In this bulletin:

• Brake failure on U.S. truck caused crash
• Tense calm in Afghan capital after riots
• NATO chief says success in Afghanistan 'vital'
• Aid workers killed in Afghanistan
• Afghanistan: Taleban's second coming
• Afghanistan 'victory' may never be clear: MacKay
• MacKay vague about troop commitment
• Commitment to Afghanistan Helping Canada: RCMP
• Pakistani tribal chief killed near Afghan border
• Iran ready to train Afghan police: Purmohammadi
• General: Desertions Plague Afghan Army
• “Foreign forces must not withdraw from Afghanistan’
• Nation-Building on the Cheap

Afghan National Army soldiers stand near an armored military tank at a square in Kabul, Afghanistan on Tuesday, May 30, 2006. Rioters on Monday stoned the U.S. convoy involved in an accident, then groups and searching for foreigners while chanting 'Death to America!' (AP Photo/Musadeq Sadeq)

Brake failure on U.S. truck caused crash

Kabul (AP) - A road crash that triggered deadly anti-American rioting in Kabul occurred because a military truck lost its brakes coming down a hill and plowed into a line of cars, the U.S. military said Tuesday.

Chanting "Death to America," rioters stoned the U.S. convoy involved in Monday's accident, then headed to the center of Kabul, ransacking offices of international aid groups and searching for foreigners. Smoke billowed from burning buildings along the path of destruction.

The death toll from the unrest rose to at least 11, most of them from gunshot wounds, according to three city hospitals where casualties were taken. Kabul Emergency Hospital said it had 66 wounded, all shot. Dozens of other wounded residents were at other hospitals.

Military spokesman Col. Tom Collins, in explaining the cause of the traffic accident, said the truck's brakes "apparently overheated and failed" as it came down the long hill.

"The driver, very experienced in the operation of this type of vehicle, a heavy cargo truck, applied the primary and emergency brakes and took evasive action to avoid hitting pedestrians," Collins said.

The truck hit several unoccupied parked cars in an effort to slow, but it wasn't enough and the truck hit occupied vehicles at an intersection, he said.

Tense calm in Afghan capital after riots – AFP 05/30/2006

KABUL - Social frustration, anger at the arrogance of US troops and sheer criminality were fuel for the violent demonstrations that engulfed the Afghan capital, analysts said.

Hundreds of mostly young men armed with knives, wooden posts and spades rampaged through the city, torching cars and buildings and looting the offices of businesses and international organisations.

"Probably quite a lot of what you saw (Monday) was frustration," a Western military analyst said on Tuesday, pointing to the population explosion in Kabul since the Taliban was toppled in 2001 and high rate of unemployment.

The catalyst was an accident caused by an out-of-control US military truck that ploughed into civilian vehicles in the north of the city in the morning rush hour, killing around five people.

An angry crowd at the scene started pelting the American troops with stones. The soldiers opened fire and Afghan police joined in as the mob swelled. At least four people were killed, witnesses say by US troops.

Demonstrations erupted across the city, with about 1,500 men chanting "Death to America" and trying to force their way into areas containing embassies and international offices.

Hospitals said they had 14 dead, most of them with gunshot wounds but no official death toll has been released.

Paul Barker, country director for Care International -- which was torched and looted -- said frustration at the lack of significant change since the fall of the Taliban, despite billions of dollars in aid, played some part.

"Expectations were so high in 2002, they would have been impossible to meet," Barker said. However the bulk of the violence was caused by a large "criminal element", he said.

"Riots get started and are really hard to stop," he said, adding there was also annoyance with aggressive US military patrols. "In a way it was an accident waiting to happen, but I don't think anybody thought it would be on this scale," he said.

While citizens had the right to protest, most of those who took to the streets Monday were aware of the traffic accident, said shopkeeper Bahram Sarwary, 33.

"There is a big number of youth in the capital who are like a pile of gunpowder -- they just need an ignition and they can explode any minute," he said, referring to "looters, criminals, the unemployed and uneducated".

The incident played into the hands of Taliban insurgents who would use it to suggest the nation was not happy with the presence of foreign troops or with the government, which was not the case, he said.

Human rights commissioner Nader Nadery said some of the demonstrators were known members of illegal armed groups who had been waiting for an opportunity to create disorder.

"There are criminal groups and those who are not happy with the political developments mainly because of their marginalistion," said Nadery from the     Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC).

"They still have their guns and they were trying to use this opportunity to do something," he said. He said that while some foreign interests were looted and damaged, more property owned by Afghans was destroyed -- which he said meant the violence did not reflect anti-international feelings.

"But at same time the ignorance and aggressive behaviour US forces display on the streets increases anger," he said, adding that memories were also fresh of a coalition strike in Kandahar province that AIHRC said killed 34 civilians.

Political analyst Waheed Mujda said the violence was a reflection of indignation about the arrogance of US forces. "The American soldiers are behaving pretty much against the culture and the beliefs of the people... this will cost Mr Karzai," he said.

NATO chief says success in Afghanistan 'vital'

Paris (AFP) - NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer has said that the success of the alliance's stabilisation mission in Afghanistan was "vital", as fresh violence flared in the war-torn country.

"Afghanistan remains our number one priority, and it is absolutely vital, both for the people af Afghanistan and for NATO, that we are successful," he said in a speech to the NATO parliamentary assembly meeting in Paris on Tuesday.

He called on the members of the transatlantic alliance to "ensure that this operation continues to receive the full political and military support required to ensure its success."

"Considering the challenges we are likely to face, especially as we expand our mission in Afghanistan, we must give our armed forces and their commanders the tools they need to carry out their job properly," De Hoop Scheffer said.

"That notably implies sufficiently robust rules of engagement, as well as the minimum restrictions from the countries" where NATO is deployed, he said.

Afghanistan has seen a flare-up of violence in recent days, with at least 14 people killed in rioting that gripped the capital Kabul after a US military truck slammed into civilian cars, killing around five people.

Fighting has also escalated between coalition soldiers and militants from the ousted Taliban regime in the country's south. More than 30,000 foreign troops are in Afghanistan serving with a US-led coalition and a 9,000-strong NATO force.

The NATO force, drawn from 39 countries, has been operating in northern and western Afghanistan and Kabul and is due to expand into the south and eventually to the east this year, its numbers doubling to around 18,000.

Aid workers killed in Afghanistan – BBC 5/30/06

Three women and a man working for the ActionAid charity have been shot dead in Afghanistan, officials say. The aid workers - all believed to be Afghan citizens - were killed in Mingajik district in the northern province of Jowzjan.

They were reportedly attacked in their vehicle by gunmen riding motorcycles. Aid teams are often targeted in attacks blamed on the Taleban militia - but incidents such as these are relatively rare in Afghanistan's calmer north.

Earlier this month, two Afghan employees of the UN's children's charity, Unicef, were killed in a rocket attack as they were driving on the road from Herat, in the west, to Kandahar in the south-east.

In June 2004, five people working for international relief agency, Medecins sans Frontieres, were killed in the north-western province of Badghis.

ActionAid has confirmed its staff were attacked. The charity has been working to bring modern healthcare to remote Afghan villages. A person claiming to be a spokesman for the Taleban telephoned the BBC on Monday warning of attacks in the north of the country.

Troops from Sweden, operating under Nato command, have a base in Jowzjan province. The Taleban, which ruled Afghanistan until a US-led invasion in 2001, has vowed to attack foreign troops and those it regards as their collaborators.

Hundreds of people have died in recent clashes between Taleban militants and Afghan security forces, backed by US-led troops.

Afghanistan: Taleban's second coming – BBC By Ahmed Rashid

Guest journalist and writer Ahmed Rashid on why Afghanistan is facing a resurgent Taleban movement.

Nearly 400 Afghans have been killed in an unprecedented offensive by the Taleban, in a bid to pre-empt a major deployment by some 6,000 Nato troops this summer in southern Afghanistan.

From just a few hundred guerrillas last year, Taleban commander Mullah Dadullah now claims to have 12,000 men under arms and control of 20 districts in the former Taleban heartland in the southern provinces of Kandahar, Helmand, Zabul and Uruzgan. There is also a strong Taleban-al-Qaeda presence in the eastern provinces bordering Pakistan.

Why - five years after the Taleban and al-Qaeda were smashed by US forces - is Afghanistan facing a resurgent Taleban movement that is now threatening to overwhelm it?

Even though the country now has a legitimately elected president, government and parliament, there have been major failures by the international community and the Afghan government in their inability to provide troops, security and funds for reconstruction and nation building to the Pashtun population in the south.

Neither Nato, nor the American forces they are replacing, have offered an honest assessment of their successes and failures during the past five years. Here is a checklist of failures in the south that the US, Nato, the UN and the Afghan government should be discussing and rectifying:

· Washington's refusal to take state building in Afghanistan seriously after 2001 and instead waging a fruitless war in Iraq, created a major international distraction which the Taleban took advantage of to slowly rebuild their forces.

· US-led coalition forces were never deployed in southern Afghanistan in sufficient numbers, even though this was the Taleban heartland and needed to be secured. Apart from a US base for 3,000 troops in Kandahar and a couple of fire bases, for four years there was virtually no military presence in three of the four provinces. US forces failed to secure even the major cities and highways in the south. The growing security vacuum in the south was steadily filled by the Taleban.

· Afghanistan has received far less funds for reconstruction than almost all recent nation building efforts such as the former Yugoslavia, Haiti or East Timor. The lack of security in the south meant that UN development agencies and western and Afghan aid organisations could not provide sufficient aid and reconstruction. Nor was there ever adequate funding by western donors, especially for rebuilding the vital agricultural sector. The West's refusal to invest in agriculture on which 70% of the population depend, led to a massive return to poppy production by destitute farmers in the south, which quickly spread to the rest of the country.

· Drug smugglers and cartels now offer much greater incentives to Pashtun farmers than aid agencies. The best functioning extension programmes for farmers are operated by opium traffickers who provide improved varieties of poppy seeds, fertilizer, improved methods of cultivation, banking and loan facilities and organised large scale employment during the poppy harvest. Compared to 2001 when poppy cultivation was at a minimum, southern Afghanistan now needs to develop an entire alternative economy costing billions of dollars in order to replace the drugs economy.

· The drugs economy has fuelled massive corruption among government officials, undermined the authority of the government and funded the Taleban. The failure to reconstruct the south has led to widespread public disillusionment, increasing sympathy for the Taleban and anger at the Afghan government. Drugs money has allowed the Taleban to acquire new weapons, provide salaries to fighters and larger sums to suicide bombers.

· For the past five years President Hamid Karzai has tolerated Pashtun warlords as governors, police chiefs and administrators in the south. Most of these warlords were discredited and defeated by the Taleban in the 1990s, but were resuscitated by US forces to help defeat the Taleban in 2001. Unlike Northern Alliance warlords who tended to defy President Karzai's authority, these Pashtun warlords were friends of the government and helped secure the Pashtun vote for Karzai in two Loya Jirgas and two elections in 2004 and 2005. Despite pledging loyalty to President Karzai these warlord-governors became visibly corrupt, by their open involvement in the drugs trade, cutting deals with criminal gangs and the Taleban and showing supreme incompetence in dealing with development issues. For the majority of southern Pashtuns, the corruption of these warlord-governors unfortunately symbolised the intentions of the Kabul government.

· Kabul refused to change these warlord-governors, until forced to do so by Nato countries, who refused to deploy their troops until they were removed. Thus Canada, Britain and the Netherlands played a major role in forcing the resignation of the governors of Kandahar, Helmand and Uruzgan - the provinces in which their troops are now being deployed.

· Kabul's offer of an amnesty and safe passage home in 2003 to non-belligerent Taleban living in Pakistan was a sensible attempt at reconciliation, but it was badly handled. The Northern Alliance leaders refused to accept any reconciliation with the Taleban. Overtures to the Taleban were handled secretly by the American and Afghan intelligence, instead of being done openly with international support and guarantees of protection for returning Taleban and a separate aid programme to rehabilitate them. Pakistan refused to help persuade the Taleban to return home, while Washington refused to put any pressure on Islamabad to do so. The reconciliation drive has been a failure.

· After being routed in 2001 the Taleban found a safe sanctuary in Balochistan and the North West Frontier province of Pakistan. They have been able to set up a major logistics hub, training camps, carry out fund raising and have been free to recruit fighters from madrassas and refugee camps. The Taleban have received help from Pakistan's two provincial governments, the MMA, Islamic extremist groups, the drugs mafia and criminal gangs - while the military regime has looked the other way. Al-Qaeda has helped the Taleban reorganise and forge alliances with other Afghan and Central Asian rebel groups.

Thus the current Taleban resurgence is a reflection of the failure of policies by all the major players in Afghanistan - the US, Nato, the UN, the international community, the Afghan government and neighbours such as Pakistan. All these problems will have to be addressed honestly and frankly, before Nato and Afghan security forces will be able to defeat the Taleban.

Afghanistan 'victory' may never be clear: MacKay - Tue. May. 30 2006

Canadian Press

OTTAWA -- There may never be a clear point of victory in Afghanistan, Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay said Monday while painting an optimistic picture of "extremely significant progress" in the war-ravaged country.

"I don't know that we will see a point in time where it's like the last spike in the Canadian railroad, where we'll be able to say, 'There, a surrender is in place, there's an armistice'," MacKay told a Senate hearing. "But within Afghanistan, I think that day may arrive."

The foreign minister's appearance before the Senate committee on National Security and Defence came the same day that hundreds of Afghanis were rioting in the streets of Kabul after an American military convoy crashed into a busy intersection.

MacKay was not asked directly about the violently anti-American protests, by far the worst of their kind in Kabul since U.S.-led forces defeated the Taliban government in 2001. But he volunteered there will be an continuing ebb and flow in Afghanistan's fortunes.

The minority Conservative government of Stephen Harper recently won a narrow vote in the Commons on extending Canada's military mission for another two years, until February 2009.

MacKay, who visited Afghanistan earlier this month, told the Senate committee that progress there has been made on a variety of social, economic and judicial fronts under the wing of Canada's 2,300-member military force.

"Without boots on the ground, there is no democracy building, no buildings constructed and no baby bottles," MacKay said in a prepared address.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai will be coming to Canada "in the near future," said MacKay, to provide a first-hand account.

Under questioning from senators, MacKay noted the two-year military extension was an arbitrary period that does not represent a termination date for the Canadian deployment.

He cited a long checklist of factors, ranging from building up Afghan police and military forces to setting up a land registration system, the very first national census, better housing and eradicating the opium trade.

"It would be very difficult for anybody to say what the conditions will be in 2009," said MacKay. "I hope that there will be significant progress on all 40 of the benchmarks that are set out in the Afghanistan compact."

At another point, he said he agreed "with the premise that you cannot predict with any great degree of accuracy what the end date is, what the termination of your participation will be."

The eight senators on the committee - five of them Liberals - grilled MacKay on the cost of the mission, citing an independent study by the Polaris Institute last week that pegged Canadian expenditures in Afghanistan since Sept. 11, 2001, at $4.1 billion.

MacKay denied the Polaris figure, and stated: "Canada's total commitment to the year 2010 is $1 billion. As for what amounts have been previously committed or spent, I can't speak to that."

An official later clarified the minister was speaking only about development aid for Afghanistan, which has been promised through 2011.

A Defence Department spokesman later said the incremental military cost of the mission from 2001 through 2006-07 will total about $2 billion - not counting fixed costs like soldiers' salaries and equipment depreciation.

The confusion over spending highlighted one of the Senate committee's concerns. The Canadian mission is being touted as a new integrated hybrid of humanitarian aid, civil society rebuilding and aggressive military security.

With at least three federal departments involved, MacKay was unable to answer who was the lead minister on the overall mission. "Ultimately, cabinet and the prime minister," MacKay told Liberal Senator Larry Campbell.

Senator Norm Atkins, a Conservative, asked whether Afghanistan represents a no-win situation, given the country's long history of fiercely opposing any foreign intervention.

MacKay said Canada's presence there represents a daily win. "Even if, God forbid, this final surrender never arrives I still believe we're making a difference in the individual lives of the people of Afghanistan every day," said the minister. "You see that in the eyes of the kids that are in school today that were never allowed to go to school."

MacKay vague about troop commitment

Foreign Affairs Minister sidesteps question on whether Canada is at war in Afghanistan - JEFF SALLOT (Globe and Mail)

OTTAWA -- Facing vigorous and skeptical questioning at the Senate national security committee yesterday, Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay could not give a clear answer as to whether Canada is at war in Afghanistan or even how to determine when Canadian troops can claim victory and come home.

The Afghan government "quite possibly" will need Canadian and other foreign troops to provide security beyond the current commitment to 2009, Mr. MacKay said, describing the military enterprise as a "lengthy, tough, hard mission." Nobody can accurately tell when security will have been achieved "until it has been achieved," he said.

Mr. MacKay was the first Conservative minister called before a parliamentary committee to explain the government's Afghan policy since May 17, when the House decided by a four-vote margin to extend the Canadian military mission by two years, to 2009.

Liberal Senator Peter Stollery bemoaned Canada's support for Afghan President Hamid Karzai, whom he called a "stooge put there by the Americans." Committee chairman Colin Kenny, also a Liberal, complained that Mr. MacKay was underestimating the problem of growth in the opium trade in Afghanistan since the U.S.-led coalition invaded the country four years ago.

Conservatives, too, voiced skepticism about the mission. Senator Norman Atkins, a Toronto-area Tory, told Mr. MacKay his presentation "has a lot of optimism in it." But he feared the Canadian mission in Afghanistan might stretch out to three decades or more, as did the peacekeeping mission in Cyprus. Hasn't Canada now found itself, Mr. Atkins asked, in "a no-win situation?"

"I don't believe in no-win," Mr. MacKay shot back. "We are winning every day in the difference we are making in the lives of the people of Afghanistan. . . . Even if the last Taliban doesn't throw up his hands for surrender."

Liberal Senator Larry Campbell, a former Mountie and Vancouver coroner, asked Mr. MacKay a simple question, "Are we at war?" Mr. MacKay did not respond directly, saying instead, "We are part of a global effort to confront and defeat terrorism." Senator Wilfred Moore, a Nova Scotia Liberal, asked how the Canadian government knows it can bring the troops home in 2009.

Mr. MacKay said that in fact the mission might be extended beyond 2009, "but that's a decision not any one individual is going to make," suggesting further parliamentary debate would occur.

In testimony earlier in the day, a senior Canadian Security Intelligence Service officer said Afghanistan has been a petri dish incubating terrorist "bacteria" that could infect Canada and bring violence to Canadian streets. Jack Hooper, the deputy director of operations for CSIS, said al-Qaeda terrorists who have trained in Afghanistan "have migrated elsewhere in the world, including to our country."

CSIS, he said, has provided intelligence that has been useful to the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan, including tips that "have saved lives." But, for security reasons, he couldn't provide details.

CSIS has the resources to do a full security screening of only about 10 per cent of the refugees and other immigrants arriving in Canada from conflict zones such as Afghanistan, Mr. Hooper said. The intelligence service also sees a growing threat from homegrown adherents to al-Qaeda ideology, he said.

Commitment to Afghanistan Helping Canada: RCMP - Josh Pringle May 29, 2006

The head of the RCMP is connecting the dots between Canada's role in Afghanistan and domestic security in Canada. Giuliano Zaccardelli told a Senate committee failed states are breeding grounds for terrorists.

Zaccardelli says "when we can help these countries help themselves, we are actually helping Canada." The deputy director of CSIS says potential terrorists are living in Canadian cities. Jack Hooper did not say how many home grown terror suspects are in Canada, where they live or which groups they are connected with.

Pakistani tribal chief killed near Afghan border - May 30, 2006

TANK, Pakistan (Reuters) - Masked gunmen shot dead a pro-government tribal elder and wounded two people in Pakistan's trouble-plagued South Waziristan region on the Afghan border, government officials said on Tuesday.

Islamist militant supporters of al Qaeda and Afghanistan's Taliban have killed dozens of officials and pro-government chiefs in Waziristan in recent years as the government tries to impose order on an area long infested with militants. Five gunmen ambushed Mehr Dil Khan as he was traveling in a van to Wana, the main town in South Waziristan, killing him and wounding two other passengers on Monday.

"It was a targeted killing as he was a government supporter and a member of the region's council," said a government official in Wana, who declined to be identified.

Many al Qaeda and Taliban militants fled to Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal areas on the Afghan border after they were chased out of Afghanistan by U.S. and Afghan opposition forces who overthrew the Taliban in 2001.

On Sunday, a pro-government tribal chief was shot dead in Mir Ali town in North Waziristan where security forces are also fighting al Qaeda militants and their Taliban allies.

Iran ready to train Afghan police: Purmohammadi

TEHRAN, May 29 (MNA) -- On Sunday, Interior Minister Mostafa Purmohammadi voiced Iran’s readiness to train Afghanistan’s police and offer logistical assistance to promote security in the neighboring country.

“Iran can help enhance the efficiency of the Afghan police force in a shorter time and with less cost than the Europeans,” he said during a meeting with the Afghan Interior Minister, Zarrar Ahmad Moghbel.

“We should make efforts to expedite the return of Afghan refugees to their homeland and make contributions to them inside their country,” he added. Moghbel expressed gratitude for Iran’s humanitarian assistance and services to around two million Afghan refugees during the country's 25 years of war.

Afghan refugees are being returned home according to the agreements between the two countries, he added. He also expressed optimism that Afghanistan would allay Tehran’s concerns over the transit of drugs into Iran.

General: Desertions Plague Afghan Army - By JIM KRANE The Associated Press Monday, May 29, 2006

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Desertions from Afghanistan's U.S.-allied army have dropped sharply, but more than 10 percent of the troops still go AWOL, a U.S. general said Monday.

Maj. Gen. Robert Durbin, who heads the effort to train Afghan soldiers and police, said a focus on replacing unfit commanders has cut desertion rates from their peak a few months ago, when almost a quarter of all Afghan troops absconded for varying periods.

"Where you have higher AWOL rates is where you have weaker leaders," Durbin told The Associated Press during a visit to Dubai. "We're trying to trade out those weaker leaders." More than 2,500 Afghan soldiers are still absent without leave. The army has a total of 35,000 forces, including those in basic training.

In January, a top-level committee headed by Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak began enforcing a plan to cut desertions by replacing commanders whose units suffered high AWOL rates and by improving food and living conditions.

U.S. and Afghan officials have said soldiers desert for several reasons, including a reluctance to fight alongside foreigners against countrymen and a need to earn money for families in remote villages.

The desertion rate dropped from as high as 25 percent in January to about 13 percent now, Durbin said. The goal, he said, is to cut desertions to below 10 percent.

"Perhaps that is alarming by international standards," said Durbin, 52, of Connellsville, Pa. But, he said, Afghan fighters traditionally have joined militias that permitted long periods of leave. Many return after unexplained disappearances, and those who do not are scrubbed from active-duty rosters.

Durbin compared the concept to American militiamen who returned home at harvest time during the Revolutionary War. "That behavior wasn't looked down upon," Durbin said. "But that's different from what you have in a professional force."

Afghan army recruiters employing pressure tactics _ including reporting deserters to religious and community leaders _ have persuaded 1,120 deserters to return to their bases, Durbin said.

The U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry, said last week during a visit near Kabul that the Afghan army had two tasks. "One is the fight. The second is to be an enduring symbol for the people of Afghanistan of national unity," he said.

But that army will require U.S. and NATO support for years to come, said Anthony Cordesman, a military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

"The numbers still remain very, very low relative to the size of the country and size of the mission," Cordesman said. "They're simply too small to deal with Afghanistan's security problems."

Durbin, who took command of the training mission in December, said Afghan government troops were taking far fewer casualties than their adversaries _ former Taliban militias and opium traffickers _ in heavy fighting in the south.

More than 350 people, mostly anti-government rebels, have died in less than two weeks of heavy fighting, according to Afghan and coalition figures. U.S. airstrikes have killed many of them. A May 21 airstrike killed 16 civilians, U.S. and Afghan figures show.

Durbin said the heavy fighting in the south is related to Afghan security forces' efforts to assert control in a region outside the government's orbit.

"In my mind it's a sign of progress but, unfortunately, it will result in casualties on both sides," Durbin said.

“Foreign forces must not withdraw from Afghanistan’ - Monday, May 29, 2006 (Daily Times)

WASHINGTON: A former Afghan interior minister has said that any drawdown of US and allied forces in Afghanistan would send a negative message that the US is going to abandon the country.

“The Taliban and some neighbouring countries are playing a waiting game, saying the United States will leave one day. Taliban commanders are often quoted in Afghanistan as saying, ‘The Americans have the clocks, we have the time,’” said Ali Jalai, who was interior minister in the Karzai government from 2002 to 2005, and who now teaches at the National Defence University, Washington, in an interview published in the Washington Post on Sunday.

He also accused Pakistan of training and harbouring militants. “The Taliban have training areas, staging areas, recruiting centres and safe havens in Pakistan,” he was quoted as saying. Answering a question about the phenomenon of suicide bombings in Afghanistan, Jalali said, “Suicide attacks are alien to the Afghans, and the more sophisticated roadside bomb technology are Al Qaeda efforts adopted by the Taliban and other terrorists. Most likely, they came from there from Iraq.” khalid hasan

Nation-Building on the Cheap - Sunday, May 28, 2006

Not long after the Taliban fell and Hamid Karzai became president of Afghanistan, Ali Jalali's phone rang at his Glenwood, Md., home. It was his old friend Karzai, inviting Jalali to return to his homeland and work in the new government. Jalali, who had fled Afghanistan 22 years earlier and taken U.S. citizenship, accepted. He served nearly three years as Karzai's interior minister, stepping down in late 2005 to teach at the National Defense University here. Recently, Jalali spoke with Washington Post staff writer Marc Kaufman about the hard lessons he learned nation-building in Afghanistan.

There has been a sharp escalation of violence [in Afghanistan], especially in the south. Why the upsurge?

A combination of foreign support, the militants' use of safe havens across the border, weak government control in the area, poverty, a growing connection between drug traffickers and terrorists, and repression of communities by local thugs and corrupt government officials -- they all contribute to the problem.

The Taliban and other terrorist forces have little support in Afghanistan. Their leadership, ideology and political vision have long been rejected by the people. If, God forbid, the Afghanistan government fails, it will not fail because of the Taliban. . . . It will fail because people do not see significant changes in their lives.

You were a member of the Karzai government for almost three years. What has kept it from doing more?

I have known President Karzai for a long time. He is honest in his efforts and does try to respond to these challenges. But he lacks a strong and cohesive political party, a team to help him formulate good policies and to follow through with implementation. [It's hard] governing through deals with regional networks, warlords and opportunistic wheeler-dealers. No real vision.

The American government and international community have said Afghanistan is at the center of the war on terrorism and have poured in billions of dollars. Do they have a vision?

They all have different visions. You see this clearly in the development of the security sector. The main pillars of reform -- army, police, justice, counternarcotics and disarmament -- are interconnected, but they were each supported by one "lead nation" from the G-7 group, and their approaches can be very different. For example, even if you built a very good police force, the criminal justice sector being developed very weakly by the Italians wouldn't support it. When you arrest a suspect, the police can legally hold him for 24 hours, and then he goes to the judicial sector. Often the suspects buy their way out.

Is the Afghan economy coming alive at all? Are things improving?

During the past four years, Afghanistan made remarkable progress. Still, the recovery is fragile and cannot be sustained without prolonged international assistance. By March 2006, the Afghan economy had grown by more than 80 percent since 2001, but much of that growth comes from foreign assistance and [the] illegal drug economy. Estimates are that only 6 percent of people have access to electricity, and less than 20 percent to clean water.

Has that level of electricity distribution or clean water availability changed much in the last four years?

Not much, I would say.

That's surprising, given the amount of aid we've been told has gone to Afghanistan.

In the 2004 Berlin conference, the figure agreed on for securing Afghanistan's future came to $28 billion over seven years. But how much was really invested? You know, a pledge does not mean that this money is going to be available.

What percentage of the aid money is actually reaching Afghanistan?

In some cases [of specific contracts], I was told less than 30 percent.

There is a general belief here that things are getting better in Afghanistan. You seem to be saying that maybe isn't true.

If you compare Afghanistan today with three years ago, you can definitely see some progress. You don't see warlords challenging the central government. In 2003, I wanted to bring changes to the center of Paktia province, Gardez, but a few thugs were ruling that province. It took us a lot to replace them. New people we sent in had to go with a contingent of police. Now you don't see that kind of situation in Afghanistan. But there are still so many other problems, and together they keep Afghanistan weak. I believe the international community should realize that stabilizing Afghanistan and keeping it from becoming a failed state again cannot be achieved on the cheap.

Has that been done on the cheap so far?

Yes.

What do you make of the announced reductions in American troops in Afghanistan, and their replacement by NATO forces?

A drawdown in Afghanistan would send a very negative message. Already, some people in Afghanistan speculate that the United States is again abandoning Afghanistan. The Taliban and some neighboring countries are playing a waiting game, saying the United States will leave one day. Taliban commanders are often quoted in Afghanistan saying, "The Americans have the clocks, we have the time."

The Iraq war started soon after you arrived back in Kabul. How did that war change the war you were fighting?

There were intangible impacts -- especially the shift in attention. And the attacks against American and coalition forces in Iraq encouraged some people in Afghanistan, and in Pakistan, to think, "Okay, we can do the same thing in Afghanistan."

Tactics like suicide bombings?

Yes. Suicide attacks are alien to the Afghans, and the more sophisticated roadside bomb technology are al-Qaeda efforts adapted by the Taliban and other terrorists. Most likely they came from there, from Iraq.

Pakistan often talks of helping the United States find Osama bin Laden and [his second in command] Ayman Zawahiri, but do you think the Afghan government gets much help from Pakistan in catching Taliban leaders?

The Taliban have training camps, staging areas, recruiting centers and safe havens in Pakistan. As long as the Taliban continue to use Pakistani territory for attacks on Afghanistan, the suspicion that Pakistan is playing a double game will persist.

The Afghan Supreme Court recently condemned a man to death for having converted to Christianity. He was released, but how do you understand what happened?

He was never at risk, and only the media publicity made it a very difficult case. . . . One thing that has created resentment among Afghans is the perception that some aid organizations try to lure people from their religion. They argue that the person was a needy person, and converting to Christianity was the price he had to pay to get help.

Do you think there are aid groups now doing the same kind of things?

Yes, I've heard that some aid groups are at the same time evangelical groups that try to proselytize Christianity among needy Afghans.

Powerful people in Afghanistan tend to attract enemies. Did that happen to you?

There were two or three known attempts on my life, and four or five reported attempts.

UNAMA Press Briefing

Adrian Edwards, Spokesperson for the Special Representative of the Secretary-General, and UN agencies in Afghanistan - Kabul – 29 May, 2006

Talking Points

Monday’s incident involving a US military convoy in Kabul

A couple of hours ago this morning, and as most of you know, a serious incident occurred in Kabul involving a US convoy and local people.

We, like most of you, are still in the process of trying to ascertain facts, but the reports we are seeing tend to confirm that the trigger for this was a traffic incident of some kind. We understand there are civilian casualties. At this time, UNAMA reminds everyone that the priority here must be on providing proper care for the injured. With incidents like this people will understandably be upset, but this makes it all the more important that there be calm. One tragedy must not be allowed to translate into another.

UNHCR, Afghanistan, and Pakistan to meet tomorrow to discuss the fate of Afghan refugees in Pakistan. Tomorrow the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan, along with the United Nations Refugee Agency will meet in Qatar to review the 2006 Afghan refugee returns from Pakistan. Also on the agenda is the long-term future of Afghan refugees in Pakistan. The government of Pakistan will present a three-year refugee camps closure plan, and UNHCR will present its own long-term strategy to resolve the issue of Afghans living in Pakistan.

New Minister for Refugees and Repatriation, Ustad Mohammad Akbar Akbar, is leading the Afghan delegation.

United Nations Environment Program to Celebrate World Environment Day

Next Monday is World Environment Day. The theme for this year is Deserts and Desertification, which is particularly relevant to Afghanistan as an arid country burdened by water shortages and drought.

The United Nations Environment Program and Afghanistan’s National Environmental Protection Agency will organize events in several cities to demonstrate the growing co-operation for the management and protection of Afghanistan’s environment. In Kabul UNEP and NEPA will organize a visit to Kole Hashmat Khan wetland. There several NGOs will demonstrate solar and other environmental NGOs.

World Bank Supports Water and Agriculture Sectors in Afghanistan

On May 25 th, the World Bank approved a $40 million grant to support urban water supply services, and a US$20 million grant to further develop the agriculture sector.

Currently, access to piped water infrastructure is among the lowest in the world at around 18 percent. The US$40 million grant for the Urban Water Sector Project will increase access to safe, drinking water in Kabul. It will assist the Government in increasing the performance of all urban water providers in Afghanistan, thus laying the foundation for future expansion of reliable, sustainable and affordable water and sanitation services.

Improving access to piped water in urban areas is a benchmark of the Afghanistan Compact. The aim is that by 2010 half of all households in Kabul will have such access, and a third of houses in other urban areas. In rural areas the aim is for 90 percent of households to have safe drinking water and sanitation to 50 percent.

The World Bank’s US$20 million grant for the Emergency Horticulture and Livestock Project is designed to enhance productivity and stimulate increased and more efficient production of horticulture and livestock products. It will improve incentives for private investments and strengthen institutional capacity in agriculture.

IOM gives trucks to Afghan government

Last Thursday, to help build local capacity, the International Organization for Migration handed over 43 trucks to the Afghan government.

Recipients of included the Ministry of Refugee and Repatriation Affairs, Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development, Ministry of Interior Affairs, Ministry of Public Works, Ministry of Martyrs, Disabled and Social Affairs, Ministry of Public Health, Minister of Counter Narcotics, Balkh Department of Disaster and Preparedness and Mazar Municipality. IOM purchased the trucks in 2002 with the contributions from the Governments of Australia, Denmark, Ireland, Norway, UK, and USA.

The trucks were previously used to facilitate the safe, orderly and dignified transport of some of the 400,000 Afghan Internally Displaced Persons helped by IOM to return home since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

FAO holds Regional Meeting on Trans-boundary Animal Diseases

On May 24 th and 25 th, the Food and Agriculture Organization conducted a mid-term review meeting of the Italian-funded projected “Controlling Trans-boundary Animal Diseases in Central Asia.” All parties were happy with progress so far. UNAMA has repeatedly stressed the importance of regional cooperation to Afghanistan’s future. This project is an example of how regional cooperation can improve lives.

Started in August 2004 and concluding in July 2007 this project operates in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. It aims to increase food security by reducing livestock production losses caused by infections diseases, such as rinderpest, foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) and peste des petits ruminants (PPR). It also aims to reduce poverty of those involved in the livestock farming sector in the region and to improve animal productivity and trade. One of the immediate objectives is to eliminate rinderpest in the region.

Although avian influenza (AI) is not included in the mandate of the project the FAO has still assisted the Government of Afghanistan to control avian flu, and the Italian government has allocated another $105,000 to the project to fight avian flu in Afghanistan.

DIAG launches in Laghman province

Tomorrow Tuesday a high level delegation from the Disarmament and Reintegration Commission will travel to Laghman to launch DIAG Main Phase in the province. The delegation will be headed by the first Deputy Minister of Defense and Deputy Chairman of the DRC Yusuf Nuristani.

Next Thursday, another high-level delegation from the D&RC will travel to Takhar to launch DIAG in that province.

The Disbandment of Illegally Armed Groups process aims to eliminate the influence of illegal militias, an important step in ensuring effective governance and rule of law in Afghanistan.

Questions and Answers

Question: Recently the UNODC head, Maria Costa, talked about the involvement of members of parliament in drug smuggling. Do you have any comment on that? And what is the evidence to support this claim?

Spokesperson: I’m afraid on that I’m not going to give you a very satisfactory answer. Mr. Costa is a far more eloquent speaker than myself. Some of you may recall that we’ve had Mr. Costa speaking here before, and he’s always made very clear his opinions. On the matter of the evidence for this, that’s a question for UNODC. If you’re interested, we can seek to arrange a press briefing with them.

Question: As you mentioned earlier what happened was a road accident. And now there’s killing and rioting. Thirty people have been killed. How is it possible such a small thing become so big?

Spokesperson: The short answer is we don’t know how it’s possible. We still don’t fully know what happened in the incident this morning – that’s why it’s so important that the facts be properly established. We don’t have confirmation on the number of casualties – but clearly a tragedy has happened. I’ll reiterate the point that there needs to be calm. People are upset, but it’s very important for everyone’s sake that calm and sensible minds prevail.

Shengjie Li, ILO Liaison Officer

Employment is the fight against poverty. The Afghanistan government with the support of the international community is committed to achieving certain benchmarks, which are directly related to employment generation. In line with ILO’s mandate the ILO office in Afghanistan is aiming to create more decent work opportunities for all, especially for women, people with disabilities, youth, demobilized soldiers, and returnees. The program strategy is to adapt ILO products and tools in relation to employment generation into the Afghan context.

Today I’d like to concentrate on two ILO projects – one is related to employment service center, and the other on the National Skills Development Program.

My colleague Mr. Gregor Schulz will now talk about the employment service center.

Gregor Schulz, ILO Chief Technical Advisor

I was here eighteen months ago when the project was in the beginning stage. Eighteen months later the project is fully operational in Kabul and nine provinces. In the meantime more than 30,000 job-seekers have benefited from this service. Our project is unique in that we don’t import foreign experts but we work closely with the government. Expertise is imported but 90 percent of the staff working on the project are from participating ministries. Those ministries are the Ministry of Martyrs, Disabled, and Social Affairs, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, and the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation. We started with the capacity-building in those ministries, and then those ministries implemented the project.

Our local coordinator Dr. Masood will briefly outline the project to you.

Dr. Masood, ILO Local Coordinator

The Employment Service Centers project is funded by the German government and this is a joint project among the Ministry of Martyrs, Disabled, and Social Affairs, International Labour Organization, and AGEF. The ESC project began its activities in Afghanistan in mid-2004, and the project’s main objectives are to establish Employment Services Centers in Kabul and the provinces, to train well selected government staff for the ESCs to provide specific advice and labour market services to assist employers and jobseekers, to refer jobseekers to the appropriate training and employment opportunity, and to provide jobseekers with relevant and up-to-date advice and assistance on vocational training and self-employment opportunities available in their local labour market.

The services provided by the ESCs are designed to assist all Afghans. The ESC offices are equipped with modern office furniture and computers. The selected ministry staff are receiving on-the-job training in the tasks of vocational counselors. Their responsibilities include registering jobseekers for employment, interviewing jobseekers, receiving job vacancies from employers, referring jobseekers to appropriate vacancies, and identifying training opportunities for jobseekers.

Shengjie Li: I’d like to ask my colleague Erlain to give you a brief introduction to the National Skills Development Program, because this and the ESC program are related.

Erlien Wubs, ILO Gender Specialist

The National Skills Development Program is one of the national priority programs announced by President Karzai. The Ministry of Martyrs, Disabled, and Social Affairs is the lead ministry for this program. There is also a steering committee, which consists of eleven ministries, such as the Ministry of Education. The main objective of the project is to improve employment opportunities for the jobless by providing them with training, with access to employment service centers, and to microfinance and other development support services. It is the overall goal of the Afghanistan government to have 150,000 Afghans trained by 2010.

At the moment we have already started professional training under the 1384 training program. At this time about 2,150 Afghan men and women are being trained. Of those 2,150 at least 40 percent are women. In the current financial year we estimate we will train seven to ten thousand Afghans, and again our target is to have 40 percent of them women. A second important objective of the National Skills Development Program is to build the capacity of national training providers and government training providers. And lastly the National Skills Development Program will provide a facilitating environment for training – conducting labour market research, mapping existing training providers, improving the quality of trainers, and developing curricula and written material.

Questions and Answers

Question: Are there statistics showing how many Afghans are unemployed? Do you confirm the Ministry of Martyrs Disabled and Social Affairs statistic that the number of unemployed is increasing?

Shengjie Li: Thanks for your questions. There have been no statistics on the unemployed in Afghanistan since the early nineties, and ILO has not carried out any survey. With donor assistance ILO is planning a national child labour survey, hopefully before the end of this year. And also with the National Skills Development Program we will set up a labour market information system, and with that system labour statistics will be produced.

Regarding your second question I have to agree with the Ministry. And the reason for the rise in unemployment rate is the return of refugees from Pakistan.

Question: How successful have you been at attracting women to your programme?

Erlien Wubs: At the moment our implementing partners are training at least 40 percent women. And they haven’t had any problems finding women, because in their experience Afghan women would like to get trained because they want to find jobs in the future. Of course our implementing partners have special strategies to facilitate the program – so they go into the village, speak with the shuras and the families. They also invite shuras and families to the training centers so everyone knows what’s going on and they can see the benefits of training for women.

Question: Will we see unemployment service centers run by private agencies in the future?

Gregor Schulz: I think the idea of unemployment service centers in Afghanistan is a fairly new one. Before it was only the Ministry of Labour handling unemployment within the government institutions, and now they’ve opened up to the private sector as well. Whether there will be private agencies in the future, whether there will be a specific legislation dealing with the employment service centers that is something that has to be decided in the future.

Shengjie Li: According to the ILO convention we’re promoting the employment service centers run by both the government and private agencies.

Question: Do employment service centers take into consideration the qualification of the applicant? Or is it just people with connections who get the jobs?

Gregor Schulz: That’s what we try to avoid with the employment service centers. We help those who are qualified, not those who are well-connected. Of course we are fully aware that we can’t solve all the problems – but we are contributing to a new system, which will enable employers to find qualified jobseekers. We also want to help qualified jobseekers who don’t have connections. It may not be possible in all cases but we try our best.

Question: In some countries when employees are fired they have a right to ask why. What is ILO doing about labour rights here?

Shengjie Li: There is a Labour Code of Afghanistan, and it dates back to 1987. Early last year the government has requested ILO’s help in revising this code. And with comments from ILO the Ministry of Labour Affairs has already revised it, and now there’s a draft of a 2006 Labour Code out there. An Afghan delegation, which is leaving this afternoon, will attend the ILO conference, and they will present this draft to ILO for further comments.

One chapter of this new code deals with the employment contract, and that’ll answer the question you raised.

[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.]