In this bulletin:

• Kabul suicide bomber kills five
• 16 Taliban, 3 cops killed in southern Afghanistan
• Afghan offensive claims fifth Canadian soldier
• 'This is the wrong mission for Canada,' Layton says
• Love the soldiers? Love the soldiering
• Drive to arrest pro-Taliban refugees
• Suicide attacks killed 105 civilians in Afghanistan this year
• Afghan agency comments on Pakistan's pact with pro-Taleban militia
• India to host meet on Afghanistan
• No Canada plan to base troops in Pakistan: minister
• Britain Defends Afghan Mission as Criticism Grows
• British Military Investigates Air Crash Which Killed 14 British Soldiers In Afghanistan
• Britain in Afghanistan
• Opinion: Task before Kabul summit
• Human rights at risk as Pakistan gives way to the Taliban
• Troops withdraw from N Waziristan
• New York Times calls Musharraf regime a ‘garden-variety military dictatorship’
• How U.S. dollars disappear in Afghanistan: quickly and thoroughly
• Readers Unimpressed by Afghan Papers
• Sarah of Afghanistan

Kabul suicide bomber kills five – BBC 9/4/06

At least four Afghan civilians and a British soldier have been killed in a suicide bomb attack on a Nato convoy in the capital, Kabul, officials say. At least three UK soldiers and four civilians were hurt in the blast on the Kabul-Jalalabad road.

Separately, a Canadian soldier has been killed and several others wounded in a so-called "friendly fire" incident. The deaths come amid a major offensive against the Taleban. The UK lost 14 troops in a plane crash on Saturday.

Initial reports from Afghan police said two British soldiers had been killed in the Kabul bombing, but in a later statement the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) said one soldier had died and another was very seriously injured.

An Afghan interior ministry spokesman told Reuters news agency the suicide bomber had rammed his car into the Nato convoy.

The friendly fire death happened at dawn as Nato troops battled Taleban insurgents in the Panjwayi district, west of Kandahar. The soldiers called in air support and two Nato aircraft responded, but fired cannon at their own soldiers during a strafing run. Several soldiers were wounded.

About 2,000 Nato and Afghan soldiers are involved in Operation Medusa in southern Afghanistan. It is the biggest military operation in southern Afghanistan since the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) took over the area from a US-led coalition at the end of July.

It is concentrated on the Panjwayi area, about 35km (20 miles) west of Kandahar city, which has seen months of fighting. More than 200 Taleban fighters and four Canadian soldiers with the Nato forces were killed in the operation over the weekend, Nato said.

An Afghan defence ministry spokesman put the suspected Taleban losses at 89, and said a number of civilians had also died. Nato spokesman Mark Laity told the BBC that Nato forces were currently undergoing a period of "intense combat", particularly in the south of the country.

But he said forces were "not fighting for fighting's sake". "Our ultimate goal is still the same as when we came - which is to secure more stability in order that development and governance can take place."
On Monday, police in southern Afghanistan said they had beaten off an attack by Taleban rebels on local government headquarters in the town of Garmser in Helmand province. The town's police chief said 16 Taleban fighters had died in the attack. Three policeman were also killed during several hours of fighting.

In a separate incident, two police including a senior officer were killed in an ambush near Kabul, the Afghan officials said. The attack took place late on Sunday in Parwan province about 30km (18 miles) north of the capital.

16 Taliban, 3 cops killed in southern Afghanistan

The News International 4 September 2006

KANDAHAR: Suspected Taliban militants attacked a district headquarters in a southern Afghan town early on Monday, sparking fighting that left 16 militants and three police dead, an official said.

A ``big group'' of militants launched the attack in Garmser, in Helmand province, at around 1:00 a.m., and retreated after four hours of fighting, said provincial police chief Ghulam Nadi Malakhel.

The militants took away seven bodies of their comrades and 10 wounded, but left nine bodies behind, along with an array of weapons, he said.

Afghan offensive claims fifth Canadian soldier

'Friendly fire' wounds more than a dozen others - GRAEME SMITH - Globe and Mail Update 9/4/06

PANJWAI DISTRICT, Afghanistan — Another Canadian soldier died and more than a dozen were wounded Monday as they pushed ahead with one of the country's biggest battles since the Second World War.

The "friendly fire" incident occurred at about 5:30 a.m. local time, when a U.S. A-10 Thunderbolt airplane, known familiarly as the Warthog, mistakenly fired on a group of Canadian vehicles during an offensive that included a barrage by jets and artillery.

Officials confirmed that one Canadian soldier had died and a number of others wounded. Initial reports suggest six were critically hurt, another six seriously and 12 were "walking wounded."

"This has been a tough hit, but Canadians are continuing the fight and continuing with operation Medusa," Brigadier-General David Fraser, the commander of NATO forces in southern Afghanistan, said in a statement released Monday.

Canadian military officials would not confirm casualty figures while the operation was continuing. Families of the soldiers involved are being notified. No names have yet been released.

The mishap occurred during after ground troops requested air support, NATO said. "Two ISAF [NATO's International Security Assistance Force] aircraft provided the support but regrettably engaged friendly forces during a strafing run, using cannons," the statement said.

The incident comes a day after four Canadian soldiers were killed in clashes with Taliban fighters in Panjawai, west of Kandahar.

Those Canadians were killed just before 9 a.m. Sunday, as troops crossed the dry Arghandab riverbed about 15 kilometres west of Kandahar and tried to gain a foothold on the north bank, where Taliban fighters have seized control of a key stronghold in the district of Panjwai.

The offensive, code-named Medusa, involves almost the entire strength of Canada's military in Afghanistan, plus hundreds of Afghan troops and forces from four other countries.

The Canadians had warned their adversaries about the coming attack with leaflets and radio bulletins. Just before the foreign soldiers arrived, insurgent leaders representing as many as 1,000 Taliban organized a shura (meeting) where by some accounts they urgently debated whether to retreat east into the district of Dand. But they decided that the inevitable showdown with the Canadians would be best fought in the natural defensive terrain of Panjwai's trenches, dry canals and thick mud walls.

“The foreigners will die here,” a Taliban fighter said Saturday, reached by telephone.

Military planners had hoped the Canadians' warnings would scare residents away from Panjwai (reducing the risk of civilian deaths) and intimidate the Taliban into giving up their hold on the strategic smuggling route near Afghanistan's second-largest city. Instead, the insurgents hit them with well-organized ambushes.

“I was surprised by the resistance they put up,” said Major Geoff Abthorpe, commander of Bravo Company. “We came at them with what I perceived to be a pretty heavy fist. And we gave them lots of fair warning with the intent they would thin out, and ultimately not be on the objective when we got there,” he said.

“That's not to say we didn't expect enemy. But their tenacious hold on positions in the south caught me a little off guard.”

Military officials have been vague about the number of Canadian soldiers in the operation, but they say it's their largest mustering of force since the Second World War. And despite the four Canadians killed and as many as seven wounded — it was one of the bloodiest days since Canada sent troops to Afghanistan in 2002 — the soldiers seemed energetic as their armoured vehicles edged deeper into Taliban territory.

“We're making Canadian history, and that's not lost on these boys,” said Captain Piers Poppin, a platoon commander.

The Canadians had yet to achieve their goal of capturing a cluster of villages known as Pashmul, a Taliban stronghold. Canadian artillery and allied aircraft started pounding the area Saturday morning, and ground troops moved in early yesterday, but were forced to pull back by the fierce resistance.

Yet Gen. Fraser, commander of North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces in southern Afghanistan, said more than 80 Taliban fighters had been captured, 180 had fled the district and an estimated 200 had been killed. (Unofficial estimates put the number of confirmed kills somewhat lower, at perhaps 45 or 50.)

“On the balance, it was an extremely successful day,” Gen. Fraser said. “... The four who died certainly did not die in vain.”

The first NATO casualties of the Operation Medusa came Saturday, when a British Nimrod MR2 reconnaissance plane crashed as a result of a “technical” problem, a NATO spokesman said. He stressed that it was not shot down. Twelve Royal Air Force personnel, a Royal Marine and a British Army soldier were killed, the biggest single loss of British troops in Afghanistan or Iraq.

Few details were released about how the four Canadians died, but their colleagues suggested they were probably working in a casualty unit, which helps get the dead and wounded off the battlefield.

Even before the insurgents showed their willingness to fight this weekend, Canadian officials were describing Operation Medusa as an escalation in the style of warfare in southern Afghanistan. Fighters have generally employed hit-and-run guerrilla tactics, but the sheer number of insurgents in Panjwai makes them almost a conventional military force. At least six Canadians have died and 32 suffered injuries in previous attacks in the district.

“I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a conventional fight,” said Colonel Fred Lewis, deputy commander of the Canadian contingent. “Maybe semi-conventional. We have moved slightly off traditional guerrilla operations.”

As the war grows, the Canadian military has also shown greater concern about its effect on civilians. This battle includes unprecedented planning for helping civilians in the affected areas, according to NATO officials — the military has budgeted $500,000 to buy tractors, wool blankets, rice, beans, tea and other items local people will need in the fighting's aftermath.

However, some soldiers suggested yesterday that warning civilians about the impending attack may have been too kind.

“Any time you broadcast plans as openly as we did in that respect to an enemy force, they will take the opportunity to do something with that time,” Major Abthorpe said. “Time on the battlefield is one of the most powerful weapons we have. That was a double-edged sword we attempted.”

Now that the fight has started, Major Abthorpe added, the Taliban shouldn't expect any more gentle tactics. “As Canadians, I think we like to go in a little softer handed, because we're not used to this,” he said. “Well, we're getting our noses bloodied, so it's time to hit back a lot harder.”

'This is the wrong mission for Canada,' Layton says- Globe and Mail 9/4/06

OTTAWA -- NDP Leader Jack Layton stepped up his call for Ottawa to pull its troops from Afghanistan after four more Canadian soldiers were killed fighting Taliban insurgents.

"This is the wrong mission for Canada," he said yesterday. "It doesn't have light at the end of the tunnel," Mr. Layton said of the military operations, which have cost Canada the lives of 31 soldiers and one diplomat since 2002.

He said the New Democratic Party accepts that Canadian soldiers must risk their lives from time to time, but it cannot see any prospects of success in Afghanistan.

Mr. Layton, who drew criticism last week for recommending Ottawa invite Taliban leaders to peace talks, defended his suggestion by saying negotiation was better than warfare.

"Our troops are already in discussion with the Taliban," he added, referring to a Canadian newspaper report last month citing unnamed sources saying Canada is involved in secret disarmament talks.

Mr. Layton said he has no wish to see the Taliban -- which oppressed women -- regain control of Afghanistan, but said the first priority is to stop the conflict.

"Far from little girls going to school, little girls and their families are being told to evacuate their communities so the war could take place. This is not a strategy that is going to lead to the emancipation of anybody."

Asked whether he planned to travel to Afghanistan to see the mission firsthand, Mr. Layton said he had given no thought to the notion. "I haven't turned my mind to that issue at all . . . I really haven't."

The NDP Leader first called for Canada to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan on Aug. 31 -- one week before his party's convention in Quebec City.

NDP supporters have suggested Mr. Layton timed the move to discourage the party from adopting a more controversial resolution at the convention.

Party insiders have noted that NDP conventions tend to attract delegates from the far left of the party. That the convention is being held in Quebec, where support for the mission is lowest, means the far left could have a strong presence as delegates vote on new policies.

This past May, the House of Commons voted by a slim margin to extend the mission in Afghanistan until February of 2009 -- a motion the NDP opposed. Mr. Layton said the motion might be defeated if another vote took place today.

Love the soldiers? Love the soldiering

Sad faces and peace talk aside, the new NDP line is a fraud, Christie Blatchford writes - CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD – Globe and Mail 9/4/06

I covered Jack Layton during the last federal election. I like him. I know him not to be a stupid man, and he's certainly fun. We exchanged iPods on the campaign plane one day. I used to joke and call myself his unofficial publicist, so shamelessly affectionate were the pieces I filed from my time on his tour.

I saw him on CBC Newsworld yesterday afternoon and if I could have, I would have reached into my television set and grabbed him by the throat -- anything to shake some sense into him and knock off that pious expression of sorrow.

Mr. Layton had his sad face on. This is what our politicians wear when they talk about dead Canadian soldiers. Mr. Layton is not alone in this. And I don't doubt that he also was genuinely sad, or that all of them are sad.

But of the major federal parties, only Mr. Layton and the New Democrats want to invite the killers of Canadian soldiers to the negotiating table.

He was on the tube because four young Canadians from the Royal Canadian Regiment were killed yesterday; it must be of some considerable comfort to their families that as part of the fallout, folks like Mr. Layton were invited on air to give their views.

It is not putting it too harshly to say that Mr. Layton would engage in the "comprehensive peace process" he envisions for Afghanistan with the killers of these young men.

Indeed, he said as much last week. "We believe that a comprehensive peace process has to bring all combatants to the table. You don't accomplish peace if those who are fighting are not involved in the peace-based discussion," he said. Asked if by this he meant the Taliban, Mr. Layton repeated, "A comprehensive peace process has to bring all the combatants to the table." Since the combatants include on one side the soldiers of the North-Atlantic-Treaty-Organization-led coalition there at the request of the Afghan government, and on the other the Taliban and their ragtag collection of allies, it's pretty clear what he meant.

I wonder how he might actually swing it, were he the PM and that process was starting today. Would he chide the "combatants" ("Bad Taliban!") even as he welcomed them to the peace talks? Would he pull out the chairs for their representatives? Would he pour the tea for those who have killed 23 Canadian soldiers this year?

Mr. Layton, as he briefly reminded Newsworld viewers yesterday, doesn't think this is the mission for Canada; there isn't the "proper balance" between nation-building and combat; the soldiers ought to be brought home next February.

This is all part of the party's effort to position itself as being supportive of the troops while also being opposed to the mission. Of course it is possible to do both things. Anyone with a shred of intelligence knows that Canadian soldiers go only where their government tells them to go, do only what their government asks them to do: The soldiers should always be supported, because they only do the bidding of their political masters. If the political masters get it wrong, soldiers ought not to carry the can.

But Mr. Layton and the NDP take this one step further. He and they want to be seen as soldier-loving.
This is a fraud, as even a cursory parsing of Mr. Layton's statement last week illustrates. It's pretty clear what New Democrats don't like: They don't like the "aggressive" nature of the mission; they don't like that it's a counterinsurgency; they don't like the "combat" thrust of it.

But combat is what all soldiers are trained to do, and was even where there were actually places in the world for peacekeepers. Aggression is part of who soldiers are, as integral as boots and weapons, and was even when Canadians were posted in Cyprus. Aggression is not a bad thing or a character flaw; it is a prerequisite of those who wear what soldiers call the "green suit," the uniform.

Now, it happens that Canadian soldiers are also good at the softer skills of their trade.

They can sit down with village elders, build a bridge physically or metaphorically and make friends with school children as well as and probably better than any other soldiers in the world. They are gentle when circumstances allow, and hard when they don't, and they can switch gears in a New York minute.

But they are also terrific, courageous and dogged soldiers, and to be perfectly frank, for many of them, combat is considered the only real test of professionalism.

In the early days of the mission in Kandahar province, when the Canadians were just beginning to get the lay of the land and the Taliban was still getting the measure of them, our soldiers were holding two and three shuras a day and giving out toys to lovely Afghan children at every turn. Then, starting in February, their vehicles began to get blown up by roadside bombs and suiciders, and then the Taliban ambushes began, and then the rocket and mortar attacks on their patrol bases.

The time for peacemaking was over, and the war was on: The Canadians are there to provide security such that Afghanistan can rebuild. The former necessarily comes first. Reconstruction efforts and capacity-building for the new Afghan government haven't ended, but for months now, they have taken a back seat to fighting.

One of the last interviews I had this July in Afghanistan was with a young captain who had just returned from weeks of combat. He described entering the smouldering ruin of an elementary school the Taliban had occupied and gutted, burning everything -- children's desks, little pictures of the students, drawings on the wall. As much as anything else, he was shaken by the raw evidence of nihilism.

That's what the Taliban do -- burn schools, threaten teachers, behead and target those who would build up, as opposed to reduce to ashes. Oh yes, they kill too.

They are wonderfully egalitarian about it, to be fair. The NDP would have to admire that spirit. The Taliban kill Canadians, Americans, Romanians and the British, too, and try to kill soldiers from the other countries (there are seven key ones, but a total of 26 NATO members contributing to the mission) that make up the coalition in Afghanistan, although mostly who they kill are Afghans, especially civilians who either get in the way of their roadside bombs and suicide bombers or don't get out of the way (usually because the Taliban are occupying their homes and hiding behind them) when they decide it's time to fight.

As Mr. Layton said in that speech now posted on the party website, New Democrats may "grieve with each family that loses a loved one in this and all conflicts, or sees a loved one injured in the line of duty," but their grief is dishonest. You can't position yourself as a soldier-lover when you loathe soldiering. That statement ends with a pitch for donations and a call for signatures on a petition. "Support our troops," it says. In a pig's ear.

Drive to arrest pro-Taliban refugees - Staff Report Daily Times 4 September 2006

ISLAMABAD: The Interior Ministry has launched a countrywide operation to arrest pro-Taliban Afghan refugees and hand them over to the Afghan government.

Official sources told Daily Times that security agencies had so far arrested 100 pro-Taliban Afghan refugees from all over Pakistan and handed them over to Afghanistan. Intelligence reports indicated that these Afghans posed a security risk to Pakistan, the sources said.

The Interior Ministry has directed the provincial governments to monitor Afghan refugees and take prompt action against those supporting militant activities.

The sources said the security agencies were also trying to identify operatives of the former Taliban regime who were hiding in Pakistan as refugees. Afghanistan has accused Pakistan of harbouring Taliban operatives, but Pakistan has always denied this.

The ministry has also directed the provincial authorities to help facilitate the repatriation of refugees under the UNHCR repatriation programme.

Over 100,000 Afghan refugees have left Pakistan this year – and over 2.84 million since the fall of the Taliban government in 2001 – but an estimated 2.6 million still remain in Pakistan.

Suicide attacks killed 105 civilians in Afghanistan this year

Text of report by Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press news agency

Kabul, 3 August: A statement released by the press office of the coalition forces in Kabul this afternoon, 3 August, gave the full details of casualties in suicide attacks throughout Afghanistan.

According to the statement, up to 12 August this year, 84 per cent of those killed in the suicide attacks by the Taleban were civilians.

The statement says: "124 persons have been killed in suicide attacks this year, of which 105 are civilians, and five are from the coalition forces, and 14 others were members of the Afghan police and army."

The statement, quoting a spokesman of the coalition forces, Thomas Colins, says: "The Taleban have nothing to give to the Afghan people except killing and destruction. The suicide bombers do not value and respect the life of Afghan people. They carry out this act in the name of jihad but it is not mentioned in the Koran to kill civilians by suicide attacks."

It is worth mentioning that many civilians were martyred in the suicide attack that took place in a bazaar in Panjwaee District, Kandahar Province, two consecutive suicide attack in Kandahar city and another in the Khano Market of Lashkargah city, Helmand Province.

It should not be forgotten that the Taleban always exaggerated the number of deaths amongst Afghan and coalition forces in suicide attacks this year compared to what the coalition recorded in their press statement.

Afghan agency comments on Pakistan's pact with pro-Taleban militia

Text of report in English by Afghan independent Pajhwok news agency website

Kabul, 3 September: Pro-Taleban militants in Pakistan's Waziristan Agency signed an agreement with the government of Pakistan to bring calm to the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan.

The two sides reached the agreement over a permanent ceasefire with the help of tribal elders. The agreement signed on Saturday [2 September] was not unveiled but officials say it would be publicized next week.

Sources privy to the whole affair, said the Pakistani government agreed to the demand of militants regarding non-interference. The source said the military personnel deployed in north Waziristan would not carry out operations against the militants.

The understanding between the two sides reached during a jerga held at Madressa Ashrafia near Miramshah, headquarters of the troubled North Waziristan Agency. Under other clauses of the pact, the government would release all those detained during operation, return the weapons and vehicles seized, restore privileges of the tribal maliks (elders) and dismantle security posts, including those at Esha, Khajori and Boya.

The militants also demanded compensations for those killed in military operations; however, the point remained unresolved and it was decided the tribal jerga would deliberate on it, said the sources. In return, the miscreants agreed to put a halt to their attacks on military or creating law and order situation in the agency.

One of the major demands of the government was that the foreigners, hiding in the agency, should either leave the area or register themselves with the government and abide by the laws of the land.

In return for the concessions given by the government of Pakistan, the pro-Taleban militants have reportedly agreed to distance themselves from the foreigners as well as avoid disturbing the peace of the region.

The clauses, so far revealed by the sources, did not mention Afghanistan or what the two sides decided about the 'infiltration.' Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan are at the lowest ebb over the past few months due to the allegations and counter-allegations of cross-border infiltration.

Pakistan says it has deployed 80,000 troops on the border to avoid militants cross into Afghanistan or re-enter Pakistan from the other side. However, none of the clauses so far revealed referred to the infiltration issue, often raised by Afghan officials.

In their recent statements, the pro-Taleban militants in Waziristan have time and again announced support for Taleban fighting in Afghanistan, as well as expressed their disdain for the foreign forces.

India to host meet on Afghanistan - via NDTV - September 3, 2006 (New Delhi)

Foreign Ministers of 18 countries, including those of the US and Pakistan, will assemble in New Delhi in November for a conference on Afghanistan.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai will also be attending to inaugurate the two-day Foreign Ministers' Conference on November 18 on Economic Reconstruction in the war-ravaged country.

The second such conclave will be attended by Foreign Ministers of 18 countries neighbouring Afghanistan and donor nations like the US, Britain and Russia. Heads of 10 multi-lateral organisations like the UN, UNDP, World Bank, IMF, European Commission and ADB would also be invited for the meet.

The occasion will also provide a chance for bilateral discussions with these countries. The conference offers an exceptional opportunity for the region to work together to promote security and development in Afghanistan.

The focus of the conclave is expected to be promotion of specific forms of economic cooperation in areas of critical concern, including electricity, border management, trade promotion and investment.
The first such conference was held in Kabul in December last year, and it was attended by 11 countries. (PTI)

No Canada plan to base troops in Pakistan: minister - Daily Times 4 September 2006

OTTAWA: Canada has no plans to deploy troops to Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, Defense Minister Gordon O’Connor said, denying reports that he had suggested such a deployment.

However, he added in a statement late Saturday, cooperation between Canadian and Pakistan troops fighting Al-Qaeda and Taliban forces along the border could involve placing a few Canadian liaison officers with the Pakistan military.

“At no time did I advocate, suggest or imply I favoured stand-alone Canadian troop deployment in Pakistan,” O’Connor said of Canadian media reports after his visit to Islamabad. “What I said was that Canada needs to engage with Pakistan as part of our security and reconstruction mission in Afghanistan. This means greater coordination between Canadian troops in Kandahar and Pakistani troops in Western Pakistan,” he said in the statement.

“This would not involve the stationing of stand-alone Canadian military units in Western Pakistan, but rather would involve one or two Canadian liaison officers working within Pakistani military headquarters in Western Pakistan.” O’Connor said Canadian forces regularly embed such officers inside units of allied troops to better coordinate activities. afp

Britain Defends Afghan Mission as Criticism Grows - By REUTERS - Published: September 3, 2006

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain defended its role in Afghanistan and the reliability of its equipment on Sunday after the country's worst military air crash in years sparked growing criticism of the British mission in the country.

Fourteen military personnel died when a Nimrod MR2 reconnaissance aircraft crashed, apparently due to a technical problem, in the southern province of Kandahar on Saturday.

The loss, coupled with the death of seven British soldiers in a month in fierce fighting with Taliban guerrillas in the south, revived questions about the nature of the British mission and whether simultaneous deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq were stretching the military's resources beyond its limits.

Critics say the British troops went to southern Afghanistan to provide security for reconstruction but have been drawn into a full-scale war with the Taliban.

``I think the armed forces have been under-funded and under-equipped now for some time, yet they are doing far more than they've ever done. So the government needs now to square up to their responsibilities,'' Iain Duncan Smith, a former leader of the opposition Conservative Party, told Sky television.

``The government are going to have to answer some very, very hard questions about what (British) troops are doing in Afghanistan and are the force levels appropriate?,'' defense analyst Charles Heyman told Reuters.

Defense Secretary Des Browne, interviewed on the BBC, said there was no link between the plane crash and criticism about the resources that British troops in Afghanistan had.

``The RAF (Royal Air Force) has an exemplary record of maintaining and supporting its aircraft,'' Browne said.

An investigation into the crash is under way, but Browne repeated that ``all the indications'' were that the crash was an accident. Browne and NATO officials have rejected Taliban assertions they shot down the plane.

Browne stressed Britain's commitment to the Afghan mission. ``We have an international responsibility to these people (the Afghans) and to ourselves to see this through,'' he said.

Britain has faced unexpectedly fierce resistance from Taliban fighters since sending the first large foreign force to the southern province of Helmand, the main opium-growing region, this year as part of an expanding NATO peacekeeping mission.

Saturday's crash -- reported to be the British military's worst air disaster since an RAF Chinook helicopter carrying intelligence officers crashed in Scotland in 1994, killing 29 people -- brought to 36 the British service members who have died in Afghanistan since November 2001.

The fierce resistance in Helmand has prompted questions about whether the British mission is clear and whether its forces are equipped for the job.

Newspapers have been full of talk of exhausted troops, budget cuts affecting the army's resources and criticism that the force does not have enough soldiers or equipment such as armored vehicles.
Responding to the fierce Taliban resistance, Britain said in July it would send 900 more troops and extra helicopters to southern Afghanistan, bringing the total force in the region to 4,500. It has also ordered more armored vehicles.

British Military Investigates Air Crash Which Killed 14 British Soldiers In Afghanistan

Radio Free Europe - radio Liberty LONDON September 3, 2006

Britain's Defense Ministry has opened an investigation into Saturday's (September 2) crash of a British spy plane in southern Afghanistan which killed 14 of its troops.

The Royal Air Force Nimrod MR2 aircraft was flying in support of an international operation when it went down, apparently due to a technical problem, in the province of Kandahar.

Defense Secretary Des Browne told British television that the area of the crash has been secured and an investigation has begun. Browne rejected as a lie claims by Taliban guerrillas to have shot down the aircraft. NATO earlier said a technical problem may have been to blame.

It's the greatest loss of British life in Afghanistan in a single incident. Some 36 British soldiers have now been killed there since 2001. Afghan and NATO forces announced on Saturday they had launched a major anti-Taliban offensive in southern Afghanistan.

Britain in Afghanistan - A dangerous but necessary mission that must be properly equipped

The Times September 04, 2006

The loss of 14 service personnel in Afghanistan on Saturday illustrates again the danger involved in this mission. The crash was reportedly an accident, but that will be of little comfort to the families concerned and to a public which is waking up to the fact that the Taleban, which appeared to have been defeated nearly five years ago, is attempting to reassert itself. While there are parts of Afghanistan where outside forces really are serving at “peacekeepers”, many areas within the Helmand province and Kandahar are, in effect, a combat zone. Those who were on board the crashed plane were monitoring Taleban activities to relay that information to Nato troops.

In overall military terms, however, this is an operation that can be won even if it has proved to be more arduous than anticipated. The quality of British soldiers on the ground is very high and the damage that they have inflicted on the Taleban rebels is considerable. These men are being well supported by units from the Canadian armed forces — four of whom were killed in action yesterday. It is inevitable that there will be more military casualties in Afghanistan to come.

The scale of those losses depends in part on the performance of the equipment assigned to the troops. Conditions in Afghanistan are challenging. The climate varies between searing heat for much of the year and heavy snowfall once winter sets in, as it will do shortly. Most of the material which Nato has at its command was never designed with this sort of conflict in mind. Improvisation has been essential. The Nimrod MR2 which went down this weekend was originally meant for maritime warfare and had to be adapted for local circumstances. This may be irrelevant to its fate but it is indicative of what is occurring.

If the military had large amounts of surplus resources elsewhere, then it would obviously redirect it to Afghanistan. The blunt truth, though, is that it does not have sizeable stocks instantly on call. Where, for example, helicopters that can be reconfigured with relative ease have been identified, they are seconded. This is, of practicality, a rather piecemeal procedure. That in turn means equipment in the theatre is being quite severely stretched. Reinforcement, as should be provided, would means spending extra money.

For if the fighting in Afghanistan is to continue at the current level, then the financial allocation that was initially made — £1 billion taken from the Treasury contingency reserve, not the defence budget, to be accounted for over five years — will obviously be inadequate. It is perfectly possible that the threat posed by the Taleban will be reduced in a relatively short order, but it would be wise to increase the sum that can be spent by the military. They should not have to penny-pinch.

Kim Howells, the Foreign Office Minister, arrived in Kabul yesterday for his fourth trip to the country and pointed out the achievements that have been made in reconstructing Afghanistan despite the Taleban’s campaign. Those who have visited British soldiers there do not detect any crisis of morale. But when the winter arrives the soldiering season will largely stop, and an assessment has to be made as to whether the number of troops is sufficient for the task in hand and, vitally, what is to be done about their equipment. The Ministry of Defence should not shirk in submitting its supplemental bid, nor should the Treasury withhold backing for that sum of money.

Opinion: Task before Kabul summit

Dawn 4 September 2006 - By Tanvir Ahmad Khan
IN the chequered history of relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan, there have been periods of tension that fall into two distinct categories: periods when lack of amity obstructed or delayed the fruits of bilateral cooperation but did not produce a damaging crisis and others when tensions led to serious consequences for either side.

Despite the absence of a genuine rapprochement between the two countries, Pakistan felt assured enough of Afghanistan’s good intentions in the wars with India in 1965 and 1971 to leave the common border virtually unattended. Deterioration of relations consequent upon the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan, however, resulted in a protracted war-like situation. The cloud of uncertainty that hangs over bilateral relations today essentially belongs to the second category. Unless the two countries engage in vigorous diplomacy; it can have deleterious effects for both of them.

Though worthwhile in their own right the more recent diplomatic contacts have not dispelled this cloud; in fact, it thickens each time a careless statement is issued or a speculative allegation hurled across the Durand Line. This darkening of the cloud is the backdrop to President Musharraf’s next visit to Kabul and it is what invests this visit with exceptional importance.

There is, unfortunately, a mutual perception that ferments into distrust. In Pakistan, it is widely believed that elements of the erstwhile Northern Alliance continue to undermine Pakistan’s interests even if, with gradual progress in the reconstitution of the battered Afghan state, there has been erosion in the power conferred upon them by the American invasion. Many observers of the Afghan scene find President Hamid Karzai still at a disadvantage in the internal power structure when balanced against their cumulative influence on decision-making.

The pervasive fear in Pakistan is that these elements are not even rational enough to correctly read the imperative of close ties with Pakistan. The continuation of hostile propaganda against Pakistan especially in Kabul and north of the Hindukush is often cited as a serious obstacle to the creation of a climate conducive to a genuine partnership between the two countries. It is time that the leaders of the two countries face up to the existence of elements standing in the way of what should be a natural alliance between the two countries.

On the Afghan side, there is the growing problem of explaining a string of failures in counter-insurgency policies. It is aggravated by mounting evidence of a serious shortfall in plans for reconstruction and development. Dependent at present on foreign forces for its survival, the Kabul government is not free to question the wisdom of the initial invasion that overturned the reign of the much demonised Taliban. Even President Musharraf can ill-afford to do that after having anchored his foreign policy in the US-led global war against terrorism.

The poignancy of the Afghan situation is that their government cannot easily protest that the US invasion of Iraq relegated Afghanistan to a secondary level of priorities, the invasion of Iraq was the point from where the ongoing slide in military, political and economic security in Afghanistan began. The resultant diversion of resources to Iraq took place on a scale that compels many western analysts to refer to the conflict in Afghanistan as the forgotten war or at best “a side project”.

The upsurge in the armed resistance offered by the Taliban and allied groups since the beginning of this year is more easily blamed on the inadequacy of support from and vigilance by Pakistan than on grave flaws in the handling by the United States and others of the post-intervention problems. It is certainly not in Pakistan’s interest to walk away from these problems and there is, therefore, no alternative to effective engagement with Kabul. President Musharraf and President Karzai need to define and spell out the nature, scope and limits of this otherwise inescapable interaction. One has to re-state this objective as there is also a touch of exasperation in Pakistan that leads to a desire to disengage and retreat into a kind of benign neglect. This option is clearly short-sighted.

In a recent report written for Council on Foreign Relations, Professor Barnett Rubin observed that the world thus far has put Afghanistan on life support, rather than investing in a cure. In his estimation, Kabul was being dangerously short-changed in troops and funds in the shadow of the Iraq war. There are numerous other studies of the Afghan situation that trace and document the resurgence of the Taliban since 2003, the phenomenal expansion of the drug trade and the critical deficit in reconstruction work.

It is most unlikely that in the remaining period of his presidency, George W. Bush would be able to extricate the United States from the anarchy that now overshadows the Greater Middle East Project of which Iraq was to be the cornerstone. He may well spend the rest of his tenure reinforcing a great failure and thus remain constrained in his initiatives to make a success of the earlier project of reconstructing Afghanistan.

Nato has stepped in with the honourable intention of presiding over a shift of emphasis from military policy to nation-building and reconstruction. But it has tried to set the stage for this shift by supporting a major offensive designed to exterminate as many of the Taliban as possible. An increased incidence of suicide attacks is probably a desperate response to the magnitude of this new offensive.

The increased pressure on Pakistan to “do more” to curb alleged cross-border movement of the Taliban is also an extension of this offensive. There is no doubt about the considerable rise of Taliban casualties but it is difficult to conclude that resistance would be degraded to a level where the more constructive part of the Nato mission finds a congenial terrain.

The Karzai government can at present count on indigenous revenue of about $300 million; the drug-related economy is much larger. Development is almost entirely dependent on foreign assistance that can add up to three billion dollars. More recently, the government has sought much greater control of this assistance by linking it with its national development strategy. The World Bank, too, has been critical of wasteful projects launched by foreign agencies acting outside government control. There will have to be a significant improvement in the capacity of the Afghan state if the Nato plan is to get anywhere.

Professor Rubin’s report was probably mindful of the ground realities of the Afghan situation when it gave high priority to the country’s relations with the neighbours in its recommendations. This part of the report deserves President Musharraf’s attention in his parleys with Mr Karzai. It recognises the need for Afghanistan to reach a much deeper understanding with Pakistan and mentions Kabul’s relations with India in this context.

The primary task of an Afghanistan-Pakistan summit is cut out for it; it is to establish an overarching strategic partnership underpinned by mutually binding reciprocal obligations. The Karzai government’s expectations that Pakistan can be endlessly pressured by the United States to fight Kabul’s internal enemies are unrealistic. It has to discover, together with Pakistan, the true rationale of bilateral collaboration; in other words the two neighbouring states have to bow to the imperatives of history, geopolitics, faith and culture and forge a new political, economic and cultural alliance transcending past suspicions and recriminations.

Defying these imperatives for the sake of the Machiavellian politics of the early years of Pakistan — politics fuelled by Afghan revanchism and countered by Pakistani exploitation of Afghanistan’s landlocked status and political vulnerability — can only bring fresh disasters to this sub-region.

Pakistan and Afghanistan must realise that President Bush’s Middle East project is in shambles and the regional states may face a stark choice between the anarchy left behind by it or muster enough courage and imagination to craft viable alternatives in the best interests of their people. The American project relied on the availability of subalterns to manage this part of what set out to be a new kind of global empire. The interests of the people demand leaders of vision and commitment and who have a sense of history.

Pakistan and Afghanistan must not fritter away their energy in resurrecting issues that belong to the dustbin of history. They have a border which, instead of being fenced, can become one of the softest international frontiers straddled by kindred people. Their interaction need not remain confined to 19th century political machinations. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the states of Central Asia, the Gulf Cooperation Council, Iran, and last but not the least, Saarc beckon them to vaster horizons. There is even the traditional strategic spur pointing to Turkey. It is time this Muslim swathe of Asia shakes off the awe and shock of foreign invaders and scripts its own destiny.

If President Musharraf did not have this vision of expanding circles of cooperation, he would not have attached the highest priority to the Gwadar project. Consider it from any angle, it is a strategic development. The challenge now is to convert President Karzai, and more so the tunnel-visioned anti-Pakistan adventurers and war lords around him, to the great promise that awaits the region. Pakistan and Afghanistan have enough committees to address the nuts-and-bolts problems tossed up to them by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice or the cavalcade of western military officers who stalk the regional rulers. A summit should live up to its name and offer the certainty of a framework of relations valid for decades to come. Millions of Afghans and Pakistanis wait for it.

The writer is a former foreign secretary. Email tanvir.a.khan@gmail.com

Human rights at risk as Pakistan gives way to the Taliban

By Akhtar Amin - Daily Times 4 September 2006

PESHAWAR: Human rights violations are on the rise with the ever-increasing Taliban influence in the country’s north, writes the chairman of a non-governmental human rights institute in Peshawar.

Naeem Sarfaraz, who heads the Fazaldad Human Rights Institute, says that madrassas in the areas along the Durand Line had trained the Taliban militants who established their regime in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of the Soviet forces. The Taliban have now “put Pakistan in danger” and converted Pakistan’s “tolerant and moderate society” into extremists who routinely violate human rights, Sarfaraz writes in his report: ‘Human Rights for Teachers and Administrators’.

Increasing child labour, denial of voting rights to women and the tribal customs of Swara and Vani are a few of the challenges faced by his organisation, Sarfaraz says.

On the other hand, the army’s military operations in the areas have inadvertently massacred hundreds of innocent tribesmen, putting the government’s standing in jeopardy. Abductions of tribal chiefs and journalists, for which the locals blame the country’s intelligence agencies, has also dwindled people’s confidence in the government. Locals retaliate by vandalising government property. The Fazaldad Institute aims at spreading the message of tolerance, its chairman says. Respect for human rights and dignity is the only way forward to freedom, justice and universal peace, he says.

After the inclusion of human rights’ awareness in the elementary and secondary school syllabi, Sarfaraz is hopeful that the government realises the gravity of the issue. But more needs to be done; the government needs to ensure the implementation of the human rights’ protection laws, he says.

Troops withdraw from N Waziristan - Daily Times 4 September 2006

MIRANSHAH: Hundreds of army troops withdrew from posts on Sunday in North Waziristan, as an intelligence official said militants and the government were close to unveiling a peace deal.

About 250 troops have pulled back from 11 roadblocks in Miranshah, the intelligence official said on condition of anonymity. An unspecified number of troops have also left posts guarding two key government buildings, he said. Military spokesmen did not immediately confirm the withdrawal.

Under an agreement widely expected to be unveiled by the government this week, no militant will attack government officials or security forces in the region. In return, troops there “will not carry out operations against them,” a separate intelligence official had said on Saturday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Sunday’s troop withdrawal came a day after two other intelligence agents in Miranshah said that militants had signed an agreement to ensure “permanent peace” in the region. ap

New York Times calls Musharraf regime a ‘garden-variety military dictatorship’ - By Khalid Hasan - Daily Times 4 September 2006

WASHINGTON: The New York Times on Sunday, while noting the “contradictory” government statements about Akbar Bugti’s death, said that the army was the only constituency Gen Musharraf cared for and “so long as elections are brazenly rigged, opposition parties are banned and Washington’s uncritical support remains guaranteed, General Musharraf has little incentive” to take up any of the vital challenges he faced.

The newspaper, America’s most respected, said the Musharraf government “often acts like a garden-variety military dictatorship”.

In a stinging editorial, the newspaper said there were dangerous international terrorists hiding out in the mountain caves of Pakistan, but the 79-year-old Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, the Baloch tribal leader, politician and rebel, was not one of them. “Now Mr Bugti is dead and the impoverished but energy-rich province of Balochistan is in an uproar after an ill-explained military operation last month. After a week of contradictory government statements, the only things now clear are that Mr Bugti’s body was buried in the rubble of his blown-up mountain hideout, and that antigovernment fury in the restive province is at a new pitch of intensity.”

The newspaper said, “The last thing Pakistan needs is an upsurge in violence and repression in Balochistan. That would only be a distraction from far more important challenges, like developing a chronically underachieving economy; restoring a ravished democracy; and placing a dangerous nuclear weapons establishment, including exports of bomb-related technology, under firm and reliable civilian control.”

According to the New York Times, there are far more crucial things that Pakistan’s military could be doing than hunting down Bugti and his followers. “For example, it could finally seal its scandalously porous border with Afghanistan, making it much harder for the Taliban to infiltrate into that country the fighters killing American, NATO and Afghan soldiers. It could permanently shut down the Pakistan-based Kashmiri terrorist groups that have survived past crackdowns by reopening under new names, with little interference from Pakistani authorities. Not least, it could make a more serious effort to find and arrest Osama bin Laden, widely believed to have spent much of the past four and a half years on Pakistani soil. Any of these efforts would stir up opposition in one part or another of the Pakistani military, the only constituency that Pakistan’s president, Gen Pervez Musharraf, ever really cares about. So long as elections are brazenly rigged, opposition parties are banned and Washington’s uncritical support remains guaranteed, General Musharraf has little incentive to take up any of these vital challenges. When General Musharraf comes to the United States, he loves to be lauded as a leader in the war on terrorism. Back home, his government too often acts like a garden-variety military dictatorship.”

How U.S. dollars disappear in Afghanistan: quickly and thoroughly

San Francisco Chronicle Ann Jones

Remember when peaceful, democratic, reconstructed Afghanistan was advertised as the exemplar for the extreme makeover of Iraq? In August 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was already proclaiming the new Afghanistan "a breathtaking accomplishment" and "a successful model of what could happen to Iraq." As everybody now knows, the model isn't working in Iraq. So we shouldn't be surprised to learn that it's not working in Afghanistan either.

To understand the failure -- and fraud -- of reconstruction in Afghanistan, you have to take a look at the peculiar system of U.S. aid for international development. During the past five years, the United States and many other donor nations pledged billions of dollars to Afghanistan, yet Afghans keep asking: "Where did the money go?" American taxpayers should be asking the same question.

The official answer is that donor funds are lost to Afghan corruption. But shady Afghans, accustomed to two-bit bribes, are learning about big bucks from the masters of the world.

Other answers appear in a fact-packed report issued in June 2005 by Action Aid, a widely respected nongovernmental organization headquartered in Johannesburg. The report studies development aid given by all countries worldwide and says that only part of it -- maybe 40 percent -- is real. The rest is phantom aid. That is, it never shows up in recipient countries at all.

Some of it doesn't even exist except as an accounting item, as when countries count debt relief or the construction costs of a fancy new embassy in the aid column. A lot of it never leaves home; paychecks for American "experts" under contract to USAID go directly to their U.S. banks. Much of the money is thrown away on "overpriced and ineffective technical assistance," such as those hot-shot American experts, the report said. And big chunks are tied to the donor, which means that the recipient is obliged to use the money to buy products from the donor country, even when -- especially when -- the same goods are available cheaper at home.

To no one's surprise, the United States easily outstrips other nations at most of these scams, making it second only to France as the world's biggest purveyor of phantom aid. Fully 47 percent of U.S. development aid is lavished on overpriced technical assistance. By comparison, only 4 percent of Sweden's aid budget goes to technical assistance, while Luxembourg and Ireland lay out only 2 percent.

As for tying aid to the purchase of donor-made products, Sweden and Norway don't do it at all. Neither do Ireland and the United Kingdom. But 70 percent of U.S. aid is contingent upon the recipient spending it on American stuff, including especially American-made armaments. The upshot is that 86 cents of every dollar of U.S. aid is phantom aid.

According to targets set years ago by the United Nations and agreed to by almost every country in the world, rich countries should give 0.7 percent of their national income in annual aid to poor ones. So far, only the Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands and Luxembourg (with real aid at 0.65 percent of its national income) even come close.

At the other end of the scale, the United States spends a paltry 0.02 percent of national income on real aid, which works out to an annual contribution of $8 from every citizen of the wealthiest nation in the world. (By comparison, Swedes kick in $193 per person, Norwegians $304, and the citizens of Luxembourg $357.) President Bush boasts of sending billions in aid to Afghanistan, but in fact we could do better by passing a hat.

The Bush administration often deliberately misrepresents its aid program for domestic consumption.

Last year, for example, when the president sent his wife to Kabul for a few hours of photo ops, the New York Times reported that her mission was "to promise long-term commitment from the United States to education for women and children." Speaking in Kabul, she pledged that the United States would give an additional $17.7 million to support education in Afghanistan. But that grant had been announced before; and it was not for Afghan education (or women and children) at all but for a new private, for-profit American University of Afghanistan. (How a private university comes to be supported by public tax dollars and the Army Corps of Engineers is another peculiarity of Bush aid.)

Ashraf Ghani, former finance minister of Afghanistan and president of Kabul University, complained, "You cannot support private education and ignore public education." But that's typical of American aid. Having set up a government in Afghanistan, the United States stiffs it, preferring to channel aid money to private American contractors. Increasingly privatized, U.S. aid becomes just one more mechanism for transferring tax dollars to the pockets of rich Americans.

In 2001, Andrew Natsios, then head of USAID, cited foreign aid as "a key foreign policy instrument" designed to help other countries "become better markets for U.S. exports."

To guarantee that mission, the State Department recently took over the formerly semi-autonomous aid agency. And because the aim of U.S. aid is to make the world safe for U.S. business, USAID now cuts in business from the start. It sends out requests for proposals to the short list of usual suspects and awards contracts to those bidders currently in favor. (Election time kickbacks influence the list of favorites.) Sometimes it invites only one contractor to apply, the same efficient procedure that made Halliburton so notorious and so profitable in Iraq.

The criteria for selection of contractors have little or nothing to do with conditions in the recipient country, and they are not exactly what you would call transparent.

Take, for example, the case of the Kabul-Kandahar Highway, featured on the USAID Web site as a proud accomplishment. (In five years, it's the only accomplishment in highway building in Afghanistan -- which is one better than the U.S. record building power stations, water systems, sewer systems or dams.) The highway was also featured in the Kabul Weekly newspaper in March 2005 under the headline, "Millions Wasted on Second-Rate Roads."

Afghan journalist Mirwais Harooni reported that even though other international companies had been ready to rebuild the highway for $250,000 per kilometer, the Louis Berger Group got the job at $700,000 per kilometer -- of which there are 389. Why? The standard American answer is that Americans do better work. (Though not Berger, which at the time was already years behind on another $665 million contract to build schools.)

Berger subcontracted Turkish and Indian companies to build the narrow two-lane, shoulderless highway at a final cost of about $1 million per mile; and anyone who travels it can see that it is already falling apart. (Former Minister of Planning Ramazan Bashardost complained that when it came to building roads, the Taliban did a better job.)

Now, in a move certain to tank President Hamid Karzai's approval ratings and further endanger U.S. and NATO troops in the area, the United States has pressured his government to turn this "gift of the people of the United States" into a toll road and collect $20 a month from Afghan drivers. In this way, according to U.S. experts providing highly paid technical assistance, Afghanistan can collect $30 million annually from its impoverished citizens and thereby decrease the foreign aid "burden" on the United States.

Is it any wonder that foreign aid seems to ordinary Afghans to be something only foreigners enjoy?

At one end of the infamous highway, in Kabul, Afghans disapprove of the fancy restaurants where foreigners gather -- men and women together -- to drink alcohol and carry on, and plunge half-naked into swimming pools. They object to the brothels -- 80 of them by 2005 -- that house women brought in to serve foreign men.

They complain that half the capital city lies in ruins, that many people still live in tents, that thousands can't find jobs, that children go hungry, that schools are overcrowded and hospitals dirty, that women in tattered burqas still beg in the streets and turn to prostitution, that children are kidnapped and sold into slavery or murdered for their kidneys or their eyes.

They wonder where the promised aid money went and what the puppet government can do.

Ann Jones is the author of "Kabul in Winter," a memoir of Afghanistan, where she lived for several years. A longer version of this piece appears at www. tomdispatch.com. Contact us at insight@sfchronicle.com.

Readers Unimpressed by Afghan Papers

The culture of reading newspapers has yet to take root. Institute for War & Peace Reporting - By Jawed Omid in Kabul (ARR No.228, 1-Sep-06)

Under Afghanistan’s post-Taleban government the country has seen an unprecedented flourishing of the media, but the apparent choice of print publications belies the fact that no one is actually reading them.

The easiest explanation should be Afghanistan’s high rates of illiteracy, especially but not only among women.

Yet that does not appear to be the main reason - instead, the papers themselves have yet to become attractive enough to win a regular readership in a country where radio has traditionally been the major source of information.

Since first newspaper, called Shams ul-Nahar or Midday Sun, came out in 1863, the press has had difficult time - sometimes censored, rarely independent and in recent decades both actor and victim in a succession of conflicts. That changed after 2001, when international funding for media and liberalised press laws created an explosion in the number of titles.

Mubarez Rashidi, recently appointed as deputy minister for information and youth, told IWPR that there are now 532 newspapers across the country registered with his ministry, 437 of them independent and the rest state-run.

But what these figures do not show is that most titles are based in Kabul, and circulation figures are low - even a prominent newspaper like Arman-e-Milli has a daily circulation of just over 4,000 - and many of the ostensibly independent ones serve as the mouthpieces of the politicians or factions that stand behind them.

Rashidi is optimistic about the increased number of newspapers and the relative freedom they now enjoy, and says the main reason people are not reading them is that the change has been so swift. “It will take some time to boost the culture of newspapers reading," he said.

Fahim Dashti, the chief editor of the independent Kabul Weekly, shares this view.

"Reading newspapers is a cultural phenomenon. In other countries, people are used to reading the paper during breakfast and when they come homes from work – even in their cars. It will take time for this culture to grow in Afghanistan,” he said.

He added that the problem applies particularly to young people, and is also in part a consequence of low literacy rates, which mean radio and television are dominant.

Evidence of low sales was provided by Waliullah, who runs a stationery shop in Kabul’s Da Afghanan area and stocks a range of newspapers, many of which he gets for free from chief editors desperate to boost circulation figures.

Yet he is not selling more than 10 to 15 copies a day.

“Most of the youngsters want magazines with nude pictures. They aren’t used to reading newspapers," said Waliullah. "I haven’t seen any benefit from this business. I’m not going to stock newspapers any more."

Some like Mohammad Jaan Haqpal, a Kabul University lecturer who is also chief editor of the Diwa magazine, said readers still dismiss much of the press as poor quality and irrelevant.

Manija Bakhtari, also a lecturer at the same university, agreed that many titles were ill-conceived and unattractive-looking, with no idea of what potential readers might want to see in them.

"Many newspapers and magazines lack specific aims, not even a publication strategy. They only aim to make money. This means they look bad and definitely won’t attract a readership," she said.

But Bakhtari also noted that readers are wise to - and mistrustful of - papers that are tied to particular political groupings or foreign interests and print whatever their backers want.

Daud Daadras, a student at the university, also sees the low demand stemming from a perception that “most of the newspapers in our country are factionally, linguistically- or ethnically- based, and are not neutral".

In any case, he added, readers will not learn anything they have not already heard on the radio or TV news.

Daadras recalled an amusing incident which showed the lengths publishers - in this case the peacekeeping International Security Assistance Force, ISAF - will go to win people over.

"I saw a few ISAF vehicles outside the foreign ministry handing out copies of Sada-e-Azadi [Voice of Freedom; ISAF’s own newspaper],” he said. “Since people aren’t interested in reading papers, the ISAF forces were giving everyone a banana in return for taking a copy.”

At Kabul University, where literacy and education are certainly no obstacle, this IWPR reporter saw stacks of newspapers by one of the entrances waiting to be picked up for free by students arriving for morning classes. After half an hour, all the students had gone in, but only three had taken copies.
My excitement rose as a man appeared and lifted all the newspapers – could they still be destined for a group of eager readers? Unfortunately not.

Followed into a snack bar, the man explained with a smile, "If they were for reading, the students would have taken them themselves. They’re for wrapping the burgers, chips and sandwiches."

Jawed Omid is a freelance reporter in Kabul.

Sarah of Afghanistan - NELOFER PAZIRA The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban By Sarah Chayes Penguin Press, 386 pages, $34

That's the daunting question Western media have begun to ask as waves of new attacks are reported daily along what's known as the "Pushtun belt," mainly the areas bordering Pakistan, where the ethnic Pushtun community is concentrated. Afghans, of course, have been talking about it for a long time in a cocktail of facts, complaints, conspiracies and suspicions. As with everything else about the country, it's taken the outside world some time to catch up with the reality.

Sarah Chayes's The Punishment of Virtue is one of several stories -- hypotheses -- offered to solve part of the puzzle. It is also one of the first books dealing with U.S.-Afghan relations in the post-Taliban era from an American woman's perspective. Some pieces of the "what's gone wrong" puzzle, like evidence in a murder mystery that only gets more obscure and oblique with time, may never be found.

This timely book embarks on a tale of difficulties -- in this case the struggle of one woman, Chayes herself -- in fixing the "Afghan problem." It eventually shows her concern for U.S.-Afghan relations in what she terms "policy implications" for the United States, and the failure of the Afghan government to influence U.S. policy in the region. She claims that the U.S. government has been taken for a ride by pro-Pakistani agents, and at one point even raises questions about the loyalties of Afghan president Hamid Karzai.

The story begins with Chayes's attempts to get closer to the events as a journalist with National Public Radio, days after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when she's stationed along with most other foreign reporters in Quetta, Pakistan. After a couple of months of reporting for NPR -- during and after the fall of the Taliban regime in and outside Kandahar -- and several battles with her editors, she's called back home. But Chayes desperately wants to return to Afghanistan because she "loved the place."

She quits her job as a journalist and, in early 2002, joins forces with an Afghan -- none other than the uncle of Hamid Karzai, then interim president. At the suggestion of Uncle Aziz Khan, Chayes says, "I fell in with another one of his nephews, Qauym." Along with his wife, Qauym Karzai had founded an NGO called Afghans for Civil Society (ACS) four years earlier in Baltimore, Md. After a phone call, Chayes recounts, "I found myself field director for ACS's as yet unborn operations in Afghanistan."

With the ACS, the author finds a new home and the fulfilment of her dream to live and work in Kandahar. Throughout the book, Chayes talks about her relentless efforts in bridging the gap between U.S. forces and the Afghan government, constantly informing both about what she thinks -- and what she has been told by a close friend and ally, Commander Akrem -- are mistakes being made on the ground.

Both the Americans and the Afghan government listen to her on numerous occasions -- a privilege otherwise only enjoyed by high-ranking officers or presidents. She discovers that problems are layered and not easy to tackle, and, after several disappointments, quits her job with ACS. However, she returns to the same friends and foes, this time to ask for help in investigating the death of Commander Akrem. The book ends with a note of optimism that there is still a chance, something I'm sure the majority of Americans like to hear, that despite failures, not all has been lost -- at least not yet.

From her first border crossing, in November, 2001, when the Taliban invited reporters to a press conference near Kandahar, to her countless trips in and out of Afghanistan over the next three years, Chayes seems to have been favoured or feared by all sides in the conflict. At the press conference, the Taliban representative takes a liking to her because she says that, even as a non-Muslim, she'd kept fast that day during the month of Ramadan. "So there was I -- an American female -- the pampered pet of the Taliban during the death throes of their regime," she writes.

She's also among the first few to understand the Taliban's plea to reporters that they immediately return to Pakistan, at the advice of a "tall black man -- Nubian looking, from southern Egypt or Sudan, maybe" who is considered an "al-Qaeda guy." Her colleagues, who try to talk or buy their way to Kandahar, have missed the point: The Taliban regime is disintegrating.

Chayes tries to unravel events leading up to the fall of Kandahar and the aftermath of its takeover by the new Afghan interim government and U.S. forces. Detailed accounts of the past, from the formation of modern Afghanistan, in 1747, provide background to current tribal rivalries. The Achekzai, Alokozai, Ghiljais and Popalzai -- Pushtun tribes that had ruled or wished to rule Kandahar at some point -- are again fighting over control of the region.

Most of this historical analysis is recycled information from previous books. But Chayes's recounting shows an effort to understand the past, and helps a patient reader place the current conflict in historical context. The characters of this off-stage Afghan drama of manoeuvring and betrayal are President Hamid Karzai; Kandahar's pre-Taliban and post-Taliban governor, Gul Agha Shirzai; a former mujahedeen commander, Mullah Naqib, who is mistrusted by the Americans because he'd thrown his support behind the Taliban when they first arrived in Kandahar from across the border in 1994; and two other men, Mahmad Anwar and, of course, Chayes's friend, Zabit (commander) Muhammad Akrem Khakrezwal, Kandahar's former police chief.

Zabit Akrem is the hero of Chayes's tale -- honest, hardworking, unbending, calm, selfless, generous, honourable and always patient. He is one man for whom Chayes's admiration overcame her cynicism, which is applied to others, including Akrem's sworn enemy, Gul Agha Shirzai. The first encounter between Chayes and Akrem was cold, Chayes says, because he wanted her to leave a local residence in which she shared space with Pushtun men who had become her friends and protectors, just as she'd taken to wearing Afghan/Pakistani-style men's clothing.

But soon Akrem turned into a confidant and close friend, though she never explains how and why he came to trust her so much. Akrem is so central here that the book begins and ends with his funeral. His death, said to have been caused by a suicide bomb inside a mosque in Kandahar, sends Chayes on an investigation.

"The reason this was so important to me was not just that Akrem had been my friend," she writes. "It was because there were serious policy implications." If the death were by suicide bomb, it was a "terrorist threat" for which a "purely military solution was called." If it was a remote-controlled mine, as Chayes suspected, paid for by Pakistan, "then a change in U.S. policy toward Pakistan was called for, because it was proof positive that our 'ally' Pakistan was working to destroy everything we were working to create in Afghanistan."

Afghans share the same sentiments; rightly or not, they blame Pakistan for most of their past and present problems. But The Punishment of Virtue doesn't provide the kind of factually documented analysis offered by Pakistani journalist Ahmad Rashid's The Taliban, the only book that explores Pakistan's role and influence in Afghan affairs fairly and meticulously, and in very convincing detail.

According to Chayes, the winner in the current political battlefield is not the United States, but Pakistan. The ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency, which helped create and nurture the Taliban, has again managed to fool the CIA and the FBI. Gul Agha Shirzai, based on Chayes's accounts, is an ISI agent who was chosen by the Americans to rule Kandahar. Not only did the United States support this warlord against other tribesmen, they reinforced his militia and gave him carte blanche, even to undermine Karzai's central government. It's a plausible conclusion, though it must be repeated that Chayes's investigation relied on hearsay and information provided by Akrem.

The book, written with passion, seems an honest account. Lies, deceit and corruption on all fronts, especially during the so-called first Afghan democratic election, come as a surprise to Chayes, even though she'd been hearing the rumours: "Beatings inside the building; the minister locking employees in the bathroom; bricks of cash packed into the minister's SUV. A competent, responsible, dignified man shouldered out of the cabinet by the thugs because he would show them up . . ." This, she says, "was worse than I feared."

She's got it right. It is no longer a secret inside Afghanistan how corrupt the government is, how the warlords, supported by the United States, are reaping the fruits of their alliance with the West, and how poppy production is in full bloom.

One thing Chayes never questions is her own incredible access to the U.S. military, ambassadors and other embassy staff, as well as to ministers and officers in the Afghan government, including Karzai, not to mention her apparent influence on various tribesmen. She calls the tribesmen "my Ghiljais," as if she owns them, or belongs to them through some inexplicable connections. Her meetings with Karzai, for example, are conducted like a family reunion, and she tells the country's president what he should do. She manages even to get Gul Agha Shirzai fired. (To her disappointment, he is promoted to government minister and eventually returns to his previous post.)

Chayes recounts a meeting with Interior Minister Jalali and Qayum Karzai. "I went on and on that night. I lectured them about the warlords, about Pakistan, about the mounting danger, telling Qayum and Jalali they didn't know what they were talking about." When Qayum asks, "After a year and half here, you think you know more about Afghanistan than we do?" Chayes replies that she does. Nonetheless, her amazing confidence and access are inspiring and scary at the same time.

While working with ACS, Chayes was flown to brief a Richard Pedersen at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii. The U.S. base commander in Kandahar, Col. John Campbell, asked Chayes to tell him three things he could do to improve the situation. "When I was done, Colonel Campbell leaned back and looked at me, levelly. 'We make mistakes,' he said. 'But I think you will see that we also have a procedure for trying to catch and correct them.' " And the Colonel actually follows Chayes's advice, setting up a meeting with the Ghiljais.All this has left me wondering whether Chayes is exaggerating her own role in the minefields of Afghan politics or whether she's really a one-woman tour-de-force, connected to places and people we don't get to hear about in her book. Given Chayes's information and research, and her courage in writing about her failures, her self-importance may be forgiven. I appreciate her efforts to tell her story, to help bring to light the tangled web of problems in Afghanistan.

However, she falls into the same category as other internationals in telling Afghans how to rule their country. Afghans have a long history of foreigners -- advisers, invaders, occupiers and friends -- telling them how to run their affairs. There is no question that Chayes is driven by a dream of bringing the United States and Afghanistan together, and it's a noble thought. But as she acknowledges, she's entertaining a fantasy in wanting the New York Police Department to adopt the Kandahar police.

All travellers have fantasies and dreams about the foreign lands they love. But there is always the danger that they will try to reshape these countries in their own image.

Nelofer Pazira is a journalist and filmmaker based in Toronto, and the author of A Bed of Red Flowers: In Search of My Afghanistan.

[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.]