In this bulletin:

• Top Taleban commander 'arrested'
• Afghan president urges Pakistan to stop the violence
• Fighting erupts across Afghanistan
• Pakistan denies Karzai charges of backing Afghan insurgency
• Pakistan sheltering Taliban, says British officer
• Eight militants, two policemen killed in fresh Afghan violence
• Chief Says NATO Committed to Afghanistan
• Hunters may become the hunted in Taleban's venomous heartland
• Taliban, Al-Qaeda Regroup in Afghanistan, Defy U.S.
• Afghan reporters focus on roots of insurgents' unrest
• Afghanistan: Women benefit from livelihood assistance
• Afghanistan’s Buzkashi Parliament

Top Taleban commander 'arrested'

BBC News Friday, 19 May 2006

One of the most important Taleban leaders, Mullah Dadullah, has been captured in Afghanistan, Afghan officials have told the BBC. The senior military commander was said to have been detained by international troops in southern Kandahar province.

Mullah Dadullah was a member of the Taleban's 10-man leadership council before the US-led invasion in 2001. A Taleban spokesman, Mohammed Hanif, has denied the report of Mullah Dadullah's capture.

There has been no official confirmation of the arrest from the Afghan government or US military. The US-led coalition in Afghanistan has been pursuing Mullah Dadullah for more than four years.

Mullah Dadullah has been blamed for much of the recent violence in the southern province of Helmand where thousands of British troops are being deployed.

Officials in Helmand say scores of militants and 13 policemen have been killed in fighting this week. Our correspondent says Mullah Dadullah is very close to the Taleban leader, Mullah Omar. Mullah Dadullah has survived a number of attacks and lost one leg in battle.

He has a reputation for being one of the Taleban's most brutal commanders. High-ranking Afghan officials have told the BBC that he was captured in Kandahar and is being held by the coalition forces. There are no details as to how he was caught.

Three years ago, Mullah Dadullah told the BBC that the Taleban, deposed in 2001, hoped to regain power in Afghanistan. He said the Taleban would fight until "Jews and Christians, all foreign crusaders" were expelled from Afghanistan.

In December 2005 a court in Pakistan sentenced Mullah Dadullah to life in prison for trying to kill conservative Islamic politician Maulana Mohammad Khan Sherani in 2004. Mr Sherani escaped unhurt.

Up to 100 people have died this week in some of Afghanistan's fiercest fighting since US-led forces ousted the Taleban. In addition to the Helmand fighting, at least 25 militants died in two separate clashes in Kandahar.

A US national was killed by a suicide bomber in Herat. Another bomber blew himself up at an Afghan army base in the city of Ghazni as a US military convoy was passing. The bomber and a civilian were killed.

Our correspondent, Alastair Leithead, says there is no doubt the strength of the insurgents has been increasing and the thousands of British and international troops moving into the south will have their hands full.

Afghan president urges Pakistan to stop the violence - Thu May 18

KABUL (AFP) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai accused religious circles in Pakistan of fuelling violence in his country, including the burning of schools, and told Islamabad it must stop interfering in Afghan affairs and reach for peace.

Speaking to tribal elders, officials and religious leaders, Karzai said the neighbouring nation should work to defeat the terrorism plaguing  Afghanistan as it will also hurt Pakistan.

"We know very well that in Pakistani madrassas (Islamic schools) boys are being told to go to Afghanistan for jihad (holy war). They're being told to go and burn schools and clinics," he said in insurgency-hit eastern Kunar province.

"Our demand from Pakistan is, brother, dear neighbour, terrorism is such a fire that if today it catches me, tomorrow it will catch you."

Afghan officials have long accused Islamabad, one of only three allies of the 1996-2001 Taliban regime that sheltered the Al-Qaeda network, of not doing enough to stop the Taliban-led insurgency that many charge is plotted in Pakistan.

Taliban and Al-Qaeda leaders are believed to have fled into the largely lawless tribal areas of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan after the Taliban regime was toppled by a coalition led by the United States.

Karzai said Pakistan was mistaken if it thought the violence would cripple Afghanistan and make it dependent on other nations.

"Here I'm calling on our neighbours ... particularly on Pakistan today if the killings of mullahs, elders, teachers and kids are being done to make Afghanistan once again slave, it's a mistake," Karzai said.

"Live with us in peace and dignity, we'll live with you in peace and dignity," he told the gathering in Kunar's capital Asadabad, less then 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the Pakistani border.

Karzai said he had told his Pakistani counterpart, military leader Pervez Musharraf, during a recent visit to Islamabad to stop interfering in his country's affairs.

"When I met President Musharraf I told him Afghanistan is a land that will never be anyone's slave. It would not be a slave to the British or Russia and nor will it be to you."

"I told him, Mr. Musharraf, there was once a time when Afghanistan's governments were being formed and collapsed in Pakistan. Those times have gone."

Pakistan is accused by some of being instrumental in the Taliban's rise to power in Afghanistan.

A key ally in the US-led "war on terror" launched after the September 11, 2001 attacks blamed on Al-Qaeda, the country has angrily dismissed claims that it is not doing enough to round up Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants on its soil.

It has 80,000 troops on its border with Afghanistan to stop the cross-border movement of militants and has arrested some key militant figures, although the leaders of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda remain at large.

Fighting erupts across Afghanistan - Up to 90 Taliban die; Karzai lashes out at Pakistan - Washington Post By Pamela Constable, May 19, 2006

ASADABAD, Afghanistan -- Afghanistan was rocked yesterday by some of the deadliest violence since the Taliban was driven from power in late 2001. As many as 105 people were reported killed in four provinces as insurgents torched a district government compound, set off suicide bombs, and clashed fiercely with Afghan and foreign troops.

Between 80 and 90 Taliban fighters were killed in Kandahar and Helmand provinces, Afghan, US, and NATO officials reported. Two sites in Kandahar were struck by US warplanes, including a long-range B-1 bomber, which the US military said destroyed a compound Taliban fighters were using to stage an attack.

Among the dead were a US State Department trainer killed by a car bomb in Herat Province, a female Canadian Army captain, and at least 12 Afghan national policemen, officials said.

Afghanistan experienced several years of relative calm after the pro-Western government took over in Kabul in 2001. But in recent months, the pace and scope of insurgent attacks have been increasing, and now include suicide bombings, a tactic long foreign to Afghanistan. The violence has surged as NATO forces prepare to assume the lead military role in Afghanistan this summer, a transition that some observers believe the Taliban and other insurgent groups are seeking to test.

President Hamid Karzai, visiting the capital of eastern Konar Province under heavy security, angrily denounced the new violence as the work of religious extremists and intelligence services in neighboring Pakistan, saying they had sent young men across the border to stage attacks in the name of holy war.

''In Pakistan they train people to go to Afghanistan, conduct jihad, burn schools and clinics," he told a gathering of provincial elders in a long, emotional speech. ''What kind of Islam is this?"

Karzai did not blame Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf, calling him a ''dear brother" and saying that ''terrorism is a fire that will extend to your country, too." But he directly taunted Mohammad Omar, the fugitive Afghan Taliban leader, challenging him to ''show yourself" and ''come fight with me" instead of hiding.

The president expressed anguish over the death of the Canadian soldier, Captain Nichola Goddard, who died yesterday in a battle with Taliban attackers in Kandahar. ''Our land is being protected by a lady from Canada, when we should be protecting her as a guest," he said.

The escalating violence has led to a deepening rift between Karzai and Musharraf, who are both important US allies in the region. The Afghan government has long asserted that Islamic fighters are being supported and sheltered by groups within Pakistan. In March, Karzai presented Musharraf with a list of alleged armed extremists living in Pakistan.

The Pakistani leader bristled at the accusations and dismissed them as outdated or fabricated. He has asserted repeatedly that he is doing his best to combat terrorism within Pakistan, and he has sent large numbers of army troops into the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, where Taliban and Al Qaeda members are widely believed to find refuge.

''They talk about people crossing from Pakistan, but we have 78,000 troops and 800 check posts," said Aftab Khan Sherpao, Pakistan's interior minister, in a recent interview. ''The militants used to feel safer in the tribal areas because of the culture and the religious bent of mind there, but now we are really exerting pressure and tightening the loop."

US military officials, who work closely with both the Afghan and Pakistani armed forces, say they believe Musharraf shares their concerns about regional terrorism and does not seek to destabilize Afghanistan. But it is not clear, they say, to what extent he can control powerful groups in his country that still support the Taliban or harbor a lingering ambition to dominate Afghanistan.

For those people, Karzai had harsh words yesterday, vowing that Afghanistan ''will never become a colony of any country," and excoriating groups that use religion to justify attacking their neighbors.

Konar, which stretches alongside the Pakistani tribal region, has come under persistent attacks, including a rocket assault that killed seven children at a school in Asadabad in April. Since March, Afghan and US forces have staged a massive sweep of troubled districts in an operation called Operation Mountain Lion.

Karzai, who rarely travels to remote provinces because of security concerns, arrived here from Kabul on one of a formation of US military helicopters. As he delivered speeches or moved about the town, he was guarded by several rings of Afghan security teams, with US military forces also present.

The president's vehement remarks about Pakistan were applauded by provincial leaders, and in welcoming poems and songs, young Afghans exhorted him to be tough on ''our neighbor enemies."

In a brief interview after his speech, Karzai said he had not given up on Musharraf and recognized his strategic importance to the US-led antiterrorist effort. But the Afghan president said he had come under a lot of domestic pressure to get tough with Pakistan.

''People see that nothing has changed, and they are very angry," he said. ''They want me to stop talking nicely and do something."

Pakistan denies Karzai charges of backing Afghan insurgency

ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistan rejected Afghan president Hamid Karzai's allegations that it was training and infiltrating militants for violence in     Afghanistan.
 
Karzai blamed Pakistan on Thursday after two days of bloody clashes in his country left around 100 people dead, including scores of militants, 13 policemen and a female Canadian soldier.

"There is no truth in this," Pakistani foreign office spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam told AFP on Friday. "Pakistan is not providing training to insurgents and it is not sending them to Afghanistan," she said.

The fighting was some of the most violent in Afghanistan since the hardline Islamic Taliban regime was toppled in a US-led invasion in 2001 for sheltering Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Karzai also claimed that hardliners in Pakistani Islamic schools known as madrassas were sending students for jihad (holy war) in Afghanistan.

"We know very well that in Pakistani madrassas, boys are being told to go to Afghanistan for jihad. They're being told to go and burn schools and clinics," he said in a speech in eastern Kunar province bordering Pakistan.

Karzai's unusually harsh words were the latest in an on-off war of words between the two key US allies in Washington's "war on terror".

But Pakistan's Aslam said Islamabad -- which played a key role in financing and training the Afghan warriors who defeated the Soviet invasion in the 1980s -- now had no role in Afghanistan's internal affairs.

"If there is unrest in Afghanistan, Pakistan is not responsible," she said.
"Peace and stability in Afghanistan is in Pakistan's interest."

Pakistan also continued to support the process of rebuilding and reconciliation in Afghanistan, left devastated by 25 years of invasions and civil wars.

"President Karzai himself has acknowledged Pakistan's positive role in the presidential and parliamentary elections in Afghanistan," she said, referring to the 2004 poll that brought Karzai to power and the 2005 parliamentary vote.

Pakistan says it has deployed some 80,000 troops on its border with Afghanistan to stop the cross-border movement of militants and has arrested some key militant figures, although the leaders of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda remain at large.

Islamabad has repeatedly rejected charges of not doing enough to round up Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants on its soil, saying it has killed hundreds of insurgents.

It has also captured key Al-Qaeda operatives including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, accused by the 9/11 commission of being a key planner behind the attacks.

Pakistan sheltering Taliban, says British officer - The Guardian
Declan Walsh in Kandahar Friday May 19, 2006 - -Colonel's outburst follows multiple terror attacks - -Afghanistan president says Quetta used as base \

A senior British officer accused Pakistan of allowing the Taliban to use its territory as a "headquarters" for attacks on western troops in Afghanistan as insurgents struck on multiple fronts yesterday.

In one of the worst 24-hour periods since they were ousted from power in 2001, the Taliban launched two suicide bombs, numerous firefights and a massive assault on a village in Helmand province, where 3,300 British soldiers are being deployed. The violence, which started on Wednesday night, caused 105 deaths including 87 Taliban, 15 police, an American civilian and a Canadian woman soldier, according to the highest estimates. British forces were not involved.

Colonel Chris Vernon, chief of staff for southern Afghanistan, said the Taliban leadership was coordinating its campaign from the western Pakistani city of Quetta, near the Afghan border. "The thinking piece of the Taliban is out of Quetta in Pakistan. It's the major headquarters," he told the Guardian. "They use it to run a series of networks in Afghanistan."

The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, echoed these comments by accusing Pakistan of arming the insurgents. "Pakistani intelligence gives military training to people and then sends them to Afghanistan with logistics," the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press news agency quoted him as saying.

Col Vernon said the Quetta leadership controlled "about 25" mid-level commanders dotted across the Afghan south, one of whom was captured last month. He declined to name him.

The unusually forthright British criticism, reflecting sentiments normally expressed in private by western commanders, drew a furious denial from the Pakistani military.

"It is absolutely absurd that someone is talking like this. If the Taliban leadership was in Quetta we would be out of our minds not to arrest them," said a spokesman, Major General Shaukat Sultan. "They should give us actionable intelligence so that we can take action."

The clash reflects growing tensions between Pakistan and the west as Nato prepares to assume command of southern Afghanistan from the US on July 31.

About 7,000 troops from Britain, Canada and the Netherlands are deploying to Helmand, Kandahar and Uruzgan provinces, while another 1,000 Americans and Romanians will be stationed in Zabul.

Kandahar has suffered the worst upheaval, much of it apparently aimed at unbalancing the Nato mission before it can settle down. Canadian troops have been pummelled with a string a suicide attacks, roadside bombs and an axe attack on an officer during a village meeting.

On Wednesday a suicide bomber rammed into a UN vehicle near the main coalition base at Kandahar airport, killing himself and injuring the driver. Col Vernon said he had tightened security on the road after similar attacks in March by "imposing Northern Ireland procedures". On Wednesday night hundreds of Taliban fighters assailed Musa Qala village in northern Helmand, sparking an eight-hour battle that officials said left 40 militants and 13 police dead.

Having convulsed the volatile south, the guerrilla summer offensive now threatens the rest of the country. Yesterday suicide bombers struck in the normally peaceful cities of Herat in the west and Ghazni to the north, killing an Afghan motorcyclist and a US police trainer.

"This is the worst things have been since the fall of the Taliban," said a western source in Kandahar.

Across the border, worried British and Canadian diplomats are pressing the Pakistani government to take a tougher approach to the Taliban. Although Pakistan forces have killed or arrested hundreds of al-Qaida suspects since 2001, it has detained only a handful of Taliban officials. The last big catch was spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi, who was arrested in October 2005 after his mobile phone was traced to Quetta.

"Clearly the Taliban are at large in Baluchistan, operating in Quetta. Obviously that's a cause for concern," said a British diplomat in Islamabad. "There's no evidence of a serious network of Taliban camps but it's easy for them to take cover in Afghan refugee camps."

The 930-mile border, most of it barren mountains and desert, is notoriously porous. Maj Gen Sultan said that it was impossible for Pakistani officials to discriminate between ordinary Afghans and Taliban insurgents.

Col Vernon did not say whether Mullah Omar, the Taliban's leader, was also sheltering in Quetta. Relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan worsened sharply in March after Afghan allegations that Omar, Osama bin Laden and more than 100 Taliban leaders were hiding in Pakistan.

The Taliban fight has also become a propaganda war. The insurgents regularly paste "night letters" - threatening tracts against "collaborators" - on walls and doors in southern villages. A Taliban radio station has also started operating in Helmand, where the British troops are being deployed. Nato commanders are retaliating, pushing local media to publicise their successes. Domestic pressure means western journalists are also coming under scrutiny.

Eight militants, two policemen killed in fresh Afghan violence

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) - Two policemen and eight Taliban were killed in fresh battles in Afghanistan, officials said, the latest casualties from two days of violence that left more than 100 people dead.

The men were killed late Thursday in a battle in Ghazni, one of a handful of provinces in the south of Afghanistan that has experienced some of the heaviest insurgency-linked violence since the ouster of the Taliban in 2001.

"Eight Taliban were killed and two police were also killed in the fighting on Thursday night," Ghazni governor Sher Alam Ibrahimi said on Friday.

He said one militant was captured during the battle while nine policemen were also wounded. Around 100 other people, nearly 90 of them Taliban fighters, have been killed in major battles in southern Afghanistan since Wednesday.

A Canadian soldier was also killed in one of the clashes, a battle that erupted in Kandahar province on Wednesday when coalition forces were assisting Afghan security forces who had gone to the area on information that Taliban were massing. Thirteen police were also killed.

There appeared to be a lull in the violence early Friday as security forces across the violence-hit south conducted clean-up operations to round up militants.

Dozens of government reinforcements were sent Friday to search for rebels in Musa Qala in Helmand province, scene of the deadliest battles on Wednesday in which about 40 militants and 16 policemen were killed, provincial spokesman Moheedin Khan said.

Chief Says NATO Committed to Afghanistan – AP Fri May 19

LISBON, Portugal - The NATO mission in Afghanistan will not be deterred by a recent surge in violence there, and opponents of nation-building will be defeated, the head of the alliance said Friday.

"NATO will stay the course and the spoilers will not have a chance," Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said during a visit to Lisbon. "The operational plan is robust and the rules of engagement are robust."

More than 100 people were reported killed in a series of attacks across Afghanistan that started Wednesday and continued through Thursday. The fighting was concentrated in southern provinces where the U.S.-led coalition is to cede control of security operations to NATO by July.

Thousands of NATO troops, including forces from Canada, Britain and the Netherlands, will be stationed in those areas. "We will go in very robustly on the basis of robust rules of engagement," de Hoop Scheffer said.

"We will not accept that the spoilers — the Taliban, the al-Qaida — will be able to spoil this process of Afghanistan in its democratic development."

Hunters may become the hunted in Taleban's venomous heartland - The Times Online-UK By Tim Albone May 19, 2006 - A few thousand British troops are based in an area four times the size of Wales

CAMP BASTION, home to the 3,000 British troops being deployed in Helmand province, sits in the middle of the desert. It is protected by barbed wire, blast walls and radar that can spot hostile intruders for miles around. It is approached by a single rutted road, but new arrivals invariably fly in because driving is too dangerous. It measures six miles by three miles (10km), and the sand that surrounds it is of the sort that sucks at your feet.

The camp is in the badlands of Afghanistan, and the area is hostile in every sense. The heat is debilitating, with temperatures already pushing 45C (113F). There are scorpions that can kill in 15 minutes with no known anti-venom. There is also an increasingly sophisticated enemy ready to attack face to face, through suicide bombers or by using roadside bombs.

The mission’s loosely defined aim is to create the stable conditions required for Afghanistan’s reconstruction, but with 3,000 British troops patrolling an area roughly four times the size of Wales there is a danger that the hunters will become the hunted.

Certainly the Taleban are becoming increasingly bold, as shown by the assault by several hundred fighters yesterday on the town of Mosa Qala, 160km (100 miles) from Camp Bastion.

“The British don’t have the capacity to fight us face to face,” Muhammad Hanif, a spokesman for the reclusive Taleban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar, told The Times. “We are here to destroy the British. We will hunt and kill them. We will not let them go back to England and say that they have defeated the Afghans.”

The Taleban are known to make outlandish claims, but they are undeniably more active and dangerous than at any time since the fall of their regime in 2001. It is equally clear that in Helmand the British will be surrounded by Taleban and their sympathisers.

Malam al-Haj Mir Wali, an MP for the province, told The Times: “The Taleban are very active in Helmand. Although most of the district centres are under government control, almost all the villages are Taleban.”

Brigadier Ed Butler, the commander of the British troops in Afghanistan, acknowledged: “We need to prepare for rocky times ahead. We need to expect some setbacks and we need to prepare ourselves and the public.”

If the soldiers at Camp Bastion are nervous about their predicament, they do not show it. “It’s very exciting to be here. I enjoy my job. If they decide to take us on we are prepared to stand our ground ,” said Private Kyle Deerans, 23, a sniper from 3 Para, part of the 16 Air Assault Brigade, who has yet to leave the base because he is still acclimatising.

He and his colleagues also have some impressive weaponry — a Land Rover with a 50-calibre gun and a four-wheeled quad bike, both of which can zip across the desert sand. But they are also unarmoured and so vulnerable to attack from roadside bombs.

Privately, some of the soldiers do express concern about the threat from suicide bombs. “How can you protect yourself if someone is willing to blow themselves up?,” one paratrooper, who would not give his name, asked.

Taliban, Al-Qaeda Regroup in Afghanistan, Defy U.S. - Bloomberg.com

May 19 (Bloomberg) -- Taliban insurgents and their al-Qaeda allies, once thought defeated in Afghanistan, are regaining strength as the U.S. prepares to cede military control of the war on terror's initial battleground to NATO forces.

Taliban and al-Qaeda forces are rising in number and increasingly using roadside bombs and suicide strikes. Last year was the deadliest yet for U.S. forces there and attacks are at their highest level since 2001, when the Taliban regime that harbored al-Qaeda was toppled by a U.S.-led invasion.

``We have lost a lot of the ground that we may have gained in the country, especially in the South,'' Said Jawad, Afghanistan's ambassador to the U.S., said in an interview. The fact that U.S. military resources have been ``diverted'' to the war in Iraq ``is of course hurting Afghanistan,'' he said.

The escalating violence is reviving questions about President George W. Bush's decision to make Iraq the central front in the war on terrorism. Instability in Afghanistan could allow Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network to regroup there, analysts said.

``Afghanistan is a wild, tribal place in which the various armed actors take advantage of any decrease in pressure,'' said W. Patrick Lang, former chief Middle East analyst at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency. ``We pulled troops out and put them in Iraq and that took pressure off. I don't think the U.S. effort there backsliding should come as any surprise.''

Bush administration officials and military commanders say they're optimistic that conditions in Afghanistan will improve.

``We should take stock of the tremendous progress that Afghanistan and the international community have made to date and apply that same commitment to the difficulties that lie ahead,'' Army Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, head of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said in a May 10 Pentagon briefing.

Some experts on defense policy and the region say that confidence is misplaced. ``They absolutely miscalculated from the beginning,'' said Barney Rubin, director of New York University's Center on International Cooperation. ``We don't have enough forces where they should,'' and ``that has absolutely led to insurgency,'' said Rubin, who visited Afghanistan last month.

Nazif Shahrani, a professor of Central Asian and Middle East Studies at Indiana University at Bloomington who focuses on Afghanistan, said, ``If we were serious about the war on terror, we should have focused our efforts on fighting a more effective war on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

``Instead,'' he added, ``we focused on Iraq and that gave the Taliban and al-Qaeda time to regroup and find money and weapons.''

There have been at least seven suicide bombings in Afghanistan since May 8 and more than 22 in the past two months. Yesterday, a U.S. adviser to the Afghan police in the western Herat province was killed in a suicide bombing and five co- workers with defense contractor DynCorp International Inc. were injured.

``Suicide bombings are an utterly new phenomenon in 25 years of conflict in Afghanistan,'' said Shahrani. That signals the attacks are being carried out by foreign fighters, probably al-Qaeda, he said.

Sixty-six U.S. troops were killed in combat in Afghanistan in 2005, more than in the previous four years combined, according to the Defense Department. At least 14 have died in combat this year and another 22 died from other causes, including 10 in a helicopter crash earlier this month during a counter-insurgency operation.

At least 100 Taliban fighters were killed in battles in Afghanistan's southern Kandahar and Helmand provinces this week, according to Navy Lieutenant Tamara Lawrence, a spokeswoman for U.S. Central Command. One Canadian solider, a female captain, and 16 Afghan National Police died in the fighting, she said.

Most of the 16 Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan died this year, according to Lieutenant Colonel Jamie Robertson, a spokesman for the Canadian military, which has about 2,300 troops fighting in the U.S.-led coalition. Canada took over military operations in Kandahar from U.S. forces in February.

Canada's minority government on Wednesday barely won backing to keep troops in Afghanistan for two more years. Its proposal to extend the mission to 2009 was approved by a vote of 149 to 145 after six hours of debate in the House of Commons in Ottawa.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has begun assuming security operations in southern Afghanistan, a process due to be completed in July, said Chris Riley, a NATO spokesman. The multinational force will increase its troop strength to about 21,000 from 9,000 and will assume responsibility for the entire country, probably by the end of the year, he said.

The U.S. plans to withdraw 6,500 of its 23,000 troops now in the country because NATO and Afghan security forces are assuming a bigger role. The Afghan National Army has 34,000 soldiers and the police have about 64,000 officers.

Some Afghan officials are concerned NATO forces won't be as aggressive as U.S. troops in countering Will Not Engage'

``We are discouraged by some of the statements coming from the NATO countries that they will not engage the terrorists,'' said Jawad, the Afghan ambassador. ``If they are coming, then they should be ready to fight the terrorists.''

NATO officials say they will operate aggressively. Britain has already sent more than 3,000 troops and eight Apache attack helicopters to Afghanistan's southern Helmand province in a show of force, Riley said.

``I am pretty sure its going to be fairly robust stuff from NATO for the first few months,'' said Riley. ``People on the ground have to know that we're not screwing around.''

Military officials trace the rising violence in Afghanistan to Pakistan's continuing failure to control its borders. Insurgents enjoy sanctuary in western Pakistan and cross over the mountainous border into Afghanistan to launch attacks.

Al-Qaeda fighters ``have sanctuaries on both sides of the border,'' Lieutenant General Sher Karimi, the Afghan Army's chief of operations, said at a May 4 briefing.

Taliban and al-Qaeda are ``no doubt'' making a comeback in at least nine of Afghanistan's 30 provinces, not just the five bordering Pakistan, said Shahrani. ``There have also been incidences in urban areas in the North as well as in Kabul.''

Bin Laden is likely in the mountains along the Afghanistan- Pakistan border, Afghan and U.S. officials say. More U.S. troops are needed to hunt the al-Qaeda leader, defense analysts say.

The Pentagon's planned withdrawal would reduce the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to about 16,500, the average level in recent years, said Pentagon spokesman Todd Vician, an Air Force lieutenant colonel. Vician wouldn't say when the U.S. force would be reduced or how many of those remaining would be attached to NATO or to a separate U.S. counter-terrorism force along the Pakistan border.

By comparison, there are currently about 133,000 U.S. troops serving in Iraq. U.S. officials have said that number might be reduced by as much as a third by the end of the year.

``Troops being moved out of Iraq should be redeployed to Afghanistan,'' said Caroline Wadhams, senior national security analyst with the Center for American Progress, a Washington- based policy research group. The level of U.S. troops there ``needs to double,'' she said.

Meanwhile, Afghanistan is pressing the U.S. to reverse a decision that passed responsibility to the cash-strapped nation for $150 million in military salaries. The U.S. and other Western nations had been paying security costs.

Afghan reporters focus on roots of insurgents' unrest
The Christian Science Monitor By David Montero May 18, 2006

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – It's not so much meeting the Taliban that worries M. Nawab Momand, a correspondent for Tolo TV, Afghanistan's top television channel. It's true such meetings are treacherous, often entailing trips to the south, where conflicts are escalating between the Taliban and coalition forces. But what concerns Mr. Momand is the reaction in Kabul.

"For us, the problem from the Taliban side is not the major problem," he says. "It's a problem actually that we get pressure from the government."

Tolo TV finds Afghanistan's hot buttons - and pushes them. Initially the upstart station upset Islamic hard-liners with music videos and young presenters dressing Western-style. Now, in an indication of how security is surpassing Westernization as a major preoccupation in this country, the station is angering the government with dogged reporting on the Taliban.

As Tolo's team of reporters digs deeper into the insurgency, it faces increasing challenges from the central government, Tolo reporters and analysts say. Covering the Taliban, they explain, means delving into the reasons driving the rebels, and that often requires investigating allegations of corruption and abuse within the central government. Tolo's investigative work is testing the commitment in Kabul to democracy.

"[Officials] are a little worried because they know that journalists are reporting on their power, their money, their corruption," says Rahimullah Samander, director of the Afghan Independent Journalists Union.

Tolo, which means "dawn" in Dari, enjoys a huge following among Afghanistan's growing TV audience, controlling about 90 percent of the market in dollar terms. The station's willingness to push boundaries - including its embrace of youth culture and reporting on taboo subjects like pedophilia - has earned Tolo and its young staff a wide following.

It's also sparked fierce criticism. Last year, Shaima Rezayee was murdered in her Kabul home a few months after leaving her controversial role as a female presenter for Tolo. The murder remains unresolved, and the company says it did not have to do with her time at the station. Shekib Isar, the host of a popular music video program, recently fled the country. In an e-mail message from Sweden, where he attained asylum, Mr. Isar alleges he received numerous death threats from extremists, some of them linked to the government.

According to the Information Ministry, the threats Isar received were from outraged citizens, not the government, who felt his program was an affront to Afghan cultural values. The government received several complaints about Isar's show, says S.A. Hussain Sancharaki, deputy minister of Information, Culture, and Tourism.

The controversy continues, only these days it's centered more on Tolo's coverage of the state of security and governance. That's because these stories have given the Taliban a platform to speak, and what they say is disparaging to the government.

Two years ago, getting the Taliban to talk was an arduous process. Now they're just a phone call away, with several spokesmen coordinating an organized media campaign, sometimes contacting reporters themselves.

This isn't to say that meeting the Taliban is easy or free of danger. Nor does it mean the Taliban likes Tolo TV, points out Massod Qiam, the host of Tolo's popular "6:30 Report." It's a relationship driven by political strategy. "They need to be in touch with a source that broadcasts their allegations against the government. They know that propaganda plays a major role in the conflict," he says.

Greater access to the Taliban makes for a better story, but it comes at an increased political price, Tolo reporters say. "When I met the Taliban, they told me they were fighting because there was corruption and criminal people in the government. And when I reported that story I faced a lot of trouble," says Momand.

Other reporters say they have also been reprimanded by the government for programs about official corruption and misuse of power - the very things the Taliban rail against. Mr. Qiam, for example, describes that he broadcast a series of reports about corrupt practices of the chief justice. "We expected that these reports would bring some change, but they didn't," he says. Instead, he claims, he was summoned to the attorney general's office and questioned about his intentions.

The Ministry of Information says Qiam's reporting was called into question because he attacked the personality of the chief justice, which is a violation of media law. But the ministry actually intervened to protect him, asking the chief justice to forgive him, according to Mr. Sancharaki.

Tolo's 'democratic role'

Some say reports like Qiam's help to bolster the Taliban's claims, but Saad Mohseni, Tolo's director and part owner, says his reporters are obliged by the concept of democracy to report such things - particularly when the government tries to stop them.

"[The government] talks about democracy but they don't want people to question what they do or don't do," he says. "We're holding people accountable; we're trying to keep the Parliament honest."

Sancharaki admits there are still problems of press freedom in Afghanistan, but says some journalists exaggerate the negative news, conducting themselves in an unprofessional manner. Doing so hurts the stability of the country, he says, a point which journalists have been asked unofficially to consider.

"People do have the right to know," he says. "But what we want to tell [journalists] is to respect the balance between the positive and negative news."

Mohseni and others say that, with the security and governance story broadcast into a growing number of homes, particularly in the south, the public is beginning to ask more questions - questions which signal both a growing demand for more effective leadership, and an end to the violent tactics of the Taliban.

Reports don't mean support for Taliban

Tolo reporters are quick to point out that they do not favor the Taliban, but rather see them as no better than allegedly corrupt officials in power. But the point is to understand the underlying factors driving people into the arms of the insurgency.

"We shouldn't just make our reports limited to saying that five people died. We should find the basic motives why people join the Taliban," says Momand.

He also points out that it isn't the whole government applying pressure on reporters. "It's only a section of the government that's trying to stop us, although I don't think they'll be able."

Afghanistan: Women benefit from livelihood assistance - Source: International Organization for Migration (IOM) Date: 19 May 2006

One hundred and twenty-five women are no longer having to struggle to survive in Afghanistan's northern province of Faryab after being helped by an IOM programme to learn new skills and start businesses.

The group, all of them widows or vulnerable women, were identified for assistance by the Afghan Ministry of Women's Affairs. Among them was Nadia, a widowed mother of five whose only means of earning a living beforehand was through washing clothes and cleaning houses. Through the programme, Nadia was provided with tools to make ghilums, traditional Afghan rugs.

"Now everything is better for me. I can work from home and spend more time with my children," Nadia explained. Before joining the programme, it was a struggle to buy household goods. Now she can easily purchase flour, tea, soap and clothes for her children by selling three ghilums a month at bazaars and to shopkeepers.

With one of the lowest life expectancy rates in the world following decades of war, Afghanistan has more than one million widows. Instability and a restrictive Taliban regime had also prevented women from having access to education and skills training that could have helped them to support themselves and their families.

"Afghanistan is a peaceful place now where widows can pass through life with these kinds of projects," said 38-year-old Zareena, another participant on the programme that also provided literacy, health education, and human rights classes. As important as earning more money for Zareena was the new found ability to read to her children and the basic health education she has received.

"I learned how to prevent illnesses through washing dishes with soap," she explained. "I do not have a TV and rarely leave my home. This type of education was the only opportunity we had to learn."

As well as learning to make ghilums, the livelihood programme in Faryab gave a group of 25 women with children a cow each and some animal care training, allowing them to sell milk and diary products such as cheese and butter at markets.

"Not a lot of people have cows so families have limited access to dairy products in Faryab," according to Sophie Nuon, IOM programme officer in the Faryab capital of Maimana. "Most families consume rice, beans, bread and can only afford to eat meat every so often. This project not only gave these women a chance to generate income but is also improving their nutrition." Many of these women are also able to exchange their dairy products for other goods with community members.

Other IOM programmes targeting women in Afghanistan have included computer and English language classes for vulnerable women with some level of higher education. More than 100 female students, teachers and workers in government ministries participated in this project. The UN's World Food Programme partnered with IOM on the project to provide food rations to students and to teachers working on an unpaid, voluntary basis.

Funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the Australian government, the livelihood and education support activities are part of a wider IOM programme to assist Afghanistan's internally displaced people (IDPs). After helping more than 400,000 IDP to return home or to resettle elsewhere, the programme will close by the end of this month due to lack of funds.

"There are still 150,000 IDPs left in the country, an estimated 40,000 of whom need assistance to return home. We not only take people home but we help with initial reintegration through income generating activities for the most vulnerable such as widows and the establishment of water projects in a country that often suffers from drought. The premature closing of the programme means there will be a lot of work left undone. We could be helping so many more Nadias and Zareenas," said Peter Sorensen, IOM Afghanistan's chief of mission.

Afghanistan’s Buzkashi Parliament

A recent fight in the legislature leads some to wonder whether Afghanistan is ready for civilised discourse. Institute For War and Peace Reporting
By Jean MacKenzie and Wahidullah Amani in Kabul (ARR No. 216, 17-May-06)

Afghanistan’s legislature appears to have taken on the aspect of the national sport, buzkashi – a colourful if brutal game which from the outside looks like a scrum of violent horsemen dragging around a headless goat carcass, intent on doing each other bodily harm.

The lawmakers seem to have been behaving much the same lately, minus the horses, of course. And with female deputies in place of the goat. A scuffle last week in which a female deputy was attacked with water bottles and allegedly threatened with a knife shows that Afghanistan has a lot to learn about parliamentary procedure.

The fracas started during a budget debate on May 8. Haji Almas, a delegate from Parwan province and a prominent local militia commander, interrupted proceedings to complain about recent criticism of the mujahedin, the “holy warriors” who had just celebrated the 14th anniversary of their victory over the communist regime with great fanfare and ceremony.

The festivities sparked the usual grumbling from members of the public about the excesses of the civil war which followed the 1992 communist defeat, and which tore the country apart. They blame the mujahedin for wreaking untold destruction and killing thousands of their fellow countrymen.

But Haji Almas insisted that a few negative remarks should not be allowed to cast a shadow over the accomplishments of his fellow mujahedin commanders.

Haji Almas’s tirade prompted an outburst from Malalai Joya, the young firebrand from Farah province who has been the scourge of the mujahedin since the Constitutional Loya Jirga in 2003, when she publicly called for warlords to be put on trial.

In parliament, she again lashed out at the mujahedin, saying, “There are two types of mujahedin - one who were really mujahed [holy warriors], and the second, those who killed tens of thousands of innocent people and who are criminals.”

At this, several members of parliament began hurling water bottles at her, and then rushed her. Several very unflattering terms were thrown at her along with the bottles – amounting to a grave insult in a conservative Muslim society.

Abdul Rabb Rasul Sayyaf, a prominent parliamentarian and former faction commander, reportedly said that describing the mujahedin as criminals should itself be a crime.

Joya later accused Sayyaf of calling for her to be attacked with a knife. She also claimed, in interviews widely quoted in the media, that some parliamentarians had called for her to be raped. The incident was broadcast repeatedly on the popular Tolo TV, whose cameraman was struck by one of the enraged mujahedin turned politicians.

Afghanistan’s parliament has more than its share of problems. Ethnic, linguistic and regional divisions create tensions within the body, and historical grievances make it difficult for various factions to sit under the same roof.

Now added to the mix is one of the most explosive and least tractable issues - gender. Women in parliament are more than a little upset with the men, especially the former mujahedin, whom they see as a misogynistic bunch intent on keeping them down.

“Men can say whatever they want in parliament,” said Shukria Esakhel, a deputy from Baghlan province. “They don’t give women a chance to speak. If a man had said [what Malalai did], there wouldn’t have been a problem."

Malalai should, however, be a bit more circumspect, she advised. "We can’t say that all mujahedin are criminals” she said. “Lots of them fought for liberty, and now we have freedom in our country. But some of them were not real mujahedin; they destroyed houses and killed people. However, we should not bring these issues into parliament.”

Still, nothing could justify the reaction that greeted Joya's statements, said Esakhel. “I am very angry that they threw bottles at Malalai. It is as if they are throwing bottles at all Afghan women. It means they do not respect women.”

Fatima Aziz, who represents Kunduz in northeastern Afghanistan, agreed. “They have shamed themselves in front of the people,” she said of the misbehaving members of parliament. “It is against our tradition and our constitution to throw things at women. “The mujahedin are the source of the trouble in parliament.”

This kind of talk is not likely to appease the former mujahedin, who are notoriously sensitive to criticism. “If we are talking about crimes, then we should start with the communist regime,” said Fazlullah Mojadeddi, a former governor and commander from Logar province who now sits in parliament. “When it comes to the mujahedin, I am the first to be prepared to answer for what I did.

“If anyone is talking about criminals, they should first talk about themselves and their families, and say what they did during the jihad.” Mojadeddi dismissed any suggestion that the ex-mujahedin were against women.

“I deny completely that the mujahedin are trying to keep women quiet,” he said angrily. “The mujahedin were 80 per cent of the Constitutional Loya Jirga, and they gave 68 seats in parliament to women.”

But Mojadeddi is bitter about those, like Malalai Joya, who air their grievances in public. “There are people who just want to be famous,” he said. “When they see a television camera, they start saying things that are not true, just for their own purposes. Malalai is always saying things like that. We mujahedin think there are people on the outside telling her to say these things, so as to make us look bad.”

Other jihad-era leaders were more balanced. “I am against both sides,” said Mustafa Qazemi. “I am a mujahed, but I cannot condone this kind of behaviour. There are those who are taking advantage of the name of jihad, and there are those who are taking advantage of the name of democracy.

“We need a good culture in parliament, and we should not use it for our own ends.” In a boost for Afghan reporters’ rights, Qazemi added, “As for the man who hit the Tolo journalist – anyone who hits a journalist is inhuman and has no brain.”

Malalai Joya has been defiant in the face of repeated threats. She told Tolo TV in an exclusive interview: “This is my voice, and I will continue for as long as I live.” When asked whether she had proof of her allegations that the jihadi leaders were criminals, she grew heated.

“This is my message to them. The country is the proof, the people are the proof. Your hands are stained with blood,” she said. “My life itself is a history. War, crime and misfortune… women’s rights are being endangered. That is why I cannot sit quietly.”

The attack on parliament sparked a walkout of female members. On May 9, they boycotted the parliamentary session for several hours, until the speaker, Younus Qanuni, himself a prominent figure from the mujahedin era, apologised.

“There were about 30 or 40 of us,” said Shukria Paikan Ahmadi, a deputy from Kunduz. “The mujahedin are always intimidating us and we can’t say what we want. When one of the women was speaking, a commander from Herat told her to be quiet, otherwise they’d do to her what they did to Malalai.”

The boycott lasted for just a few hours, but the bitterness remains. “The warlords are a majority in parliament,” said Ahmadi. “And even though they are all from different factions, in this they are together. They are all against us, against the women.”

Ahmadi described as “savage” the behaviour of those who attacked Joya and insisted that if there was a repetition, the women would take more drastic action. “We cannot accept this,” she said. “We just do not have the patience. It would be better to leave parliament forever.”

Jean MacKenzie is IWPR’s country director. Wahidullah Amani is an IWPR staff reporter in Kabul.

[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.]