In this bulletin:

• Afghan bomber targets NATO, kills civilians
• General Assembly puts its weight behind Afghan reconstruction plan,
  stresses security
• European Commission says one billion euro pledge to Afghanistan completed
• Taliban scoff at NATO troop increase
• Nato split on Afghan combat curbs
• NATO force should keep out of Afghan development: NGOs
• France to deploy Rafale fighter jet in Afghanistan
• Pakistan rejects Afghanistan's statement on new set up
• Pakistan wants int'l community to encourage Afghan reconciliation
• Taliban winning, NATO losing in Afghanistan: Kasuri
• There's still "work to be done" on NATO's Afghan deployment, says PM -
• Crocker satisfied over Afghan border situation
• Pakistan registers 525,000 Afghans
• 1,138 Afghans held in Peshawar in November
• Afghans battle to combat threats of drugs and Aids
• Hekmatyar wants Bush to be re-elected - Javed Hamim 
• Living symbols of reform in Afghanistan
• In Afghanistan, yesterday's warlords are today's bureaucrats
• Work starts on cricket stadium

Afghan bomber targets NATO, kills civilians

From the Associated Press - November 30, 2006

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — A suicide bomber on a motorcycle blew himself up next to a North Atlantic Treaty Organization convoy in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing two civilians. It was the third consecutive day troops there were targeted by suicide attacks.

No NATO troops were wounded in the explosion in Kandahar, said U.S. Army Maj. Luke Knittig, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force.

Two Canadian soldiers were killed Monday when a suicide car bomber exploded next to their convoy outside Kandahar. A suicide bomber also hit a NATO patrol in nearby Panjwayi district Tuesday, injuring one soldier.

Brig. Richard Nugee, chief of effects for ISAF, said that there was a slight increase in attacks in the last week and that insurgents might be trying to make a statement coinciding with a NATO summit this week in Latvia.

ISAF figures show that 227 Afghans and 17 international soldiers have been killed in about 105 suicide bombings this year.

General Assembly puts its weight behind Afghan reconstruction plan,
stresses security - U.N. News Service;  29 November 2006

29 November 2006 - The 192-member General Assembly has fully backed a five-year reconstruction plan for strife-torn Afghanistan agreed with the international community earlier this year, stressing in particular the need to improve security in the country and also deal with the widespread drug
trade.

Acting without a vote, the Assembly wrapped up its annual debate on Afghanistan yesterday by adopting an 11-page resolution pledging to implement the Afghan Compact, which was launched in January as a wide-ranging blueprint for development covering politics, economics, human
rights, crime and judicial reform.

“The General Assembly… expressing its strong commitment to the implementation of the Afghanistan Compact and its annexes, launched at the International Conference on Afghanistan… which provide the framework for the partnership between the Government of Afghanistan and the international
community,” the resolution stated.

“[The Assembly] calls upon the Government of Afghanistan, with the assistance of the international community, including through the Operation Enduring Freedom coalition and the International Security Assistance Force… to continue to address the threat to the security and stability of Afghanistan posed by the Taliban, Al-Qaida and other extremist groups as well as by criminal violence, in particular violence involving the drug trade.”

The resolution also called upon the Government to “vigorously pursue its efforts to establish a more effective, accountable and transparent administration at all levels,” while urging international donors to
follow-up on agreements made during the January meeting and Member States to assist in the recovery efforts.

“[The Assembly] urgently appeals to all States, the United Nations system and international and non-governmental organizations to continue to provide, in close coordination with the Government of Afghanistan and in accordance with its national development strategy, all possible and
necessary humanitarian, recovery, reconstruction, financial, technical and material assistance for Afghanistan.”

The Assembly debate, which also involved representatives from 16 other countries and regional groups, follows a Security Council mission to Afghanistan earlier this month which warned that unless the international community fully supports the recovery effort, the country risks becoming a
failed State.

Yesterday’s discussions also focused on Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s latest report on the country, which was released in September and warned that the upsurge in violence over the past few months represents a “watershed” and is the most severe threat to the transition to peace since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

In another action, the Assembly also adopted a resolution without a vote declaring 26 March 2007 a day for world wide commemoration of the two-hundredth anniversary of the abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

It also decided to hold a plenary meeting on the international day to “honour the memory of those who died as a result of slavery, including through exposure to the horrors of the Middle Passage and in revolt against and resistance to enslavement.”

European Commission says one billion euro pledge to Afghanistan completed

Brussels, Nov 30, IRNA - In 2002 the European Commission had pledged one billion euro over five years to support the reconstruction and development process of Afghanistan.

Today the final commitments to realize this pledge have been approved, said the Commission in a statement Thursday.

Today's decision cover support to provincial governance, to improve service delivery to the local population (10.6 million euro) and support for the Afghanistan Variety and Seed Industry Development Project (10 million euro).

"In 2002 the European Commission promised to be a steadfast partner for Afghanistan. Today we have kept our promise in full, and ahead of schedule." said EU Commissioner for External Relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner.

Taliban scoff at NATO troop increase

Thu Nov 30, 4:41 AM ET - KABUL (Reuters) - NATO's plans to send more soldiers to Afghanistan to quell a resurgent Taliban would simply give the rebels more targets, a guerrilla commander said on Thursday.

"Increasing or expanding NATO troops in Afghanistan is not a worry for the Taliban, instead it will make targets for the Taliban mujahideen much easier," Commander Mullah Obaidullah told Reuters, adding the hardline Islamists could fight for 20 years.

"After five years of continuous fighting against foreign troops, the Taliban have become a strong military power and the Taliban are able to fight and defeat the strongest army."

After months of requests for more troops from NATO commanders on the ground, a summit of alliance leaders this week agreed to a small increase in troop numbers and to ease some restrictions on how and where their forces can be deployed.

Obaidullah repeated Taliban threats to step up the suicide attacks which killed several foreign soldiers before and during the NATO summit in the Latvian capital, Riga.

Fighting in Afghanistan this year has been the worst since a U.S.-led coalition ousted the Taliban government in 2001.

NATO and U.S. officials say the rebels have been bolstered by the country's blossoming illegal opium trade -- hitting record levels this year -- and sanctuary in Pakistan.

NATO leaders pledged at the summit on Wednesday to stay the course to restore peace and stability in Afghanistan.

"It is winnable, it is being won, but not yet won," said NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer of the most dangerous ground combat in the alliance's 57-year history.

In October, NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) took over command of the country from U.S. forces.

Nato split on Afghan combat curbs – BBC

Nato leaders at a summit are continuing to limit troop deployment to south Afghanistan, despite calls from the US to accept "difficult assignments".

France and Germany have agreed to small changes on how troops can be used, but will not move large numbers to the area where Nato faces a resurgent Taleban.

The US, UK, Canada and the Netherlands have borne the brunt of fierce fighting with the militants in the south. Violence has risen to heights not seen since the toppling of the Taleban.

Some 4,000 people are believed to have died this year in the insurgency - about a quarter of them civilians. In fresh violence, two Nato soldiers were killed when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in Logar province on Tuesday. The nationalities of the victims have not yet been disclosed.

Details of the agreement to relax restrictions are due to be announced shortly. Correspondents say the combat curbs have been the most contentious issue at the two-day summit in Latvia, following tension over the reluctance of France, Germany, Spain and Italy to send their troops to southern Afghanistan.

Nato sources say more than three-quarters of the 32,000-strong force in Afghanistan will soon be allowed to operate more widely if necessary.

Those agreeing to ease the restrictions on deployment against the Taleban include the Dutch, Romanians and smaller nations such as Slovenia and Luxembourg.

France, Germany, Spain and Italy have said they will now send help to trouble zones outside their areas, but only in emergencies. "This has been our clear position from the beginning," Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi told journalists after a working dinner on the issue. "That also goes for the French president, the German chancellor and the Spanish."

An alliance spokesman told Reuters news agency that three countries had also agreed to send more troops, with several more agreeing to increase funding for Afghanistan. Commanders have requested 2,500 extra troops for the battle in the south of the country.

Earlier, US President George W Bush called on Nato not to undermine the effort in Afghanistan. "For Nato to succeed, its commanders must have the resources and flexibility they need to do their jobs," he said.

Nato Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer described the Afghan operation - Nato's first outside Europe - as "mission possible", and said that it might even be able to start pulling out from 2008.

The summit, the first Nato meeting in an ex-Soviet state, will conclude after discussions about Nato's role in the 21st Century. The alliance leaders will also discuss ways to enhance Nato's partnership activities, including efforts to draw countries like Japan and Australia more closely into alliance activities.

Speaking in Latvia, Mr Bush said Nato would keep its doors open to new members, including Georgia and Ukraine. The US president said the US would support Georgia's bid to join Nato as long as it continued on the path of reform and that membership of the military bloc would be open to Ukraine if the people chose it.

Correspondents say membership for either country could further strain their relations with Moscow.

NATO force should keep out of Afghan development: NGOs

KABUL: NATO soldiers’ involvement in both reconstruction and combat in Afghanistan endangers relief workers and undermines long-term development, non-government groups say, as NATO leaders meet in Riga.

NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has an important role to play in stabilising the war-torn country, but the idea that the military can bring both protection and development to win peace has yet to be proved, they added.

Below-expected reconstruction after 25 years of war was, meanwhile, ratcheting up public frustration, leaving the country at a “dangerous crossroads”, the Agency Coordinating Body For Afghan Relief (ACBAR), the umbrella body of NGOs said.

Incapacity meant only about a quarter of this year’s development budget had been spent, it said.

But the international community had also only delivered on 56 percent of its commitment of nearly 30 billion dollars to the destitute nation, it said in a statement urging NATO nations to rethink their role here.

ACBAR also questioned ISAF’s “quick impact projects”, such as handing out stationery to schools kids, and involvement in other relief and reconstruction work.

“Military actors are not trained in development and their approaches are often undertaken with little community ownership or capacity to support community maintenance over time,” it said.

“Further, when military forces do quick impact projects it can also seriously undermine and threaten the aid efforts of civilian agencies.”

For example, ISAF-led provincial reconstruction teams want to hand out free vaccinations for livestock but this can have adverse effects on a national strategy for vaccinations and undermines a para-vet system being set up, a kind of fast-reaction unit modelled on paramedics.

NGOs have also expressed concern that the involvement of soldiers in aid will blur the difference between troops and relief workers, further putting them in the sights of insurgents and challenging their neutrality.

By August, 28 aid workers have been killed this year compared with 31 for the whole of last year, ACBAR said.

The private Norwegian Refugee Council agreed in a separate statement that ISAF had a key role to play in security efforts, including police and defence reform and bringing alleged war criminals to trial.

But it should keep out of development which must be distinct from military operations, it said.

“NATO should do what it does best - support the security sector and keep the peace - so that aid agencies can do what we do best - deliver protection and assistance to civilians in need,” said the council’s Ann Kristin Brunborg.

“We have observed that the engagement of NATO forces in peace and combat operations simultaneously is blurring local perceptions of the reasons behind foreign intervention in Afghanistan,” she said.

The killing of civilians in military offensives, for example, undermines “peace operations” in more stable areas. Human Rights Watch has estimated 1,000 civilians have been killed in unrest this year.

“It also threatens the safety and security of our beneficiaries and our staff, especially when such killings spur communal unrest,” Brunborg said.

The council and ACBAR said the theory that the military could bring both protection and development to win peace had yet to be proved.

“With 11 times more cash being spent on military assistance than development aid in Afghanistan, that’s one raucously expensive hypothesis,” Brunborg said.

Over the past five years, the international community had spent more than 82.5 billion dollars on military assistance but only 7.3 billion dollars in development help, the council said.

Afghanistan is in a “perilously fragile” situation with frustration about unmet expectations in a context of “extreme poverty, low capacity, deteriorating security and increasing illicit activities,” ACBAR said.

“Unless the needs and expectations of the Afghan people are met shortly, the country could easily slide back into chaos.” afp

France to deploy Rafale fighter jet in Afghanistan

PARIS: The French air force said Wednesday it has asked President Jacques Chirac to approve the deployment of the new Rafale fighter jet in Afghanistan next year, for the plane’s first major operational test. “We want the Rafale, which has been in use by the air force since June, to take part in a mission above Afghanistan to highlight its operational capacity,” air force spokesman Frederic Solano told AFP. “We have tested it in France and abroad in an exercise. Now it has to prove itself in action,” he said The Rafale has so far taken part in sky patrol operations on French territory as well as in NATO’s latest annual exercise in Spain. The multi-role combat aircraft - the pride of France’s Dassault Aviation - has yet to be exported and so far counts the French military as its sole client. It would be deployed in Afghanistan as part of the Serpentaire air support mission, which currently has three Mirage fighters based at Dushanbe in Tajikistan and a C-135 refuelling aircaft at Manas in Kirghizstan. Afp

Pakistan rejects Afghanistan's statement on new set up

Islamabad, Nov 29, IRNA - Pakistan has angrily rejected a statement from the Afghan Foreign Ministry that Islamabad has called for a new coalition government in Afghanistan.

The Afghan Foreign Ministry in a statement on Wednesday said that Pakistan has told the NATO foreign ministers that Taliban should be included in the new set up and that the new government should not be headed by Hamid Karzai, the BBC Pashto reported on its website.

Pakistan has not made any such proposal, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tasnim Aslam said. She also rejected the Afghan Foreign Ministry claim that Islamabad is interfering in internal affairs of Afghanistan.

We totally reject this allegation, she said. This is distortion of facts, the spokesperson said.

Afghanistan considers it as Pakistan's interference, the Afghan Foreign Ministry statement said. Allegations from Afghan Foreign Ministry have come days before the visit to Kabul by Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri.

Kasuri will discuss with his Afghan counterpart Rangeen Dadfar Spanta the proposed jirgas, or council of elders, to explore ways for peace in Afghanistan. Kasuri is expected to proceed to Kabul in early December, on his first bilateral visit.

President General Pervez Musharraf and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai had agreed in a meeting hosted by President Bush in Washington in September to pursue the path of consulting tribal elders on both sides of the border.

Pakistan wants int'l community to encourage Afghan reconciliation

Pakistan on Thursday urged the international community to encourage national reconciliation and undertake an extensive reconstruction program for south and southeast Afghanistan in addition to what it is being done for the rest of Afghanistan.

Pakistani foreign ministry spokesperson in a statement also called for addressing the problem of narcotics in Afghanistan.

Clarifying remarks attributed to Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri by the British Daily Telegraph, the statement said the foreign minister did not say that the Taliban were winning the war in Afghanistan and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was bound to fail nor has he advised any country against sending more troops.

"The foreign minister's comments have been distorted and misrepresented," the spokesperson said. The foreign minister had only reiterated what Pakistan has been stressing all along the need for a comprehensive strategy, she said.

"The foreign minister had emphasized that military approach alone would not resolve the problem in Afghanistan. It must be combined with political and economic approach," she added. Source: Xinhua

Taliban winning, NATO losing in Afghanistan: Kasuri

LAHORE: Senior Pakistani officials are urging NATO countries to accept the Taliban and work towards a new coalition government in Kabul, the Daily Telegraph reported on Wednesday. According to the report, Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri has said in private briefings to foreign ministers of some NATO member states that the Taliban are winning the war in Afghanistan and NATO is bound to fail. Kasuri has advised against sending more troops. “Kasuri is basically asking NATO to surrender and to negotiate with the Taliban,” a Western official who met the foreign minister recently told the Daily Telegraph. The remarks were made on the eve of NATO’s critical summit in Latvia. daily times monitor

There's still "work to be done" on NATO's Afghan deployment, says PM - CanWest News Service - Thursday, November 30, 2006

RIGA, Latvia - Prime Minister Stephen Harper looked subdued and German Chancellor Angela Merkel was reportedly "ecstatic" at the end of the NATO Summit Wednesday after Germany successfully dodged demands from Canada and other allies that it provide more help to troops fighting the Taliban in southern Afghanistan.

The few countries to volunteer additional forces such as Britain and Estonia were, as Harper noted at a news conference after the summit ended, already committed to participating in combat operations in the south.

"Look, we're not going to kid you, the security situation remains a challenge in the south," the prime minister said after a closed three-hour session with other NATO leaders. "We still believe we are under-manned, but we're getting more forces all of the time, we're getting more flexibility from our NATO partners."

Canada's quest for more help in the south had only limited success at the two-day gathering, which ended with a predictable blitz of statements celebrating the alliance's cohesion and unity.

It was agreed if NATO troops in Afghanistan found themselves in an emergency situation, the NATO commander could send troops from other NATO countries to their aid. However, helping out allies in distress has always been part of the NATO charter.

An undisclosed number of the more than 100 caveats that had prevented troops from some NATO countries from participating in combat operations or moving troops outside specific geographic areas were also eliminated.

But on the crucial demand by Canada, Britain, the U.S. and Holland that troops from others in the 26-country alliance join them and four smaller NATO members in the battle in Afghanistan's bloody south, there was very little movement and none by those nations with large armies such as Germany, Spain and Italy, whose troops are now deployed in relatively calm parts of the country.

"In the grand majority of cases the caveats that have been softened have to do with emergencies and, obviously, we don't intend to be in an emergency," Harper said before boarding his plane back to Ottawa. "There is clearly still work to be done."

Asked what the new measures announced at the summit might mean for Canadian troops, which have done a disproportionate share of the fighting and dying in Afghanistan, the prime minister said: "It is difficult to project future casualties and future battles based on this summit."

Canada's anger before the summit has mostly been directed at Germany. The reason may be partially explained by a story published Wednesday on Der Spiegel's website.

The German news magazine reported Berlin had refused several requests for its forces to come to the aid of NATO's embattled warriors in the south during the Canadian-led Operation Medusa in late August and early September. The missions Germany wanted no part of included deploying a medevac aircraft to the base where Canadians were located in Kandahar, allowing a drone aircraft to be used for reconnaissance of the area and having its Special Forces commandos deployed as forward air controllers to direct air strikes against the Taliban across the south, the weekly said.

"Our goal was to stay in the north and that is exactly what we will be doing," a source close to the German delegation in Riga said Wednesday. The mood among the Germans after the summit was described as "ecstatic" and "satisfied" by different members of the delegation.

"We are well positioned with our mandate and there is no reason to change that mandate," Merkel was quoted by Der Spiegel as having told other NATO leaders when she spoke after Prime Minister Harper at a dinner on Tuesday night.

Merkel's fragile coalition government deliberately did not want spelled out at the summit what might actually constitute an emergency, Der Spiegel reported.

Furthermore, the magazine said the Germans wanted NATO to remain vague about whether emergencies might be declared that might involve "regularly sending German troops to the south for single missions conducted jointly with the USA or Canada."

However, alliance members will be told very soon exactly what their responsibilities will be if the NATO commander in Afghanistan declares an emergency, the top Canadian at NATO, Gen. Ray Henault, told reporters Wednesday.

"Is `in extremis' defined in everyone's mind?" the former Canadian chief of defence asked rhetorically. "We have to make sure it is so that there is no misunderstanding in the future. There is a definition of this in our doctrine and we are going to make sure everyone knows what it is."

Meanwhile, the question of getting NATO members to send additional combat forces to the south remains. "The south is still in need of reserves," Henault said. "At the dinner last night we asked countries to re-visit this issue again to see what they can contribute, especially in the south."

Canada, Britain, the U.S. and Holland have borne most of the casualties in Afghanistan with Canada having a casualty rate that was five times higher than the NATO average.

In the past eight months, 36 Canadians have died in Afghanistan. Germany, with several hundred more troops there than Canada, has not had any deaths this year.

Crocker satisfied over Afghan border situation

PESHAWAR: The US Ambassador in Pakistan, Ryan C Crocker, called on the NWFP Governor, Lt Gen (r) Ali Muhammad Jan Aurakzai at Governor’s House here on Wednesday.

The Ambassador who was also accompanied by the Principal Officer of the US Consulate at Peshawar, Lynne Tracy, remained with the Governor for some time and discussed various matters of common interest.

The Governor apprised the ambassador about the overall situation in FATA, as it was developing in the wake of the recent events, especially in Waziristan.

It was appreciated that cross border activities had dropped significantly during the past month or so. The socio-economic development of FATA also came under discussion, especially the sustainable development programme of FATA Vision 2015, which would require major inputs from donor community.

The political process presently underway in the tribal areas was also discussed, especially proposed tribal jirgas for the settlement of the Afghan crisis. Online

Pakistan registers 525,000 Afghans

By HANS GREIMEL - Associated Press November 30, 2006 - ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan has registered 525,000 Afghans on its soil as part of a new campaign to address the problems of war refugees, illegal immigrants and Taliban infiltrators, the government said Thursday.

The registration, which includes taking photos of Afghans and issuing identification cards, marks an important milestone for a national database launched Oct. 15, the Foreign Ministry said. There are some 2.4 million Afghans believed to be in the country.

Of the 525,000 Afghans registered by Thursday, more than half were in the North West Frontier Province that envelops the remote and rugged borderlands between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The area is a flash point for regional tensions and believed to harbor Taliban and al-Qaida militants and sympathizers. Osama bin Laden is thought to be hiding in the area.

The issue of Afghans in Pakistan stretches back to the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which triggered a wave of refugees. In recent times, it has strained ties between Afghanistan and Pakistan, both key U.S. allies in the war on terror, amid suspicions that Taliban militants slip back and forth across the porous border.

Documenting Afghans in Pakistan is expected to help address security concerns, pave the way for the deportation of illegal immigrants and identify legitimate refugees.

The Foreign Ministry said about 19,000 Afghans are being registered daily at 60 sites nationwide. Only Afghans who are registered will be entitled to stay in the country.

Pakistan and the U.N. High Commission for Refugees had earlier signed an agreement on the registration of Afghan citizens in Pakistan as part of efforts to document and manage the Afghan population in Pakistan.

More than 2.87 million Afghans have returned from Pakistan to Afghanistan with UNHCR assistance since the U.S. ousted the Taliban government.

1,138 Afghans held in Peshawar in November

PESHAWAR: Peshawar Police arrested 1,138 Afghan refugees wanted for various crimes in November, police sources said on Wednesday.

The crackdown was launched following a series of bomb and suicide attacks that killed at least eight people and left several others injured in the provincial capital.

According to police sources, the Afghan refugees were arrested as part of efforts to bring an end to blasts, rising number of kidnappings, car lifting and robberies. Police sources said the Afghan detainees, who had no criminal record, were charged under Sections 55 and 109 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC).

The NWFP government had arrested about 1,800 Afghans in a similar drive in May and they were charged under sections 55 and 109 of the CrPC and 14 of the Foreign Act. The Afghan government strongly protested and called for the release of their arrested nationals during the May crackdown, police sources said. Afghans charged under sections 55 and 109 CrPC have to sign an affidavit in a court in which they pledge to stay away from criminal activities during their time in Pakistan, the sources added. “Violators of the affidavit can be charged under Section 514 of the CrPC,” the sources added. staff report

Afghans battle to combat threats of drugs and Aids

By Kim Sengupta in Kabul - The Independent (UK) Published: 30 November 2006

The men sitting around the room at the Nejat Centre have little left but hope - the hope that one day they will be freed from the drugs that have destroyed their lives and those of their families.

Afghanistan, heroin supplier to the world, now has its own problem with addiction, largely ignored and unreported, but continuing to rise at a ferocious rate. The country has all the classic conditions - grinding poverty, lawlessness, corruption, growing prostitution and an endless supply of heroin - for a drug epidemic on a catastrophic scale and the explosion in Aids that inevitably follows.

The last set of figures, published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, shows that around 920,000 Afghans are addicted to narcotics, around 4 per cent of the population. Among adult males the figure rises to 12.1 per cent of the population, or 740,000. Even these figures, compiled in 2005, were regarded as an underestimate.

Yet while Nato meets in Riga for its most important summit since the end of the Cold War, with Afghanistan the main topic, and billions of dollars are earmarked for reconstruction, there is little funding for drug treatment, and even less to fight Aids. The Nejat Centre is one of the few places in Afghanistan to deal with drug addiction. It was started by a doctor, Tariq Suliman, at a refugee camp in Peshwar in Pakistan after he saw how many of his fellow Afghans were hooked on heroin and opium.

Dr Suliman points out, with a wry smile, that while the centre at the refugee camp eventually had 20 beds for patients, here in the Afghan capital it can only afford 10. "Even if we had only minimal facilities we would need around $200,000 [£100,000] a year", he said. "But our budget is $50,000. Obviously we cannot make up the entire shortfall, but we do spend some of our own money."

The centre is funded by Norwegian, German and American charities. There is no contribution from the Afghan government, and Dr Suliman and his colleagues say they would rather keep away from the kleptocracy of officialdom.

It costs just $1 to buy a packet of 10 syringes in Kabul. But for the dispossessed of this city shattered by decades of war, even that is too much. The reuse of needles is, thus, commonplace, and, with it, infection.

The Nejat Centre cannot afford its own blood-testing facilities and patients are sent to a government hospital. For Khairullah, a 27-year-old carpenter, it is too late, as he has already been diagnosed as HIV positive. Khairullah stays with his widowed mother and four brothers and sisters in their tiny home in the north of the city. He seldom ventures out, the result of a combination of physical weakness and fear of the social stigma he will encounter.

"I do not know if the neighbours are aware of what has happened to me. I would like to die before they find out," he says in a barely audible voice. "There is nothing the doctors can do, it is up to the will of Allah. I did not know I would end up like this." Khairullah took up heroin in a refugee camp near Quetta in Pakistan and freely used second-hand needles. "No one told me the dangers", he said.

Sayid Jawed, 56, is waiting to learn of the results of his blood test while on pre-treatment at the Nejat Centre. He too started drugs in a refugee camp, this time in Iran. "At first it was opium and then heroin," he said. "And it continued when I came back to Afghanistan after the Taliban. I was earning good money as a driver, so I could afford this. I used needles, and it was not until I came to this centre that I learnt about Aids. We were not taught these things in the past."

Ahmed Khalid stayed on in Afghanistan during the Taliban's rule and freely admits profiting from drugs with the help of the regime. He himself became addicted. "And now I am here," he said. "Look at me and you will know what has happened to Afghanistan."

The men sitting around the room at the Nejat Centre have little left but hope - the hope that one day they will be freed from the drugs that have destroyed their lives and those of their families.

Afghanistan, heroin supplier to the world, now has its own problem with addiction, largely ignored and unreported, but continuing to rise at a ferocious rate. The country has all the classic conditions - grinding poverty, lawlessness, corruption, growing prostitution and an endless supply of heroin - for a drug epidemic on a catastrophic scale and the explosion in Aids that inevitably follows.

The last set of figures, published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, shows that around 920,000 Afghans are addicted to narcotics, around 4 per cent of the population. Among adult males the figure rises to 12.1 per cent of the population, or 740,000. Even these figures, compiled in 2005, were regarded as an underestimate.

Yet while Nato meets in Riga for its most important summit since the end of the Cold War, with Afghanistan the main topic, and billions of dollars are earmarked for reconstruction, there is little funding for drug treatment, and even less to fight Aids. The Nejat Centre is one of the few places in Afghanistan to deal with drug addiction. It was started by a doctor, Tariq Suliman, at a refugee camp in Peshwar in Pakistan after he saw how many of his fellow Afghans were hooked on heroin and opium.

Dr Suliman points out, with a wry smile, that while the centre at the refugee camp eventually had 20 beds for patients, here in the Afghan capital it can only afford 10. "Even if we had only minimal facilities we would need around $200,000 [£100,000] a year", he said. "But our budget is $50,000. Obviously we cannot make up the entire shortfall, but we do spend some of our own money."

The centre is funded by Norwegian, German and American charities. There is no contribution from the Afghan government, and Dr Suliman and his colleagues say they would rather keep away from the kleptocracy of officialdom.

It costs just $1 to buy a packet of 10 syringes in Kabul. But for the dispossessed of this city shattered by decades of war, even that is too much. The reuse of needles is, thus, commonplace, and, with it, infection.

The Nejat Centre cannot afford its own blood-testing facilities and patients are sent to a government hospital. For Khairullah, a 27-year-old carpenter, it is too late, as he has already been diagnosed as HIV positive. Khairullah stays with his widowed mother and four brothers and sisters in their tiny home in the north of the city. He seldom ventures out, the result of a combination of physical weakness and fear of the social stigma he will encounter.

"I do not know if the neighbours are aware of what has happened to me. I would like to die before they find out," he says in a barely audible voice. "There is nothing the doctors can do, it is up to the will of Allah. I did not know I would end up like this." Khairullah took up heroin in a refugee camp near Quetta in Pakistan and freely used second-hand needles. "No one told me the dangers", he said.

Sayid Jawed, 56, is waiting to learn of the results of his blood test while on pre-treatment at the Nejat Centre. He too started drugs in a refugee camp, this time in Iran. "At first it was opium and then heroin," he said. "And it continued when I came back to Afghanistan after the Taliban. I was earning good money as a driver, so I could afford this. I used needles, and it was not until I came to this centre that I learnt about Aids. We were not taught these things in the past."

Ahmed Khalid stayed on in Afghanistan during the Taliban's rule and freely admits profiting from drugs with the help of the regime. He himself became addicted. "And now I am here," he said. "Look at me and you will know what has happened to Afghanistan."

Hekmatyar wants Bush to be re-elected - Javed Hamim 

KABUL, Nov 28 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Fugitive leader and one of the most wanted militant commanders Gulbuddin Hekmatyar said he would be pleased with President George W. Bush again winning presidential election to see how 'more stupidly' the US government will run the affairs in more five years.

In a statement titled 'Joint Message of Afghan and Iraqi Mujahideen', Hekmatyar said let the White House be ruled another term by the Republicans to win more 'bad name for the US' in the world due to their failed policies.

"It is a good way to rid the world of the menace of US to continue the failed war policy. For this, US really need such a stupid and arrogant president (like Bush), a vice President like Cheney and a defence secretary like Rumsfeld to make a team of war," said the statement obtained by Pajhwok Afghan News on Tuesday.

Hekmatyar rejected bluntly rumours that he would be unhappy if Bush's warrior team succeeds in the coming term. The leader of militant group Hizb-i-Islami further said he was looking at Bush as United States' Brezhnev who would lead US to the same fate to which the former Soviet Union was led by Brezhnev.

He added the Bush-led war-loving team in the White House was not harmful for the Mujahideen if not beneficial, either. "To be honest, we and every opponent of US would be grieved if any team wiser than the Bush's come to the White House. All those who want to get rid of US's evils should encourage people to vote for the Republicans."

Hekmatyar also called on other anti-US allies to support Mujahideen if they really want to put an end to the US colonization. Hizb-i-Islami faction of Hekmatyar was one of the leading seven parties which fought the former Soviet troops in Afghanistan and led to victory the Afghan jihad. After collapse of the Taliban, he announced a holy war on the foreign troops in Afghanistan and came at the US' list of the most-wanted men carrying bounty on his head.

Living symbols of reform in Afghanistan

Los Angeles Times 11/29/2006 By Alissa J. Rubin

AMONG the crowd of 800 turbaned elders who gathered in a vast tent, one person stood out: a slender woman in a white head scarf.

She took the podium only briefly, but when she did, most conversation came to a standstill. And though many of the bearded, tradition-bound elders are uncomfortable talking to a woman in public, several dozen clustered around her afterward to ask questions.

Her name is Zahera Sharif, and she is the only woman among the four members of Afghanistan's parliament from Khowst province. In a conservative area where it is possible to drive through towns without seeing a single woman on the street, she is a rarity.

As a member of parliament, she represents an institution that Western observers and experts in Afghanistan say is the country's best shot at building a stable democracy after years of war and religious extremism.

Among the 248 members of parliament's lower house, there are elders such as those Sharif met here. But there are also former exiles in Western-style business suits. All of the country's ethnic groups have a place: Uzbeks sit next to Tajiks; Pashtuns with Hazaras. There are onetime Taliban as well as their former Northern Alliance enemies. A quarter of the parliament members are women; not one wears a burka.

Some of those who gather in the low-slung building on the western edge of Kabul use old militia ties to get things done. Others take the floor to criticize the warlords. Or, like Sharif, they forgo the debate and focus instead on meeting the needs of their constituents.

"For the first time after 30 years of war, we've brought some major figures, who in the past would only talk to each other with a gun, under one roof," said Younis Qanooni, the speaker of parliament.

Western diplomats find some hope in that inclusiveness, as well as in the institution's willingness to challenge President Hamid Karzai.

The president has considerable authority, but parliament has insisted on its right to review his decisions. Deputies rejected five of Karzai's 25 nominations for Cabinet posts in the spring and seven of his picks for the Supreme Court, including one accused of selling legal decisions.

"More often than not, the reform impulse has come from the parliament," a senior Western diplomat said.

Not that it has been easy. The majority of Afghanistan's lawmakers still have their roots in the country's warring past. A number served as militia commanders and made their names and their money behind the barrel of a gun.

Even among the 68 women in parliament, U.S. and United Nations officials estimate that half have militia ties, and can be counted on to keep quiet and vote as they are told.

Some lawmakers still spit during sessions as though they were on a mountain road. Others doze off. A popular television news program was banned briefly from broadcasting parliamentary sessions because it showed lawmakers, heads thrown back, snoring. Many take the floor seemingly without any idea of what they want to say.

Despite their lack of experience in representative democracy, deputies have developed a range of styles to pursue their different political agendas on the floor of parliament and in visits to their districts.

Malalai Joya, a 27-year-old woman, publicly challenges the enduring power of warlords in a Western-style media campaign. For that, she has been pelted with water bottles in the parliament chamber, and twice her microphone has been shut off.

Haji Almas, 45, is a member of the old commanders network. He is angry that Karzai's government and its Western allies refuse to allow former warlords to run the country's military. But he also has embraced education and points with pride to schools that have been built.

Sharif, meanwhile, is a realist. Afghanistan will not change overnight, she believes. So she keeps quiet when commanders arrive at parliament sessions with their bodyguards in tow.

"They know they have done nothing for Afghanistan; they don't have answers for Afghanistan," said Sharif, 46. "But they are still there; they have supporters."

"People in parliament need to focus on issues one by one: electricity, jobs, education," she told the Khowst elders who had gathered in the tent to discuss pressing nationwide problems. "Everybody should think of the benefit of the society."

Sharif is no stranger to the conservative religious attitudes of southern Afghanistan. Her father was an imam, and he objected to her going to school past age 11. Miserable, she stayed in the women's quarters of the family home and stopped eating.

Her eldest brother finally won permission from their father to let her return to school, and later to take all his siblings to Kabul to finish high school, because schools there were better. Sharif went on to Kabul University, where she earned a master's degree in education. She became a member of the elite Academy of Sciences. At the time, Afghanistan was a Soviet satellite and many women were attending university and becoming professionals.

At the university, she met the man who became her husband, Mohammed Sharif Zadran, a Khowst native who also holds an advanced degree in education. In his own way, he is no less remarkable.

From the beginning of their courtship, he helped her to advance. When she was required to submit two copies of her 300-page master's thesis, he copied the second one by hand because Afghanistan had no copy machines.

But then the Taliban took over. She and her husband were forced to quit their jobs. Zadran had to do manual labor to help the family get by. After two years, they fled to Pakistan, where Sharif started a magazine for women, organized classes for Afghan refugee girls and trained female teachers who she hoped would go back to Afghanistan after the Taliban fell.

Within days of their return to Khowst when the rule of the mullahs was over, Sharif took off her burka and walked down the main street.

"Everybody was watching her as if they thought something terrible would happen — they were leaning out of doors, staring out of windows," recalled Naquibullah, the deputy director of Khowst's main radio station.

Despite ridicule from other men, Zadran stood by his wife when she decided to plunge into politics, even though it meant doing something unheard of for a woman here: going door-to-door in remote villages and introducing herself to strangers.

"People would say to me, 'How can you let your wife do that?' " recalled Zadran. He shrugged. "I said, 'What do you want me to do? Lock her in the house?' "

The answer for many Afghan men would have been 'yes.' Sharif and Zadran have four children; both are devoted to caring for their youngest daughter, Zala, 3, who has Down syndrome.

And Sharif has tried to address the problems of young people in her legislative work. She successfully fought legislation that would have allowed children as young as 13 to be punished as adults if they were found guilty of crimes.

She has been less successful fighting the corruption that permeates public and private life, or getting the central government to respond to her district's needs.

The agriculture minister gave Sharif barely 15 minutes of his time and flatly refused her request for subsidized fertilizer for farmers in her district. He didn't even respond to her complaints that most of the 40 goats that were designated for needy Khowst women ended up going to families who had connections to Agriculture Ministry officials.

More than once Sharif has joined with other reform-minded legislators to urge Karzai to replace corrupt police chiefs and governors connected with the opium trade.

"I told Karzai, 'You are just playing chess, taking the same person and moving him from one job to another,' " she said. "Then Karzai said, 'Give me men, give me names.' And we gave him names and he said, 'No, he's a Communist, no, he's this, he's that.' And he took almost none of them."

Afghan and international observers say Karzai's weak government relies on such local strongmen. When she does overcome barriers to helping her constituents, Sharif finds it difficult to get credit.

She persuaded a rich Kabul resident to donate uniforms, sneakers, nets and balls to the Khowst volleyball and soccer teams, and she brought them when she returned from Kabul for the summer. But when she invited team members to her home to hand out the equipment, her husband and the coaches did most of the talking, and her resourcefulness went largely unappreciated by her constituents.

Where Sharif really shines is in her interaction with women, her original inspiration for entering politics. Women cast 45% of the votes in Khowst, and though some voted for men, analysts in Kabul believe that the vast majority voted for Sharif.

When she entered the high-walled compound that surrounds the Khowst women's center and the school for girls, she had hardly stepped out of her car before the women surged around her. There were young girls in their school uniforms clutching notebooks and pencils, older women who worked as cleaners, some still carrying their brooms. Teachers, middle-aged women with worn faces, reached over their students to touch her shoulder or hand.

As she handed out books and information about Women's Ministry programs from two huge sacks of supplies she had brought from Kabul, it was possible to believe Sharif could achieve her dream of "taking all the women with me" on her way forward.

There is a long way to go. A bare room serves as the reception area in the women's center. In stark contrast to the rooms warlords use when they hold court, this one had no rug or cushions, just flimsy plastic chairs, three scarred desks and a few torn fliers pinned to the walls.

There were no tea and biscuits, no plates of fruit. But the women's voices rose and fell as if they were at a feast. They recounted their latest trials and small victories: the difficulty of getting a job as a midwife, recent cases of child brides abused by men, the challenge of teaching science to students when there is not a single Bunsen burner in all of Khowst.

Sharif listened closely, nodding, occasionally asking a question or jotting something in a small notebook.

She believes in personal persuasion to bring about change. She knows that without female teachers, many families will not send their daughters to school. So she goes to the homes of women who have a university education and asks why they are not teaching. If they say their families will not allow it, she meets with their husbands, uncles, fathers and brothers, until she gets their agreement.

"I do not accept 'no,' " she said. "Usually, the men have not thought so hard about it, they have not thought that their wife will be earning money, that the family will be richer if the wife works. When they understand this and they understand that she will be with women, most of them accept it."

Sharif's journey to her legislative district could not be more different than such a trip by Almas, the former commander of the Northern Alliance's 5th Corps.

Almas conveys his status with every gesture. He is so well known in Parwan province that when he stops his car to point out the location of a strategic battle, half a dozen vehicles pull off the road so their drivers can greet him.

Thickset, he wears a spotless white shalwar kameez and, even in the hot Afghan summer, the brown wool hat favored by Northern Alliance leaders. He moves with a determined stride.

His tone with subordinates is often peremptory; with supplicants, impatient. With those who consider themselves equals, he listens, then issues orders.

Westerners and some Afghan police officials describe him privately as a bully and a criminal who is active on the periphery of the lucrative narcotics trade, complicit in kidnappings and enriched by corrupt business deals. Some election officials attempted to prevent him from running, but failed, said a senior Western diplomat.

"Almas is one of the former commanders who has really cemented his power since he came into government," the official said.

Nasreen Gross, a sociology lecturer at Kabul University, said the international community must make an effort to win over men such as Almas. These former commanders influence many Afghans, and without their support, democracy could well fail, she said.

"They desire so much to be accepted by the West," Gross said. "Before, they had to do things illegally. No one helped them when they were fighting the Taliban. When you get involved in illegal activities, it's a cycle, it's self-perpetuating and insidious.

"We have to find an opening for those who want to gain respectability…. They can help us."

A trip home with Almas indicates that he is still divided between his warlord past and his emerging identity as a member of parliament, as though he has yet to decide whether the legitimacy of being in government is worth the payoff. So he veers wildly, dispensing tribal justice and bullying government officials, even while espousing education and adherence to the rule of law.

A man of limited education, Almas started fighting in his early teens. Now he is a fanatic about schooling.

In the early 1990s, when little education was available for girls, he built two schools in his district, one for boys and one for girls. His daughters are in high school, and he says he will allow them to attend university. He has two wives and is proud that the second is a university graduate.

When he arrived in his home village of Rabat to eat lunch at the funeral of a village elder, scores of men gathered around him, a mirror image of Sharif's experience with women.

A privileged few ate with him in a small room and pressed their demands. Chief among them was jobs. They wanted the government to start a long-promised water project. Almas listened as he gnawed on a mutton bone and scooped up saffron rice with his fingers in the traditional Afghan style.

A little later an elder cornered him as he walked to the mosque for Friday prayers and asked for help. There had been trouble the night before, a knife fight between two boys. Both were wounded.

At the mosque, Almas spoke after the imam finished. "Don't behave in ways that make people call us the thieves of Rabat," he admonished the villagers.

Then he lashed out at imams for failing to preach the importance of education. "The mullahs taught us to reach for our guns but not for our pens. That is why our country is so behind," he said as the imam shifted uncomfortably.

After prayers, Almas held a meeting in a vast open tent in his family's walled rose garden. As young men served tea and candy, the two wounded boys, their heads bandaged, appeared with their fathers and grandfathers to apologize to the community for fighting the night before.

Almas made the fathers sign a pledge that they would go to jail if their sons started another dispute.

The next morning, Almas and an entourage of armed bodyguards zoomed in SUVs to the Parwan governor's office to discuss the delayed water project.

The governor, who wears Western clothes and comes from another province, explained the delay. He was trying to determine who needed the water most. He often consulted a thin, elderly engineer, who nervously flipped through a folder.

As he spoke, the governor sipped a cup of coffee. He failed to offer any to Almas, an insult seemingly intended to show that he stood outside Almas' influence.

Almas looked pointedly at the cup. "We are parched, and you are drinking. Why don't you offer us some?"

The governor didn't answer. After a few more minutes Almas, who was less interested in who got the water than in starting the project and distributing the jobs, slapped his knees and got up. His entourage rose around him.

"So the project starts tomorrow," he said, less a question than a command. The governor said nothing, but gave a slight nod, indicating that Almas would get his way. Satisfied, Almas clapped him on the shoulder as though they were friends. He and his men moved on.

Joya focuses on one theme, the enduring power of men such as Almas. She uses radio and television exposure to denounce them, and despite Afghanistan's limited media outlets, hers is a familiar voice in the country's larger cities.

The youngest member of parliament is already a master of the well-turned phrase, the eloquent exaggeration, the slight simplification. Along with parliament colleague Ramazan Bashar Dost, who works out of a simple tent in the middle of a Kabul park, she is one of Afghanistan's most prominent populists.

Her message is that despite the changes in Afghanistan, corruption is still rampant and the warlords are still in power.

"How can we have democracy when we have these warlords? The majority of seats [in the parliament] have been taken by these black persons…. First they should be tried by a court, but unfortunately the courts don't do that in Afghanistan," she said in one of the many interviews she gives to foreign and domestic reporters.

Even though she has become a well-known figure in many parts of Afghanistan, she remains a mystery in many ways. Most people who denounce the warlords will describe specific instances in which they, their families or perhaps their entire villages suffered. But Joya lived in Iran during much of the Taliban's rule.

Asked how she formed her viewpoint, she said only, "I suffered a lot and I saw people I know suffer. They cried, and I cried with them."

She has yet to make a concrete proposal for neutralizing the power of former commanders. So far, that doesn't seem to matter. Many people believe she is one of the few politicians who speak the truth.

They agree with her that brutal warlords now serving in high government positions are unlikely to look out for the best interests of the country.

"Malalai Joya says what many people know to be true," said Saad Mohseni, the director of Moby Capital Partners, which runs the popular Tolo TV channel.

Sharif's husband, Zadran, also says he admires Joya. "Not many people are willing to say the things she says, and to speak honestly about our situation in Afghanistan," he told his wife as they discussed corruption in their home province.

Joya's candor has provoked such serious threats that she canceled plans to visit her home province of Farah during parliament's six-week summer break because she could not get the United Nations to provide sufficient protection. In Kabul, she moves every few days among several houses where friends or relatives shelter her.

She stays in the public eye through high-profile speeches in parliament and regular interviews with journalists. One evening last summer, she invited 20 reporters to dinner at her home in Kabul.

"The current government is in the hands of warlords," she told the journalists. "Peace and security cannot be established. Bribery has reached its zenith. The current government is involved in bribery, smuggling and bombings."

There is little difference between the Taliban and its Northern Alliance enemies, she declared. "The Taliban and Northern Alliance are connected to each other like a chain. In fact, the Northern Alliance is a good brother of the Taliban."

Former militia commanders resent her deeply, some because she reminds the country of their misdeeds and others because they believe they deserve thanks for fighting the Taliban.

When Joya took to the parliament floor in May with another of her denunciations, some threw water bottles at her. Other legislators ran forward to shield her. Someone ordered her microphone turned off so her comments would not be audible on television.

Despite the obstacles, legislators all have their own reasons for staying in parliament. But for many, the frustration level is high and their commitment is tenuous. "Sometimes I wake up and I think I should just stay home and not go out and try to change things," said Sharif.

The bigger risk is that Afghanistan will fall back on the code of violence that has dominated its history.

Joya said that along with the water bottles came a threat from Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, a warlord notorious for his cruelty who has become a powerful member of parliament: "She is lucky it was water bottles and not knives."

In Afghanistan, yesterday's warlords are today's bureaucrats

By David Zucchino Los Angeles Times

KABUL, Afghanistan — For an hour, Ismail Khan, the minister of energy and water, listened as his employees complained about their department's dismal image: People called them lazy, corrupt and inefficient. Customers accused them of demanding bribes.

Khan sat on a stage in the meeting hall and glowered. "Baseless lies!" he spat out. That was the end of it. Khan runs his ministry the way he once ruled over western Afghanistan as supreme warlord from his headquarters in Herat. His word is law.

But Khan the warlord, still wearing his white robes and black-and-white headdress, is now also Khan the public servant. He works in an office adorned with old maps of Kabul's power grid. And he is accountable to the public for his failures on what even his critics acknowledge is an impossible mission.

Afghans expected progress after U.S. forces, aided by Northern Alliance warlords such as Khan, toppled the Taliban five years ago.

But electric service is still unreliable, despite millions of dollars in aid and U.S. promises of a modern Afghanistan. Khan's ministry is barely able to provide two hours of electricity per day to Kabul, and none for 90 percent of the rest of this ruined nation.

Khan himself represents one of the grand experiments of the post-Taliban era: the transformation of warlords into public servants. Five years ago, President Hamid Karzai declared that Afghanistan's "era of warlordism is over."

With U.S. help, he strong-armed Khan and other major warlords into jobs as ministers and governors, asking them to deliver services for Afghanistan's first democratically elected government.

Despite Karzai's declaration, the warlords remain one of the most powerful forces in the country. Scores are entrenched in the provinces, fielding private armies, profiting from the opium trade and co-opting police officials. Those like Khan who have come to Kabul know they easily could reconstitute their militias. In the meantime, they are untouchable.

U.N. officials and foreign donors say one of the biggest obstacles to disarming militias is Karim Khalili, a former warlord who is the leader of the persecuted Hazara minority.

Khalili is also Karzai's vice president — and the government's director for a U.N. program, the Disbandment of Illegal Armed Groups, a project designed to rid the country of warlords and illegal militias.

There are more than 2,000 such groups across Afghanistan, U.N. officials say, with between 180,000 and 200,000 men under arms. Most are paid with profits from opium, which also helps warlords finance the gaudy new mansions that are springing up in Kabul.

In addition to drug money, warlords enrich themselves and pay their armies through illegal taxes, bribes, extortion, kickbacks and "fees" imposed at checkpoints. They dispense favors to petitioners, and, in many cases, maintain a patina of legitimacy in their dual roles as governors, police chiefs or district commissioners.

Khalili and Khan formally disbanded their militias and turned over heavy weapons under U.N. supervision when they entered the government. But Khalili recently helped block the disarmament program into Bamian province, his political stronghold, according to U.N. officials and diplomats.

Karzai cannot move against the militias because his police and military have little authority outside Kabul.

A recent U.N. attempt to disarm illegal militias in five provinces, including Herat, failed dismally. Only a few old weapons were collected. Local government officials and police refused to help.

Khalili, like Khan, says he is committed to public service but is hamstrung by the legacy of more than two decades of war and by the Taliban's resurgence in the south and east.

"I agree that people are mistrustful of the government," said Khalili, 56. "The expectations of the people are high, but the fight against terrorism means the government has not been able to do much for them so far."

Khalili acknowledged the limits of his new role as public servant. In Bamian, he said, "I was able to take fast action." But now, as a top national government official, he says his authority has limits.

"Unfortunately," he said, "I cannot implement decisions as easily as before."

For two years, Ajab Khan has trudged down the darkened hallways of offices at the Ministry of Energy and Water, papers in hand, seeking permission to hook up electricity to his home.

After spending the equivalent of $320 from his meager government salary, Khan, who is no relation to the energy minister, is livid. The money went for rishwat — bribes. He still has no electricity. He hasn't for 13 years, since electric lines in his west Kabul neighborhood were destroyed by civil war.

Standing outside a ministry office with dozens of angry men who had lined up for official signatures, Khan tenderly withdrew a piece of paper, its worn folds secured with tape. Each official signature on it came at a cost: $4 for low-level employees, $10 for mid-level officials and $20 for deputy ministers.

"The first thing they ask is not: 'How can I help you?' It's: 'How much will you pay?' " Khan said.

But his problem, he said, is also America's.

"The Americans promised us a modern country, but now everyone is disappointed in them," Khan said. "All the American money has gone to the top people in the government, and to the warlords. There's nothing for the people."

The steady roar of private generators reverberates throughout Kabul as homes and businesses provide their own power. But impoverished sections comprising 30 percent to 40 percent of Kabul have no power at all.

Shortages could get worse when the U.S. Agency for International Development cuts off payments for diesel fuel to run the ministry's power plants. The agency has paid $130 million the past two years, but the final payment covers fuel purchases only through November.

U.S. officials said the payments were meant to give the ministry time to provide its own fuel. Now the ministry is on its own. The problem will be compounded in winter when the rivers dry up because hydroelectric generators provide nearly half the electricity Kabul gets.

Energy Minister Khan said the Finance Ministry has promised him $34 million. He hopes international donors will pick up the rest.

When the Taliban fell in December 2001, Kabul had a population of about 500,000. Today, with the return of Afghan exiles from Pakistan and Iran, the city's population is an estimated 4 million. Thousands of new homes and businesses have shot up, sending electricity demand skyrocketing.

USAID, which is providing $750 million over five years for energy development, is leading a $468 million project to build power lines to electricity-rich Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. If completed on schedule in two years, the new lines could help meet the demand across Afghanistan.

Until then, local entrepreneurs and warlords are building small-scale local projects. And Ismail Khan is responsible for delivering the government's trickle of power. It is a miserable job, but Khan seems to confront it the same way he confronted the Soviets and the Taliban, with bluster and supreme self-confidence.

"Our problems are great, but we will not lose courage, even with our limited resources," Khan said, concluding his speech to his employees.

The workers clapped perfunctorily.

Work starts on cricket stadium

Javid Hamim - KABUL, Nov 29 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Construction work on a modern cricket stadium has been started here at Kabul University.

Taj Malik, general secretary of the Afghanistan Cricket Federation (ACF), told Pajhwok Afghan News the playground would be constructed on over 6-acre land of the Engineering Faculty of the university.

He said after signing a lease agreement the land would be in their possession for ten years. He said Asian Cricket Council had promised $52,000 for the stadium that would soon be given to the federation. Malik said they would get other aid from private companies and well-off people. Press officer of the ACF Zarab Shah Zahir told this news agency after completion of the first portion of the stadium, separate rooms would be built for the audiences, guests and trainers.

Earlier, chairman of the ACF Shahzada Masud inaugurated the playground. He told this news agency the stadium would help in shining abilities of the players. Masud said with construction of the stadium the players would win more honour for country in the international matches.

[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.]