights in Afghanistan. The sources of the Government s national and international commitments to economic and social rights, under the ICESCR (Section 1.3 below) and under the Millennium Development Goals (Section 1.4 below) are also described.

Afghanistan's parliament, like a newborn', struggling to understand the basics

Globe and Mail 02/05/2006 By Geoffrey York

Speaker forgets to tell MPs about session, crucial budget debate delayed a day

KABUL — O utside the doors of Afghanistan's new parliament, the MPs were milling about in confusion. Nobody knows if they are meeting today or not.

Daoud Sultanzoy, the head of a parliamentary committee on the economy, was quietly fuming. He arrived at 8 a.m. for a crucial debate on the Afghan budget.

An hour later, only 20 MPs had shown up, and the parliamentary session was cancelled. The budget would have to wait for another day.

"It's sad that we've wasted another day in the life of this nation," he said. "I'm disappointed. Our leadership is very weak and inexperienced. They're embroiled in too many political things and they don't have enough time for leadership."

It was Education Day in Afghanistan, a day after another holiday, and most MPs were under the impression that parliament was shut down for the day.

In fact it was scheduled to work, but the parliamentary Speaker had neglected to inform the MPs.

The mix-up was just another rookie mistake in Afghanistan's fledgling democracy. "It bothers me," admits Jamil Karzai, an MP who is a nephew of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. "We lost a day. But this is a new experience for the MPs and sometimes they don't know what to do."

After three decades of wars and revolutions, the members of the 249-seat lower house are still struggling to understand the basic workings of parliamentary democracy.

"We are all trying to find our way," Mr. Sultanzoy says. "There's a lot of room for improvement.

"But in general, I think our parliament has performed above expectations. I'm hoping we can build an institution that lasts longer than us."

The new parliament, formed after an election in September, is an odd mixture of Muslim fundamentalists, former Taliban commanders, ex-Communist politicians, Western-educated women and even a former United Airlines pilot -- Mr. Sultanzoy, who returned to Afghanistan from his house in Malibu after an aviation career in the United States.

When the parliament finally held its budget debate after the holiday confusion, there were further delays, and more complaints about the mix-up. But then legislators plunged ahead with their work.

The Speaker, Yunus Qanuni, patiently explained to the novice MPs how they would review the budget. He switched fluently between Afghanistan's two main languages, Dari and Pashtun, as he explained the process.

"The Afghan parliament is like a newborn baby, and it's going to grow and become mature," said Habiba Danish, one of the 68 female MPs in the new parliament.

"Gradually it will get better. When decisions are made here, people from all ethnic groups are participating in the votes, and I'm pleased by that."

By some estimates, 50 to 60 per cent of the new MPs are linked to the warlords and Islamic warriors who fought countless battles over the past three decades.

But there is a sense of decorum and egalitarianism in the corridors of parliament as women activists cheerfully shake hands with bearded fundamentalists and former Taliban commanders.

"They are very friendly to us and they even ask us for advice now," says Safia Sediqi, a female MP who fled to Canada during the Taliban regime in the late 1990s. "They are definitely changing."

Shokuria Barakzai, one of the best-known women in parliament, says she sometimes hears the male MPs telling her to dress more conservatively.

She retorts tartly by saying that her dress style is a personal decision, like a man who dyes his beard. It's a pointed reference to the vanity of some of the male MPs, and it usually shuts them up.

"I don't have any problems with them," she says. "We have conversations and I sometimes tell them that I disagree, and I even give them advice."

She often chats with Mullah Abdul Salam Rocketi, a thickly bearded ex-Taliban commander who was named "Rocketi" because of his skill in firing rocket-propelled grenades at Soviet tanks in the 1980s.

Mullah Rocketi is on his best behaviour these days. Despite his reputation as a fundamentalist who dislikes the presence of women in parliament, he tells a journalist that he wants Mr. Karzai to increase the number of women in his cabinet.

"When we told the international community that we believe in equal rights now, we shouldn't lie to them," he said. "If women have no real power, we are cheating the international community."

Afghanistan set to open oil & gas sector to bids

Kabul, May 1  Afghanistan is drawing up oil and gas exploration blocks and will soon be seeking production-sharing agreements with foreign companies to develop what it hopes are larger-than-expected reserves.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) says there could be up to 36.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 3.6 billion barrels of crude oil lying undiscovered under Afghanistan, mostly in its generally peaceful north. “We have to explore. We have to divide these areas in blocks and then we will privatise all of these blocks, we will award them to companies,” minister of mines Ibrahim Adel told Reuters.

“The exploration and development of these area will be given to the private sector,” Adel, who is responsible for hydrocarbons and minerals, said in an interview late on Sunday. A recent U.S.-funded assessment of Afghanistan’s energy potential, undertaken by the USGS and Adel’s ministry, gave mid-range estimates of about 1.6 billion barrels of crude oil and 15.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

That’s nothing compared with Opec heavyweight Saudi Arabia, which has about 260 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, and Russia’s 1.68 quadrillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves - both the world’s largest.

But impoverished Afghanistan’s hydrocarbon reserves could provide its agriculture-based economy with a vital boost.

“We have to explore, we have to develop and export and use for our local demand,” said Adel, whose nomination as minister of mines was approved by parliament last month after President Hamid Karzai announced a cabinet reshuffle.

The World Bank helped Afghanistan draft a hydrocarbons law and the best way for the cash-strapped government to develop its reserves was through production-sharing agreements, he said.

“It’s difficult for the government to consider all of the risks of exploration. At the same time, with the experts we have it isn’t possible we can do it ourselves.

“Also, the difficulty of the market, how to reach the market ... The best way is we encourage the companies to invest here, explore and develop and give it to the market.”

Only a fraction of Afghanistan has been explored for hydrocarbons, mostly by then Soviet engineers in the north decades ago.

“It’s just an evaluation from the north, but even that is not complete ... We have just explored some parts of Shiberghan and a small part of Sar-i-Pul province, the other provinces have not been explored,” Adel said of northern provinces.

Adel said he was hopeful new technology could find bigger, and perhaps deeper, reserves.

“The Russian technology was not so modern and they couldn’t drill more than 3,500 metres (11,500 feet). I think our deposits may be deeper,” he said.

In the 1970s, Afghanistan exported natural gas to the Soviet Union but now its only gas output is feeding a fertiliser plant and supplying a small community in Shiberghan.

But in future, Afghanistan will look south for markets. “In the past, the main way was through Russia, now we have to move towards the market, to Pakistan, to Iran, to India, through these countries to the international market,” he said.

Under an agreement on a proposed gas pipeline from Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan to Pakistan, Afghanistan will be able to feed its output into the pipeline, Adel said. Adel said he expected considerable interest when bidding for blocks is opened up, within six months to a year.

Up to 25 companies — from Russia, Central Asia, China, South Asia, Europe and the United States —had expressed interest in just a small oil reserve in Sar-i-Pul province, he said. —Reuters

Gatwick airline blocked over Afghan jet deal - The Sunday Times, UK 04/30/3006

A BRITISH airline has been blocked by the Department for Transport from carrying out a contract to help expand the national airline of Afghanistan.
Astraeus, a Gatwick-based carrier, has been in negotations for several months with Ariana Afghan Airlines. It had secured a deal to support two Boeing 757 aircraft for the fledgling airline.

 The aircraft are owned by Boeing Capital, the American aerospace giant's leasing arm, and will be leased to the Afghan company. Astraeus was to provide flight crew, training, maintenance and other technical support.

But the Department for Transport has refused to sanction the arrangement. Yesterday the DfT refused to comment on its decision, saying it did not comment on applications by individual airlines.

Astraeus said it was told permission had been denied because DfT security officials did not think it was safe for UK-registered aircraft to fly in Afghanistan. Executives said that they were mystified by the decision.

"It is a ridiculous situation," said Jonathan Hinkles, Astraeus's commercial director. "We have carried out our own safety assessments, and identified areas that need to be worked on with Ariana. For the DfT to say that UK aircraft cannot fly there, even when those aircraft are not even flying back to the UK, seems a bit strange."

The two Boeing 757s that were to have gone to Afghanistan have been refurbished in Britain, and have been sitting on the ground for three months waiting for the green light from the DfT.

Ariana already has a similar technical-support deal in place with a French airline, Eagle Aviation. Industry sources said the Astraeus contract may now be offered to a US company, with Omni Air International, a charter airline based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, tipped to get the job.

Hinkles said Astraeus would have initially provided flight crew for the two aircraft, but that the contract aimed to have local staff trained by the UK company eventually take their place. The main maintenance base for the aircraft would have been in Dubai, not Afghanistan, he said.

Ariana has been flying scheduled services since 1955, and from 1957 was developed under a joint venture with the famous American airline, Pan Am.

Under the Taliban regime, the fleet shrank back to eight aircraft, six of which were destroyed on the ground during the American-led overthrow of the Taliban after the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Ariana has since gradually rebuilt its network, and currently flies from Kabul to several international destinations including Frankfurt, Moscow and Istanbul.

Afghan women get down to business - BBC News, Kabul By Mark Dummett
Monday, 1 May 2006

The Kabul Star football is manufactured in a large house in the Afghan capital. The production line runs through its many rooms.

Hexagons of leather are cut and painted in the garage, they are sewn into balls in the living room, washed in the upstairs bathroom, and put in bags in the master bedroom. What makes the factory really unusual though is that all 60 of its workers are women.

Under the Taleban, women were banned from outside work. Even now, many Afghan families do not let their wives and daughters leave home without a male companion, and the vast majority of shopkeepers, and even customers in the capital are men.

"It's just an Afghan cultural thing," was one shopper's explanation. But since the US-led coalition ousted the Islamist regime from power after 9/11, more and more Afghan women have gone back to work.

"We want to show the world that Afghan women can achieve something," explained Aziza Mohmad, whose charity Humanitarian Assistance for Women is behind the football factory.

"Under the Taleban, women were forced to stay at home, but now we have freedom," she said.

As well as earning a wage, she says the Kabul Star workers are also trained and encouraged to set up shop on their own.

Despite all the challenges Afghan women face, the government says a growing number have done exactly that since 2001.

"This is a really positive trend," said Omar Zakhilwal, president of the Afghan Investment Support Agency, a government body which promotes enterprise. "There are a lot of women who are now coming to the forefront."

"Within a few years you will see that women not only have a significant role, as they have always had in the production of commodities, but they will also be heading their own businesses and enterprises."

One women already doing so is Hasina Sherjan, whose company Boumi exports embroidered curtains, cushion covers and other goods to Europe and America.

For her the biggest difficulties have nothing to do with being a woman, but the dire state of Afghanistan's infrastructure after two decades of war and misrule.

"The main challenge is the lack of electricity. We have to run the generator all day long, and that is expensive every week, every month."

According to Ms Sherjan it is hard for her to compete with similar goods made in other Asian countries. For example the textile factory she buys her cotton from - Afghanistan's only textile factory - uses technology dating back to 1939.

"Because the cost of living is so high, the salaries we pay are higher than those in India, China and Indonesia," she complains.

Other business people - both men and women - say cheap products made in Afghanistan's neighbours Iran and Pakistan are dumped on the local market and corrupt government officials do little to protect them.

Then there is the ongoing insecurity in the south and east of the country, caused by the Taleban and other anti-government forces, and fuelled by Afghanistan's most successful economic sector - the illegal drugs trade.

It is clearly a difficult place to do business. And Mariam Siddiqi of the Afghan Women's Business Council warns: "Without women involved in the process, the reconstruction of Afghanistan will fail."

Military says in full control of Waziristan – Daily Times

324 militants including 76 foreigners and 56 soldiers killed in 9 months
* 39 operations conducted since July, 142 militants arrested

MIRANSHAH: The Pakistan Army is in full control in the troubled tribal region of Waziristan, where 324 militants have been killed in operations over the past nine months, officials said on Saturday.

The military made the claim as they accompanied a team of foreign journalists to Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan near the border with Afghanistan.

Briefing the journalists at a heavily fortified military headquarters in the town, top officials said 39 “major operations” had been conducted since July last year to flush out Al Qaeda linked foreign and local militants. They said 142 militants had been captured, and 76 foreign militants and 56 soldiers had been killed in the operations since July 2005.

Miranshah was the scene of fierce battles between pro-Taliban militants and the army in March which killed 145 militants including 23 foreigners, chief military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan told reporters. He said up to 1,500 militants had attacked Miranshah and described the March 4-8 clashes as the heaviest in the region.

In April near Miranshah, the military said it had killed senior Al Qaeda operative and explosives expert Muhsin Musa Matwalli Atwah, indicted in the United States over the 1998 twin embassy bombings in east Africa.

Sultan however acknowledged that the body of the suspect had never been found. “We have reasons to believe that he was among those six to eight foreigners who were killed in the attack,” he said. “Although we do not have his body, intelligence reports indicate his presence so we believe he was killed.”

The officer in charge of anti-militant operations in the region, Major General Akram Sahi, insisted the army was in control in North Waziristan and said reports that the Taliban had taken over the area were “untrue”. “If someone says that there is no writ of government here, it hurts me,” he said. “I am here to kill anyone who is a suspected terrorist.”

“The situation is not absolutely peaceful ... But, to say that there is no writ of the government, it is absolutely wrong,” said Sultan. He said some 31,000 regular troops and 14,000 paramilitary soldiers were deployed in North Waziristan.

Sahi said he is sure that his men have managed to seal North Waziristan’s border with Afghanistan.

He maintained that there were just a few hundred militants active in North Waziristan and that four to five militant leaders - local Muslim clerics trying to impose Taliban-style religious fundamentalism - have been forced out.

“About 80 percent of the population (of North Waziristan) is sitting on the fence, not openly siding with the government, fearing reprisals that they could be assassinated (by militants),” said Sultan. “They want terrorists to be eliminated so that they can have a peaceful life.”

The government’s chief administrator for North Waziristan, Syed Zaheer-ul-Islam, told reporters in Miranshah that a jirga will be called there and tribes will be told to forcefully evict foreigners from the area or make them surrender their arms. Agencies

The return of Taliban

The Asian Age
05/01/2006
By Seema Mustafa
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Tribune 14/3/06: Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar has ordered the execution of four foreigners — described as three Albanians and a German — kidnapped in Kandahar province.

Nation 26/3/06: US soldier was killed on Saturday and another was wounded in a fierce clash with about 20 "enemy" (sic) in Helmand province. Spokesman for the Islamist Taliban Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP by telephone that the movement's fighters were involved in the battle in Sangin district.

News 3/4/06: Taliban militants shot dead five policemen in Charbagh, a south-western residential neighbourhood of Kandahar. Taliban insurgents also set ablaze several trucks supplying goods for US led troops in Helmand.

Daily Times 5/4/06: A group of Taliban stormed a wedding ceremony to disrupt a music programme in Tank, wounding one man a few days after they ordered Bhittani tribesmen to grow beards.

Dawn 24/4/06: Taliban militants have increased bombings and firing across Afghanistan, particularly in southern provinces like Helmand and Kandahar.

United States National Security Strategy: Since 2002, the world has seen extraordinary progress in the expansion of freedom, democracy, and human dignity: The peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq have replaced tyrannies with democracies. In Afghanistan, the tyranny of the Taliban has been replaced by a freely-elected government; Afghans have written and ratified a Constitution guaranteeing rights and freedoms unprecedented in their history....

There is a disconnect. For Pakistan and the US media the Taliban is taking firm hold in at least seven of Afghanistan's key provinces — Kandahar, Zabul, Kunar, Uruzgyan, Paktika, Paktia and Helmand. For the Bush administration national security strategy remains focused on the Al Qaeda, with little acknowledgement officially that Afghanistan too is turning out to be a story of strategic failure with the Taliban re-grouping and gaining ground by the day. Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai's writ runs only in Kabul with his government singularly unable to either provide protection to the large number of workers, like the Indians, involved in construction projects in south Afghanistan, or to actively track down the assailants in any convincing manner.

Reports have been filtering in of a Taliban revival since 2002 when Newsweek first reported of a meeting of top militia officials near Peshawar. It reported then that Taliban leaders were living comfortably in the border cities of Peshawar and Quetta. In the same year Mr Jack Kelley, reporting for USA Today, wrote how for $100 two barbers in a border village, Ghulam Khan in Pakistan, would trim a Taliban or Al Qaeda fighter's hair, shave his beard, give him a new set of clothes and help him slip pass checkpoints manned by the Pakistani police. The report suggested that at least 1,000 Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters had crossed from Afghanistan into Pakistan's tribal areas since the Taliban regime was ousted the previous year. Inside Pakistan, the fighters, according to this report, followed escape routes to safe houses with some of these having satellite connections and large weapons caches.

It is fact that the top leaders of the Taliban have not been captured. The founder of the movement, Mullah Omar, former Taliban intelligence chief Mullah Dadullah, former defence minister Maulvi Obaidullah, and former Taliban "minister" of tribal affairs Jalalludin Haqani have escaped the US dragnet. The Taliban is using old ideology with new methods in its offensive against all that is perceived to be pro-Karzai and pro-US in Afghanistan. US troops, UN employees, Indian workers, Afghan police and pro-Kabul warlords are all targets. At the same time, it is launching attacks based on the propagation of its fundamentalist ideology.

For instance, the attack on the wedding party mentioned above was after Bhittani tribesmen in Tank district did not obey Taliban orders to grow beards within three weeks. Rocket attacks on co-educational schools have also taken place, with the Taliban waging a two-pronged war: one against perceived symbols of US occupation, and two, against kafirs and the Muslims who refuse to conform to its warped religious ideology.

Kidnappings and beheadings are once again becoming commonplace with the Taliban now reportedly shifting track to also embrace suicide bombings as an accepted tactic. It had earlier decried this as anti-Islam. In Helmand last month, a suicide bomber set off his explosives-laden car outside a US military base with the Taliban claiming responsibility for the attack. The government agencies here suggest that Taliban operatives are being trained by insurgents in Iraq, although this appears to be based more on US media reports than independent verification. But there have been sufficient instances to indicate that the Taliban is now re-introducing frontal attacks with US and coalition forces in addition to the militant warfare to which it had limited itself. Taliban fighters, according to media reports, attacked three police posts with at least 14 of their men killed in the clash with the police.

The government agencies here point out that the Taliban has shifted base to Waziristan and is being protected by the Pakistan government. In fact, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan have been caught in a diplomatic war with President Pervez Musharraf recently exchanging hot words with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai about non-cooperation in tracking down Taliban leaders. Sources here said that President Musharraf had been able to take advantage of the US' preoccupation with Iraq and Al Qaeda to shift the focus of his operations in Pakistan and the Northern Areas to arresting Al Qaeda operatives, and ignoring the Taliban and Kashmiri jihadi leaders. "For some reason there has been no pressure on him from the US to crack down on the Taliban or the Kashmiri extremist groups, and they are quite happy if he arrests Al Qaeda men every now and again and hands these over to them," the sources said. Pakistan has been protesting against the Indian decision to open consulates in Kandahar, Mazar-e-Sharif, Herat and Jalalabad with any number of absurd reasons, including allegations that Indian intelligence agencies are running "terror" operations in these areas. The real worry of India's growing presence in Afghanistan and its good relations with the Karzai government has been translated into a verbal row and a clear decision by Islamabad to nurture the Taliban. The US media has been pointing towards the resurgence of the Taliban with detailed reports from the region, but this has not evoked the expected response from the Bush administration. Instead, the effort has been to underplay the Taliban, as if by recognising it the administration will be conceding defeat in Afghanistan as well, and this US President George W. Bush is certainly not prepared to do.

The Indian agencies are certain that Pakistan is behind the Taliban revival and that it is being egged on "deliberately and systematically". Former intelligence officials Vikram Sood and B. Raman had no doubts about Pakistani involvement and the latter insisted it should stop "using the Taliban for intimidating Indian nationals and killing them in order to deter their volunteering for development and reconstruction work in Afghanistan.

Pakistan should be held accountable for any harm caused to Indian nationals by the Taliban and Al Qaeda." India is now a target, not of just Pakistan but also of the Taliban, which has clearly been motivated sufficiently to see it as an ally of Mr Hamid Karzai and the US. Security for the Indians in Afghanistan has become a major issue for while India can absorb such acts of violence, governments definitely cannot.

[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.]