In this bulletin:

• 2 Afghan Workers Killed in Rocket Strike
• Afghanistan says bin Laden is in Pakistan
• Afghan Envoy Says Taliban Strength Growing
• Canadians back Afghan mission despite deaths-poll
• Taliban suspects won't be harmed, Harper believes
• Squalid, crumbling jails of Afghanistan concern Canadian
• Pakistan pledged $250m for Afghan reconstruction’
• Pakistan to open new trade route with Afghanistan
• MMA wants peace, stability in neighbouring Afghanistan: Senior minister
• Taleban on the prowl in N Waziristan: Pakistani expat
• TENSION MOUNTS IN THE BORDERLANDS
• Al-Qaida escapee appears in second video
• Official say Iranian-Afghan relations "perfect"
• Afghanistan: More weapons surrendered
• New building of British consulate, British Council opened in Kabul
• The Afghan fiasco: why a certain certainty is certainly being missed
  

2 Afghan Workers Killed in Rocket Strike

Kandahar (AP) - Militants fired a rocket at a car carrying UNICEF workers in western Afghanistan on Friday, killing two Afghans and seriously wounding a third, police said.

The rocket was fired as the car was traveling to Herat, said Nisar Ahmad Pakar, a district police officer. The driver and a passenger were killed, he said. Another passenger was seriously wounded.

Edward Carwardine, a spokesman for UNICEF in Kabul, the capital, said a UNICEF driver, an Afghan UNICEF staff member and a third person from another aid group were in the car.

He said the UNICEF staff member was seriously injured and police had informed the U.N. agency that two people were killed. He said he couldn't confirm if either was a UNICEF employee.

Carwardine said the attack against the U.N. children's agency was unusual, and that he could not recall any UNICEF fatalities in the last four years in Afghanistan.

The UNICEF vehicle was accompanied by another car with armed guards in it, which is standard procedure for UNICEF in Herat province, he said.

The last time UNICEF suffered any violence in Afghanistan was in May 2005 in Jalalabad, when its offices were attacked by rioters demonstrating against drawings originally published in European newspapers showing Islam's Prophet Mohammed. Two cars were set on fire but no one was hurt.

Elsewhere, an oil tanker exploded early Friday outside Kandahar, killing the driver of the truck, district administrative chief Aghi Siraj Khan said. Khan said it appeared someone put explosives in the tanker.

Supporters of the hard-line Islamic Taliban militia, ousted from power in a U.S.-led invasion in late 2001, have stepped up attacks in recent months, principally targeting international and Afghan government soldiers.

In Washington, Afghan Ambassador Said Tayeb Jawad said Taliban strength in Afghanistan is on the rise and even with a growing NATO security force, the country's defenses against explosive devices and suicide bombings are severely strained.

The Taliban are acquiring more sophisticated weapons and motorcycles from abroad and continue to receive training in Pakistan, Jawad told The Associated Press.

Afghanistan says bin Laden is in Pakistan – paper

BERLIN, May 13 (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden is living in Pakistan close to the Afghan border, but Pakistani authorities are only making "half-hearted" efforts to catch him, Afghanistan's foreign minister was quoted as saying on Saturday.

Germany's Bild am Sonntag newspaper asked Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta in an interview whether recent reports that the al Qaeda leader was living in Pakistan were true.

"According to everything we know, he really is living in Pakistan, near to the Afghan border," Spanta said.

"Our neighbour could certainly catch him and put him in court. But to our knowledge, their efforts to do this have always been half-hearted," he said, according to the advance text of an article due to appear in the paper on Sunday.

A senior U.S. security official said earlier this month that most of the al Qaeda and Taliban leadership had found safe haven in Pakistan's lawless tribal belt that borders Afghanistan, and that bin Laden was probably living in Pakistan. The remarks were angrily rejected by Islamabad.

Afghan Envoy Says Taliban Strength Growing - By BARRY SCHWEID (AP) , 05.12.2006

Taliban strength in Afghanistan is on the rise and even with a growing NATO security force, the country's defenses against explosive devices and suicide bombings are severely strained, the Afghan ambassador said Friday.

Taliban, which controlled the South Asian country for five years until it was toppled in a U.S.-led invasion in 2001, is acquiring more sophisticated weapons and motorcycles from abroad and continues to receive training in neighboring Pakistan, Ambassador Said Tayeb Jawad said in an interview.

Taliban fighters are crossing the border into Afghanistan 15 to 20 at a time, and are able to kill five or six Afghan police officers, who are trying to make do with old Soviet-era jeeps, with a single mine, Jawad said.

"So what we need and demand is better help for our police forces and also resources to strength district-level administration," the ambassador said.

According to the Pentagon, 23,000 American forces currently are in Afghanistan.

NATO, meanwhile, is increasing its security force from 9,000 to a total of 21,000 by the end of the year, he said.

One reason for the spike in Taliban terror attacks, Jawad said, was the NATO expansion in the south of the country. "The terrorists hope to deter NATO countries and get them to change their minds by attacking NATO troops," he said.

On Monday, the commander of U.S.-led coalition forces, Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, told reporters at the Pentagon that U.S. troop levels had increased by about 15 percent since the beginning of the year and that he was not ready to recommend a reduction. Jawad, however, said he expects the U.S. deployment to be slashed by up to 3,000.

Eikenberry said the surge in Taliban attacks was due more to weak government institutions than a major improvement in Taliban's strength. But Jawad told The Associated Press Friday that Afghan troops were stretched thin and up against better weapons in the hands of the Taliban.

In some instances, he said, 10 to 15 Afghan soldiers are deployed to defend districts hundreds of miles wide. The soldiers are poorly trained, not properly equipped, some have not been paid for months and some have only two clips of ammunition, he said. "They are brave, but they are very vulnerable," Jawad said.

Canadians back Afghan mission despite deaths-poll - May 12, 2006

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Support among Canadians for the country's military mission in Afghanistan has slipped but is still relatively solid despite a rash of recent military casualties, according to a new poll on Friday.

The Ekos survey -- provided to Reuters -- shows 62 percent of Canadians support the mission in Afghanistan, down from 70 percent in early February. The number opposed grew to 37 percent from 28 percent.

Canada has 2,300 troops based in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. Four soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb on April 22, bringing to 16 the number of Canadians who have died in Afghanistan since the September 11 attacks.

The troops are due back next February and the new Conservative government is under increasing pressure to outline whether it will extend the mission. "In some ways, what is most remarkable here is how robust support for the mission has proven to be," said Ekos President Frank Graves.

"After all, for the first time in many years, Canadians are seeing significant casualties among their armed forces," he said in a statement. The Ekos poll of 1,013 people was carried out between April 20 and 27 and is considered accurate to within 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Taliban suspects won't be harmed, Harper believes

Last Updated Fri, 12 May 2006 - CBC News

Canada expects Afghan authorities will live up to their treaty obligations when Canadian soldiers hand over prisoners to them, Prime Minister Stephen Harper says.

Harper was commenting on news that Canadian troops had arrested 10 suspected insurgents in Afghanistan earlier this week, their biggest capture yet. Harper was asked on Friday what assurances he has that those prisoners, who are now in the hands of Afghan security officials, won't be harmed.

"They're handing them over in accord with the treaty we've signed with the government of Afghanistan, to respect all of Canada's obligations under the Geneva Conventions. We expect the Afghan government to live up to those obligations, and have every reason to believe that they will.

"But, quite frankly let me say this," the prime minister added. "When our forces on the ground, taking on this terrible ex-regime, this terrible organization, when they capture people and when they make progress in their fight against the Taliban, I think this is something that all Canadians should celebrate."

Harper was also asked whether he thought photographs of the Afghan prisoners should have been suppressed. He said although he doesn't have an opinion on the pictures, he believes military operations are a matter of national security and it's up to Department of Defence officials to decide what information is released.

On Thursday, photographs were released of Canadian troops arresting 10 suspected Taliban members while escorting a convoy to Gumbad, north of Kandahar, where Canada maintains a forward operating base.

The Canadians were given a tip that a group was hiding in a compound. Ten men were subsequently handed over to the Afghan National Police.

A photographer with Agence France-Presse was embedded with the unit and captured images of Canadian troops processing the detainees and taking them into custody.

A controversy arose when Canadian military authorities suggested the images may be a violation of the prisoners' rights under the Geneva Conventions. Article 13 of the convention states: "Prisoners of war must at all time be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity."

However the military later said it was up to the individual news organizations to decide if they wanted to publish the images.

In western Afghanistan on Friday, militants fired a rocket at a car carrying UNICEF workers to the city of Herat, killing two Afghans and seriously injuring a third. A United Nations' representative said the attack against the UN children agency was unusual and that he could not recall any UNICEF fatalities in the last four years in Afghanistan.

Squalid, crumbling jails of Afghanistan concern Canadian - GEOFFREY YORK – Globe and Mail

KABUL -- Hundreds of prisoners, some wielding knives, were rampaging and six were already dead when Brian Tkachuk arrived at Kabul's biggest prison to try to calm the situation.

Mr. Tkachuk, a Canadian adviser on Afghan prison reform, was one of several foreign experts who attempted to prevent a bloodbath when more than 1,000 prisoners rioted at the notorious Policharki prison on the outskirts of Kabul this year.

The prison guards were exhausted and short-tempered after four days of riots, but the Canadian adviser and his colleagues helped the staff realize this was a chance to show the world they could resolve a crisis peacefully. The rampage ended without any more deaths.

"It had the potential to be a disaster," said Mr. Tkachuk, an official from the Correctional Service of Canada. "They had never experienced such a long siege before. In the past, they would have just gone in with massive firepower."

Mr. Tkachuk, who arrived in Afghanistan last summer, is on a one-year contract financed by the Canadian International Development Agency to help rebuild and reform Afghanistan's dilapidated prison system. He is the only foreign corrections adviser at the UN mission in Afghanistan.

It's a daunting task. The prisons here are overcrowded, crumbling, squalid and in urgent need of basic sanitation and water. And the situation is growing worse. More than 6,000 prisoners are crowded into Afghanistan's 34 main provincial prisons today, a dramatic tenfold increase from the 600 inmates in the same prisons when the Taliban regime was toppled in 2001.

The Taliban, who preferred to mete out rough justice in the streets with lashes and beatings, kept few people in its prison system and allowed the jails to deteriorate. Today, as the Afghan court system expands, the prison population is rising sharply. Yet the jails are falling apart.

"The physical infrastructure is essentially destroyed," Mr. Tkachuk said. "Most of the prisons are mud structures, and they erode very fast. The walls and towers are crumbling and collapsing."

Of the 34 major prisons in Afghanistan, 24 are considered to be overcrowded, with more detainees than their maximum capacity, according to a report by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
One prison, in Logar province, was keeping its inmates in an underground chamber as recently as last year. The practice ended after foreign experts complained.

Some prisons are basically uninhabitable while others are so damaged they need major renovations. Some jails are rented from private landlords and were never designed to serve as prisons. "Only about five or six of the 34 main prisons in Afghanistan actually have secure walls and can adequately maintain their prisoners," Mr. Tkachuk said.

"It's a question of basic human rights. Without a functioning prison system, human-rights violations are inevitable. These violations do occur and will occur if we don't help them."

According to a consultant's report for the Afghan Ministry of Justice, most prisoners are feeling "despair" because of the shortage of food and medicine. In many cases, they are deprived of food as a method of punishment, the report said.

Female prisoners, along with their children, are often imprisoned in the same jail as male prisoners, without any separate facilities.

Mr. Tkachuk is hoping that the international community will donate funds to modernize or rebuild the prisons. But he admits it is a difficult struggle to catch the attention of donors.

"There's very much a shortage of countries willing to build prisons in Afghanistan," he said. "It becomes a marketing game. We're competing with the schools and hospitals."

Pakistan pledged $250m for Afghan reconstruction’ - By Zulfiqar Ghuman Daily Times 13 May 2006

ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri informed the Senate on Friday that Pakistan had pledged $250 million for assistance in reconstruction of Afghanistan since 2002. The foreign minister further said that the projects undertaken by the Pakistan government since 2004 dealt with the construction of infrastructure in Afghanistan and capacity building projects for Afghan government officials. Health Minister Nasir Khan told the house that his ministry had launched a countrywide anti-hepatitis programme. He said that the ministry had identified 58 district hospitals where the treatment of some 5,000 hepatitis patients would start soon. “We have procured the vaccines required for the treatment,” he added.

The minister said that the government could not pursue too many projects since most of its energies and resources were concentrated towards to the earthquake-affected areas. However, he said, this year, the ministry would involve genuine NGOs working against the spread of hepatitis. The minister said that work on women’s hospitals could not start on time due to some structural changes and the lack of capacity in the Pakistan Works Department (PWD) upon which many senators criticised the PWD and asked the government to approach other departments if the PWD was insufficient to meet their demands.

Nasir Khan also came under fire for not fulfilling his promise to check the use of Danish medicines in government hospitals. The minister said that the funds which had been allocated to different departments but had not been utilised, could be reallocated to the earthquake-hit areas in case of an emergency.

However, he said, the government had already allocated more funds for the projects there. Senator Bhinder was critical of the government for not releasing funds in certain cases resulting in increased cost of projects in some cases while in yet some cases, though the government had released funds for the welfare of the people, the ministry concerned had failed to utilise the allocated funds.

Pakistan to open new trade route with Afghanistan

QUETTA, May 11 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Pakistani officials said on Thursday they were planning to open a new trade route with Afghanistan in Balochistan province on the border with Zabul province as a step to improve bilateral transit trade.

The new way will be opened in Qamaruddin Karez of Muslim Bagh district of Balochistan joining to Shinkay district of the southern Afghan province of Zabul.

Balochistan officials said opening of the gateway was aimed at boosting up trade ties between the two neighbours.

Spokesman Razzaq Bugty told Pajhwok Afghan News the decision was reached between Eng. Shahid Jameel Qureshi, Minister of State for Communications and Chief Minister Balochistan Jam Muhammad Yousaf.

He said opening of the Qamaruddin Karez was an important step in expanding commercial relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Afghans would be able to carry their produces to international markets through this way.

The new route would also be linked to the Gawadar Port at Karachi that would be another benefit for Afghanistan products to easily reach in world markets. Chief of the Afghan consulate in Quetta welcomed the move as an important step in cementing bilateral trade relations.

MMA wants peace, stability in neighbouring Afghanistan: Senior minister

PESHAWAR: The NWFP Senior Minister and Provincial Amir of J.I. Sirajul Haq has said that the MMA government wants peace and stability in Afghanistan as well as establishing cordial relations with this neighbouring country that is in great interest of both the Muslim states and the region whereas they will never hesitate to any sincere effort as per religious and national obligation.

Talking to journalists at Markaz-e-Mashawarat Peshawar he also acknowledged the endeavours being made to create differences at government and people level in Afghanistan against Pakistan that was direly felt by him during meetings with 8 Afghan senators on the eve of Al-Quds Conference in Iran. He said it was the outcome of those negative elements, which did not want prosperity of Pak-Afghan people and integrity of the Muslims. However, he cautioned that both the neighbouring Muslim nations should not give heed to poisonous propaganda of inimical countries and instead should join hands together to foil such intrigues for good.

The Senior Minister said that besides extending invitation to the Afghan leadership for visiting Pakistan and NWFP in particular he had also tried his level best to remove mutual differences. He said that close relations and visits on government and people levels could only foil nefarious and provocative propaganda. He said that Pakistani nation rendered numerous sacrifices to let Afghan people get rid of Soviet slavery and besides practically helping them also hosted millions of Afghan refugees at their soil, facilitated them in all respects despite meager available resources.

He said thousands of their innocent citizens were killed in sabotage activities from other side of Afghan puppet government of that time. He said Pakistanis were also enthusiastic enough to participate in reconstruction activities of this war torn country so that peace and stability could be restored over there and the entire region could march on progress and prosperity.

However, he regretted that their joint enemies were again out to spread unrest and violence in the region and hatch numerous conspiracies for this purpose at a time when people of both the neighbouring countries were expecting to harvest the fruit of their sacrifices and see peace and prosperity right from South to Central Asian countries beginning from Khyber Pass.

In replay to a question that whether government would accept invitation of visiting Afghanistan, the Senior Minister nodded in positive saying that Frontier Government would eye towards a bright future of Pak-Afghan people instead of seeing backward to the past. About a proposal of Pak government to erect fence on Pak-Afghan border and lay land mines to make it uncross able, Sirajul Haq made clear that it was impracticable and was only done under US pressure. He said it was aimed at dividing the same Muslim and Pakhtoon nation and creating distances among them. He said history was testimony to the fact that all such unnatural steps have proved fruitless. (Online International Network News)

Taleban on the prowl in N Waziristan: Pakistani expat - Web posted at: 5/13/2006 - Source: The Peninsula

doha • A new and younger generation of the Taleban is on the prowl in North Waziristan and they are scaring a lot of people away from this trouble-torn region in Pakistan, says a Doha-based Pakistani Pathan back from visit to the area.

There is mass migration from this area bordering Afghanistan into cities in adjoining regions, as a result of which house rents in these cities are going sky high, says Firoz Khan Afridi, head of the Pak-Pashtun Adabi Tolna, a literary organisation of Pakistani Pathans in Qatar.

Afridi's home town is barely 250km south of Wana, the main city in North Waziristan. "I recently visited Wana to meet friends. People are scared there and are leaving," he told this newspaper.

A new and younger generation of the Taleban has sprung up in the area and they are flush with funds and weapons. They are killing people by the dozens, targeting those who they suspect are siding with the Pakistani government in its campaign against terrorism.

"They have a very scary way of issuing ultimatums to carry out their death threats. To a man marked, they send a needle with a long thread and Rs1,000 ($17) in cash and an ultimatum they will kill him in 24 hours," said Afridi.

The money is for the man's family to buy burial cloth and the needle and the thread are for stitching it. "Whoever has so far been handed these materials, has been found dead within 24 hours. There has been no miss and that's what scares people," said Afridi.

More than 500 people have been killed this way so far and thousands of them have fled. This is besides the large number of army personnel who have been targeted and killed by these Taleban operatives. "People call them neo-Taleban since they are fresh out of madarasas. They seem to have access to sophisticated weaponry and massive funds," said Afridi.

"Nobody knows who is funding them, but they have enough cash at their disposal. They are a dangerous lot and do not think twice before targeting anyone for killing."

Since there is widespread illiteracy and unemployment in the area, it is easy for them to get followers in large numbers. "There are unemployed youth who have nothing to do and they are their potential targets for recruitment."

Demand for weapons has risen, pushing up prices. For instance, an AK-47, which was normally available for Rs5,000 is now on sale for Rs 22,000, said Afridi. In tribal fights, they use rocket launchers, so one can imagine the availability of weapons in these areas, he said.

Mass migration of people from the area into cities like Kohat and Peshawar has led to increased demand for housing. As a result of this, house rents are skyrocketing in these cities, according to Afridi.

TENSION MOUNTS IN THE BORDERLANDS - 12 May 06 Syed Saleem Shahzad Source: AKI, Italy

Chitral-Nooristan border - In his mud hut in the Drosh mountain valley of Chitral, Haji Abdul Baqi, a tribal elder from Kunar, and his fellow tribesmen sip green tea and discuss how to make ends meet in Pakistan and the struggle to keep in touch with their families in Kunar valley, Afghanistan. A growing militant and military presence is making their lives increasingly difficult. This maze of mountains stretching from Bajaur up to Chitral from the Pakistan side and from Kunar valley up to Nooristan on the other is now a focal point in the US-led 'war on terror', as our correspondent discovered in the first of a series of reports.

"The situation is better in Afghanistan now but the issue is work. We have been here in Chitral for over a decade. I teach in a school here while many of my fellow Afghans work here in various jobs, from labourers to farmers to traders. If we go back to our home town in Afghanistan we have to start a new life which is not an easy task," said Baqi.

"Now we have left our families in Afghanistan and once in a month go to the Kunar valley to meet to our dear and near ones," said Noor Akber. But that sentimental journey in these unforgiving mountains is becoming increasingly difficult and dangerous.

"Now when we come back to Pakistan we must show a letter from a government authority of our area of Asadabad (Kunar's capital) giving us clearance. "Only then will they allow us to enter in Pakistan," Akber maintained.

"The activities of the Taliban has increased many fold in the last few months. They strike and move freely all around the border areas," testified Ghulam Akber, another Afghan refugee from Kunar.

In the US-led war 'against terror' the maze of mountains, valleys, springs, icebergs and glaciers called Chitral and Bajaur (Pakistan) Kunar and Nooristan (Afghanistan) are believed shelter many top targets with a re-grouping of Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives and a growing numbers of foreign fighters.

Bajaur is the place where many high profile personalities have sought refuge and from which they shuttle to Kunar valley in Afghanistan to carry out attacks which have been increasing in intensity and frequency in what's been dubbed a 'spring offensive'.

In January, US drones targeted the remote village of Damadola, based on intelligence about the presence there of al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri (who had left the place earlier). Eighteen people - including four foreign fighters - were killed in the raid which provoked protests from the Pakistan government for alleged breach of its sovreignty by US forces in southern Afghanistan.

Arandu is the last area of Chitral which borders Afghanistan's Kunar valley. Some old abandoned military posts have now been manned by Chitral scouts. Heavy weaponry has also been moved into this area fuelling suspicions that a massive cross-border operation is being planned.

One member of the national assembly from Chitral, Ghulam Akber Chitrally, alleges that the American FBI has established a centre in Chitral to oversee an operation. However this correspondent could not find any evidence to support these claims.

However, various local sources indicate that in recent days US officials have been flying into Chitral valley with the aim of strengthening their military positions across the border so as to better contain Taliban movement from Kunar valley into Chitral, Bajaur and Gilgil areas.

Al-Qaida escapee appears in second video - By MAGGIE MICHAEL - ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

CAIRO, Egypt -- An al-Qaida member who escaped from a U.S. prison in Afghanistan last year appeared in a second video and urged Muslims to seek vengeance for the cartoons of Islam's Prophet Muhammad that have appeared in several European publications.

Abu Yahia al-Libi, who broke out of prison in July, appeared in a video broadcast by the pan-Arab satellite channel Al-Arabiya last October in which he recounted how he and three other al-Qaida members, who also were shown in the recording, escaped from the facility.

Thursday's video, which was posted on a Web site used by Islamist militants, suggests that al-Libi, who appeared alone, was still alive earlier this year during the cartoon controversy that peaked in January and February.

"Sharpen your swords, and get ready and make them drink the glass of death," al-Libi said in Arabic during the 35-minute recording. Shown in front of shelves filled with books, he had a long black beard and wore a black turban and camouflage fatigues.

The authenticity of the video could not immediately be verified. "We tell the state of Denmark, its sister Norway and France - the enemy of the veil, chastity and purity, which harmed the Prophet ... we wish to see you toppled," he said.

Islamic tradition bars any depiction of the prophet out of concern such images could lead to idolatry. Afghan police said at the time of the escape that al-Libi's actual name was Abulbakar Mohammed Hassan and that he was Libyan.

U.S. officials said the four suspected terrorists broke out of a U.S. military detention facility in the center of Bagram, the main U.S. base in Afghanistan, fleeing through barbed wire stockades in the first escape from the compound since the American military took over the former Soviet air base.

The Pentagon, several months later, identified another of the fugitives as Omar al-Farouq - one of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden's top lieutenants in Southeast Asia.

In the past month, three al-Qaida leaders and an Afghan warlord who pledged to support the international terror network all have issued recordings that appeared on the Internet or were obtained by the Al-Jazeera satellite channel.

The Danish Jyllands-Posten first published the cartoons of Islam's Prophet in September last year. Their republication in January sparked protests across the Islamic world that saw attacks against Western embassies and people killed in Libya and Pakistan.

Official say Iranian-Afghan relations "perfect"

Text of report by Iranian radio from Mashhad on 11 May

[Presenter] Dear listeners, we have conducted an interview with Mr Mohammad Omar Dawudzai, the Afghan ambassador to Iran, about the topics that he discussed at his meeting with the Iranian vice-president earlier. Here are details of this interview and the issues he underlined in his interview about the ties between the two countries.

[Reporter] Mr Dawudzai, lately you had a meeting with Mr Ali Sayednur [as heard] the executive vice-president of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Please tell us what were the issues discussed at the meeting?

[Dawudzai] I had a meeting with Mr Sayednur, the executive vice-president of the Islamic Republic of Iran yesterday afternoon. He is also the director general of the Reconstruction Commission for Afghanistan. We spoke about the Islamic Republic of Iran's active role in the reconstruction process in Afghanistan as well as the visit of a senior Iranian delegation to Afghanistan.

[Reporter] How do you assess the role of the Islamic Republic [of Iran] in the reconstruction process in Afghanistan and also, please tell us what does Afghanistan need and in which aspects can the Islamic Republic [Iran] help Afghanistan?

[Dawudzai] The contribution of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the reconstruction of Afghanistan has been very positive. Iran is one of those great countries that have implemented high quality projects in Afghanistan. The Iranian contribution in the reconstruction process of Afghanistan has many aspects, including cultural, economic and transportation. I think that transport is vital and important for Afghanistan and we appeal to them to speed up implementing their projects in this field.

[Reporter] As far as both countries are interested in expanding their ties, what do you think do they need to expand their ties? What plans do both countries should draw up to fight against the drugs trade?

[Dawudzai] We have perfect ties and we still try to improve them, making them more perfect. We had some agreements regarding some issues and they have not been implemented yet. Now we are trying to implement all agreements soon.

As you know, drug trafficking and [poppy] cultivation are one of the biggest challenges for both Iran and Afghanistan. [Afghan] drugs also cause damage in Iran as they have a long border with us. In the last few years, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been helping us to scale down poppy cultivation in Afghanistan and strengthen the border control to fight drug trafficking. We expect Iran to help us provide our farmers with seeds to grow alternative produce. We also cooperate in the fight against drug trafficking and we both want to expand this kind of cooperation.

Afghanistan: More weapons surrendered

Source: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN)

[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

KABUL, 12 May (IRIN) - Former militia commanders in Afghanistan's eastern province of Nangarhar have voluntarily surrendered a number of weapons to the Disbandment of Illegal Armed Groups (DIAG) programme, officials from the UN-backed initiative said on Thursday in the Afghan capital, Kabul.

"Nine former commanders surrendered around 25,000 rounds of ammunition, as well as 77 light and heavy weapons, including mortars and rocket-propelled grenades to the DIAG weapons collection team in Nangarhar province," Ahmad Jan Nawzadi, public information officer at the DIAG programme, explained.

The arms will be transferred to the government's Pol-i-Charki central weapons collection point in Kabul. Some of the weapons will be re-commissioned for use by the army, the rest destroyed, according to DIAG officials.

Two days earlier, elders from the Mangal tribe in the southeastern province of Paktia surrendered three Soviet-era T-54 tanks as well as a number of weapons to the DIAG collection team. The handover took place in the Said Karam district. The tanks have been decommissioned and are to be removed to the heavy weapons cantonment site in Gardez, capital of Paktia.

Following the disarmament of Afghan militia forces under the UN-backed Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) programme completed in late June 2005, the Afghan government and the UN are now focusing on the DIAG initiative.

More than 60,000 former combatants had been disarmed under the DDR initiative, which took almost 20 months and cost more than US $150 million to complete. In addition to assisting ex-combatants, about 35,000 light and medium weapons and 11,000 heavy weapons were collected across the country by the programme.

The Afghanistan Compact - a multi-billion dollar UN-backed blueprint for continued international engagement over the next five years - commits the war-ravaged country to disbanding all illegal armed groups by the end of 2007.

But the challenge of collecting weapons in a country scarred by over two decades of conflict and internal strife is far from over. There are still between 1,800 and 2,000 illegal armed groups threatening a fragile stability across the country, according to DIAG.

New building of British consulate, British Council opened in Kabul - Text of report by Afghan independent Tolo TV on 11 May

[Presenter] The minister of education and the director general of the British Council inaugurated the new building of the British Consulate and the British Council in Kabul.

A number of MPs and Afghan and foreign guests attended the inauguration ceremony.

[Correspondent] The British Council was opened in Afghanistan in 1964 for the first time. From 1970 to 1972 [as received], cultural activities expanded at the centre, but then stopped due to the unfriendly situation. Three years ago, the British Council was reopened in Kabul.

The British ambassador in Kabul says that the British Council will bring the cultures of the two countries closer.

According to the director general of the British Council, the British Council works with the government of Afghanistan on various cultural fields. He added that their operations would also include support for education in Afghanistan and scholarships for Afghan students.

[David Green, Director General of the British Council] One of our objectives is to support the Afghan Ministry of Education and to help the ministry standardize English language training methods in Afghanistan. We will also work to establish coordination and better relations between Afghan and British universities. We will establish libraries at English language departments of language faculties.

[Correspondent] The minister of education says that they have had discussions with British cultural authorities to ask them to cooperate with Afghan educational officials.

[Hanif Atmar, the minister of education] We had meetings with them today and discussed ways of receiving technical support from them. We want to reach an agreement on education development, particularly development of English language training, teacher training and scholarships for our young students.

The Afghan fiasco: why a certain certainty is certainly being missed - Matthew Parris The Times May 13, 2006

WANT TO LIVE in Britain?, asked The Sun this week. “Fancy some free money? Want a nice house? Want to sponge off the State? “All you need do is buy a gun and hijack a plane.”

The Sun was reacting to the High Court’s ruling that the men who hijacked a domestic Afghan flight have the right to remain with their families in Britain until it is safe for them to return. This follows a long saga in which successive home secretaries have sought to thwart an immigration appeals tribunal, which had upheld the appeal by the Afghans against deportation.

I well remember the day in February 2000. The hijackers had been hauled off their Boeing 727 at Stansted. I was watching the news with a couple of friends. Before the hijackers’ reasons or personal circumstances were known, Jack Straw, who was then Home Secretary, declared that all would be deported “as soon as reasonably practicable” because he was “utterly determined that nobody should consider that there can be any benefit in hijacking”.

“Hmm,” I thought. “And what if some Jews had escaped from Auschwitz and hijacked a plane and flown to England? And did we always return to the USSR refugees who had seized the means of their transport in order to escape?”

I remarked to my friends that the Home Secretary had just handed the hijackers’ legal counsel a corker of an argument, because it would now be difficult for the Government to claim that any individual case had been considered on merit. The Home Secretary had as good as declared that he would be deaf to the merits. I lay no claim to a razor-sharp legal brain. Any first-year law student would have seen as much.

As unwise have been the Prime Minister’s off-the-cuff remarks on the case this week. I quote them verbatim: “We can’t have a situation in which people who hijack a plane . . . we are not able to deport back to their country. It is not an abuse of justice for us to order their deportation. It is an abuse of common sense, frankly, to be in a position where we can’t do this.”

The PM is a bit muddled here. By no means had the High Court ruled that “we are not able” to deport people like this; the Court had ruled that such people can only be deported if their cases for asylum fail on their merits; that the Home Secretary cannot arbitrarily create a category of applicants who are to be automatically refused asylum on account of the means they employed to reach Britain.

Such a category could be created, of course, but it would have to be done by law. We do not have such a law. Perhaps (as The Sun believes) we should. Perhaps the present law is wrong. EVIL TRIUMPHS said its headline; but, demonstrating a more sophisticated grasp of the issues than the Prime Minister, The Sun went on to conclude that the law we have is “a stupid law”. So The Sun at least recognises that it is possible for the law to yield results that defy common sense. Mr Blair’s reasoning is more primitive. He thinks that if something does not seem to him to be common sense, it cannot be the law. It was dismaying to see David Cameron and David Davis chiming in too; and cheap of the Conservatives to jump on this bandwagon.

As the judge pointed out: “Lest there be any misunderstanding, the issue in this case is not whether the executive should take action to discourage hijacking, but whether the executive should be required to take such action within the law as laid down by Parliament and the courts.”

A forlorn hope on the judge’s part. Yet we do need these rules and definitions, and we do have to respect them. It’s called the rule of law. I am sorry to labour what for many readers may seem an obvious truth, but I believe the late 20th and early 21st centuries have seen something of a slipping of attention to this truth in Britain, and that Tony Blair, with his rather 1970s New Seekers vision of self-evident morality and “natural” law, is the worst but not the only exemplar of a dangerously lazy approach to the idea of due process, and the ideal of certainty of contract between the citizen and the State.

Just the other week the Chancellor of the Exchequer (without bothering to mention it in his Budget Statement) announced plans to rip up, retrospectively, arrangements that millions have planned for their legacies when they die. Whatever view you take of the use of trusts, the citizen must know where he stands, and where he will stand. Gordon Brown’s careless disregard for a whole web of presumed entitlements unsettles me. How confident can we now be that pensions really will be linked to earnings in 2012? How sure are new parents of the future of the new “baby bonds”?

I am talking about what we might call a corruption of the fabric of expectation in society: slow, incremental, and rather abstract; but no less poisonous for being hard to dramatise.

Tangential, I know, but the same carelessness towards a time-honoured relationship has been exhibited towards the voter and the voting system. Without proper discussion or consideration, an ancient idea, that an election takes place on a particular day and in a particular place, has been knocked aside by a loose arrangement for postal voting which, even were it not (as it is) a vote-rigger’s charter, kicks away our subliminally important sense of contact, and contract, with the ballot box.

Or take a dry topic, yet at the centre of many of our countrymen’s household budgets: the new tax credit system. The computer system failed to work; two million poor families were forced to repay a total of £2 billion in wrongly assessed payments during the first year. Overpayments are still running at about £2 billion a year; six million families claim credit, and there is no promise that the system will be fixed. Millions of the poorest people have had to repay what are, for them, huge sums. Millions will prove unable to. Those who have repaid will resent those who have not. Everyone will view the next big government initiative with diminished confidence. In a complicated system such as ours, confidence is the cement of what politicians call “social justice”. From ministers the fiasco has elicited something not far from a shrug of the shoulders, as though only intentions count.

In the countryside where I live, something similar has happened. There has been a fundamental change to the subsidy structure for those who live off the land. But the computer system does not work and, as of April 25, only £432 million out of an expected £1.6 billion had been paid, though the original deadline was the end of next month. Some farmers face bankruptcy; many must now service huge bank loans. And if promoting to Foreign Secretary the Cabinet minister who oversaw all this is not a shrug of the shoulders, what is?

I could mention the Child Support Agency; the firm, repeated, broken promises of NHS dentistry; the virtual (though undeclared) abandonment of clear Home Office rules about released foreign prisoners . . . to me, through all these very different problems a thread does seem to run. It is insidious: at a national level a gradual, modest but persistent corruption of the fabric of expectations: a chipping-away at confidence in the contract between citizen and State. Slowly, we are getting more like a banana republic where promises are cheap, nothing ever really happens and nobody expects it to.

I am sorry to sound portentous but I fear we are losing what you might call administrative certainty, a deeply unsexy term and hard to make an issue of. Slow to accumulate and easy to squander, certainty matters.

[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.]