In this bulletin:

• Bush vows full investigation of military crash in Afghanistan
• US says troops fired in self defense in Afghan riot
• Afghan Violence - After Riots End, Kabul's Residents Begin to Point Fingers
• Afghanistan wants U.S. troops prosecuted
• What Has Afghanis So Angry
• Pakistan blocks full NAM support for Afghan moves to curb ex-Taleban
• Afghanistan urges Muslim nations to give more aid
• Taliban kill, kidnap dozens of Afghan police
• Attack kills Afghan police chief
• Suspected Taliban attack Afghan town
• Four Men Arrested in Connection With the Killing of Three Female ActionAid Staff in Northern Afghanistan
• Pakistan, Afghanistan, UNHCR agree on refugee camps' closure
• US Now Faces Resurgent Taliban, Resentful Population
• Baluchistan feeds Taliban's growing power
• Canada not at war in Afghanistan: O'Connor

Bush vows full investigation of military crash in Afghanistan

Washington (AFP) - US President George W. Bush has promised Afghan President Hamid Karzai that the United States would conduct a thorough probe of a deadly traffic accident and shooting in Kabul this week involving US troops.

"The president expressed sympathy for those killed and injured in Kabul on Monday and pledged a full investigation," Bush's chief spokesman, Tony Snow, told reporters on Wednesday.

Snow said the US president "also thanked President Karzai for his leadership and expressed steadfast support for the Afghan people."

Afghan officials said 20 people were killed and 160 wounded in the accident and subsequent widespread rioting that engulfed the Afghan capital. More than 1,000 rioters rampaged through Kabul's streets in the worst violence there since the Taliban were forced from power in late 2001.

US says troops fired in self defense in Afghan riot

Kabul (AP) - U.S. troops fired in self defense as a riot erupted after a fatal road accident in Kabul two days ago, the U.S. military said on Wednesday in an account of the incident that sparked the worst anti-American riots in the city since the fall of the Taliban.

"Our initial investigation ... shows fire came from the crowd and our soldiers used their weapons to defend themselves," Colonel Tom Collins told a news conference

Afghan officials say five people were killed by a truck that the U.S. military says suffered brake failure coming down a hill. Seven people were killed in the bloody aftermath.

But Collins said Afghan ministries had told the U.S. military the total number of dead from the accident and riots was 20, and even two days after there was no definitive toll.

The accident occurred in Kabul's north during the morning rush hour, and within a few minutes of the crash Afghan police formed a line to protect the convoy from an angry crowd. A second U.S. convoy arrived on the scene around the same time.

In the hours that followed, rioters rampaged through central Kabul. They looted shops, besieged a private television station and burned the offices of a U.S. aid group before reaching the gates of parliament and the U.S. embassy.

Collins said video footage clearly showed U.S. soldiers firing rounds over the heads of a stone-throwing crowd of up to 500 people from a machine gun mounted on one of the 12 vehicles in the convoy involved in the accident.

But Collins was unable to say whether shots were fired from the crowd before the machine gunner opened up, or whether other soldiers in the convoy had fired. "We just don't know yet who discharged their weapons or even at whom," Collins said.

He said that an investigation was going on into the incident that has damaged relations between the people of Kabul and foreign forces in Afghanistan generally. No U.S. personnel were wounded during the violence.

"Just because coalition soldiers weren't hurt or injured doesn't mean there wasn't imminent danger," said Collins, adding that video showed the troops were clearly in danger because of the proximity of the crowd to the convoy.

There are some 23,000 troops in the U.S.-led coalition fighting a Taliban-inspired insurgency, while a NATO-led peacekeeping force is being increased from 9,000 to 15,000.

Anger over the way U.S. convoys hog roads fuels general resentment of the American presence even though it took U.S. intervention to oust the Taliban regime in 2001, and sow the seeds of democracy that have led to elections in the last two years.

Collins defended the soldier at the wheel of the runaway truck for doing his utmost to avoid pedestrians and, echoing terms used by President Hamid Karzai, said opportunists, agitators and criminals were responsible for turning a protest over the accident into riots.

The driver was being questioned as part of a wide-ranging investigation, but he was not in custody, he added.

Afghan Violence - After Riots End, Kabul's Residents Begin to Point Fingers - CARLOTTA GALL - NY Times

KABUL, Afghanistan, May 30 — As they swept up broken glass and boarded up windows and doors on Tuesday, Kabul residents placed blame for Monday's rioting on young hoodlums and criminal gangs who seized on a fatal accident involving an American military convoy to spark a citywide conflagration.

But they also criticized the American military for its arrogance, saying military vehicles frequently crush civilian cars, and they doubted that the government or the military would conduct an honest investigation of the incident.

While a survey of hospitals on Monday found 14 people dead from the rioting, the Interior Ministry said Tuesday that 12 had been killed, including one policeman, and that 138 had been wounded. Afghan troops were deployed across the capital on Tuesday, sitting atop armored personnel carriers at main intersections. Gen. Jamil Junbish, the Kabul police chief, said a curfew would be enforced for a second night.

There was an unmistakably anti-government and anti-American tinge to Monday's protests. In the main square, rioters burned a huge banner of President Hamid Karzai, who is frequently caricatured by his opponents as a puppet of Washington. A similar banner of the late commander of the anti- Taliban Northern Alliance, Ahmed Shah Massoud, who was assassinated by Al Qaeda on Sept. 9, 2001, remained untouched.

While Mr. Karzai blamed opportunists for the violence, many in the city, including Western diplomats and aid workers, said the protests appeared spontaneous and were aggravated by frustration with joblessness and the slow pace of reconstruction, despite the hopes raised by a new Afghan government.

"It was frustration at the whole process, especially the lack of reconstruction and security," said Faheem Dashty, the editor of The Kabul Weekly newspaper. "For the last four years, people were waiting to see some changes in the government. But they did not see it."

Other residents complained about the presence of not only foreign troops but also Western aid workers, who live in upscale compounds, drive fancy S.U.V.'s and, in many Afghans' minds, are responsible for the spread of vices like alcohol consumption and prostitution. Protesters even trashed the headquarters of CARE International, one of the longest-serving nongovernmental organizations — and much loved in Kabul for its work with war widows and the poor.

But CARE officials said the group was victimized only because of its location. "It was unfortunate that we were in the way of this demonstration," said Paul Barker, the country director for CARE, as he sat at a borrowed desk near the smoldering ruins of his burnt-out office.

The American and Afghan authorities sought to reduce tensions from the fatal crash on Monday, in which an American military truck crashed into 12 cars, killing five people and wounding scores.

The United States Embassy expressed its regret at the loss of life and blamed a mechanical failure. "The vehicle apparently lost the ability to brake due to a mechanical failure," said Ambassador Ronald E. Neumann in a statement that also promised compensation for the victims and a full investigation.

General Junbish also said there was no doubt the car crash, in the northern district of Khair Khana, was an accident, and dismissed claims by demonstrators that the truck had deliberately rammed cars.

Jawed Ludin, the chief of staff to Mr. Karzai, said in an interview with a local television channel that an investigation into the car crash and subsequent riots would reveal an element of organization and political opposition in the riots against the government and its foreign backers. "If any organized elements existed, and I think maybe they did exist, we will soon find out about it," he said.

Mr. Ludin also accused police forces of failing to bring security to the city and said that some had even taken off their uniforms and joined the demonstrators and looters. "The reaction of our police was really shameful," he said. "What we learned from yesterday is that we have to strengthen our police."

General Junbish defended the performance of his police but said they lacked resources, in particular tear gas, water hoses and other crowd-control equipment. "I would call the people who rushed to public places and destroyed and burned police checkpoints, I would not only call them opportunists, but sick people."

He also insisted that the police had fired into the air, and refused to accept that police bullets may have been responsible for the deaths and injuries on Monday. Witnesses said they saw American and Afghan personnel firing their weapons during the riots, though it was not clear if they were firing into the crowd or over the protesters' heads. General Junbish said 106 people had been arrested during and after the violence.

As calm returned to the capital, more violence was reported in northern Afghanistan, as three Afghan women and their driver, all working for the aid agency ActionAid, were shot to death on a village road in the northern province of Jowzjan.

In a separate incident, two Afghans working for a development organization whose name was not disclosed were killed in a roadside explosion in another northern province, Badakhshan, and two Americans traveling in the same convoy were slightly wounded.

The attacks follow at least two other fatal attacks on aid workers in northern Afghanistan in recent weeks and raised concerns that security in the formerly peaceful north may be deteriorating.

Afghanistan wants U.S. troops prosecuted

Kabul (AP) - Afghanistan's parliament has approved a motion calling for the government to prosecute the U.S. soldiers responsible for a deadly road crash that sparked the worst riots in Kabul in years, officials said Wednesday.

The assembly passed the nonbinding motion Tuesday, after debating Monday's crash in which a U.S. truck plowed into a line of cars, killing up to five Afghans and sparking citywide, anti-foreigner riots, said Saleh Mohammed Saljuqi, an assistant to the parliamentary speaker.

"Those responsible for the accident on Monday should be handed over to Afghan legal authorities," Saljuqi cited the motion as saying. A U.S. military spokeswoman, Lt. Tamara D. Lawrence, said she had not seen the motion and declined to comment.

Hours earlier, military spokesman Col. Tom Collins told reporters that the driver of the truck was not suspected of any wrongdoing and had not been arrested. He said the truck's brakes are believed to have overheated and failed.

A spokesman for President Hamid Karzai, Khaleeq Ahmed, declined to comment on the matter. Speaking to reporters, Collins also said he had been informed by the Afghan Ministry of Health that the toll from the unrest had risen to 20 dead, with more than 160 wounded.

A spokesman for the ministry, Abdullah Fahim, said the final toll was still being counted. Hospital officials say most of the dead and wounded were shot.

Collins said the military was investigating whether the troops involved in the crash fired their guns into a group of violent demonstrators or over their heads. He said some of the rioters who were throwing stones at the U.S. troops also had weapons and were firing at them.

"Our soldiers used their weapons to defend themselves," he told reporters in Kabul. Asked if this meant that they fired into or over the crowd, Collins said, "Our investigation is still looking into this."

Though no U.S. soldiers were hurt in the riot, the spokesman said this did not mean they were not in danger. "Deadly intent on the part of the aggressors can be a rock caving in the side of your head. Our soldiers felt threatened," he said.

Rioters stoned the U.S. convoy, then headed to the city center, ransacking offices of international aid groups and searching for foreigners while chanting "Death to America!" It was the deadliest unrest in Kabul since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, and hundreds of armed Afghan security forces were deployed to contain it.

What Has Afghanis So Angry
The young rioters in Kabul see Western aid agencies that don't seem to be helping change things much and a government dominated by one ethnic group - By RACHEL MORARJEE/KABUL Time Magazine May 31, 2006

Five years after collapse of the Taliban, the streets of Kabul are typically clogged with land cruisers transporting foreigners or newly minted drug lords. Ordinary Afghans, however, still live much as they did before — with sewage flowing through open gutters at the side of the street, no running water and working electricity only about every two or three days.

That growing gap between Afghanistan's haves and have-nots helps explain why a U.S. military convoy accident triggered riots that engulfed Kabul on Monday, leaving at least 14 people dead, over 100 injured and millions of dollars of damage. It was the worst violence to sweep the Afghan capital since the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban, and in the process, it shattered the illusion that the city would remain untouched by the growing unrest in the south and east — as well as the notion that the Taliban or its sympathizers were the only violent threat to the Western presence.

The riots came hot on the heels of a U.S. air strike last week in southern Afghanistan, which left around 30 Afghan civilians dead as planes battered Taliban fighters. Even before the convoy accident, Western diplomats say many frustrated young men were already looking for a provocation. "Underlying it all is the fact that young men have not seen any tangible change in their lives in terms of either jobs or basic services," said aid worker Holly Ritchie, who works for a British charity in Kabul. Much of their anger is directed squarely at the very people ostensibly in the country to help, the foreign aid agencies who oversee a portion of the billions of dollars in aid money that has flowed into the country in the last four years.

"We never expected anything of this scale. It was totally unprecedented in Kabul. We were here during the mujahedin and Taliban years and have never seen anything like it," said Paul Barker, the director of CARE Afghanistan. The offices of the relief agency were looted and burned to the ground, along with those of French aid agency ACTED and a number of Afghan restaurants and businesses. On Tuesday, four Afghan aid workers with the charity Action Aid were killed in the first targeted attack on an NGO in northern Jawzjan province, which like Kabul, had previously been viewed as stable. "People were angry with the NGOs because they are using lots of money for themselves. The only people who get any benefit from them being here are the people are working for them," said Isatullah, a mechanic.

For their part, aid workers here blame the U.S. and other Western military for enflaming anti-Western sentiment, which invariably ends up being vented at the softest targets: the charities. U.S. and NATO convoys regularly plough through the city at high speed, often pushing Afghans off the road with little regard to their safety. "The U.S. use force in the street with their cars. When Americans are in a hurry, they don't care how they drive," said an Afghan U.N. worker who asked to remain anonymous.

With average Afghanis angry about their daily lot, the Taliban are no longer the only anti-government forces that the U.S. has to worry about. It was young men allied to the Taliban’s arch-foes — the heroes of the Northern Alliance who ousted the ultra-Islamic regime — that were major agitators in the Kabul violence. Many of the demonstrators were carrying portraits of ethnic Tajik Afghan resistance hero Ahmad Shah Massoud, assassinated by the Taliban a day before the September 11 attacks on the U.S.

President Hamid Karzai's government is led by Pashtuns from the south and east of the country, and Tajiks from Massoud's Panjshir valley stronghold feel marginalized. Foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, the last member of the powerful Panjshiri elite to hold a cabinet post, was dropped by Karzai in a reshuffle earlier this year. "The Panjshiris who led the Northern Alliance are angry because they have been ostracized and shut out from positions of power by this government," said Michael Shaikh, an analyst with Human Rights Watch.

By Tuesday, police had restored calm to the streets of the Kabul. But as Afghans came out to survey the damage, many were asking where the foreign troops were when they needed them. NATO peacekeepers offered support to the Afghan army and police during the riots, but local authorities thought their presence might spark more violence. "There were no American soldiers on the street. They stood back and let the rioters loot. People say the Russians were better because they did more for the people," said Fahor, a 35-year-old shopkeeper in downtown Kabul. If the Americans can't even live up to the low standard set by their cold war enemies during their eight-year occupation of the country, their prospects for success in Afghanistan are dimmer than anyone may have realized.

Pakistan blocks full NAM support for Afghan moves to curb ex-Taleban

PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia ( (AP) 31 May 2006) - An objection from Pakistan has prevented the Nonaligned Movement from throwing its full support behind Afghanistan’s efforts to prevent former Taleban from taking refuge in neighboring countries.

The foreign ministers of NAM member countries, meeting in Malaysia for an annual conference Tuesday, wanted their final declaration to urge governments to curtail the movements of ex-Taleban members, Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said.

But Pakistan objected and the relevant paragraph was included in parentheses, meaning it is subject to revision.

Afghanistan, supported by India, pushed hard for the paragraph to be included without the brackets but was overruled by Malaysia, the chairman of the meeting, diplomats said. “The language, while it is acceptable to Afghanistan and India, it is not acceptable to Pakistan,” Syed Hamid told reporters Tuesday.

“This is quite normal. We have included the language and bracketed it. There is no final decision,” he said, adding that it would be further discussed at the NAM leaders’ summit in Havana, Cuba in September.

The paragraph reads that NAM ministers urge states “to refrain from extending support, protection and shelter to former Taleban cadres, recognizing that failure to do so would seriously undermine efforts by the international community to combat terrorism, and expressing concern that terrorist groups were regrouping in the southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan.”

It was not clear why Pakistan objected to the paragraph. Calls to the hotel room of the Pakistani delegation head went unanswered. An Indian diplomat said the paragraph was in line with existing UN Security Council resolutions on curtailing the activities of the Taleban.

“It is a question of concern to the international community, not just to India,” said the diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media. NAM declarations generally urge member states to follow a course of action, but are not legally binding.

The Islamic hardline regime of Taleban was ousted by US forces in 2001, but has since been slowly regrouping and has been blamed for several deadly attacks in recent months.

Afghanistan urges Muslim nations to give more aid

KUWAIT (Reuters) - Afghanistan urged Muslim countries, especially wealthy oil producing Gulf states, on Wednesday to contribute more aid to help its economic recovery.

Four years after the U.S.-backed campaign which ousted the hardline Islamist Taliban, Afghanistan remains one of the world's poorest countries and security is a major obstacle to development in the central Asian nation.

Finance Minister Anwar Ul-Haq Ahady told a meeting of the Islamic Development Bank that of all the aid that had been pledged to Afghanistan, 2.5 percent was from Islamic countries and only 1.5 percent of that had been disbursed.

"We are disappointed with the level of aid from Muslim countries," he said. "The aid we have received from Islamic countries is far less than what we have received from the rest of the world," he told delegates from 56 Muslim nations.

"We are expecting a much larger role from the Gulf countries in the reconstruction of Afghanistan, especially given their involvement here in the 1980s." Arab countries funnelled money to Muslim fighters resisting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

Gulf countries, Ahady said, should follow the example of neighbours Pakistan and Iran, which have given Afghanistan over $100 million each. Record oil prices have filled the coffers of the world's top oil exporters, leaving many countries in the Gulf region with huge budget surpluses.

Afghanistan's ties with Pakistan have been strained by Kabul's relations with Karachi's rival India and claims by the Afghan government that Pakistan is not doing enough to prevent Taliban and al Qaeda militants from entering the country.

Kuwait has given $30 million to Afghanistan, Ahady said, and Saudi Arabia has offered loans rather than grants. Ahady told Reuters he expects GDP growth of between 10 and 12 percent in 2006 and inflation of less than 10 percent. Economic growth last year was 14 percent, with inflation at 9.6 percent, he said.

The minister said Russia had said it was willing to forgive Afghanistan's debt obligations, which constitute a large part of its $11 billion total debt. Kabul hopes to obtain a write-off of all debts over a three-year period during talks with the Paris Club of lender nations in July, he added.

Afghanistan was using more its own revenue to fund expenditures, gradually reducing dependence on foreign aid, he said. Currently, about 60 percent of spending was self-generated, compared to 30 percent three years ago.

"After another four years we expect to be able to pay for all our recurrent expenditure, but up until then we expect help from the international community," he said.

Taliban kill, kidnap dozens of Afghan police

Kabul (Reuters) - Taliban guerrillas have killed at least a dozen Afghan police and abducted up to 40 others in two separate attacks in the south of the country, officials said on Wednesday.

In the southern province of Zabul, a senior police official, Mohammad Rasoul, was killed and four other people, including two senior provincial officials, were wounded after the Taliban hit their car with a rocket on Tuesday night.

"They were part of a reinforcement sent to help a group of highway police who had come under Taliban attack on a road of Zabul," Yousuf Stanizai, the Interior Ministry spokesman, said. An official in Zabul who declined to be identified said more than 10 policemen were killed in the Taliban assault.

The raid in Zabul came hours after the Taliban attacked a police base in Chora district of neighboring Uruzgan province and abducted up to 40 policemen, an official in Kabul said on condition of anonymity.

A Reuters reporter received a phone call from an unknown person who described himself as Mullah Ahmad, a Taliban commander. He said the militants had taken the police hostage and the Taliban's leadership would decide their fate. He said militants had killed 12 police in the attack before kidnapping the others.

Meanwhile, the capital Kabul was calm on Wednesday morning following anti-U.S. riots two days earlier, in which seven Afghans were killed. The riots were sparked by the crash of a U.S. military vehicle which killed five civilians.

A night curfew has been in operation in the city, and Afghan troops were patrolling the streets. The violence in Zabul and Uruzgan comes amid a series of operations by U.S.-led coalition forces in the south in the past two weeks.

Some 350 people have been killed, many of them in air strikes. Most of those killed were militants, but the toll also includes dozens of police, at least 17 civilians and four foreign troops.

It is the bloodiest period in the insurgency since coalition troops overthrew the Taliban government in 2001 for refusing to hand over al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

The Taliban and their Islamist allies are mostly active in the southern and eastern areas. Some 23,000 coalition troops are hunting the militants while a NATO-led force has begun expanding its mission into the south.

Attack kills Afghan police chief – BBC

A police chief in the southern Afghan province of Zabul has been killed in a suspected Taleban attack. Ghulam Rhasoul was killed when his vehicle was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade near the city of Qalat, a local official told the AP news agency.

At least three other people travelling with him are said to have been hurt. Hundreds of people have died recently in clashes between Taleban-linked guerrillas and Afghan security forces, backed by foreign troops.

More than 350 people have died in the recent violence - some of the worst since a US-led invasion ousted the Taleban government in 2001. Most of the dead are said to have been militants, killed in air strikes - but the number also includes dozens of police and four international troops.

Aid workers employed by foreign organisations have also been targeted. Three women and a man working for the ActionAid charity in northern Afghanistan were shot dead on Tuesday.

A local government spokesman quoted by the Associated Press news agency said the Zabul police official had been travelling in the area to warn of possible Taleban attacks when he was killed.

However, an Afghan interior ministry spokesman quoted by the Reuters news agency said Mr Rhasoul was killed while coming to the aid of security forces targeted in an earlier attack.

"They were part of a reinforcement sent to help a group of highway police who had come under Taleban attack on a road of Zabul," Yousuf Stanizai told Reuters. He said more than 10 policemen had been killed in the earlier assault.

Suspected Taliban attack Afghan town

Kandahar (AP) - Hundreds of suspected Taliban fighters attacked a remote central Afghan town Wednesday and briefly occupied its police headquarters after driving out security forces, officials said.

The militants took control of the police compound in the Uruzgan province town of Chora around dawn Wednesday, after hours of fighting with 100 police inside the headquarters, said Rozi Khan, the regional police chief.

The militants left the compound by late morning after torching police vehicles, but fighters remained in the area and police weren't immediately returning to Chora, Khan said, citing witnesses in the town.

"If our police go there, they'll be ambushed," Khan said by phone from the region. Khan said no police were wounded in the battle. He had no details on militant casualties.

Despite an upsurge in violence across southern Afghanistan that has left about 400 people dead since mid-May, it was unusual for militants to manage to force security forces to flee a town.

Elsewhere, suspected Taliban fighters fired a grenade at a police vehicle Wednesday in southeastern Zabul province, killing the provincial deputy police chief and injuring three police officers, officials said.

The police deputy chief, Ghulam Rasool, was driving through the area to warn of an impending militant attack on police posts when his vehicle was hit by a rock-propelled grenade near Qalat city, regional government spokesman Ali Khail said.

Also in Zabul, rebels battled U.S. forces, though it was not immediately clear whether there were any militant casualties, said coalition spokesman Maj. Quentin Innis.

In recent weeks, Afghanistan has seen some of the deadliest fighting since the ouster of the Taliban regime in late 2001. Militants have stepped up attacks, particularly in the south, drawing a fierce response from coalition and Afghan forces.

Four Men Arrested in Connection With the Killing of Three Female ActionAid Staff in Northern Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan, May 31 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Four men have been arrested and are detained in connection with the killing of three female project staff of international anti-poverty agency ActionAid and their driver, who were shot dead on Tuesday, May 30 in the northern Afghanistan province of Jawzjan, about 500 kilometers from Kabul. No motive has yet been established for these killings.

The women were traveling to work when their vehicle was ambushed between the villages of Abbas and Khala Jabachi by two unidentified gunmen riding past on motorcycles between 8 and 8:30 a.m. All three died immediately, along with the driver.

The women were all Afghan nationals from Jawzjan province, employed with ActionAid for one year. They have been identified as Sabat (45) and Karima (45), both social organizers, and Benafshai (19), an administrative assistant. Last names were asked to be withheld temporarily while investigations continue. The driver, Ahemad Shah (27), was employed by a local car hire company.

"ActionAid condemns the killing of three innocent women who were killed whilst undertaking important humanitarian work in Afghanistan," said John Samuel, Asia international director for ActionAid. "Women are the most vulnerable in Afghanistan, and it is important that ActionAid continues to work with them so that they have rights and justice."

Sabat, Karima and Benafshai were on their way to local village communities to undertake social work activities with the National Solidarity Program, a government-run project. ActionAid is one of 24 implementing partners of this project, and has been working with these local communities for over three years.

The funerals, conducted this morning, were attended by family and friends of the deceased, as well as by local ActionAid staff.

"ActionAid was very welcomed by the local villagers in Jawzjan province and so we are shocked that such a tragic incident could occur," said GB Adhikari, country director of ActionAid in Afghanistan, noting that the northern provinces are usually considered safer than Kabul and the southern provinces.

ActionAid remains committed to the delivery of humanitarian work in Afghanistan, but staff security is paramount. ActionAid is taking all necessary steps to better understand the situation and to ensure that the families of those killed are supported at this time.

The ActionAid office in Kabul was closed on Monday following riots in the area and all 27 full-time staff and 125 project contractors have been told to stay at home for 48 hours.

Pakistan, Afghanistan, UNHCR agree on refugee camps' closure –

Islamabad (IRNA) - Delegates from Pakistan, Afghanistan and the UN refugee agency ended a Tripartite Commission meeting in Qatar, where they agreed on dates for the closure of four refugee camps in Pakistan, the UN refugee agency said on Wednesday.

The delegations, which met in Doha from May 29-31, agreed that Katchagari camp in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, as well as Girdi Jungle and Jungle Pir Alizai camps in Baluchistan would be closed by the end of July this year, a UNHCR statement said here. The closure of Jalozai camp in NWFP has been postponed to 2007.

The government of Pakistan mentioned that its three-year strategy for voluntary repatriation, camp closure and consolidation was pending approval by a Cabinet-level committee, and urged the Afghan government to develop a similar strategy for reintegration.

All parties agreed that voluntary repatriation should remain the preferred solution for Afghans in Pakistan, that reintegration assistance should be shifted into areas of return in Afghanistan, and that the Afghan authorities should include returnee reintegration in their national development plan.

More than 67,000 Afghans have repatriated from Pakistan with UNHCR assistance so far this year, bringing to 2.8 million the total number of Afghans who have returned since the UN refugee agency started its voluntary repatriation operation in 2002.

Some 2.5 million Afghans are believed to be still living in Pakistan. While in Doha, the three delegations endorsed plans this year to register Afghans counted in last year's census conducted by the Pakistan government.

They also welcomed Pakistan's hosting of the ministerial conference on refugees in the Muslim world in November under the auspices of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). The Tripartite Commission is scheduled to reconvene in August this year.

US Now Faces Resurgent Taliban, Resentful Population

The United States is facing two difficult problems in Afghanistan: the newly resurgent Taliban and the violent eruption of civilian hostility to foreign military forces that followed what appeared to be a traffic accident in Kabul. U.S. President George W. Bush has long cited Afghanistan as a model of success for his foreign policy. Is that success beginning to crumble four-and-a-half years after U.S.-led forces routed the Taliban? Not necessarily, according to two analysts who follow events in Central and South Asia. But they tell RFE/RL correspondent Andrew F. Tully that the Bush administration must be careful not to lose control of the situation. Tully filed this report from Washington.

WASHINGTON, May 30, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- The United States and its coalition partners now find themselves confronted not only by a seemingly stronger Taliban, but also by a population that is suddenly expressing long-held resentment of the foreign forces that they blame for all that is wrong with their country.

The reappearance of the Taliban has been news for several months. But the Bush administration expresses little concern about the fighting. In a recent interview with RFE/RL (eds: May 19), Richard Boucher, the assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, said renewed Taliban maneuvers were to be expected.

Boucher said military activity always drops off during Afghanistan's harsh winters, and increases with each spring thaw. Further, he said, Afghan and coalition forces are finally able to patrol new areas of the country, increasing the opportunities for combat:

"What fundamentally is going on here is that the [Afghan] government, the [Afghan] army -- the governmental authority in Afghanistan is pushing out into new areas, into areas where there hasn't been a lot of government, into areas where the Taliban operated freely. You have NATO expanding out into different provinces now, and there's some effort by the Taliban not only to challenge the government but also to challenge the NATO troops and see how they'll react compared to how U.S. forces react."

That's true, but only up to a point, according to two analysts at Washing policy centers who were interviewed by RFE/RL. They are James Phillips, who specializes in foreign security issues at the Heritage Foundation, and Frederic Grare, who studies foreign affairs at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Phillips points to three ways the Taliban have been able to mount a much stronger insurgency this year than they have in past years. First, he says, they've had time to regroup. Second, he says, they're getting increasingly more help from sympathizers on the other side of Afghanistan's border with Pakistan.

Finally, Phillips cites the drug connection:"It (eds: the Taliban) also is trying to capitalize on the Afghan government's strengthening anti-narcotics campaign, and it's trying to reach out to poppy farmers and drug smugglers and refiners. Some of the most recent reports have described an upsurge in fighting in Helmand Province, which is the epicenter of the Afghan poppy production."

Phillips notes that Karzai's government has had a spotty record trying to persuade Afghan farmers to give up the cultivation of poppy, one of the country's major cash crops.

Grare says the Taliban didn't even have to wait for this year's spring thaw to begin making trouble for the forces of the Afghan government and the U.S.-led coalition. He said it reorganized well enough to make its presence felt last winter.

Grare also points to civilian unrest in Afghanistan as making the Taliban's job easier. He says he's not sure whether the population in some regions are actively helping the insurgents or even joining them, but they're not resisting them, either: "The Taliban are regrouped. It does operate also on a larger scale because it's easier now for them. It's easier because, again, the population is no longer opposing them, in a way. So in many places along the border [with Pakistan], the day may belong to the coalition forces, but night belongs to the Taliban, and the whole population wants to be out of the confrontation. It's difficult to say whether they're [the Taliban are] massively recruiting the population, but do they operate easier? Yes, definitely."

Grare says this indicates a broader problem for the United States and its allies: the simmering hostility of the Afghan people. Primarily, he says, they resent the U.S. troops because they are perceived, more than forces from other countries, as supporting the government of President Hamid Karzai.

And Grare says most Afghans see Karzai as corrupt. He stresses that the government isn't necessarily abusive to the Afghan people, merely negligent: "Afghanistan is so poor that if you don't do something about it, then clearly the people are being hurt and live miserably. Corruption to some extent acceptable, providing government delivers. At this time we have a government which delivers very little and is very corrupt. So, you know, that makes corruption even less acceptable."

Grare says if the United States isn't careful, the Afghans could end up rejecting its forces just as they violently rejected the Soviets during the 1980s. But he says such an outcome is by no means imminent, and he believes Washington has time to rectify the situation.

Phillips -- of the Heritage Foundation -- agrees that there is public resentment, and he expresses concern about it. But he says such feelings are common among the populations of countries hosting foreign forces: "There's always going to be people trying to stir up those charges. The U.S. should be concerned, but it should realize that no matter what it does, there're going to be people spreading disinformation about Karzai's government being corrupt, being ineffective. There are networks that specialize in whipping up people to a frenzy. I don't think there's anything the U.S. can do about that."

Phillips says xenophobia has long been a problem in Afghanistan, and the United States and its allies there are just going to have to get used to coping with that reality. He says a change of military behavior -- not a significant change of policy -- is all that is necessary to improve relations with the Afghan people.

Baluchistan feeds Taliban's growing power - San Francisco Chronicle
05/31/2006 By Declan Walsh

Bagarzai Saidan, Pakistan - Aziz Ullah, the serious-minded son of a Pakistani farmer, yearned for martyrdom, his family said. Last week, the Taliban made his wish come true.

They inspired him to holy war, trained him to shoot, then sent him to fight the infidel Americans across the border. So it was fitting that after he died May 22, trapped under a hail of U.S. fire, a procession of black-turbaned men brought him home.

"He always wanted to die like this, a heroic death. We are very proud of him," said his brother, Gul Nasib, a solemn man with a grief-etched face at their home in Bagarzai Saidan, a village in Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan province 30 miles south of the Afghan border.

Ullah died in Panjwayi, a violence-racked district of Kandahar province where U.S. A-10 Warthog planes pounded a religious school occupied by Taliban fighters. An estimated 370 people were killed, most of them Taliban soldiers like Ullah but some of them women and children, according to local reports.

The battle was the bloodiest so far in an escalating wave of violence that has struck Afghanistan since the U.S.-led invasion ousted the Taliban from power in 2001, and raised fears that the Afghan government faces an increasingly threatening Taliban insurgency. In the past six months, insurgents have dramatically ratcheted up their campaign to overthrow the government of U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai -- an idea that once appeared quixotic but has now acquired some potency.

Ullah's funeral offered evidence that the insurgency is being bolstered from within Pakistan, the U.S.'s ostensible ally in the war on terror.

A Taliban flag with black lettering fluttered at one end of his grave while the striped, black-and-white banner of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, an extremist Pakistani religious party that helps rule Baluchistan, protruded from the other. Hushed men from the area streamed to the site. At one point, Maulana Abdul Bari, Baluchistan's minister for public health, addressed worshipers at the village mosque.

"Aziz Ullah was a true martyr; his place in paradise is guaranteed," said the radical cleric, his words echoing through a loudspeaker across the bone-dry village. "His blood will not be lost. It will strengthen Islam like water feeds a tree."

What worries Western commanders and their Afghan allies is not just the intensity of the insurgency but its point of origin.

According to Western and military officials, the Taliban recruit, re-supply and coordinate their war effort from Pakistan. The Afghan-Pakistan border -- a 930-mile stretch of sand, rock and mountain -- is largely not patrolled.

But the most serious blind spot is Baluchistan, a vast, mostly lawless province where the Taliban draw support from local members of the Pashtun tribe.

Returning from Ullah's funeral, a reporter passed groups of young men sauntering down the road or hunkered over tea at roadside cafes. Many were dressed in black baggy pants and tunics and roughly tied black turbans -- dress that is not native to Baluchistan but in Afghanistan is unambiguously associated with the Taliban.

Some analysts say insurgents melt into the camps that house more than 231,000 Afghan refugees in Baluchistan. Others seek shelter in madrassas -- Islamic schools -- run by local sympathizers and funded with Middle Eastern money. Major headquarters for the Taliban is 30 miles to the south, in the provincial capital, Quetta, according to Col. Chris Vernon, spokesman for the British forces in Iraq.

During the 1980s, Quetta served as a rear base for Afghan mujahedeen fighters battling Soviet troops in Afghanistan. Today, police at check posts watch for Baluch nationalist guerrillas who have dramatically escalated a bombing campaign against the state. Government spies sit indiscreetly in the lobby of the largest hotel, the Serena, carefully tracking the movements of visiting foreigners.

The Taliban move through the town like a dark whisper. Last week in the Pashtunibad district, small groups of young men with kohl under their eyes in the Pashtun fashion and silky white or black turbans on their heads strolled between the vegetable stalls and clothes traders. At the central mosque, radical cleric Maulana Abdul Wahid railed against a Jewish and Christian conspiracy against Muslims and spoke admiringly of suicide bombers.

"Regardless of the cost to their lives, at least some Muslims are struggling," he told worshipers.

The Taliban presence occasionally bursts into the open. On May 8, motorcycle-riding assassins gunned down Mullah Samad Barakzai, a onetime Taliban official from Afghanistan's Helmand province who had shifted his support to the U.S.-backed Karzai government.

The Taliban presence is a matter of great sensitivity for the Pakistani government. Relations with Afghanistan are at their lowest level in years following a cascade of criticism that Islamabad is doing little to oppose the Taliban here. Last week, Karzai told a provincial gathering: "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."

Pakistan officials argue that they are being unfairly blamed for an Afghan problem. It is impossible, they argue, to seal a border populated on both sides by sympathetic Pashtun tribesmen. Up to 15,000 people pass through the main checkpoint at the Pakistani border town of Chaman daily, said military spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan.

"Everyone has a black or white turban, a shalwar kameez (traditional loose-fitting Pakistani tunic and pants) and a beard. Everyone looks like a Taliban. You can't arrest them all," he said.

Pakistan also has taken some steps to address Western and Afghan concerns. Posters, calendars and audio cassettes celebrating Taliban martyrs and Osama bin Laden have been removed from Quetta downtown shops. But observers say the government could do more. A Western intelligence source said several Taliban leaders are living in Quetta, and suspicions linger that elements within the country's intelligence services take a laissez-faire attitude, at best, to the existence of Taliban fighters they once helped to arm and indoctrinate -- allegations Sultan calls rubbish.

Although Pakistan has arrested more than 1,000 al Qaeda suspects since 2001, according to a recent report by the Pak Institute for Peace Studies in Lahore, it has only arrested a handful of Taliban militants. Until his arrest in October, Taliban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi openly spoke with reporters from Quetta.

Canada not at war in Afghanistan: O'Connor - Wed. May. 31 2006 - Canadian Press

OTTAWA -- Canada is not at war in Afghanistan, says Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor. Fighting violent insurgents is just one task among many for Canadian soldiers trying to bring stability to the troubled country, O'Connor told a Commons committee Tuesday.

"The military has to conduct a range of activities,'' he said under questioning from MPs. "I don't consider this war.'' Since 2002, 16 Canadian soldiers and one diplomat have been killed in Afghanistan.

Liberal committee member Ujjal Dosanjh suggested the Conservative government is avoiding use of the term war because it too closely mirrors American terminology, as in the war on terrorism. "I think they're trying to downplay it,'' Dosanjh said after the committee meeting.

"I think we should be honest with Canadians and say, `You can call it whatever you want. Our military is engaged in battles almost every day.'

"The opinion on this particular mission is already divided. And if we're not honest with people, there's a danger that it would be further divided.''

O'Connor insisted it's not accurate to say Canada is at war.

"We're engaged in helping people move products around, we're helping them build houses, we're helping advise the police. And when we're attacked, we attack back.''

The Commons narrowly voted recently to extend Canada's mission in Afghanistan an additional two years, until February 2009. O'Connor told MPs it was the "right and responsible thing'' to make the renewed commitment.

A day earlier, Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay said progress has been made on a variety of social, economic and judicial fronts under the auspices of Canada's 2,300-member military force.

O'Connor said Tuesday the job is not yet done. "Our military mission in Afghanistan will be successful when the country and its government are stabilized,'' he said. "When the terrorists and their local support networks are defeated and denied sanctuary. And when the Afghan security forces are well-established and under the firm and legitimate control of the government of Afghanistan.''

O'Connor disclosed Tuesday that most of the military's jeep-like G-Wagons will be confined to the Canadian base in Kandahar and, in general, soldiers will venture out in armoured vehicles.

But he denied that will make Canada's military less visible and therefore less able to win the hearts and minds of Afghans. Instead, he suggested, it's a question of safety.

"You have to travel between towns. When you get to the town, you get out of your vehicles and you talk to the people.'' O'Connor also tried to deflect criticism about the exclusion of media from covering the return of soldiers' bodies from Afghanistan.

He insisted that in future, journalists will be free to cover these events if the privacy of family members is not violated. "If the primary next-of-kin wants the press there, the press will be there.''

[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.]