In this bulletin:

• Afghanistan woos foreign investors in India
• EU to explore scope for Afghan police training
• Afghan police readiness 'far from adequate:' US
• U.S. Leads Efforts to Transform Afghan Police Force
• Coalition's Afghan policy will fail: Musharraf
• Editorial: Exiting Afghanistan
• Iran prepared to assist Afghanistan’s reconstruction: Rafsanjani    
• Resistance not from people but from some miscreants: Kandahar Governor
• President Karzai Welcomes the Implementation of the International Convention Against Landmines and Unexploded Ordnances
• O'Connor on blitz to sell Afghan mission
• More NATO troops needed in Afghanistan, assembly told
• Steering his nation without a rudder
• As Taliban insurgency gains strength and sophistication, suspicion falls on Pakistan
• Support for Taliban grows in rural Afghanistan as villagers lose hope: elders
• Pay dues or face action: AG warns land grabbers

Afghanistan woos foreign investors in India

November 15, 2006 - By Sayed Salahuddin

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai hopes to win fresh trade and investment for his violence-plagued country during a weekend visit to New Delhi, despite rising fighting across his impoverished country.

The Regional Economic Cooperation Conference for Afghan Reconstruction -- which includes Afghanistan's neighbours, the G-8 group of leading economies, the United Nations and global financial institutions -- comes as the country is mired in its worst violence since 2001.

Karzai flew out on Wednesday ahead of schedule and is due back in the Afghan capital in a few days for talks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The two-day talks in India, whose close ties with Afghanistan have sometimes been a source of tension with Pakistan, will focus on regional as well as Afghan issues, officials here said.

"Through the conference, the government hopes to draw investors' attention to trade, investment and the opening of new markets," said Karzai spokesman Khaleeq Ahmad.

"The government will also discuss ways on how to import electricity and find markets for agricultural products overseas." The Delhi conference follows a similar event in Kabul last year.

A planned multi-billion-dollar gas pipeline from Turkmenistan via Afghanistan to Pakistan and on to India is not on the formal agenda, but the Afghan leader was ready to discuss it, Ahmad said.

Iran is also keen to build a gas pipeline to Pakistan and India, but the United States strongly opposes the plan.

Afghanistan's infrastructure is largely in shambles after decades of war and occupation -- despite billions of dollars pledged and spent by donors since U.S.-led forces overthrew the Taliban's radical Islamic government in 2001.

Lying between the untapped markets of energy-rich Central Asia and energy-starved India and Pakistan, Afghanistan also has some of the world's biggest copper reserves, precious gems, coal and iron deposits.

But corruption and red tape are rife and the fighting -- which has killed almost 3,700 people so far this year -- pose major threats to investment and projects to rebuild roads, power and other infrastructure.

In some parts of the country, especially in the Taliban's southern heartland, reconstruction and development has slowed to a crawl or stopped altogether.

Visiting UN Delegation Comments On Challenges In Afghanistan- RFE/RL 14 November 2006

Japanese Ambassador Kenzo Oshima, the head of a visiting UN Security Council delegation in Afghanistan, has identified the growing Taliban-led insurgency and increased opium production as major challenges for the country, the United Nations Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) reported on November 13. The team, which arrived in Kabul on November 11 for a four-day review of security, encouraged the government to prioritize the creation of a strong judiciary, police, and army. President Hamid Karzai received the delegation at the Presidential Palace on November 12, where he briefed the ambassadors on challenges and achievements and -- according to a report by Karzai's office -- was assured that the UN will continue to support the country until it can "stand on its own feet." CJ

EU Members Call For Greater Support In Afghanistan...

In an effort to support NATO forces operating in Afghanistan, Britain and the Netherlands appealed to the European Union on November 13 to assist with the training of the Afghan police, Reuters reported the same day. British Defense Secretary Des Browne said in Brussels: "There is scope for the EU to reinforce and reinvigorate civilian work on the rule of law in Afghanistan. I want to see it make more of a contribution in this area." Recently, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer asked the EU to build police forces to assist the 30,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan. Dutch Foreign Minister Ben Bot said in Brussles on November 13 that such increased support for Afghan operations "Can take many forms, either financial, training troops, or aid missions. There are all sorts of things that the EU can contribute." CJ

...While EU Issues Cautious Response

European Union foreign-policy chief Javier Solana stated that the EU was already doing a lot in Afghanistan, indicating most member states already have troops there and are contributing to humanitarian efforts as well, Reuters reported on November 13. Solana added that the union will consider additional training missions for Afghan police if such missions could "add value." He said a fact-finding mission will soon visit Afghanistan to ascertain details about police training needs. French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie commented: "We [the EU] already have a major role in Afghanistan. What strikes me as most urgent is to ensure good coordination of the actions we are conducting there." External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said that the EU members have "overfulfilled" their aid responsibility to Afghanistan, contributing some 3.7 billion euros (about $4.6 billion) so far. CJ

EU to explore scope for Afghan police training

Tue 14 Nov 2006 12:00 PM ET By Mark John - BRUSSELS, Nov 14 (Reuters) - European Union countries agreed on Tuesday to send a fact-finding team to Afghanistan to study whether to answer NATO's call to train the country's police force, EU diplomats said.

But they said a training mission would only be launched if the EU could play a meaningful role, while also tempering expectations of a major operation.

"This does not prejudice the final decision on whether there will be a mission or not in the end. And we are talking about a very small mission," said one diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity after a meeting of EU ambassadors in Brussels.

The fact-finding team is due to report to EU foreign ministers in December, making a final decision by the 25-member bloc doubtful before NATO leaders hold a summit in Riga on Nov. 28-29 focusing on Afghanistan.

Britain and the Netherlands had called on the EU on Monday to offer more help by training Afghan police. Along with Canada, they are the main NATO countries battling an insurgency in Taliban heartlands in south Afghanistan.

They have pointed to the Afghan police force as a weak link in efforts to extend President Hamid Karzai's authority across the country.

Germany, already training Afghan police on behalf of the United Nations, said at a meeting of EU foreign and defence ministers in Brussels on Monday that it would be ready to accept an additional EU mission.

French Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, whose country often resists U.S. pressure for closer EU-NATO cooperation, questioned whether the training would "fit with the logic" of what the EU is doing in Afghanistan, but backed the fact-finding team.

Diplomats said any police training mission would be significantly smaller than a rule-of-law project the EU will lead in the Serb province of Kosovo, which could involve 1,000 police, judges and other law enforcement personnel.

One senior envoy said a figure of 100 staff for Afghan police training was cited at the talks on Monday.

"The emphasis of discussions is ensuring good coordination between the existing EU presence there and with other bodies such as the U.N. and of course NATO," said the diplomat.

EU officials insisted the bloc was doing a lot in Afghanistan and said they felt no pressure from the U.S.-led military alliance to do more.

External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said the commission and member states had given roughly 3.7 billion euros of aid to Afghanistan so far. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana noted that most EU countries had committed troops to the NATO-led security force there.

Afghan police readiness 'far from adequate:' US

Washington (AFP 11.15.06) - United States must provide long-term assistance to stand up Afghanistan's national police, whose current capabilities are "far from adequate," a US government report said.

Overall, the US-funded program to train and equip the Afghan National Police (ANP) was well-conceived and well-executed, the joint report by the inspectors general of the state and defense departments said on Tuesday.

"However, long-term US assistance and funding, at least beyond 2010, is required to institutionalize the police force and establish a self-sustaining program," it said.

But, the report warned that the US and international effort was "not limitless" and urged a stronger push for the ANP to transition to the authority of the Afghan interior ministry.

Obstacles to establishing a fully professional ANP were "formidable" and include pervasive corruption, illiterate recruits, a history of low pay and an insecure environment, said the 101-page report, "Interagency Assessment of Afghanistan Police Training and Readiness Program."

The US interagency assessment of the ANP took place in Washington between April 24 and May 30, and several Afghan cities between June 1-22, when the team left Afghanistan.

The report, released by the State Department's Inspector Howard Krongard, said it did not reflect subsequent events or developments in the war-torn country.

The ANP emerged as a still-enfeebled police force in this snapshot taken roughly four and a half years after the US-led offensive in November 2001 that drove the Taliban from Kabul and despite international aid efforts launched the following year.

"As it has rapidly evolved, police readiness requirements have expanded beyond training to include sweeping institutional reform of the ANP through the Ministry of Interior (MoI)," the report said.

"Nevertheless, ANP's readiness level to carry out its internal security and conventional police responsibilities is far from adequate."

The report cited "problematic" management of the police training contract and called for more effective coordination between State Department contract managers and the Combined Forces Command-Afghanistan (CFC-A), which is responsible for executing ANP training programs.

Accountability for equipment turned over to the CFC-A was inadequate due to an ineffective ANP logistics system. The report recommened the establishment of an effective end-to-end internal controls process.

But the authors warned that until the Afghan criminal justice system has matured and was coordinated from the national to the local level, "the ANP will function more as a security force than as a law enforcement organization."

Among the report's principal recommendations were the expansion and better management of a mentoring program, "a key component to effect institutional change and build a capable, self-sustaining national police force."

However, it noted, "the US and international effort for standing up the ANP is not limitless; therefore, transitioning full responsibility and authority to the MoI needs greater emphasis."

Building an effective ANP program will require a long-term commitment from coalition and international partners, the report cautioned.

"Premature withdrawal from this commitment will compromise the progress already accomplished and put at risk the US goal to establish a professional police force embracing the values and practices of community policing and the rule of law."

An eight-member team from the two inspector general offices visited and reviewed police training programs in Kabul, Kandahar, Jalalabad, Mazar-e-Sharif, Kunduz and Bamiyan between June 1-22.

U.S. Leads Efforts to Transform Afghan Police Force

by Renée Montagne - NPR 11.15.06

Jim Wildman, NPR - The Panjwai District Bazaar is showing signs of life after recent fighting between NATO forces and the Taliban forces many locals to flee the area. Policemen rarely patrol the bazaar, leaving that job to the Afghan National Army. Local checkpoints outside the village are also manned by the army and coalition forces.

Morning Edition, November 15, 2006 · Five years since coalition troops invaded Afghanistan, NPR profiles three of the country's most important national institutions -- the police, the courts, and the national army. A three-part series examines whether they can be useful building blocks for the future of Afghanistan.

Policemen have one of the most dangerous jobs in Afghanistan. They are underpaid, and most Afghans consider them corrupt.

On a Kabul street where a suicide bomber had targeted local policemen one morning, an officer explains why he continues to come to work. "I love my people. I love my job," he says, adding that he had wanted to be a police officer since childhood. None of the uniformed officers have guns.

In the village of Panjwai outside Kandahar, the district's assistant police chief says he doesn't have enough officers to keep the peace. NATO and Afghan National Army soldiers had just finished a major battle with the Taliban to win back the town. Taliban fighters were rumored to still have sympathizers in the area.

"Without the Afghan National Army and the coalition forces, we cannot protect this district," says the police official, who only identifies himself as Brahim. His predecessor had recently been relieved of his duties because of incompetence.

The U.S. military is leading efforts to transform Afghanistan's police force. Maj. Gen. Bob Durbin, commander of the Combined Security Transition Command in Afghanistan, says the Afghan police force is about two years away from making significant inroads.

"Reforming an existing institution is harder than building a new one," he says. "It's a culture of survival: survival of self, followed by family, followed by tribe. And then it ends there, here in Afghanistan. A survival of nation is foreign to them. Service to nation is foreign to them."

Durbin says Afghanistan's army has become the model of what the police force can be.

"Senior officials in the Afghan National Police have seen the army that now is respected by the people, that serves and protects its people," Durbin says. "And now you have senior officials in the Afghan National Police who want to step forward to create a professional institution."

Coalition's Afghan policy will fail: Musharraf - Indo-Asian News Service

Islamabad, November 15, 2006|14:10 IST President Pervez Musharraf has said that the US-led coalition forces were 'failing' to curb the Taliban in Afghanistan and that they would "keep failing" if they pursued their current policies.

"They are failing in Afghanistan ... they need to understand the realities, and convert the failure into success. We need to look into why they are failing.

They have given a very, very easy cause, the scapegoat of Pakistan. They will keep failing in Afghanistan if they continue following this trend," he told British TV Channel 4 News.

On his part, he has reiterates his proposal for fencing and mining of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, that has not found favour with Kabul and that the West thinks is not practicable.

"I know what is happening across the border, and I have spoken about fencing, mining the border. Let's mine the border and make sure nobody crosses it. I am for it." NNI news agency quoted him as saying.

About his talks with the British prime minister, he said, "Tony Blair is absolutely onboard with everything I have told you," the Daily Times quoted Musharraf telling the NNI news agency.

He conceded that there was support for the Taliban movement among the 450,000 Afghan refugees living in and around Quetta, capital of Balochistan, but firmly denied that Pakistan was responsible for it.

"They have support - I will accept to an extent - yes ... in Quetta, there are about 450,000 Afghan refugees, and this is a hotbed of all kinds of activity," he said. "There is trans-border cooperation in militant activities, with the base in Afghanistan but support from Pakistan.

We need to isolate the two, and deal with whatever is happening from Pakistan on our side, while the main action will have to be taken in Afghanistan to counter militancy," Musharraf said. The president told Channel 4 News that he wanted to put an end to the Taliban.

Asked whether he accepted that Quetta was the headquarters for the Taliban insurgents' operations in Afghanistan, he said: "The base of the organisation is in Afghanistan.

The whole of Afghanistan is divided into five command regions of the Taliban, each of which is headed by a commander. The financing comes from the drug underworld," he said.

Editorial: Exiting Afghanistan

The News International 15 November 2006 (Pak) - With the Democrats talking about a withdrawal of American forces from Iraq within six months, it was about time someone suggested to Washington to start thinking about leaving Afghanistan too. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz did that on Monday, a day after telling the world's sole superpower that its presence in Afghanistan didn't give it the right to make military intrusion in Pakistan in pursuance of its "war on terror." In a separate interview, Mr Aziz said that Pakistan was the "most important stakeholder" in Afghanistan but that America will have to leave that country sooner or later. In saying that "history is full of examples where we didn't focus too much on an exit strategy," the prime minister is clearly impressing upon Washington the need to have a well-thought out strategy for leaving Afghanistan.

Therefore, even though it would be impractical to ask or expect the Americans to withdraw immediately, it's not too soon for them to start working on a departure plan, since leave they must. Central to any such strategy must be extensive consultations with its allies, especially Kabul and Islamabad. To quote the prime minister, a "good exit strategy is one which leaves that country, that area, peaceful, economically and politically empowered". Indeed, it is this empowerment which would be the key element in the defeat of terrorism, not military force alone, as the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan is increasingly proving. The situation calls for massive investment in Afghanistan and economic assistance to it, the prime minister said. This also applies to that country's neighbours, including Iran. In other words, there should be a kind of Marshall Plan if the troubled region is to have peace. But will the Pakistani leader's words be heeded? The softening of Washington's position on "axis of evil" Iran since the Republican defeat in the midterm elections looks like an indication that America is prepared to heed advice on such matters -- or so one hopes.

Iran prepared to assist Afghanistan’s reconstruction: Rafsanjani    

14 November 2006 - Source: MNA, Iran - TEHRAN - Expediency Council Chairman Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said here on Monday that Iran is completely prepared to assist Afghanistan’s reconstruction process and to promote security in the neighboring country.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran’s strategic policy is to fully support the process of boosting peace and stability in Afghanistan,” Rafsanjani said in a meeting with Afghanistan’s Senate Speaker Sebghatollah Mojaddadi.

Rafsanjani expressed concern over rising drug production in Afghanistan, saying, “We hope the Afghan officials will find a solution to counter drug production.”

He also stated that the two countries should not allow the issue of Hirmand River to cause a problem in their relations. “We expect the issue to be resolved based on the Hirmand treaty,” he added.

Mojaddadi said that Afghanistan is on the path of development and needs the cooperation of its neighbors. “The Afghan people will not accept colonialism and will try to take their destiny into their own hands by strengthening the ruling system,” he added.

In a separate meeting with the Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, Rafsanjani said that unity and national solidarity of the Lebanese people can thwart the Zionist regime’s plots to create civil strife in the country.

Lebanon’s victory over the occupying regime has upped the dignity and credibility of Lebanon among Islamic countries. “The Lebanese and Palestinian people have no option left but to resist and struggle for restoring their rights,” he added.

Berri expressed appreciation for Iran’s financial and moral helps to the Lebanese nation. The recent developments in the Middle East show that Islamic Republic has become an influential power in the Middle East and among Islamic countries, he commented.  

Mojaddadi and Berri are in Iran to participate in the ongoing 7th General Assembly of the Association of Asian Parliaments for Peace (AAPP) that opened on Sunday in Tehran.

Resistance not from people but from some miscreants: Kandahar Governor

Paktribun November 15, 2006 - KANDAHAR: Governor of Kandahar Asadullah Khalid has said that Afghan government is not facing resistance from the people rather there are some miscreants who are resorting to creating violence.

Talking to VOA, Governor of Kandahar said that some emotional and young people have been misguided on the name of Jihad. He added some Islamic books have been misinterpreted.

Asked about measures taken by the government, Governor said that we have formed a commission to negotiate with these misguided people, adding that the commission is also negotiating with the detainees.

Commenting on the future of Afghanistan, Kandahar Governor said that Afghanistan has passed through tough times and the whole world is helping us.

The governor however said that whenever a state faces tough times as is the case of Afghanistan, crisis and wars continue for sometime and Afghanistan is not an exception.

President Karzai Welcomes the Implementation of the International Convention Against Landmines and Unexploded Ordnances

Date of Release: 13 November 2006 - Arg, Kabul – H.E. Hamid Karzai, President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, welcomed the implementation of the international convention against landmines and unexploded ordnances.

A new international law comes into force on 12 November 2006 requiring all countries to destroy landmines and unexploded ordnances. The new law covers the destruction or removal of all explosive remnants of war, including planted mines and cluster bombs scattered in uncleared minefields.

The President called the implementation of the law as crucial to ensuring the security and safety of the people and said “The people of Afghanistan have suffered tremendously in the past three decades and landmines have taken the lives of thousands of Afghans.”

“The mine clearance teams have been working hard in the past 15 years to ensure the safe return of refugees, farmers and internally displaced persons to their houses.”

“Though the continuation of security problems in some parts of Afghanistan hampers the progress of mine clearance work in the country, but the Government of Afghanistan fully backs the international convention against landmines and unexploded ordnances.”

The President made an appeal to the international community to increase their assistance to the mine clearance effort in Afghanistan and said “I hope Afghanistan will become a mine-free country in the near future.”

Released by the Office of the Spokesman to the President - Islamic Republic of Afghanistan

O'Connor on blitz to sell Afghan mission

JANE ARMSTRONG - From Wednesday's Globe and Mail 11.15.06

VANCOUVER — Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor kicked off a cross-country public-relations blitz on the Afghan war by arguing here yesterday that terrorists must not be allowed back to the country where the Taliban and al-Qaeda once flourished.

"We cannot allow the Taliban to return to their former prominence, to take over Afghanistan and resume their regime of terror and tyranny, to flaunt their disregard for human rights, to punish and terrorize their own people, to murder innocents, to harbour those who would threaten us and our families at home and abroad," Mr. O'Connor said in luncheon speech in Vancouver yesterday.

Quoting Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Mr. O'Connor said Afghanistan five years ago was a "terrified and exhausted" country. The minister then listed off reams of statistics that bolstered his argument Afghanistan is in far better shape today.

Schools have been built, young girls have returned to school, living standards have improved and about four million refugees have returned to their homeland, he told the gathering, sponsored by the Vancouver Board of Trade.

Vancouver was the first stop of a cross-country journey to explain Canada's mission in Afghanistan, which has been extended to 2009. Mr. O'Connor will also visit Calgary, Toronto and Quebec City this week.

The blitz comes as a large number of Canadians are expressing concern about the Afghan mission and this country's role in it.

Fifty-five per cent of respondents who took part in a poll conducted last month by the Strategic Counsel for The Globe and Mail and CTV said the price being paid by Canada is too high.

Opposition critics said the government should not have extended the mission without getting assurances that other North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries were committed to putting their troops at similar risk to those undertaken by the Canadian forces.

Liberal defence critic Ujjal Dosanjh said yesterday that the Canadian mission has evolved from one of reconstruction to one in which soldiers from Canada were asked to find and eliminate the Taliban.

"I think the public sees clearly that this government hasn't dealt with this issue in a very forthright fashion, either with the Parliament or with Canadians," said Mr. Dosanjh, when asked about Mr. O'Connor's tour.

"They are now trying to get it off the ground in response to the public perception, which is grounded in reality, that this government has actually distorted and changed the focus of the mission and therefore the people of Canada are saying, 'We don't support that new focus.' "

Forty-two Canadian soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since 2002. This week, a report written by Afghan and international officials said insurgent activity has risen fourfold this year and extremists launch more than 600 attacks a month.

Some of the worst violence is in Kandahar province, where Canadian troops led a massive military offensive last summer and where they also lead a reconstruction effort.

Speaking to reporters after his speech, Mr. O'Connor was defensive when asked about deteriorating security in southern Afghanistan. If anything, the situation in the Panjwai region west of Kandahar city is improving, he said.

"The amount of activities from the Taliban have [been] reduced over recent weeks in our area," he said. "We've had a great effect on that area. We are starting to improve the security there."

When asked what is the solution to the rising number of suicide and roadside bombings, Mr. O'Connor replied: "Intelligence is one solution. You get people to report on other people and what they are doing. And that you rely on the Afghan National Police and the army to do that.

"There are also technical ways to deal with many of the suicide bombers and [improvised explosive devices], but I'm not going to get into the technical solutions because I'm not going to help the Taliban."

Mr. O'Connor conceded it is tough making the case for war when Canadian soldiers have lost their lives, but he said the Canadian news media in Afghanistan have a role to play.

"We would encourage media, when they are there, to try to show the other aspects of what's going on there," he said.

"We're going to start telling Canadians more and more what's going on there, and what kind of things are being achieved there because right now, they have a very limited idea of what's happening in Afghanistan."

More NATO troops needed in Afghanistan, assembly told

Paktribun November 15, 2006 - QUEBEC: NATO member countries need to deploy more troops to Afghanistan to stabilize the troubled region, said parliamentarians who are meeting in Quebec City.

The 18,000-soldier contingent needs to be increased by 15 to 20 per cent, said Senator Pierre Claude Nolin, vice-president of NATO's parliamentary assembly. The reinforcements can't come from Canada, said the Conservative senator.

With more than 2,000 soldiers currently stationed in Afghanistan, Canada has already done its part, he said.

Nolin said the ball is now in the court of the 25 other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's not the first time the point has been pressed to the organization but there have been few takers.

The Afghanistan situation and the NATO mission is at the heart of the discussions by about 300 members of the NATO parliamentary assembly which is meeting in Quebec City in its 52nd session until Friday.

An independent body from NATO, the assembly has as its mandate to express its views and reflect public opinion on issues facing the alliance.

In the case of Afghanistan, the assembly is trying "to explain the reasons for which we ask our soldiers to risk their lives in foreign countries," said Nolin.

While the federal government has stressed the importance of the mission, a large number of Canadians have urged the troops be withdrawn.

Leon Benoit, president of the Canadian NATO parliamentary assembly, said Canadians must realize "if we do not go to Afghanistan, Afghanistan will come to us," he said.

Stabilizing the country is key to maintaining security in that part of the world, he noted.

"Ultimately, we are in Afghanistan for the safety of Canadians," Benoit said. "We must succeed."

NATO's presence in Afghanistan is a test of its capacity to intervene in combat zones and it has managed to improve the lot of Afghanistan's population, Nolin insisted. "Schools are being built, the roads, the wells," he said. "We do not need to focus only on the fact that there are combat zones."

Steering his nation without a rudder

Los Angeles Times 11/12/2006 By Paul Watson - Afghanistan's Karzai faces disaffection in a nation hungry for progress. Many see him as a shadow of a president, and they fear a slide back to the Taliban

TRIBAL elders pleaded with Hamid Karzai to intervene in a land feud with their neighbors. But it was too dangerous for the president of Afghanistan to travel south to the heart of the Taliban insurgency, so Karzai invited them up to Kabul for lunch.

At least 120 men arrived, making their way past razor wire strung out a mile from the palace doors. After being repeatedly frisked and scanned, they finally passed through the palace gates.

The desert dust still clung to their plastic sandals and tattered clothes as they sat down under vaulted ceilings and crystal chandeliers. Waiters in black uniforms served up platters of roast chicken legs and heaping plates of pulau rice with raisins, almonds and pistachios.

The elders of the Tokhi and Hotak tribes, ethnic Pashtuns from Zabol province, ate their meal off fine china and washed it down with tumblers of doogh, a salty yogurt drink sprinkled with chopped mint.

Karzai, 48, himself the son of a Pashtun chief, assured them that he would try to find a solution to their 40-year-old argument with the Nasir tribe. "My father spent all of his life solving tribal problems, and I was with him the whole time," he said. The elders muttered skeptically.

Most presidents don't concern themselves with tribal disputes, but Karzai, like Afghan kings of old, makes local quarrels part of his daily routine.

Five years after the fall of Kabul, aides say he is turning to tradition as he struggles to build a stable democracy on a foundation of war, corruption, foreign interference and religious extremism. Critics counter that he is retreating behind the walls of his 19th century palace and losing touch with a country sinking deeper into trouble.

But Karzai's foreign backers have left him with little real power, and his weak, corruption-riddled government lacks direct control over billions of dollars in development aid, money meant to help Karzai win Afghan support for his administration.

After the United States joined forces with Afghanistan's Northern Alliance militia to oust the Taliban regime, it pledged to help rebuild the country and chose Karzai to lead the effort. Since then, foreign donors have spent at least $16 billion in Afghanistan; more than $10.3 billion of that has come from the United States.

Afghanistan has made enormous progress in some areas. With hopes for a better future soaring, its citizens defied insurgent threats to elect Karzai to a full term two years ago and to choose a parliament last year. The elections were the freest and fairest in the country's history.

Under Karzai, more than 90% of Afghan children are in school, compared with fewer than 20% during Taliban rule. A multinational effort is training an army that is halfway to its goal of 70,000 soldiers in uniform, as it strives to overcome ethnic divisions, equipment problems and low morale. Parliament is gradually asserting its authority. A full quarter of the members are women.

But the progress has not met the rising expectations of Karzai's countrymen. Many see the nation slipping back into the grip of violence, corruption and extremism from which the West promised to liberate them.

On paper, the post-Taliban constitution gives Afghanistan's president ample power. But parliament wrangled with Karzai for months over his Cabinet picks and rejected his nominee to head the Supreme Court.

He has had better success shuffling provincial governors, but several are still regarded as corrupt and ineffective. Central government influence remains weak in large parts of the country.

Perhaps Karzai's greatest strength is giving pep talks to Afghans at news conferences and in speeches, urging them to unite and solve their problems. Still, many say they would prefer honest justice, jobs and peace to fine words.

From ethnic minorities in the north to his fellow Pashtuns in the south, Karzai faces the same growing disaffection.

Sitting on a curb in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, Sanam Shah spoke of the Karzai era's mixed blessings. A mother of eight and an ethnic Uzbek, she suffers kidney and digestive problems and traveled from her desert village of Andkhoi to find a good doctor.

Foreign aid has delivered new equipment to her local clinic, but none of the employees are properly trained to use it, she said, speaking through the mesh of her white burka veil. "I think Karzai is doing a fine job, but nothing has changed in my life," she said.

Hundreds of miles to the south in Lowgar, the owner of a two-pump gas station, a Pashtun, said he was unemployed under the Taliban but was able start his own business when U.S. aid rebuilt the highway.

But the Taliban are back, scaring off customers by ambushing cars at night, said Hekmatullah, who, like many Afghans, uses one name.

"Power is back in the hands of those who had it before, like warlords, the Taliban and thieves," he said. "Nobody pays attention to poor people like us."

In the eyes of Afghans, the restrictions on Karzai's authority imposed by foreign governments make him a shadow of a president with only the trappings of power: photo opportunities, ribbon cuttings, bodyguards with wraparound sunglasses who carry M-4 assault rifles and whisper into microphones in the sleeves of their dark suits.

Although Karzai is officially commander in chief, he has no control over the foreign troops fighting the Taliban insurgency and little over his own army, which answers to the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. His defense minister's main job is cajoling donors into providing the army with better equipment.

Karzai repeatedly has demanded changes in tactics, but each time foreign troops accidentally kill Afghan civilians, he loses credibility with his people.

In the meantime, the insurgency has spread across more than half the country, with fighters advancing northward from strongholds in the east and pushing all the way to the Iranian border in the west. Government officials say the militants in villages and districts near Kabul, the capital, are laying the groundwork for future offensives.

Former mujahedin retain ties to their old commanders, and many are ready to fight again if democracy falters.

Corruption in the courts and police has made many Afghans nostalgic for the Taliban's ruthless justice. The threat of violence has forced hundreds of schools to close and left others without enough books or teachers.

The country's gross domestic product has doubled since Karzai came to office, but the drug trade is the largest employer and source of income. Drugs account for half of Afghanistan's economy and create what the United Nations calls a "narco society."

Despite hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid aimed at persuading farmers to grow legal crops, this year's opium harvest is expected to set a record. It's up 50% from last year, to an estimated 6,700 tons, the U.N. said in early September.

Though reconstruction spending could help the government draw support away from drug lords, the Taliban and other foes, only a quarter of public spending goes through the Afghan government, World Bank figures show.

U.S. money supports a wide variety of projects to improve agriculture and government institutions, support schools and clinics, and rebuild roads, bridges, canals and other infrastructure destroyed by war. But unlike Britain and a few other countries, the United States has not demonstrated confidence in Karzai's government by giving it direct control of the funds.

William Byrd, senior economic advisor at the World Bank office in Kabul, said more of the money should be channeled through the government, allowing Afghans to learn to handle it and showing respect for the country's sovereignty.

"The only way to get these government systems going is to start working with them, and in them, rather than on parallel tracks outside," he said.

Aid groups and their contractors are also guilty of corruption, but they aren't accountable to Afghan voters, said Jawed Ludin, Karzai's chief of staff.

"Democracy is about the empowerment of people," Ludin said in an interview. "To make democracy in Afghanistan real, we should give the Afghan people the sense that they can control things, that they can implement their own decisions."

Journey from Pakistan - UNTIL the war to oust the Taliban five years ago, Osama bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders were comfortably entrenched in Afghanistan and Karzai was living in exile in Pakistan, trying to organize opposition.

Karzai shared a Pashtun heritage with most of the Taliban. His father, Abdul Ahad Karzai, was chief of the Popalzai tribe. Karzai inherited that post when his father was killed in 1999 in what was widely regarded as a warning from the Taliban to Pashtuns who opposed them.

In October 2001, with the war underway, Karzai entered southern Afghanistan with a small group of armed men, including U.S. Special Forces, to rally tribal leaders on the mullahs' home turf.

For those Afghans suspicious of U.S. intentions, Karzai's close ties to the U.S. military were an issue from the start. When Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld announced that an American chopper had rescued Karzai from a firefight with the Taliban, Karzai insisted that he had walked away from the battle and never left Afghanistan.

Still, Ludin now cites that incursion into the Taliban heartland as a sad irony. "The president and American Special Forces were going in a leisurely fashion from village to village in 2001, and they were welcomed everywhere," Ludin said. "And everywhere they went, the Taliban were driven away from those villages, districts and provinces without a fight."

Five years later, President Karzai can't risk a visit to his home region. "Now these same areas are seen as hotbeds of the Taliban and terrorism," Ludin said. "Today, if the president wants to go to Kandahar, he needs massive security arrangements."

Ludin blames Pakistan for reviving an insurgency that once looked to be on its last legs.

After they were ousted from power in 2001, the Taliban retreated to bases in Pakistan, where the military's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency had once nurtured them. From there, the Taliban and its allies regrouped in eastern and southern Afghanistan, U.S. military intelligence documents say.

Washington today regards Pakistan as a key ally in fighting terrorism, but many Afghans suspect the country of playing a double game, cooperating with the United States while fostering the Taliban insurgency.

Karzai wants the U.S. to do more to stop the insurgency at its roots in Pakistan, but Washington strongly supports Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

Karzai's frustration over tactics used by the U.S. and allied military forces, including the continued bombing of civilian areas, is raw. Senior Afghan officials are surprisingly frank about the dangers of foreign military dominance.

Despite the success in uniting Afghanistan's fractured ethnic groups into a national army, a senior aide to Karzai, speaking on condition of anonymity, called the army a "sort of lame-duck institution" without the capacity to make decisions.

"It will fall the instant that the U.S. military is not behind it," the official said.

An open tent - KARZAI lives and works in an 83-acre compound called the Arg-e-Shahi, or Citadel of the King, which was built in 1880 to replace a royal fortress destroyed by British troops. Three miles and a world away, one of his chief critics, Ramazan Bashar Dost, holds court in a large canvas tent in Kabul's main park. Outside, noisy children chase soccer balls in the swirling dust.

Each afternoon, Dost, a member of Afghanistan's parliament, sits next to a small, round folding table, framed by two yellow tent poles sunk into a dirt floor honeycombed with cracks. He listens quietly as Afghans vent their anger over corruption, unemployment and other ills.

Dost has become a kind of anti-Karzai, a French-educated intellectual who presides over a humble court of last resort where anyone is free to take a seat and gripe or ask for help, no appointment required. He is in high demand as ordinary Afghans wait their turn to complain about big issues such as corruption and foreign interference, or something as small as bullies at school.

Dozens duck through the tent flap each day, joining a circle of people waiting on plastic patio chairs in the dim light of a bare bulb. Some of Dost's visitors are fellow intellectuals who come to debate policy; others are activists who lobby for legislative agendas. But, like most of the people clamoring for Karzai's time, the majority in Dost's tent are seeking solutions to personal problems.

A few bedsheet banners hang on the tent's faded yellow walls. One explains the meaning of democracy in Dari, one of Afghanistan's main languages.

"Demo = people, cracy = government," it explains. "The famous definition by Abraham Lincoln is government of the people, for the people and by the people."

Dost resigned as planning minister last year after Karzai refused to let him shut down most nongovernmental aid agencies, which Dost claimed were embezzling money. The controversy made Dost one of Afghanistan's most admired politicians.

He offers a sympathetic ear to Afghans who feel wronged by the system. Even if Dost can't solve their problems, the visitors seem to leave feeling they've accomplished something. At least he sat and listened, which is more than most felt they got from bureaucrats.

Afghans also rely on Dost to tell uncomfortable truths if he can't pressure Afghan officials to do so first. As an example, he cites the roughly $60,000 a month the government had been paying two German experts to fix the national airline, Ariana. "Ariana has become worse. It is more dangerous," he said.

Meanwhile, the families of men who died fighting the Soviets in the 1980s get no more than $6 a month in compensation. "The Afghan people see this gap between $6 and $60,000 and they say they cannot accept this impossible situation," Dost said.

Examples like that are, "in my opinion, the biggest reason why the Taliban have become so strong in Afghanistan," he said. "Now the Afghan people have lost their trust in the international community."

Karzai's leadership style is making matters worse, Dost said. "He has a tribal image of the state. He believes that he's not a president of a country, but he's a father of a family, or a chief of a tribe."

One summer evening, a 22-year-old orphan came to ask Dost's help in finding money to launch an agency for street children and other orphans. Another young man wanted Dost to arrange a transfer to a safer high school because thugs were threatening him.

Dost took notes and gave the men slips of paper with the phone numbers of government officials who might help. But he didn't hold out much hope.

"For Afghan people, democracy means you can do anything you want," Dost said. "There are no rules, no laws, no justice or authority. When you have power now in Afghanistan, then you have the money, and you can have everything."

Behind palace walls - IN contrast to Dost's tent, Karzai's door is difficult to pass through. Few Afghans are allowed onto the palace grounds, and those who are must make their way through at least five high-security layers. Dogs sniff for explosives. Guards scrutinize pens, key chains and other everyday items.

A suspected Taliban militant tried to assassinate Karzai in 2002 as he waved from an open-roofed car in Kandahar, his hometown. Karzai's American guards killed the would-be assassin. Now his trips outside Kabul are infrequent.

Karzai allowed an intimate look behind the scenes on two difficult days this summer as he toiled in his palace. He declined to sit for an interview, but he allowed a reporter and photographer to watch him maneuver the shifting sands of Afghan politics, culture and war.

The president's office is in the two-story Gul Khana, or House of Flowers, whose outer walls have softball-sized patches where masons have filled in hundreds of shrapnel holes from Afghanistan's long years of war. He lives there with his wife, Zinat, an OB-GYN who stays mostly out of the public eye. They have no children.

His is a draining schedule. Karzai, who earned a degree in political science in India, works seven days a week, 12 hours a day, normally starting with a briefing from his intelligence chief.

On a routine day this summer, he met with French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie. That was followed by a meeting with his two vice presidents and other senior officials to discuss Cabinet nominations.

Karzai sat in a high-backed chair behind a large wooden desk that had a small globe of colored stone in one corner. His officials sat at a glass-topped boardroom table, polished to such a gloss that it mirrored Karzai.

Then Karzai had lunch with the elders from Zabol. The petitioners were reaching for the toothpicks when Mohammed Nabi Tokhi, a retired senator who is said to be more than 100 years old, rose from his seat next to Karzai.

His fiery eyes were magnified by the thick lenses of black-rimmed glasses. Tottering to a microphone stand, he said a prayer for the president and then railed against the Nasir tribe, whom he accused of stealing about 2,500 acres of Tokhi land in the 1960s.

"They are a faithless tribe, a tribe of cowards," he said, his voice rising. "There is no way that we and the Nasirs will ever be able to live together in one area."

There was little Karzai could do that wouldn't anger one side. So he passed the problem to a special commission and urged his bickering fellow Pashtuns to talk to each other.

"No matter what you say," he told the Zabol elders, "you have to accept one thing: The Nasiris are also an Afghan tribe and they have equal rights with other tribes, don't they? Are they the sons of this nation or not?"

"Yes," a few men replied. Others grumbled or pushed past Karzai's guards to press their own petitions into his hands.

Afterward, Karzai retreated to his inner office, where he usually has some quiet time each afternoon. Typically he settles into a leather armchair to watch news on a large flat-screen TV or read a book before returning to his official schedule, which often runs until 10 p.m.

The next day, Karzai received a delegation of about 30 villagers from Oruzgan province, where U.S. bombers had killed about 60 civilians along with scores of Taliban fighters.

Over green tea and sponge cake, Karzai related how Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar had once asked him to join the regime as foreign minister. Karzai said he saw the Taliban, then backed by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, as a foreign tool and wrote to Omar, "This nation has never been a slave and will never be a slave."

After the Sept. 11 attacks, Karzai said, he was sitting on a mountain in Oruzgan when his hand-held satellite phone rang. The call was from an aide to Omar who said the chief wanted to speak to him on a field radio. Karzai told him that he didn't have a radio and that his phone's battery was dying.

"Then this guy told me, 'Mullah Omar is asking, "What do you want?" ' I said: 'Hey man! I want my country!' " Karzai recounted. " 'Kick the foreigners out of this nation.' "

Afghanistan's enemies are still allied with foreigners, Karzai told the elders. Then he turned to look into the eyes of Abdul Rauf, a shy 7-year-old who had lost his family in the American bombing.

"He saw his father and mother dying but couldn't do anything. He is just a child," an elder said as Karzai sadly shook his head.

"The enemies are coming from Pakistan," the president said, "and the international community is bombarding them. And, caught in between, we suffer, not Pakistan."

It was time for Karzai to go. He told the elders the future was in their hands. "They should not bombard us like this!" one shouted back.

"Definitely! You are right," Karzai replied. "Don't call me the president. Call me your small brother, call me your son. I am your servant, not your president. If you need anything just tell me."

"The first need of the people is security," another elder interrupted. "And security comes when the nation and the government get together."

As Taliban insurgency gains strength and sophistication, suspicion falls on Pakistan

The Guardian, UK 11/12/2006 By Declan Walsh in Islamabad - Five years ago today the Taliban vanished from Kabul and a liberated city exploded with joy. As the turbaned Islamists scurried, whooping residents rushed on to the streets. Men queued to have their beards shaved, some women removed their burkas and Radio Kabul played music for the first time in years - announced by a woman. There was savage vengeance too - some Taliban stragglers were lynched and dumped on the roadside.

But not everyone was celebrating. Sultan Amir, a Pakistani intelligence agent who helped to propel the Taliban to power, watched in dismay. "I was hurt," said Mr Amir, better known under his nom de guerre Colonel Imam, during a rare interview in Islamabad. "I had an emotional attachment with the Taliban."

Although reviled by many the Taliban were really a force of "angels", claimed the 62-year-old agent. "They brought peace, they eradicated poppies, gave free education, medical treatment and speedy justice. They were the most respected people in Afghanistan," he said.

Pakistani officials claim that men like Col Imam are relics of a bygone era. Although Islamabad supported the Taliban in the 1990s, when Col Imam was posted to the western city of Herat, Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, severed all links with the group after September 2001. But this year's hurricane of Taliban violence - a succession of thumping battles and suicide bombings that has killed more than 4,000 people - has given western officials reason to believe that some connection remains.

The insurgency's high level of sophistication has aroused suspicions that Pakistan has quietly reactivated its old alliance through its powerful spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). The accusations ring loudest in Afghanistan, where the embattled president, Hamid Karzai, says Pakistan is up to its decades-old policy of dirty tricks and meddling in Afghan affairs.

Western military officials share his scepticism. Seth Jones of the Rand Corporation, an American thinktank that works closely with the US military, said his government believes the ISI is providing training, money and sensitive information to the Taliban. "Information is being passed from the ISI to Taliban units about movements of US and Nato forces, in some cases very tactical information," he said, citing "clear indications from intelligence sources".

Across the border in Islamabad, western diplomats describe themselves as concerned agnostics on the issue. One senior official said that while he believed the ISI leadership supported Mr Musharraf, there was evidence of regular meetings between low and mid-level officials and the Taliban. "Whether these contacts are to stop attacks in Afghanistan or to encourage them is hard to know," he said.

Another diplomat described the difficulty of collecting intelligence in the tribal belt, where the Taliban's bases are concentrated. But the volume of evidence was persuasive. "So much of what we have is second-hand," he said. "But there is so much of it."

Pakistani officials angrily deny the allegations, dismissing them as a convenient smokescreen for the failures of Mr Karzai and his western allies.

"We all know the situation in Afghanistan is very bad. Someone has to be blamed, so why not Pakistan? Frankly speaking, it's quite tiresome," said Tasnim Aslam of the foreign ministry.

The military points to its mounting death toll. Last week a suicide bomber killed 42 soldiers at a training centre in an attack later claimed by the "Pakistani Taliban". "Would we get our own people killed? Or sabotage our economic interests? I assure you we are not suicidal," said Ms Aslam.

Analysts agree that internal conditions play a large role in Afghan instability. Corrupt governors and police chiefs, powerful drug lords and outgunned police chiefs have hobbled Mr Karzai's authority, particularly in the south. In the cities billions of dollars in foreign aid have had limited effect, with most Afghans still living short, harsh lives while watching a tiny minority grow fabulously wealthy.

Yet suspicions of Pakistani support for the rebels as part of a complicated "double policy" persist - fuelled in part by the admission by Mr Musharraf last month that some retired ISI officers who served in the 1980s may now be helping the Taliban. "I have some reports that some dissidents, some retired people ... may be assisting. We are keeping a very tight watch and we'll get all of them."

Subsequent reports said the president had ordered an investigation of men such as Col Imam, who in the 1980s ran a network of secret camps that armed and trained 95,000 mujahideen to fight Soviet troops in Afghanistan. Afghan fighters respected him because he ate, slept and fought with them, said Michael Scheuer, a former CIA agent. "He was not a guy you'd want to cross," he said. A decade later, he added, Col Imam was "a major part of putting the Taliban into power".

Col Imam insists he is now fully retired. Eschewing the trimmed moustache and pressed slacks of many Pakistani officers, he wore a simple shalwar kameez when the Guardian met him at an orphanage for 200 boys in Islamabad.

Reeling off the names of Afghan warlords he described as his "students", Col Imam defended the Taliban's use of suicide bombers and criticised the British deployment to Helmand. "You ruled us for 200 years and we respected you. But now you have made a big mistake. You have ruined yourselves."

The Taliban need no help from the ISI, he insisted. "We sent three million guns into Afghanistan [in the 1980s]," he said. "I am doing just one thing - I am praying for them."

These days such sentiments embarrass the ISI. Two weeks ago the agency's current chief, Lieutenant General Muhammad Zakki, called a meeting of western ambassadors in Islamabad to assure them the agency no longer had any "ownership" of the Taliban. The ISI also started monitoring its former chief, Lieutenant General Hamid Gul, who ran the agency from 1987 to 1989 and is another Taliban supporter. "The ISI is surveilling me, against their will of course," said Mr Gul during an interview at his home in Rawalpindi. Mr Gul, who advocates a return to a 7th-century Muslim caliphate, is an adviser to the MMA, Pakistan's hardline religious coalition.

Denied entry into the UK, he boasted of meeting Osama bin Laden twice and believes the September 11 attacks were committed by the Israeli spy agency Mossad. "They picked up the scenario from a Tom Clancy novel. They probably didn't reckon with the towers crumbling so quickly," he said.

Three weeks prior to September 11 he was in Kabul as a guest of the Taliban. "I met the cabinet and they hosted a dinner for me," he said proudly.

Although the government wants Mr Gul to shut up - one official described his statements as "verbal diarrhoea" - he taps into a strong vein of fear. Islamabad is anxious about Mr Karzai's relationship with India and claims Indian consulates in Kandahar and Jalalabad are stoking the insurgency in western Baluchistan province. "We have evidence and we have told them," said Ms Aslam.

The ISI declined to comment on the controversy. Meanwhile in Afghanistan, five years after their ignominious ouster, the Taliban have never looked stronger. The insurgents can never push US troops from Kabul, Col Imam admitted, but they could make life very uncomfortable. "The mujahideen can prolong the stalemate until the public at home gets frustrated," he said, citing last week's US elections. "That is the start of defeat. That is the victory of [Taliban leader] Mullah Omar."

In some ways life was revolutionised after US warplanes and their Afghan allies toppled the Taliban on November 13 2001. The hated medieval laws - bans on kite-flying, movies and lipstick; gory public executions, closure of girls schools - are now a distant memory, and two elections have passed remarkably peacefully. But greater liberties have not been matched by increased prosperity. Although the elite enjoys gleaming mansions and expensive vehicles - many financed through corruption or drugs - most Afghans scrape through on pitiful salaries, live in mud-walled houses, and on average die at age 41. Women in dirty burkas beg food from drivers caught in giant traffic jams. Taliban suicide attacks have shaken confidence in President Karzai. Despised warlords sit alongside women's activists in the new parliament. And many wonder where the aid has gone - as winter closes in, Kabul will remain in the dark, a city without electricity.

Support for Taliban grows in rural Afghanistan as villagers lose hope: elders - By SUE BAILEY November 14, 2006

QALAT, Afghanistan (CP) - Five years after the Taliban's fall, tribal leaders from the sun-baked mud villages around Qalat, an ancient town east of Kandahar, say life isn't much better.

They enjoy neither peace nor the benefits of new development, they say. And they blame the growing popularity of violent anti-government militants on the failure of international forces to keep their word. "There is no security here," says Neamat Khan, 35, director of a local construction agency.

He made the comments at the base for the local Provincial Reconstruction Team where members of the United Nations Security Council met local elders Tuesday.

The visit to gauge progress and plot strategy is the council's first trip to Afghanistan in three years. Promised roads, wells, schools and medical clinics have been slow in coming, especially in the isolated rural areas where they are arguably most needed.

"Day by day, support for the Taliban is increasing," said Khan, his blue eyes intense and a long turban draped over his shoulder.

The bleak assessment hardly matches much rosier scenes drawn by NATO commanders in recent weeks. Coalition leaders have repeatedly stressed that the South is increasingly safe, the Taliban is on the run, and aid projects are on track.

UN Security Council spokesman Adrian Edwards seemed to back the local viewpoint. "Security this year has certainly got worse," he said. Suicide bombings and roadside blasts have soared, while the national opium trade - supplier of much of the world's heroin - broke records.

Edwards quickly noted that Afghanistan has made obvious progress in the last five years "from less than zero." There is now an elected government, a new constitution, hundreds of new schools and wells, and long stretches of freshly paved highway.

But the battle for the "hearts and minds" of local people is being lost, says Khan.

Villagers are increasingly bitter over the rate at which young men are mistakenly rounded up as insurgent suspects and detained by foreign troops, he said.

"People are very angry about this." Hundreds of civilians in the South have also been displaced from their homes and vineyards flattened by NATO bombings in recent combat missions. "In general, people are not happy with the United Nations or NATO," said Khan.

Farmer and tribal elder Hakim Khan says foreign troops should woo local support by diverting huge sums away from military operations and into local projects. Clean water, improved roads and better salaries for Afghan security forces would go farther to bolster government support, he suggests.

Dutch Maj.-Gen. Ton Van Loon recognizes that battle-fatigued Afghans are sick of fighting after almost three decades. But troops can't pack up just yet, he said. "We cannot accept insurgents taking control," and sabotaging aid efforts, Van Loon said.

"If we need to fight the Taliban, we will fight the Taliban. There is no doubt whatsoever about that." Still, Van Loon said it's "crucially important" that momentum shift from combat to reconstruction.

Also vital is the involvement of anyone who is committed to building a democratic Afghanistan, he added. Even former Taliban should be included if they've genuinely changed tack, he said. "What they've been in the past, to me, is less relevant. We need to talk to the Afghans."

Local guidance is indispensable in a notoriously complex political realm. NATO forces must be ever wary when acting on tips to avoid being used as pawns in time-honoured tribal feuds.

"They are the experts," Van Loon said of local elders. "We are like the blind boxer. We can hit very hard, but they will need to talk to us to make sure that we hit the right targets."

Mission in Afghanistan is crucial: ambassador; Lecture helps students grasp Canada's role - David Lea THE KINGSTON WHIG-STANDARD - November 2006

Canadians are making a difference in Afghanistan, and the country's ambassador to Canada warned that if western nations leave, extremists would move in to fill the void.

"You have to have a military on the ground to stop the Taliban from burning down the girls' school that was just built," Omar Samad told students at Queen's University yesterday. "We need them to say to the Taliban, 'No, you will not turn this country into a terrorist training camp again.' "

He said Canada's 2,200 soldiers are both needed and necessary. "The mission is critical as far as Afghans are concerned," Samad said. He said Canadians are respected by regular Afghans, who understand soldiers are there to help them.

"They have very high regard for countries such as Canada and the West overall because they have never seen Canadians or westerners as aggressors or as forced occupiers," Samad said.

Samad was invited by the university's Centre for the Study of Democracy. Chairman Tom Axworthy said it was a good chance for students to understand Canada's role in Afghanistan.

"He has been a very good friend in educating the citizens of Kingston and students at Queen's as well as other Canadians about the incredible challenges facing his country and Canada's part in them," Axworthy said.

Samad said increasing violence in Afghanistan has made rebuilding the country more difficult, but he insisted the need for Canadian involvement could not be more desperately needed.

"Today, they see the presence of not only soldiers, but also aid workers," he said. "They are very grateful for it, they appreciate it and they are aware of the importance of continuing such efforts in Afghanistan."

Samad fled the country after the Soviet Union invaded in 1979. "Between six and seven million Afghans fled and, in the fighting, Afghanistan's entire infrastructure was destroyed," he said. When the Afghans drove the Soviets out, a power vacuum was created that was filled by the Taliban and extremist groups such as Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida.

Samad outlined the consequences of the West neglecting Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal - and what the consequences would be if the world abandons Afghanistan again. "The Bali bombings, London, Madrid and finally New York. The common denominator for all these guys was they attended training camps in Afghanistan," he said.

Samad is adamant that NATO forces are making a difference in Afghanistan. "In the past five years, four million Afghans came back," he said. "We have 68 women parliamentarians, more than in any other Islamic country."

Samad said he understands people who want troops out of Afghanistan but that education is necessary to speak on the issue. "It's natural in a democratic society to have differences of opinion. My job and my goal is to make sure they do so in an educated way," he said. "That they fully understand what the history of Afghanistan is. All about what happened to that country and its people over the last 25 years."

Political studies student Ali Salam enjoyed the presentation. "He was diplomatic, but he didn't restrict his answers to what he should only say politically," Salam said. "He was honest with us."

Pay dues or face action: AG warns land grabbers

Pajhwok 11/14/2006 By Habib Rahman Ibrahimi - KABUL - Attorney General Abdul Jabbar Sabit has issued one month deadline to residents of Sherpur locality for payment of due amount for constructing buildings on government land.

Situated between the upscale localities of Shar-i-Naw and Wazir Akbar Khan of this central capital, Sherpur was once a military cantonment.

However, the precious chunk of land was forcefully occupied by influential and powerful men during the transitional government and converted it into a residential area without paying price of the land to the government.

Although the land is considered the ownership of the Ministry of Defence and the houses constructed on it are deemed as encroachments, the AG asked the owners of the buildings to pay the amount to the government.

"I hope they will pay the due amount to the government within a month, otherwise they will be treated like illegal occupiers," he warned.

The land was sold to those people by the then government and they should submit the money, said the AG when asked whether the payment of the amount would not give legal status to the encroachments.

He said owners of the buildings and houses should pay $11,500 for each biswa (100 square metres) of the land they had occupied in Sherpur locality.  

He informed 245 people had so far submitted over 14 million US dollars in the national exchequer to legalise their possession of the land. He blamed the Kabul municipality for not recovering the amount from the land grabbers.

Asked about his visit to the northern Balkh province and his alleged failure to initiate action against the corrupt officials there, the AG said: "There is the rule of law in Kabul."

He accused Balkh Governor Ata Mohammad Noor of involvement in unlawful acts in the province. "The governor is a warlord and legalising his unlawful acts with the help of his private militia," said Sabit, who added such law-breakers would soon be brought to book.

[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.]