In this bulletin:

• NATO says anti-Taliban operation is done
• Nato backs down over Pakistan ultimatum
• Taleban leader promises "big explosions" in Kabul by new year
• Three NGO staff killed in blast in Afghan capital
• Suicide Bomber Hits Canadian Convoy
• Afghan female official found dead
• Afghan official says township back under government control
• Four Taleban shot dead in Afghanistan's Urozgan
• Britain may send more troops to bolster Nato in Afghanistan
• Key strike puts Taliban to flight
• UK troops 'to spend 10 years' in Afghanistan
• NATO commander predicts 3-year Afghan campaign
• Karzai urged to strike peace deal with Taliban
• Al Qaeda hijacked Indian plane in 1998’
• Iran invites president for pipeline talks
• Opinion: Blame game
• Afghan parliament issues statement condemning Pope's remarks
• Afghan religious council condemns Pope's remarks, MPs want apology
• The Death of an Afghan Optimist
• Dyer: A proposal to win the heart of Afghanistan
• Three critical issues face returning MPs

NATO says anti-Taliban operation is done

Kabul (AP 9/17/06) - A top NATO general said Sunday an offensive aimed at driving Taliban militants out of their safe havens in southern Afghanistan has been "successfully completed."

Meanwhile, violence persisted in parts of the country. Suicide bombers attacked Canadian and U.S. troops in separate incidents Sunday, killing two civilians and wounding six soldiers.

Lt. Gen. David Richards, head of the 20,000 NATO-led force in Afghanistan, said the insurgents had been forced to abandon their positions and reconstruction and development efforts would soon begin in the volatile former Taliban heartland, he said. He said the insurgents had "suffered significant casualties" and "had no choice but to leave."

Alliance officials have said more than 500 militants were killed during the two-week-long operation, centered mainly in Panjwai, Pashmul and Zhari districts in southern Kandahar province.

In Sunday's violence, a youth carrying explosives jumped in front of a U.S. military convoy east of Kabul, killing a bystander and wounding three American soldiers, Afghan police said.

Earlier in the day, a suicide bomber plowed his explosive-laden vehicle into a Canadian military convoy in southern Afghanistan, killing one civilian and wounding three soldiers.

The bomber targeted the convoy west of Kandahar city, said Zulmai Khan, a police official at the scene. Eight civilians were also hurt in the blast, police said.

Separately, the mutilated body of an Afghan engineer was found Sunday in Ghazni province, where he had been kidnapped earlier in the week by suspected Taliban militants, said Ali ahmad Fakuri, the provincial governor's spokesman. The victim had worked for a local aid agency involved in rural development, he said.

The completion of the NATO offensive in the south came as U.S. and Afghan troops made a renewed push against the Taliban in central and eastern Afghanistan.

Dubbed Operation Mountain Fury, the new offensive involves 7,000 U.S. and Afghan soldiers in the central and eastern provinces of Paktika, Khost, Ghazni, Paktya and Logar, the military said. Fighter planes and helicopters will back the forces.

A separate U.S.-led operation called Big Northern Wind has been under way in Kunar province's Korangal Valley since late August.

Taliban and other Islamic extremist groups, including al-Qaida, are known to operate in the east, especially in the area bordering Pakistan where the reach of the government is weak and militants find sanctuaries.

The renewed American push to defeat the Taliban-led insurgency comes nearly five years after the U.S.-led invasion ousted the hardline militia from power.

The commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan said Saturday in London that he expects the military campaign against the Taliban to last another three to five years.

Nato backs down over Pakistan ultimatum

Telegraph - By Ahmed Rashid in Islamabad (Filed: 16/09/2006)

Key Nato countries have decided not to issue a diplomatic ultimatum to Pakistan which demanded that it ends its support for the Taliban and arrests leaders living in Pakistan.

Nato is placing all its hopes on a critical three-way meeting at the White House on Sept 27 when President Bush is due to meet Pakistani President Pervaiz Musharraf and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Two months ago senior diplomats from four Nato countries (Britain, Canada, Australia and the Netherlands) , whose troops are fighting an estimated 8,000 Taliban in southern Afghanistan, urged their governments collectively to issue a démarche to Pakistan's military regime.

They want it to arrest those Taliban commanders openly operating out of Quetta, capital of Baluchistan province, which adjoins Afghanistan.

However, after a fierce debate on the issue the démarche was cancelled, with Nato members divided on whether or not to pressurise Pakistan.

Britain cited co-operation with Pakistani intelligence in uncovering the recent terrorist plot to attack planes departing London airports.

But a Western ambassador in Islamabad said there was a consensus among Nato, US and UK intelligence officers in Afghanistan that Quetta is "the command and control centre for Taliban planning, logistics, and recruitment in Afghanistan".

Pakistan denies that it is sponsoring the Taliban. But for the first time since 2001 President Musharraf admitted this week in Brussels that the Taliban are using Pakistani soil to carry out attacks in Afghanistan.

The recent intense fighting in southern Afghanistan is partly a Taliban attempt to carve out a safe haven where its leaders can reside during the winter months when fighting winds down.

Taleban leader promises "big explosions" in Kabul by new year

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

Peshawar, 16 September: Mullah Dadollah, the Taleban's supreme commander, has said that the Pope's statements prove that a worldwide fight against Islam has been mounted.

Mullah Dadollah told Afghan Islamic Press by phone from an unknown location today: "The Pope's words clarify that this fight is not between the USA and Afghans. It is a fight between Muslims and infidels. As Bush has said in the past, this is a crusade."

He said about the Pope's statements regarding Islam's Prophet that the Pope has no knowledge about Islam. "That is why he attacked our Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Our prophet called people to Islam for 13 years in Mecca. Then he was obliged by infidels to migrate to Medina. The infidels chased him at Medina and started a fight against him in the same way as the US is coming to our country from a long way away and starting a war here."

He gave the following message to Muslims around the world: "Muslims should wake up now. When will you understand? The infidels have committed every kind of evil and they are doing all kinds of evil things now. Muslims should stop sleeping in ignorance."

In answer to a question about the Taleban's military status in Afghanistan, he said: "Our military status is good. We will not care even if infidels from all over the country come here. We will deal with all of them. They always tell lies. They also said that they had arrested me. They also tell lies about the number of casualties they have suffered. In one particular case, I saw 25 dead bodies of their soldiers but they announced one dead and one injured."

He also said: "The government has no control over southern provinces. Everything is in Taleban hands in those provinces."

When asked by AIP if he had any major plans for the near future, he answered: "By the beginning of the new year, we will be fighting and staging big explosions in the heart of Kabul. This will be accompanied by fighting in the provinces."

About the number of suicide attackers, he said: "I have 500 followers just with me. Hundreds upon hundreds of young people are coming. We have established madrasahs for young people inside Afghanistan and we are training them. There is no single foreign suicide bomber among them. They are all Afghans."

When asked if he had madrasahs in Pakistan as well, he answered: "Our madrasahs are in Afghanistan. Pakistan does not allow us inside. They have submitted 250 of our members to Kabul over the last month and a half.

About the coalition forces' operation (Mountain Fury) in Paktia, Paktika, Khost, Ghazni and Logar, Mullah Dadollah said: "We will neutralize Operation Mountain Fury as we spoilt Operation Mountain Thrust. Our mojahedin are now moving towards victory."

About Pervez Musharraf's statement regarding the Taleban having supporters among the Pashtun nation and them being more dangerous than Al-Qa'idah, he said: "Musharraf chose the wrong words. This is not about Pashtuns but about Islam. Every Muslim around the world is our supporter. If they call us dangerous, we really are."

In response to a question about why civilians are hurt as a result of their attacks and explosions, Mullah Dadollah said: "Such deeds are committed by our enemies who want to defame us. All of our activities are based on Shari'ah [law]. In the Panjwai [District in Kandahar Province] alone, they martyred 400 to 500 civilians. We are murderers of infidels, not Muslims."

About Mullah Mohammad Omar and Usamah Bin-Ladin, he said: "Neither of them is in Pakistan. Mullah Mohammad Omar is in Afghanistan but we can not disclose his location."

In answer to a question from Afghan Islamic Press about why he will not negotiate with Karzai or the US authorities to resolve things so that foreigners leave the country and security is restored, the Taleban supreme commander answered: "We do not want a solution which does not take care of the interests of Islam. The only solution we want is for all the infidels of the world to leave Afghanistan. You know that there were no problems in Afghanistan until these foreigners came here."

Three NGO staff killed in blast in Afghan capital

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

Kabul, 16 September: Three Afghan staffers of an American NGO were killed and one more wounded after a roadside remote-controlled bomb went off in Kabul, security officials said on Saturday.

The press office of the interior ministry told Pajhwok Afghan News the incident occurred at 1000 [local time]. The blast took place on a CCI NGO vehicle, an interior ministry source said. The incident occurred in Janan Qala of Mosai District. The NGO was working on construction of a water tank in the area, the source concluded.

Suicide Bomber Hits Canadian Convoy

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: September 17, 2006

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) -- A suicide bomber plowed his explosive-laden vehicle into a Canadian military convoy in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, killing one civilian and wounding five, a police official said.

There were no immediate reports of Canadian military casualties. The bomber, who died in the blast, targeted the convoy as it traveled west of the city of Kandahar, said Zulmai Khan, a police official at the scene.

A Canadian military vehicle was slightly damaged in the blast, an Associated Press reporter at the scene said.

Afghan female official found dead

Excerpt from report by Afghan independent Pajhwok news agency website

Kohestan, 16 September: Unidentified people killed Qamar Gol, a member of the National Solidarity Council, in Kohestan District of Kapisa on Friday [15 September]. Sherollah, Qamar Gol's husband, told Pajhwok that he discovered his wife's body in a field yesterday evening.

Sherollah, a resident of Arian village of Kohestan District, added that his wife had gone out to fetch some fodder and when he went after her a few hours later, he discovered her body in the fields. He said he was unaware of the motive behind this killing and added: "I do not know. I have no enmity with anyone."

Col Mohammad Anwar, the provincial security commander, also confirmed the report of the killing. Qamar Gol's body has been sent to a clinic for an autopsy.

Nur Habib, a doctor at the clinic, said about the body: "The woman has severe injuries to her head and her arms have been broken."

According to the security commander of Kohband, an investigation has been launched into the killing but so far, no one has been arrested.

He added: "It is possible that enemies of the National Solidarity Project have killed this woman." The National Solidarity Project works under the authority of the Rural Development Ministry.

Afghan official says township back under government control

Excerpt from report by Afghan independent Pajhwok news agency website

Nimroz, 16 September: The Delaram township in Khashrod District of Nimroz Province came under government control on 24 Sonbola [15 September] without any conflict with the Taleban. The governor of Nimroz [Province], Hajji Dastagir Azad, said this in a telephone conversation with Pajhwok.

He added that six days ago, the government forces, without putting up any resistance, abandoned the township and the Taleban forces took control of it.

Delaram is located 227 km from Zaranj, the capital of Nimroz, and transit roads between Herat and Nimroz Provinces cross this township. The Taleban have not yet commented on the loss of Delaram township.

Four Taleban shot dead in Afghanistan's Urozgan

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

Kandahar city, 16 September: Four Taleban fighters were gunned down in Khas Urozgan District of southern Urozgan Province, an official said on Saturday.

Mohammad Zaher, district chief of Khas Urozgan, told Pajhwok Afghan News the incident occurred in the Soltan Kondi area of the district. He said Taleban fighters ambushed a joint convoy of the policemen and coalition forces. Four fighters were killed when police retaliated, Zaher added.

He said some weapons, including rockets, were also recovered from the assailants. When contacted the Taleban did not immediately make any comment on the incident.

Britain may send more troops to bolster Nato in Afghanistan

By Kim Sengupta The Independent 17 September 2006

Britain is considering sending extra troops to Afghanistan following Nato's failure to offer the reinforcements requested by commanders struggling to combat a reinvigorated Taliban.

Contingency plans are being drawn up after commanders warned that lack of reinforcements for an autumn offensive would severely hinder the campaign momentum. The options for deployment under consideration include the current spearhead battalion, 2nd Battalion, the Royal Regiment of Scotland, on a short-term basis, or either the 1st Battalion, the Royal Irish Rangers or the 2nd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment.

The Canadians, also taking losses in the Kandahar region, are reinforcing their contingents with troops as well as 15 Leopard tanks. Sending the troops, however, will not solve the lack of helicopters dogging the Nato force. Land convoys are regularly ambushed, and even a routine re-supplying run now needs full battle-group protection. The British military is adamant that there are no helicopters to spare.

Lieutenant-General David Richards, British commander of Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) in Afghanistan, has said a reserve of 1,000 combat troops would allow him "to swing my main effort where I want to go, rather than having to respond to Taliban attacks and so on". He also pointed out that Nato has been asking for reinforcements for 18 months.

The US and Britain have repeatedly called for other Nato members to shoulder more of the Afghan burden. But the summit in Warsaw last week failed to provide the 2,500 extra troops, armour and aircraft for which General James Jones, Nato's military chief, has asked.

Poland is sending 1,000 extra troops to join 100 already in Afghanistan. But they will be based in the east of the country, away from the fighting in the south. This was already in the pipeline before the present Nato request, and in any event the Poles are not due to arrive for another six months. In the meantime, the military points out, it is British soldiers who are dying. The view is that the Government has a moral duty to send forces while Nato dithers.

Key strike puts Taliban to flight

Michael Smith, Kandahar The Sunday Times September 17, 2006

BRITISH special forces have played a key role in a defeat of the Taliban as part of Operation Medusa, the largest combat operation ever mounted by Nato.

Over the past fortnight Nato troops, led by the Canadians, have driven the Taliban out of the strategically important Panjwayi district between Maiwand and Kandahar.

Last week members of the newly formed British Special Forces Support Group (SFSG) pulled out of their hides to the southeast of Maiwand with their commanders satisfied that the Taliban had been defeated and expelled from the area.

“They chose to take us on,” said a senior Nato officer. “They have suffered heavy casualties. In fact, they haven’t suffered such extensive casualties since the fighting in 2001-02.”

The British special forces had spent the first 10 days guarding against any Taliban reinforcement from the west, and the last few picking off fleeing insurgents.

Senior officers cautioned that while Operation Medusa had been “a tactical success”, there was no room for complacency and nobody was about to use the word victory. “It has a tendency to come back and bite you on the arse,” one officer said.

This battlefield has a profound historical resonance. Maiwand was the scene of one of the most devastating defeats ever suffered by the British when, in July 1880, 2,700 British and Indian troops were outnumbered 10 to one by Afghan tribesmen. More than 1,000 British and Indian troops died but 7,000 of the enemy were killed in what was a pyrrhic victory for the Afghans.

The British suffered losses in the latest battle — 14 dead when a Nimrod spyplane crashed on the first day, including signallers from the Special Boat Service (SBS) and the SFSG who were relaying intelligence collected by RAF colleagues.

Five Canadian and two Afghan soldiers were killed on the ground. But Nato claimed that more than 500 Taliban — a third of those making a stand at Panjwayi — were killed.

The Taliban were using the area as a forward operations base to put pressure on the city of Kandahar, which is seen as the key to controlling the south.

During the Soviet occupation of the 1980s, the mujaheddin occupied the area, which is covered with grapevines, wheat and poppy fields, making it an ideal supply base for an insurgent army.

It is riddled with drainage ditches and high walled compounds providing perfect cover for a marauding guerrilla band and there are scores of escape tunnels and trenches built during the mujaheddin days.

General David Richards, the Nato commander, chose the area to demonstrate to the 70% of the population who, he believes, will back whoever appears stronger, that Nato and not the Taliban is in charge.

Richards had prepared the ground carefully. His commanders talked to tribal leaders to persuade the 40,000 population to leave for their own safety and to convince them that the alliance would rebuild once the Taliban had left.

The battle, which pitted more than 2,000 troops against 1,500 Taliban, opened on Saturday September 2 with a salvo of gunfire from Canadian and Dutch artillery. A company of 150 men from the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry advanced across the Arghandab river.

But the Taliban were lying in wait and the company took the brunt of their aggression, coming under intense mortar and machinegun fire that killed four Canadians. The Canadian commander temporarily withdrew his forces and replaced them with Taskforce Grizzly, comprising 200 Afghan infantry backed up by US troops.

On the left flank, Taskforce 31, comprising SBS and US Army Special Forces, were used temporarily to “shape the battlefield”, seizing the initiative from the Taliban.

Two other companies of the Princess Patricia’s were making slow progress against a Taliban trench system in the north. The third company was redirected to join the push, along with US infantry. They were backed up by direct fire support from Canadian and Dutch artillery and by air support from Apache attack helicopters, US B1 Lancer bombers, F16s, and US A10 Tankbusters — one of which killed a fifth Canadian soldier with “friendly fire” — plus RAF Harrier GR7s.

While the SBS and the US Special Forces gave the Nato advance a kick-start from the south, other US special operations troops spread across the area to the south of the battlefield. They were ordered to keep out Taliban reinforcements and supply columns attempting to make their way along the desert roads from the Pakistani towns of Nuski and Quetta.

The UK and US special forces boosted the southern advance considerably and after a few days the SBS were withdrawn and reassigned to other tasks.

To the north, the Canadians, whose light armoured vehicles were vulnerable to rocket- propelled grenades, were struggling. By the beginning of last week, an operation scheduled to last only 10 days looked like lasting a month. But sustained aerial and artillery bombardment were beginning to tell on the Taliban.

Suddenly one company of the Princess Patricia’s made a breakthrough, pushing forward to hold a position well ahead of the Canadian lines. A second company pushed forward and very soon all three Canadian companies were leap-frogging each other to the point that the American infantry could be withdrawn.

The effect was like a vice, squeezing the Taliban out to the west where they were awaited by Dutch infantry, a Danish armoured reconnaissance company and, further out towards Maiwand, the British SFSG, mostly former paratroopers.

By the end of last week, the vast majority of the Taliban were thought to have fled.

Senior Nato officers expressed astonishment that the Taliban had abandoned traditional guerrilla tactics that would have seen them dispersing the minute heavy artillery and aerial firepower were introduced.

“The next three to six months is a crucial period here,” Richards said. “We are establishing psychological ascendency over the Taliban in Panjwayi.

“Operation Medusa has not been about killing for no reason. The people there want to believe we can win and we’re beginning to demonstrate that we will win.”

UK troops 'to spend 10 years' in Afghanistan

Michael Smith, Kandahar T he Sunday Times September 17, 2006

THE commander of the British taskforce in southern Afghanistan said last week that UK troops could be in the country for as long as 10 years.

In his first interview since arriving in Afghanistan, Brigadier Ed Butler said: “I don’t think there’s any doubt we will be here for a considerable time. There will need to be training teams and embedded officers for 10 years or so.”

Butler, commander of 16 Air Assault Brigade, took full responsibility for setting up the “platoon houses” at Sangin and Musa Qala, where 15 British soldiers have died. But he said the decision to send troops into the frontline bases, described by many of his men as “hellholes”, was made “under not inconsiderable pressure” from Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan’s president.

When British troops began arriving in April to take charge of Helmand province, they met immediate Taliban resistance, Butler said. Baghran district centre had been overrun by the Taliban.

“The governor [of Helmand] was concerned, and the Afghan government was concerned, that northern Helmand was about to fall to the Taliban,” said Butler.

British troops had shown immense bravery in intense combat. “They have been in almost constant engagement with the enemy. Some of these guys are barely out of school. Killing someone is a very difficult thing to do,” Butler said. “People think: ‘Well, that’s what soldiers are paid to do’, but it still takes raw courage to go out and do it.”

NATO commander predicts 3-year Afghan campaign

ABC News September 17, 2006

The military campaign against the Taliban could last for another three to five years, the British commander of NATO forces in southern Afghanistan says.

Lieutenant-General David Richards, who leads the 10,000-strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), has told Britain's Channel 4 television news he is determined the campaign will be successful and the Taliban will "start dancing to my tune".

Lt-Gen Richards has not said whether he expects British troops to remain in the country for the duration of the campaign, but he says tackling the illegal opium trade is likely to take many years.

"But if we do that cleverly, then in terms of the insurgency I reckon within between about three to five years this campaign... people might say 'well, we've just about won'," he said.

NATO troops involved in security and reconstruction work have been involved in fierce fighting in the volatile Helmand province of southern Afghanistan that led to heavy losses among the alliance.

Thirty-three British troops have died since Britain took over command of NATO forces in the south in May.

A total of 40 have died since NATO moved into Afghanistan in 2001 in the wake of the September 11 attacks in the United States.

NATO's military chief, US General James Jones, appealed earlier this month for members of the 26-nation alliance to contribute up to 2,500 reinforcements to bolster efforts against the insurgents.

Lt-Gen Richards has admitted the fighting was "very intense" until about two weeks ago, but says he is confident the country's hardline former rulers have "just had enough fighting".

Last week, former British Army officer Captain Leo Docherty branded the Afghanistan campaign "completely barking mad" and "grotesquely clumsy" in a newspaper interview.

Lt-Gen Richards has offered an alternative view, saying NATO has established the "psychological ascendancy" over the Taliban and reassured the population that the fighting is worth it.

"I want the Taliban to start dancing to my tune," he said.

"As the reconstruction development kicks in on the back of these well-conceived and necessary military operations, I think that's going to really frighten them."- AFP

Karzai urged to strike peace deal with Taliban

By Our Correspondent Dawn

PESHAWAR, Sept 16: The Ulema-i-Mashaikh (UM) wing of the Pakistan Muslim League (Q) on Saturday urged Afghan President Hamid Karzai to make a peace deal with Taliban.

Addressing a press conference here at the Peshawar Press Club, UM general-secretary Maulana Syed Chirag Din Shah announced the setting up of the NWFP chapter of the organisation.

He said Taliban were also citizens of Afghanistan and peace was only possible in that country if they were allowed to live in peace.

Lauding the role of NWFP Governor Ali Mohammad Jan Aurakzai in the North Waziristan peace deal, he urged the federal government to adopt the same policy in Balochistan.

Mr Shah urged the government not to make hasty decision on the proposed women protection bill. He said that there were still loopholes which could be misused, and suggested the government to include another clause in the bill regarding Hijab.

Replying a question, he said suicide attacks were no solution to the problems of the oppressed Muslims and stressed unity against aggressors.

Al Qaeda hijacked Indian plane in 1998’

Daily Times 17 September 2006

ISLAMABAD: Al Qaeda operatives hijacked an Indian airliner in 1998 to secure the release of Pakistani militant Maulana Masood Azhar, Abu Jandal, a former guard of Osama Bin Laden disclosed in a one and a half hour documentary aired by Al-Jazeera Television on Saturday.

The world’s most wanted man’s bodyguard recalled that Bin Laden welcomed Azhar after his release from an Indian jail preceding the hijacking of a plane that landed in of Kandahar and threw a lavish party in Azhar’s honour.

Abu Jandal also said that Bin Laden’s original plan to target the USS Cole in international waters failed to work in 1998 and instead, Al-Qaeda hit the warship while it was in Yemenite waters by mistake, something, he pointed out, was against the policy of Al Qaeda, ie to undertake acts which could be embarrassing for Muslim countries.

He also narrated the exact details of Northern Alliance Leader Ahmed Shah Masood’s assassination a day before 9/11 on the Taliban’s request.

Abu Jandal said that on the day the Indian Airlines plane was hijacked, he was told to ready his Stinger missiles, and emergency was declared at the Kandahar Airport in 30 minutes. “I was told that other planes will also follow this one and there is a chance that the situation could deteriorate,” he said. He said that after two or three days, BinLaden invited Azhar to a lavish party, thrown in his honour, where I was introduced to him,” he said. “I was astonished to discover that Azhar and Bin Laden already knew each other,” he said. Online

Iran invites president for pipeline talks - Dawn

HAVANA, Sept 16: President Pervez Musharraf has been invited by his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to visit Tehran to discuss progress on the gas pipeline project from Iran to Pakistan and possibly India as the two leaders met here on Friday on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement’s summit.

The two leaders discussed the pricing issue for the gas to be supplied from Iran. They expressed satisfaction over the appointment of a consultant on the issue.

“The Iranian president has invited President Musharraf on this issue,” Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri told reporters after the meeting.

However, he said President Musharraf suggested that it would be a better idea if he were invited after the consultant had submitted the report on gas pricing.

Mr Kasuri said the Iranian leader indicated he would like to invite Indian Prime Minister Manmonhan Singh at that stage for discussion on the issue.

President Musharraf and the Iranian leader discussed the ongoing talks on Iran’s nuclear programme. Gen Musharraf noted with satisfaction the progress on the issue.

Referring to his recent visit to Brussels, President Musharraf said that during his meetings with the leaders of the European Union they expressed satisfaction that the dialogue with Iran seemed to be making progress. President Musharraf said that Pakistan had always tried to seek a peaceful resolution of the issue.—APP

Opinion: Blame game

By Ajmal Shams The News International 17 September 2006

While the atmosphere still remains relatively tense as far as the relations between neighbouring Afghanistan and Pakistan are concerned, a window of opportunity remains open in terms of a number of commonalities that define geo-politics in the two countries. There are many areas where the two countries have had to adopt conflicting stances. However, some common grounds do exist which can help the two neighbouring countries to transform the existing tense political environment into a congenial atmosphere appropriate for confidence building measures. These include, but are not limited to, the combat against terrorism, the fight against drugs and a common desire for rapid economic development. The problem lies in the fact that the two countries have not yet been able to evolve a mutually agreed strategy whereby the above-mentioned objectives can be achieved within the context of their respective national interests and geopolitical goals.

There has been a gradual increase in the Taliban insurgency, especially in Southern and Eastern Afghanistan over the past two years which has seriously hampered the reconstruction and development process besides putting the government's credibility at stake. Pakistan is being portrayed to be primarily responsible for this growing wave of Taliban activities and not without understandable reasons. It is not just the Afghan government and intelligentsia, but also ordinary Afghans who have been pointing the finger at Pakistan that the former has been covertly collaborating with the insurgents. While it is true that there might be certain elements in the Afghan government who would rather like this blame-game to continue for their own vested interests, the fact remains, however, that after their defeat by the US military, the remnants of the Taliban and Al Qaeda went into hiding inside the tribal belt along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border for shelter and support. The initial few years of Karzai's government provided them with an opportunity to reorganise and get replenished to be able to re-emerge with renewed tactics of guerrilla warfare.

Most analysts tend to oversimplify the Taliban phenomenon. They usually overlook the multi-faceted nature of its background and fail to view it in a broader international context that encompasses the wider Al Qaeda network to which some regional powers, local miscreants, drug lords and vested interests have become partners. The result appears as killing of innocent lives, a destabilised government and disrupted reconstruction activities. Ever since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the subsequent events such as the Islamic revolution in Iran and the uprising in Kashmir and Palestine, Islamic extremism has been steadily growing particularly among the economically deprived/desperate classes of Muslim societies. Therefore, the current wave of Islamic radicalism, irrespective of the nature of its historical development, is a function of ideological, political and economic factors that are now affecting Muslim societies in one way or another.

The most desperate and economically disadvantaged groups in the Muslim world are the main targets of those seeking political advantage for their own extremist agendas. Soon after the tragic events of September 11, President Bush declared that terrorism in Afghanistan will be fought on three different fronts i.e. military, political and economic. Unfortunately the battle on the political and economic fronts has not achieved its targeted objectives although billions of dollars have been spent so far and the efforts for reconciliation and bringing in the Taliban into the mainstream have not brought any substantial results.

As mentioned earlier, Afghanistan and Pakistan have never engaged in a serious dialogue aimed at evolving a joint strategy to fight the growing terrorism in both countries, with Afghanistan being the main target. The constantly increasing insurgency in Afghanistan has made the political environment so tense it does not allow any friendly gesture from either side to pave the way for restoring confidence. Pakistan with a well-established and professional army is in a much better position to combat terrorists on its soil. From the number of casualties its army has suffered by the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Waziristan it might appear that the country is determined to flush out the remnants of the extremist groups. On top of that the government has managed to round up hundreds of Al Qaeda activists and has turned them over to US authorities, getting the latter's appreciation in its war on terror. However, the efficacy of such efforts becomes questionable with the continuous Taliban violence especially in Southern Afghanistan. Both Pakistan and Afghanistan have been termed as failed states by the US based organisation Fund for Peace, ranking ninth and tenth on the failed states index respectively. It would be wise for them to do more to combat the menace of terrorism through a joint strategy, mutual trust and an efficient information sharing system because the scourge of terrorism is the biggest enemy of stability and development.

President Musharraf during his recent visit to Afghanistan delivered a comprehensive speech to a large gathering of Afghan parliamentarians and high-ranking government officials highlighting his government's efforts to combat terrorism through military and political means. He also called for a joint strategy to the scholarly approach of the issue of Talibanisation in both Afghan and Pakistani societies. One can only wait and see how the recent truce between the Pakistani government and the Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives will impact the intensity of insurgent operations in Afghanistan. The initial euphoria has already started diminishing with several consecutive suicide attacks only a day after President Musharraf returned home. If Musharraf really means business then Afghanistan is definitely expecting to see a reduction in Taliban insurgency in the near future because actions speak louder than words.

The writer is President of the Afghan Mellat Party (Shams Faction) Email: afghanmilat@yahoo.com

Afghan parliament issues statement condemning Pope's remarks

Source: Tolo TV, Kabul, in Dari 1330 gmt 16 Sep 06

[Presenter] The Afghan parliament has condemned the Pope's remarks, calling them derogatory.

The Afghan Parliament, Ministry of Endowment and Islamic Affairs and General Council of Religious Officials have issued a joint statement condemning the Pope's remarks about the great Prophet of Islam and the virtues of jihad. The Catholic leader uttered derogatory words about the great prophet of Islam. After protests by Muslims in many Islamic countries, the Pope today apologized to all Muslims.

[Parliament spokesman] Afghan MPs condemn the recent irresponsible remarks by the Pope. These derogatory remarks have brought down more than 1bn Muslims around the world. These remarks show that despite being the leader of a big religion, the Pope is still unaware of the virtues and characteristics of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and the great lessons of Islam and their impact on daily life. The law-making foundation of Afghanistan [parliament] believes the remarks constitute a direct insult to the great Prophet Muhammad and condemn them.

Afghan religious council condemns Pope's remarks, MPs want apology

Excerpt from report in English by Afghan independent Pajhwok news agency website

Kabul, 16 September: A number of Ulema [members], parliamentarians as well as the Taleban on Saturday [16 September] condemned the Pope's anti-Islamic remarks.

In his lecture, the 16th Pope Benedict said: "Show me just what Mohammad (SAW) brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

Afghanistan's Ulema Council excoriated the pope's remarks and branded his speech as his wrong understanding of Islam and Prophet Mohammad (SAW).

The statement released by this council described such statements as dangerous. "Such statements causes enmity between divine religions and could face humanity with another great danger," the statement added.

Such statements will increase insecurity and chaos in countries where there is fighting, and the enemies of peace use such statements as a good mean of advertising. The statement also said Islam was a religion of peace and wanted to maintain peace but the non-Muslims spark violence with such acts. Muslims respected all religions and had faith in all divine messengers and religions, the statement added. The Ulema council also urged the government to cut off diplomatic ties with the Vatican and to officially seek the Pope's apology.

By the same token, a press statement released from the Lower House of parliament termed the remarks as the personal belief of the Pope and sought the Pope's apology from all Muslims and hoped he would stop such statements in future. [passage omitted on Taleban reaction ]

The Death of an Afghan Optimist – Washingtonpost - Barnett R. Rubin Sunday, September 17, 2006

Hekmat Karzai, a cousin of President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, called me from Kabul last Sunday. "Barney," he said. "We lost a friend today." A suicide bomber had blown up the car of Hakim Taniwal, the governor of Paktia province on Afghanistan' s frontier with Pakistan, killing him and two aides. The attack took place outside Taniwal's office, where I had gotten into the same car with him five weeks earlier, and where we had our final conversation.

I first met Taniwal in 1985 in Peshawar, Pakistan, where he had joined other intellectuals fleeing the Soviet occupation of his homeland. After the scholar and poet Said Bahauddin Majrooh was gunned down in his Peshawar home in February 1988 by radical Islamists favored by Pakistan and the CIA, these scholars started to disperse. Taniwal left for Australia, and would return to his native Afghanistan only after the Karzai government came to power.

As his name indicated, this bearded sociologist was part of the Tanai tribe, one of Afghanistan' s border groups so often depicted as fierce and warlike. But Taniwal, educated in Europe, exemplified another side of tribal life -- the soft-spoken elder who leads and reconciles by wisdom and eloquence.

Hekmat Karzai, who has documented how tactics such as suicide bombing have migrated to Afghanistan from the new terrorist haven of Iraq, told me that after learning of Taniwal's death, he had walked with President Karzai in the garden of Afghanistan' s presidential palace. How, they wondered, could they still ask Afghanistan' s professionals to help govern the country? Yet without them, the government could not possibly meet popular expectations, could not begin to restore hope to a nation nearly bereft of that emotion.

The last time we spoke, Taniwal repeatedly emphasized that stability was possible only with the support of ordinary Afghans. "We should invest in peace," he said, "not in fighting." He backed military operations based on precise intelligence, but such operations, he believed -- even if they killed, captured or routed some Taliban -- would have little long-lasting effect without popular support and economic development. Elders from 10 provinces, whom I met the day before my visit with Taniwal, had agreed, denouncing corrupt state officials. The people have totally lost trust in the government, they told me.

The Taliban "are slowly neutralizing the people," Taniwal said. "The government can't protect them, so they will go to the other side. They will not help the government to keep security." An elder from the neighboring province had offered a similar conclusion: "If the people were not distressed with the current government, the Taliban could not do anything. If the government starts negotiation with the elders and recognizes them, then we will be the police for the government." A minister in Kabul estimated the annual cost of putting elders in each district on the government payroll at $5 million -- a small price to pay for greater stability in a country where violence such as the suicide bomb that killed Taniwal is increasingly resembling that of Iraq in intensity, if not yet in scope.

Taniwal and I did not debate whether Pakistan was supporting the Taliban. As we sat a few miles from the frontier between the two countries -- the Pakistani tribal district of North Waziristan was a two-hour drive away on a dangerous road -- the answer was too obvious. "All the Taliban were once in Afghanistan," Taniwal said. "Now they are in Pakistan. The Taliban are helped by the [Pakistani] government." As we ate lunch at his home, a call from the police told of a suicide attack against a convoy on that very road to Pakistan.

Taniwal opposed big offensives by the U.S.-led coalition. "They roll over and flatten the whole area," he said. "But the enemy just goes from our side to the other side." The other side, of course, was Pakistan, where Taniwal, like so many other Afghans, had found a combination of refuge and persecution.

Pakistan was then negotiating a truce with Taliban who had gained control of most of North Waziristan. The final agreement, announced four days before Taniwal's killing, ceded control of the area to the militants in return for expelling "foreigners" (Arabs, Chechens, Uzbeks and others) and ending infiltration into Afghanistan. According to reports from the region, however, the suicide bomber who killed Taniwal four days later may have been sent on his mission from Waziristan.

Taniwal wanted the coalition to "pressure Pakistan more and more to keep the people there and also arrest and send them to Afghanistan." But for him, pressuring Pakistan was aimed not at destroying the Taliban but at reintegrating them. He wanted them, and all Afghans, "not to solve problems with the Kalashnikov. The Taliban should join with the government, the society, and have their own party," like the Taliban's sympathizers in Pakistan, who run in elections.

Though he asked me to keep this confidential, his death allows me -- indeed, it obligates me -- to reveal that he also advocated settling Afghanistan' s historic conflict with Pakistan over the Pashtun territories across the frontier known as the Durand Line, which Afghanistan has never recognized as a border, even under the Taliban. "All the troubles up until now have been because of this problem," Taniwal said. Afghanistan built its army with Soviet aid to counter Pakistan, a U.S. ally. As a result, he said, "we did not gain Pashtunistan, but we almost lost Afghanistan." If international mediators can help resolve this conflict, "then there will be peace, development, business," Taniwal said. "Then Pakistan will be secure, and Afghanistan will be secure."

Taniwal feared that the United States and the current Afghan government would make the same errors as the Soviets and the governments they supported, but he recognized the difference between the two eras. "This is not an occupation," he said. "Afghanistan was a base for terrorists. These bases have been destroyed. Now they are trying again, and we have to fight back. But we should not make mistakes. Afghanistan is slowly going to be like the problem in Iraq if we don't solve these problems."

He put on his turban. We left his office, accompanied by a few lightly armed guards, and walked toward his car.
Barnett R. Rubin is a senior fellow at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University

Dyer: A proposal to win the heart of Afghanistan

By Gwynne Dyer/ Syndicated Columnist
The MetroWest Daily News September 17, 2006

Most people in Afghanistan are farmers. If Hamid Karzai's Western-backed government in Kabul is to survive, it must have their support. So not destroying their main cash crop should be an obvious priority for Karzai's foreign supporters. But what the hell, let's go burn some poppies.

"We need to realize that we could actually fail here," said Lieutenant General David Richards, British commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, last week. In south-western Afghanistan, where 7,000 British, Canadian and Dutch troops were committed during the summer to contain a resurgent Taliban, the guerillas now actually stand and fight, even against NATO's overwhelming firepower and air power, and everything that moves on the roads gets ambushed.

The combat in Afghanistan is more severe and sustained than anything seen in Iraq, for the Taliban fight in organized units with good light infantry weapons. In the past month, Britain and Canada have lost about half as many soldiers killed in Afghanistan as the U.S. lost in Iraq in the same time, out of a combat force perhaps one-tenth as big.

Concern in Europe about Western casualties in Afghanistan is already so great that none of the NATO countries was willing to commit more troops to the fighting when their defense chiefs met in Belgium on September 13, despite an urgent appeal from General Richards for 2,500 more combat troops. Most of them just don't believe that a few thousand more troops will save the situation in Afghanistan.

To limit their casualties, the British have already abandoned their original "section-house" strategy of spreading troops through the villages of the southwest in small groups that would provide security and help with reconstruction. They were just too vulnerable, so they have been pulled back to bigger base camps and replaced by Afghan police (who will make deals with the local Taliban forces to save their lives.)

The rapid collapse of the Taliban government in the face of America's air power and its locally purchased allies in late 2001 created a wholly misleading impression that the question of who controls the country had been settled. Afghanistan has always been an easy country to invade but a hard country to occupy. Resistance to foreign intervention takes time to build up, but the Afghans defeated British occupations (twice) and a Soviet occupation when those empires were at the height of their power, and they are well on the way to doing it again.

Perhaps if the U.S. and its allies had smothered the country in troops and drowned it in aid at the outset, the rapid increase in security and prosperity would have created a solid base of support for the government they installed under President Karzai. But most of the available troops were sent off to invade Iraq instead, and most of the money went to American contractors in Iraq, not American contractors in Afghanistan (though little of it reached the local people in either case).

The various warlords who allied themselves with the United States are the real power in most of Afghanistan, and in the traditional opium-producing areas in the south they have encouraged a return to poppy-farming (which had been almost eradicated under the Taliban) in order to get some cash flow. Poor farmers struggling under staggering loads of debt were happy to cooperate, and by now Afghanistan is producing about 90 percent of the world's opium, the raw material for heroin.

That's the price you pay for disrupting the established order, and the U.S. should just have paid it. There's no real point in destroying poppies in Afghanistan, because they'll just get planted elsewhere: so long as heroin is illegal, the price will be high enough that people somewhere will grow it. Even if it is ideologically impossible for the United States to end its foolish, unwinnable "war on drugs," it should have turned a blind eye in Afghanistan.

But it didn't. For the past five years a shadowy outfit called DynCorps has been destroying the poppy-fields of southern Afghanistan's poorest farmers with U.S. and British military support. This was an opportunity the Taliban could not resist, and the alliance between Taliban fighters and poppy-farmers (now often the same people) is at the root of the resurgent guerilla war in the south.

It begins to smell like the last year or two in a classic anti-colonial war, when the guerillas start winning and local players begin to hedge their bets. After taking heavy casualties, Pakistan has agreed with the tribes of Waziristan to withdraw its troops from the lawless province, giving the Taliban a secure base on Afghanistan's border. Karzai, seeking allies who will help him survive the eventual pull-out of Western troops, is appointing gangsters and drug-runners as local police chiefs and commanders. The end-game has started, and the foreigners seem bound to lose.

Only one chance remains for them. The futile "war on drugs" will drag on endlessly elsewhere, but if they legalized the cultivation of opium poppies in Afghanistan -- and bought the entire crop at premium prices -- they might just break the link between the Taliban and the farmers. Store it, burn it, whatever, but stop destroying the farmers' livelihoods and put a few billion dollars directly into their pockets. Otherwise, the first Afghan cities will probably start to fall into Taliban hands within the next year to 18 months.

Three critical issues face returning MPs

Sep. 17, 2006. 01:00 AM Toronto Star Editorial

W hen Parliament resumes tomorrow after the long summer recess, Canadians will be eager to hear what Prime Minister Stephen Harper has to say about three key issues that his government failed to address before the House of Commons rose in June. And how he responds will go a long way toward determining whether Harper can turn his minority government into a majority in the next election, which could occur in 2007.

Indeed, with an election certainly on the horizon, Harper cannot afford to lose control over the parliamentary agenda if he hopes to remain PM.

Topping the list of issues that Harper must face is the Afghanistan mission.

With Canadians almost evenly split over our military involvement, Harper must set out clear markers for the mission and a timetable for meeting them.

In doing so, he has to give Canadians definite yardsticks to measure whether progress is being made and whether the huge sacrifice our troops are making is actually contributing to bringing "freedom and democracy" to Afghanistan, as the Prime Minister claims.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai's visit to Ottawa later this week gives Harper the perfect opportunity to spell out his expectations for the Afghan army to take over the war on the Taliban, and for Karzai's government to gain control over regional warlords and bring stability to areas beyond Kabul.

Harper also needs to tell Canadians what Ottawa intends to do to help Karzai rebuild essential institutions, particularly the kind of justice system that democracy demands.

And Harper must specify what plans he has to help Afghans perebuild essential infrastructure and bring development to regions as they become stabilized.

On the domestic front, Canadians want to know what has happened to the last of the five election promises Harper made, namely his wait times guarantee for essential medical treatment.

Taliban Resurgent

NY Times By DAVID ROHDE Published: September 17, 2006

In October 2001, Sarah Chayes and scores of other American journalists descended on the remote city of Quetta in western Pakistan. She and her colleagues were under orders to tell a still bewildered American public what was happening in the nearby Afghan city of Kandahar, the mysterious Taliban stronghold where the Sept. 11 attacks had been conceived.

“The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban” is Chayes’s engrossing account of what happened next. Shortly after the fall of the Taliban, bored with journalism and grasping the critical need for the United States to get Afghanistan right, she abandoned her life as a correspondent for National Public Radio and moved to Kandahar to help run an aid organization called Afghans for Civil Society, founded by the brother of Hamid Karzai, the new Afghan president. Over the next four years, she would try to remove the local warlord from power, receive repeated death threats and see her most trusted Afghan friend assassinated. “I don’t know if I will ever be able to find out who killed him,” she writes in the book’s opening chapter. “But I will try. By God, I will try.”

Living in Kandahar nearly continuously since 2001, Chayes gained an unparalleled understanding of southern Afghanistan, one of the most important yet least understood fronts in the war on terrorism. In elegant and incisive prose, she brings to life the region’s rich history, complex politics and proud ethnic Pashtun tribesmen. In one typical passage, Chayes conveys the recent history of Urozgan, a mountainous province just north of Kandahar. “Urozgan was a complicated place,” she writes. “In the hands of a grizzled governor with one milky eye and the manners of an aging lion, uncouth and rapacious and devoted to President Karzai, it was the base from which Karzai had launched his campaign to pry the hidebound southern Pashtuns away from the Taliban. And yet this same Urozgan was where many of the Taliban had come from.”

Chayes, a former Peace Corps volunteer, shuns Western comforts and insists on living among ordinary Afghans. Initially, she moves in with an impoverished family whose house is built in a graveyard. One morning, she sees that one young son is “playing knucklebones, with real knucklebones.” (“I wonder whose they are?” she wonders.) Later, she moves into one of the Karzai family houses, where she finds the president’s college textbooks and begins reading them to learn the country’s history. Unsatisfied, she scours libraries in Afghanistan and the United States for centuries-old histories of the region, weaving what she learns into the text.

Far more than a travelogue, Chayes’s book is a detailed critique of American policy in post-Taliban Afghanistan. She argues that a combination of American ignorance and arrogance, an unwillingness to confront Pakistan, and a need to divert American troops and resources to Iraq caused the United States to implement a disastrous policy in Afghanistan. The United States backed corrupt and dictatorial local warlords, she writes, rather than engage in what Afghans desired: the slow, costly and messy process of turning Afghanistan into a relatively stable country with an Afghan form of self-determination. “I have found that Afghans know precisely what democracy is — even if they might not be able to define the term,” she writes. “They want to participate in some real way in the fashioning of their nation’s destiny.”

She contends that Gul Agha Shirzai, the warlord governor of Kandahar, has been able to convince the American military officers constantly rotating through the city that he is a loyal supporter of the new Afghanistan. But in fact, she writes, he and his relatives hid their own sweeping corruption, along with bitter complaints from other tribes. Today, Afghans who long for a modern and stable country express disappointment with Hamid Karzai and his American backers for creating a hugely corrupt Afghanistan. In rural areas, support for the Taliban is rising.

Chayes’s most explosive charge is that Pakistan — the United States’ supposed ally in the war against terrorism — is actively supporting the Taliban as a way to counter the spreading influence of its regional rival, India. To placate the Americans, Pakistan occasionally arrests a senior Qaeda operative. But at the same time, the resurgent Taliban fighting and killing American soldiers in the “new” Afghanistan were “maufactured and maintained, housed, trained and equipped by stubborn, shortsighted officials in that very Pakistani government,” she writes. “I was at a loss to understand why American decision makers could not see how suicidally contradictory their alliance with Pakistan was. To us on the ground, it was obvious.”

Chayes’s ground reporting in Kandahar and Kabul is excellent, but her critique of American policy would have benefited from more reporting in Washington. She also has a tendency to lionize some characters and ridicule others, particularly those who do not share her view of Afghanistan. At one point, she asks why Hamid Karzai failed to act quickly to remove the warlords. “Hadn’t we described exactly how to do it in our eight-point plan?” Chayes writes indignantly, referring to a document prepared by her group. “Had he forgotten to read it or something?”

But overall, Chayes’s perceptiveness far outweighs her self-described tendency to be “impertinent.” Today, she remains in Kandahar, where the Taliban are mounting their largest number of attacks since 2001 and suicide bombings are a weekly occurrence. She writes that despite early American and Afghan missteps, support for Afghanistan should continue. The country’s increasingly unstable south, she says, is teetering. If in the end, the American effort in southern Afghanistan fails, this important and insightful book will explain why.

David Rohde, a reporter for The Times, covered Afghanistan and South Asia from 2001 to 2005.

"If I adopt a style of not consulting, and of doing it alone, the country will not have the kind of harmony it has today. My problem is perhaps that I'm too much of a democrat for this time of the country's life."

Time Magazine By ROMESH RATNESAR ARYN BAKER/KABUL 15 Sep 06

Hamid Karzai is a hard man to see. Even for those who gain access to the Presidential Palace in Kabul, his office is nearly invisible, tucked into the corner of a two-story building and marked only by a plainclothes security guard who sits outside its wooden door holding a machine gun. The interior of the office is adorned with large Afghan rugs, cream-colored sofas and a marble fireplace; behind Karzai's desk is a bookcase that prominently displays the collected writings of George Washington. From the serenity of that perch, it's tempting to gaze down at the blossoming rose garden below and convince yourself that the war being waged to save Karzai's country is far, far away.

But in Afghanistan, peace is still an illusion. Minutes before we are ushered in to meet Karzai, a distant blast shakes the windows of the palace. When he opens the door, he's in a typically affable mood, joking with his advisers, offering visitors coffee and apologizing for having a cold. As Karzai sits down for the interview, Amrullah Saleh, the head of Afghan intelligence, appears. "The chief of the spooks! How are you--good?" Karzai asks. But he knows the news is bad. The two men retreat into a back room, where Saleh tells him that a suicide bombing near the U.S. embassy, about a mile away, has killed two U.S. soldiers and 14 Afghans. It is the worst attack in the capital since the fall of the Taliban five years before, and for a moment, Karzai becomes grim. "Afghanistan has been going through this suffering for a long time," he says, "and you get very angry. Each time you get angrier." So how does he cope when every day seems to bring more tragedy? Karzai sighs. "We're used to it," he says.

Since becoming Afghan leader nearly five years ago, Karzai has been the face, voice and guiding spirit of the new Afghanistan, an urbane antidote to the depraved rule of the Taliban. In 2004, bolstered by billions of dollars in Western aid and the firepower of 18,000 U.S. troops, Karzai won Afghanistan's first presidential election in a half-century. Since then, nothing has gone right. Taliban guerrillas have overrun swaths of territory in the south, sparking a battle for control with NATO forces that has left 55 Western troops dead in five weeks. Squabbles between Western military commanders and the Karzai government over antidrug policies have allowed poppy growth to reach an all-time peak. It's a sign of how much security has deteriorated in Kabul that Karzai's movements are as restricted as ever. In his meeting with TIME, Karzai's aides would not allow him to be photographed beyond the door of his office, for fear that his whereabouts could be exposed. "The palace is like a jail," says Shukria Barakzai, a member of Afghanistan's parliament and a Karzai ally. "The walls are so high that he has become distant from his own nation." That helps explain why, as hope fades and parts of the country drift into lawlessness, Afghans have started to direct their anger toward Karzai himself.

As the insurgency has intensified, so has carping about Karzai's failings--not just his physical remoteness but also his willingness to placate the country's warlords, his failure to take on government corruption, even his inability to get the traffic lights working in Kabul. The very qualities that catapulted Karzai to power and burnished his celebrity abroad--his flair, openness and old-world gentility--now seem to be exactly the wrong traits for a leader of a developing country at war with itself. "He brought a new face to Afghanistan by being nice to everybody," says Ahmad Nader Nadery, head of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. "But as the challenges have multiplied, he's revealed weaknesses that we never could have expected." Jan Mohammed, an adviser to Karzai and former provincial governor, is more blunt. "Kindness will not help him. If Karzai does not get stronger, it will be difficult for him to run the country."

Karzai isn't naturally imposing. In person, his slight frame, drawn countenance and trimmed white beard make him look a decade older than his 48 years. "If I adopt a style of not consulting, and of doing it alone, the country will not have the kind of harmony it has today," he says. "My problem is perhaps that I'm too much of a democrat for this time of the country's life. If you need a dictator, then go to the Afghan people. Let them elect a dictator. I am not one of those." Of course, what Karzai and his Western benefactors know is that the alternative to a democratically elected Afghan leader isn't despotism--it's all-out anarchy. "If Karzai isn't there," says Jamil Karzai, a member of parliament and second cousin of the President, "forget about democracy. Forget about human rights. Forget about Afghanistan." The dilemma is that even if Karzai is the wrong man for the job, he is also the only one who can do it.

Karzai says, "What the world should see is the desire of the Afghan people, not the problems we have along the way." A first-time visitor to Kabul is struck by the relative normality of the place, the absence of the barbed wire, blast walls and paranoia that have become familiar in Baghdad. The roads bustle with traffic--the number of cars in Kabul has tripled since the fall of the Taliban in 2001. Garish new building projects loom over some of Kabul's oldest, poorest slums, dramatizing the extent to which the country is beginning to emerge from decades of underdevelopment. A late-afternoon walk through Shar-i-Naw Park offers a glimpse of the country's transformation: while Afghan boys play volleyball and girls mingle uncovered by burqas, local men gather with a member of parliament to voice complaints about the government. Although small-bore, all of those activities happen every day; none were tolerated by the Taliban.

So much for the good news. Venture outside Kabul, and the reality of the country's blight becomes overwhelming. Sixty percent of the country is still without electricity, 80% without potable water. Unemployment hovers around 40%. The absence of credible police and consistent government services in rural areas has created vacuums that are being filled by an array of antigovernment forces: Islamists in the south, '80s-era warlords in the west and drug runners in the north. Meanwhile, the fighting between coalition troops and the Taliban has halted new reconstruction projects and undermined the impact of finished ones. Only half the aid pledged to the country since 2001 has been distributed, and violence has rendered the road from Kabul to Kandahar--until now, the U.S.'s biggest reconstruction success--impassable.

The 20,000 U.S. troops that have until now been largely focused on hunting al-Qaeda are turning toward nation building. Not a week goes by without the launch of a new school, road, medical clinic or water project, but those successes are overshadowed by reports of schools burning and teachers being assassinated.

Few Afghans blame Karzai for the rise of the insurgency. They're more likely to share his view that culpability for the Taliban's resurgence lies with Pakistan, for harboring the movement's leaders (a charge Pakistan denies), and with the U.S., for not committing sufficient troops to fight them. In a visit to Kabul last week, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf vowed to do more to curb the support the insurgents receive from their brethren, but Karzai has yet to be convinced. "That is what I want the international community to focus on," he says.

However, ordinary Afghans do criticize Karzai and his government for failing to improve anything else. The most common complaint is the pervasiveness of official corruption. Karzai says he has addressed the problem by appointing a new attorney general and a chief justice, but no one expects results. Electrician Shapoor Malik Zada, 42, says he doesn't have electricity in his house because he refused to pay the $140 in extra "fees" to hook up his connection a few months ago. Now, he says, a standard bribe runs $600. (The average annual income is about $300 per capita.) Another man, Samiullah, 24, says the price for obtaining a driver's license has doubled in the past two months. "Now that the government says it is fighting corruption," he says, "everyone is trying to get as much money as they can."

It's debatable whether Karzai deserves blame for such abuses, since low-level graft has been a fact of life in Afghanistan, as in most poor countries, for decades. But it's indisputable that Karzai has been slow to expel corrupt government officials, nor has he taken on the warlords, many of whom helped overthrow the Taliban but also have records of drug trafficking and human-rights abuses. Far from being sidelined in the new Afghanistan, militia leaders have won seats in parliament and landed jobs in the Presidential Palace. Human-rights commissioner Nadery says the government's coddling of widely loathed strongmen is fueling resentment that the Taliban has managed to exploit. "There's a strong relationship between this policy of accommodating bad guys and the increase in the insurgency," he says. "In places like Kandahar, I see huge differences from what I saw a year ago. Last year we had the active support of the tribal leaders against the Taliban. But now they see the kind of people in power, and they've become convinced that the government won't help them either."

Karzai vigorously defends his decision to work with the warlords. "They have done a service to their country," he says. "We can't shun those who have served this country and throw them into nothing. That will bring us into another form of instability. My job here is to try to move forward, keeping this very delicate jar of the Afghan peace process and reconstruction and institution building in my hands, through troubled waters ... Along the way I may have to do things that some in the international community may not like. But I have my Afghan judgment, and that is what I use."

Those who have worked with Karzai say he can be generous to a fault with other Afghans, answering his own phones and holding listening sessions with dozens of tribal leaders in the palace every day. But those meetings often come at the expense of serious policy analysis, and Afghans and Western officials say Karzai's avuncular, consensus-building approach is ill suited to a time when what the country needs most is decisive action--not just against the Taliban and the drug lords but also against unaccountable, rogue officials who are undermining faith in the country's nascent democracy. "He does move too slowly," says a Western official in Kabul. "He is a ditherer. He's not always wrong, and he is doing better ... It's not like things aren't happening." The official adds, "But we still have a national government without broad-based institutions of governance across the country. So this is going to be really hard and slow."

Even those critical of Karzai sympathize with the demands he faces: working 14-hour days, he hasn't taken a vacation in five years. Karzai's burdens are compounded by his isolation. He rarely leaves his compound, although he says he recently slipped out of the palace in an unmarked car to press the flesh in Kabul. For all his ebullience, he can't help sounding weary from having to shoulder so much of the responsibility, and the blame, for Afghanistan's turbulent rebirth. "Our expectations were too high. My own expectations were too high," he says. "We came, we thought the neighbors were going to be good with us, that terrorism was gone, that everybody was cooperating, that the little politics around the region were no longer there to sabotage the process." Karzai adds, "You can't imagine how dispirited this country was. How miserable it had become. Unbelievable. When you go to the country, to the mountains where I was fighting the Taliban, I came across families and people who had nothing on earth. Nothing. We have to provide them a better life."

The next Afghan presidential election is in 2009, and Karzai has said he doesn't plan to run again. But he hedged on that vow at the end of our interview. "If there is an alternative three years from now that I can be comfortable with, who is patriotic, good and deserves to be elected, I would definitely quit in his favor." That's hard to imagine, both because of Karzai's ambitions and because the country's survival depends on the international support that only Karzai can guarantee. But sooner or later, both will run out. Karzai's biggest test, and his country's, will come when he is gone.

[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.]