In this bulletin:

• Afghanistan eyes Bangladesh's Grameen Bank to help poor
• UN Says Land Mines Hampering Afghan Agriculture
• Land Mine Accidents Drop in Afghanistan
• Afghanistan is not Iraq, O'Connor says
• Canada to borrow German tanks for Afghanistan: media
• Slovak peacekeeping troops reported to be moving south in Afghanistan
• Security, water, key to weaning Afghanistan's Maywand area from opium poppy
• Friends and foes form front to curb Karzai's powers
• Quake hits Afghanistan, scores dead in floods
• Scores dead after flooding and avalanches in Afghanistan
• Two French Aid Workers Missing In Afghanistan
• Living Under the Taleban
• Should the West Negotiate with the Taliban?
• 'Many killed' in Pakistan clash
• Pakistani Tribesmen Declare Jihad Against Militants Linked to al-Qaida

Afghanistan eyes Bangladesh's Grameen Bank to help poor

Wed Apr 4, 7:03 AM ET

NEW DELHI (AFP) - Afghanistan may seek to copy micro-credit programmes pioneered by Bangladesh's Grameen Bank to help alleviate crushing poverty in the war-shattered nation, officials said.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai sought details of the loan scheme during a meeting with Fakhruddin Ahmed, chief of Bangladesh's caretaker government, on the sidelines of a summit of South Asian nations in New Delhi late on Tuesday.

Karzai "was very impressed with our Grameen Bank and he showed interest in its possible replication," said Bangladesh government spokesman Syed Fahim Munaim.

Afghanistan was officially accepted on Tuesday as the eighth member of the South Asian Association of Region Cooperation (SAARC) whose two-day meeting was slated to wrap late on Wednesday.

"The Afghan leader said Afghanistan has been ruined (by war) and needed re-building and asked if Bangladesh could help, especially in the social sector as it had a skilled labour force," Munaim told reporters.

An aide to Karzai said Afghanistan already had some micro-financing programmes.

But he said the Grameen Bank "could be an answer" in helping relieve conditions of desperate poverty in the country where an estimated 30 million people live.

Afghanistan's infrastructure has been almost completely devastated by a series of wars.

Launched in 1976, the Grameen Bank loans money to poor people to buy their own tools and equipment -- cutting out the middlemen and helping transform their lives through self-employment.

Grameen alone has given such loans to more than six million people and the model has been replicated in more than 40 nations.

UN Says Land Mines Hampering Afghan Agriculture

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

UNITED NATIONS, April 4, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- A top United Nations official has said land mines continue to keep off limits large patches of fertile soil in Afghanistan.

Jean-Marie Guehenno, under secretary-general for peacekeeping operations, said on April 3 that as a result the quality of life in certain parts of the country had been considerably strained.

Guehenno made his remarks on the eve of International Day for Land Mine Awareness on April 4.

But he also praised ongoing efforts to remove Afghanistan's land mines.

"The Afghanistan [de-mining] program, I think, is a remarkable program, which is remarkable by the massive engagement of the Afghan people in that program," he said. "And the Afghan NGOs, Afghan organizations have been absolutely key in the effort to remove mines."

Guehenno said that even a single buried land mine may force authorities to place "land mine" warnings that make the land unusable.

Land Mine Accidents Drop in Afghanistan

Educators Tiptoe Through Afghan Cultural Minefield to Teach Dangers of Old Explosive

By ALISA TANG The Associated Press April 4, 2007

KABUL, Afghanistan - At a lecture on dangers of land mines, the schoolchildren listened in horror as a guest speaker recounted how his left leg was blown off above the knee. It was three years ago, 11-year-old Massoud said, and he had been playing with a kite near his home.

"When I arrived over the top of the hill, suddenly a bomb exploded," the sweet-faced boy said. "No one would come near me because they were afraid another mine would explode. Then I crawled out of the mined area."

After a quarter century of war, Afghanistan is still littered with millions of land mines and other unexploded ordnance, and more mines are being planted in regions of the south where a Taliban-led guerrilla war against NATO forces has been escalating.

Yet as Afghanistan marks International Mine Awareness Day Wednesday, there is some cause for optimism. Accident rates have declined dramatically, thanks to the imaginative and culturally sensitive efforts of organizations such as OMAR a mine-clearing NGO that recruited Massoud for the recent lesson in a Kabul mosque.

His audience, a classroom full of boys about his age, listened, their mouths agape. Their wide eyes moved from his face to the artificial leg under his gray tunic.

Massoud, who like many Afghans uses only one name, is one of nearly 800 people maimed and killed by the debris of war in Afghanistan every year. That's less than half the number five years ago, when the country was embarking on reconstruction after the fall of the Taliban, the Islamic movement routed by the U.S. and its Afghan allies for hosting Osama bin Laden.

While nothing conveys the danger of land mines quite like a personal account, Massoud's macabre show-and-tell was just one small moment in a campaign that owes much of its success to its sensitivity to conservative Islam.

The U.N. has been demining Afghanistan since 1989, spending an estimated $300 million. It now believes it has cleared more than 60 percent of land sown with mines since the Soviet invasion in 1979. But as many as 4.2 million Afghans still live in suspected mined areas, according to U.N. statistics.

To teach the dangers, educators must tiptoe through a dizzying list of no-no's in a society hypersensitive about portraying even modestly dressed women and girls. In some conservative parts of the country, just photos of human forms and video, which were forbidden by the Taliban during their repressive rule, are also frowned upon.

"Some people object to seeing girls in any of our materials. They don't object to boys, but they do object to girls," said Susan Helseth, an adviser for the U.N. Mine Action Center for Afghanistan who oversees the development of education materials.

The Association for Aid and Relief, Japan (AAR-Japan) had to redo a mine awareness booklet whose cover showed a girl and boy sitting together in a class. An Afghan review committee said children of that age should be segregated by sex, so it was reprinted with boys and girls on separate pages.

AAR-Japan also uses two mobile cinemas run on generators to show villagers an 8-minute mine awareness video called "The Way to Home" but not in the south, where conservative Muslims reject the idea of screening movies, said the group's director Koji Miyazaki.

He said there is also concern that the actress in the film, Marina Golbahari, may cause anger in former Taliban strongholds because of her role in the award-winning 2003 movie "Osama." The movie portrayed some Taliban as misogynistic pedophiles.

The communications firm Sayara, which works with the aid organization Handicap International, uses mobile theater to get its message across, although without any female characters.

The firm's director Antoine Heudre said it was a good way to reach illiterate people, particularly in villages that lack electricity to run televisions. Some 86 percent of women and 56 percent of men in Afghanistan cannot read.

Despite the many cultural and educational challenges, the mine awareness message, combined with the efforts of deminers, appears to be working. According to the international Red Cross, there were 771 victims of mine and ordnance accidents in 2006 down from 1,717 victims in 2002.

In all, mines and unexploded ordnance have killed at least 942 people and injured 4,543 in the past five years. Most of the victims are male.

Over the years, simple color-coded messages have been painted on rocks, houses and mountains around the country by deminers: red for danger, white for a cleared area. Also, mine risk educators use painted diagrams to warn children about land mines, cluster bombs and other explosives.

Despite such powerful education efforts, continued land mine accidents appear inevitable. Nearly 90 percent of accidents happen in unmarked areas, and it would take decades to clear Afghanistan entirely and that is without factoring in the leftovers of ongoing violence.

Mullah Mahmood, a Taliban commander in the southern province of Helmand, told The Associated Press that militants have planted new land mines as part of their armed campaign against heavily armed NATO forces.

Afghanistan is not Iraq, O'Connor says, citing successes

Wednesday, April 04, 2007 CanWest News Service - Kazi Stastna

MONTREAL - Canadian troops serving in Afghanistan are carrying out a noble and just mission, Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor insisted in a speech in Montreal Tuesday, despite shouts to the contrary from some members of the audience.

Several young women stood up soon after O'Connor began addressing the crowd at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, unfurled a protest banner and heckled the minister. They were quickly taken out of the room by police officers.

O'Connor, who brushed off the protesters as "ankle-biters," was speaking to the Montreal Council on Foreign Relations, which is made up of a range of groups including corporations such as Bombardier and Bell Helicopter, the police department, educational institutions, unions and humanitarian organizations.

The traffic jams and two automated teller machines (installed by a Canadian Forces accountant) that O'Connor saw when he visited Kandahar province, where Canadian troops are stationed, three weeks ago are encouraging signs of Afghanistan's progress, the defence minister said.

"I saw dramatic change in that country from the first time I visited just over a year ago," he said "While security is still a concern in the south ...the situation is definitely improving ...Life is returning to places that seemed deserted before."

About 2,500 Canadian troops are currently stationed in Afghanistan. Of that figure, 330 work as part of a provincial reconstruction team doing aid projects in the country.

But the roughly 60 protesters that gathered outside the hotel accused O'Connor and his government of misleading the public about the humanitarian aspect of Canada's mission and involving them in an "endless occupation."

"The line on what they're doing in Afghan changes all the time," said Mostafa Henaway, 27, of the group Block the Empire, which helped organized the protest.

"First it's the war on terror, then it's about redevelopment and democracy and now it's about security."

The protesters denounced the companies that sponsored and attended the luncheon meeting as war profiteers.

O'Connor warned against comparing Canada's mission in Afghanistan with the occupation in Iraq.

"Don't mix up Iraq with Afghanistan. Afghanistan is a success story. Afghanistan is improving. There is a lot of aid and a lot of effort going in to build that country up. It's a democratically elected government, and we're there with the support of the government."

Montreal Gazette

Canada to borrow German tanks for Afghanistan: media

Wed Apr 4, 2:18 AM ET

Canada plans to rent around 20 German tanks to better protect its soldiers in Afghanistan, local media reported Tuesday.

The Canadian government will rent 20 Leopard type A6M tanks from the German army because they offer better protection against anti-tank explosive devices than those currently possessed by the Canadian army, CTV television said.

In addition, the army's 30-year-old C2 tanks cannot be used in Afghanistan because with the summer heat the inside temperature would surpass 60 degrees Celsius (140 degrees Fahrenheit). The German A6M models are air-conditioned.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper declined to offer specifics when asked about the deal.

"The Cabinet has been discussing the tank issue and we'll have an announcement on that shortly," he said.

Canada has deployed a contingent of 2,500 soldiers in southern Afghanistan where they are part of coalition forces hunting down militants from the ousted Taliban regime and their Islamist allies including Al-Qaeda members.

Since 2002, 45 Canadian soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan.

Slovak peacekeeping troops reported to be moving south in Afghanistan

Xinhua / April 4, 2007 

Slovak troops in Afghanistan have started moving south from Kabul in response to a request from NATO, reports from Slovakia said on Tuesday.

The first part of a military engineering unit have left Kabul by aircraft for Kandahar, a key front of NATO peace-keeping troops' fighting with the Taliban militants in southern Afghanistan, Pravda, a Slovak daily, quoted a source close to the military as saying.

The unit's equipment was transported in convoys, it added.

The Slovak Defence Ministry refused to comment on the mobilization.

"We will not comment on the move of the soldiers to a camp near Kandahar due to security reasons," Defense Ministry spokesman Vladimir Gemela said.

Last year, NATO demanded that Slovakia deploy its troops in the turbulent south of Afghanistan.

Around 60 Slovak soldiers are stationed in Afghanistan as part of the International Security Assistance Force.

The commanders of the Taliban have claimed that they had prepared 10,000 fighters including 2,000 suicide bombers to speed up their attacks against Afghan and foreign forces based in Afghanistan.

Recently, the attacks have been more frequent in the mountainous areas in the south than in the relatively calmer north.

The Slovak government approved the transfer of the troops to southern Afghanistan in late February on condition that they will not operate only in the air base.

Security, water, key to weaning Afghanistan's Maywand area from opium poppy

The Canadian Press John Cotter Wednesday, April 04, 2007

MAYWAND, Afghanistan  — More police and cheap water are needed if the remote Maywand district of Kandahar province is to wean itself off of its opium poppy-based economy, its leader says.

Haji Saifullah said he has only 250 Afghan National Police officers to patrol the sprawling desert district that borders Helmand province — where NATO has launched Operation Achilles against the Taliban.

Saifullah, who depends on an armoured task force of Canadian soldiers to help keep order in the region, said he needs at least 200 more police officers.

Poor farmers grow poppies because they can’t afford to irrigate their fields to grow other crops, such as corn or wheat. Fuel for water-well pumps is too expensive.

“They would like to grow something else,” Saifullah said Wednesday in his compound guarded by Afghan police.

“They have no choice. If they grow something else they are not going to get enough money.”

Last year, opium cultivation in Afghanistan rose by almost 60 per cent, much of it in the southern provinces.

Afghan officials have said the government hopes to destroy about 50,000 hectares of poppy fields this year before the harvest, which starts in April in the south and the early summer in the north.

Saifullah said efforts by the central Afghan government to eradicate poppy fields are angering farmers.

Some people join the Taliban, not for ideological reasons, but to help feed their families.

Maywand, with a population of about 100,000, appreciates the security provided by Canadian troops, but the district badly needs economic development projects to create jobs, he said.

“If some projects came to the district and hired people they are not going to support the Taliban,” he said through an interpreter.

“They are going to tell the Taliban: go away.”

Troops of the Royal Canadian Regiment battle group have been patrolling the hot and dusty area for a month, bedding down every night beside their vehicles.

The force, which is not involved in poppy eradication, has been meeting with village leaders, disposing of roadside bombs and helping the police whenever it can.

Maj. Alex Ruff, the commander of the task force, meets with Saifullah regularly to give him advice and support.

On Wednesday, Ruff immediately responded to a call for help from the district’s police chief when four members of the Afghan National Police were wounded by a roadside bomb.

“We will see what we can do,” Ruff told the district leader. “If they will send people out to guide us, we should be able to go out and investigate.”

Operation Achilles is to pave the way for more economic development in the region by making it possible to fix and expand the Kajaki dam, a project that would improve irrigation and provide electricity for the region.

But the project depends on the defeat of the Taliban and is expected to take years to complete.

Saifullah said people in Maywand are very poor, but they are doing the best they can in the meantime.

“We have to work by ourselves but we also need somebody to help us,” he said. “Security and water are the key.”

Friends and foes form front to curb Karzai's powers

By Sayed Salahuddin
Wednesday, April 4, 2007; 9:44 AM

KABUL (Reuters) - Key members of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government have joined forces with some of his arch rivals to form a party that aims to curb his powers.

Launched on Tuesday, the National Front is largely made up of veterans of the mujahideen resistance war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.

The party wants to change the constitution so that a prime minister is appointed to share control with the president over government affairs and oversee elections for governors and mayors.

"We do not want presidential system," said Sayed Mustafa Kazimi, a parliamentarian, and spokesman for the National Front.

"We want the role of a prime minister in order to improve democracy in our society," he said.

Burhanuddin Rabbani, who led a mujahideen government that collapsed in civil war during the early 1990s, is the leader of the party.

The former president, a soft spoken, turbanned Islamic scholar, was a leader of a key faction within the Northern Alliance that helped U.S.-led troops overthrow the Taliban in late 2001, and is now a member of Afghanistan's lower house.

National Front members talk of seeking reconciliation with the Taliban, stamping out corruption and weaning Afghanistan, the world's leading producer of heroin, off the narcotics trade.

CURRENT WOES

Disenchantment with Karzai is running high, but many ordinary Afghans will hardly be filled with confidence at the sight of so many former factional commanders banding together in a common front, analysts say, as several of them are regarded as being as responsible as the Taliban for Afghanistan's current woes.

Members of the National Front include first Vice President Ahmad Zia Masood, Mohammad Qasim Fahim, Karzai's adviser on security affairs, and the head of the lower of house of parliament, Yunus Qanuni, along with several former and current members of Karzai's cabinet.

At least two top former communist generals who are now members of parliament, and Mustafa Zahir, a grandson of Afghanistan's ailing former king, are also members of the party.

After being installed as president and backed by the West after the overthrow of the Taliban, Karzai was elected in 2004 to serve as president for another five years in an election regarded as triumph for democracy after nearly a quarter century of chaos and violence.

As the president and commander in-chief of the armed forces, Karzai chooses his cabinet, although ministers have to be endorsed by parliament. He also has the power to appoint or replace governors and mayors under a constitution drawn up by a grand assembly in 2002.

One National Front member said the party would call for another loya jirga, Afghanistan's traditional grand assembly of tribal chieftains and elders, to amend the constitution.

Quake hits Afghanistan, scores dead in floods

Tue Apr 3, 10:09 PM ET

A powerful earthquake hit Afghanistan Tuesday, also jolting Pakistan and India, as the government announced more than 110 people were killed in four days of flooding and avalanches.

There were no reports of casualties in the 6.2-magnitude quake, which hit near the Afghan town of Faizabad near the towering Hindu Kush mountain range after 8:00 am (0300 GMT).

Local authorities said more than 50 houses were destroyed in the northern province of Takhar but this had yet to be confirmed as the area was remote, a spokesman for the government's Department for Disaster Preparedness said.

There had been no reports of casualties, said the spokesman, Ahmad Shkeb.

The quake sent people running into the open in panic across mountainous, quake-prone areas in northeastern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan and India, all of which have suffered devastating earthquakes in the past few years.

The governor of Badakshan province, which was at the epicentre of the quake estimated at a depth of 200 kilometres (124 miles) underground, said he had not heard of damage or casualties.

But it would take several hours for news to filter in from the outlying areas of the large province, governor Abdul Majid told AFP.

Badakshan was one of several areas where avalanches have been reported in the past days as winter snows melt and spring has brought heavy downpours to the usually parched country.

Avalanches in that province and in central Bamiyan had killed 23 over the past four days, the interior ministry announced Tuesday.

Another 91 had died in flooding, it said, with 19 of the nation's 34 provinces struck.

Nearly 4,500 head of livestock were killed with large swathes of farmland destroyed and roads and bridges washed away.

The heavy rains and melting snows caused the Kabul River, normally little more than a dirty stream, to overflow for the first time in about a decade.

About 500 homes and 100 businesses in Kabul were either destroyed or damaged, the International Organisation for Migration said.

It estimated about 900 families have been displaced and another 1,700 remained at risk in districts of the capital.

About 1,200 affected families in the province of Parwan, north of Kabul, had been relocated to safety, it said.

The United Nations said Monday up to 25,000 people had been affected by floods and avalanches across the country and it was distributing 350,000 tons of food.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force, in Afghanistan to help fight the Taliban insurgents and to facilitate reconstruction, said it was airlifting humanitarian relief and doing aerial and engineering reconnaissance to assess the damage.

The earthquake also shook Pakistan, causing panic in areas flattened by a 7.6-magnitude earthquake in October 2005 which killed more than 73,000 people. There were no reports of casualties.

In Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistani Kashmir which suffered the most destruction in the quake two years ago, people ran into open areas and a man jumped from his office building, suffering minor injuries, witnesses said.

Indian-administered Kashmir was also jolted, sending residents dashing outdoors amid fears of a repeat of the October 2005 quake that killed 1,000 people in the area.

Afghanistan is often hit by earthquakes, especially around the Hindu Kush mountain range that is near the collision of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates, where seismic activity is high.

Scores dead after flooding and avalanches in Afghanistan

Radio Australia / April 4, 2007

More than 110 people are confirmed to have died in four days of flooding and avalanches in Afghanistan.

Officials say melting winter snows and heavy spring rains have flooded normally parched parts of the country and caused a series of avalanches.

Large areas of farmland have been destroyed, and roads and bridges have been washed away.

The floods also caused the Kabul River to overflow its banks for the first time in a decade, flooding hundreds of homes and businesses in the capital.

The United Nations says up to 25,000 people had been affected by floods and landslides, and is distributing 350,000 tons of food.

Relief efforts in some parts of Afghanistan were hampered on Tuesday by a powerful earthquake measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale.

The quake, which struck the remote town of Faizabad near the Kush mountains, is reported to have destroyed around 50 homes, but there are no reports of casualties.

The earthquake also shook Pakistan, causing panic in areas flattened by a 7.6-magnitude earthquake in October 2005 which killed more than 73,000 people.

There were no reports of casualties.

Two French Aid Workers Missing In Afghanistan

KABUL, April 4, 2007 (AFP) - Afghan police are searching for two French aid workers who have not been in contact with their organisation for nearly two days, an official said Wednesday.

The French foreign ministry said it had been informed by nongovernment organisation Terre d'Enfance (A World for Our Children) that it had lost contact with the two on Tuesday and they had not reached their destination.

The pair -- travelling with an Afghan driver, cook and guard -- had been travelling from the southwestern province of Nimroz and were headed northwards to Farah and Herat, the interior ministry told AFP.

"Their translator informed the police in Nimroz that they have lost contact with their colleagues, two French and three Afghans, since yesterday at nine o'clock," spokesman Zemarai Bashary told AFP.

"Police have launched a search and investigation," he said.

In Paris, the foreign ministry said it and the French embassy in Kabul were following the case closely and were in contact with Afghan authorities.

The French nationals were volunteers for the humanitarian group and had been on a mission, a spokesman said.

An Italian journalist was last month kidnapped by the Taliban in Helmand province, which adjoins Nimroz, and released two weeks later after the government handed back five Taliban prisoners.

The extremists are still holding an Afghan reporter captured with Italian Daniele Mastrogiacomo on March 4. They beheaded a driver snatched at the same time.

Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah has threatened through the media to kill the Afghan unless the government releases two more Taliban prisoners.

Some critics of the deal that freed Mastrogiacomo said his exchange for Taliban would encourage copycat kidnappings by militants as well as criminals.

Living Under the Taleban

Fundamentalist rule has returned to Musa Qala – and some residents have never been happier.

Institute for War & Peace Reporting
By IWPR trainees in Helmand (ARR No. 249, 4-Apr-07)

The reports are grim. Three men were hanged on April 1 in Helmand, executed as spies by the Taleban regime. The body of one hung for hours in Musa Qala, where the fundamentalists chased out village elders and ran up their flag in early February.

While the news sent shudders through the capital, Lashkar Gah, residents of Musa Qala were undaunted.

“I don’t care about those three men,” said shopkeeper Zia ul Haq. “They deserved to die. I am happy. We have no problems here, except the possibility of bombardment.”

Musa Qala formally fell to the Taleban in February, barely four months after a controversial agreement under which village elders promised to keep the fundamentalists out in return for a British withdrawal.

The deal brought peace to the town, which had seen months of heavy fighting, but it sent thousands of people fleeing to more secure areas, fearing that NATO bombs would soon come to unseat the Taleban.

Two months later, the Taleban are still in charge.

“I do not want to take Musa Qala by force,” said President Hamed Karzai, speaking to residents of Lashkar Gah on March 29. “I want to solve problems by negotiations with all sides.”

But just one day earlier, provincial officials were telling a different story.

“We will recapture Musa Qala,” Helmand military chief Abdul Wahid Faizi told IWPR. “We will move the Taleban out of the town. We are working on plans now, and I am sure we will do that soon.”

While the government tries to decide on its course, local residents have had to continue with their lives.

Many say they are happier now than they have been for years – and more than willing to trade a certain amount of freedom for some peace and security.

“In my life I have only had two happy periods in which I felt safe,” said Zia ul Haq. “The first time was at the beginning of the Karzai administration and the second is now, when the Taleban is controlling the district. Security is very good: there are no thieves, no kidnappers, everyone lives in safety and is able to get on with their lives. We are all happy.”

His assessment is in sharp contrast to official pronouncements.

“We have 900 families registered as refugees from Musa Qala,” said Abdulstar Muzahari, head of the department of refugees. “None of them have gone back. The only people who returned were drug traffickers and those who are linked to the Taleban. Most people hate the Taleban, they are not good to people.”

Certainly Sayed Ahmad Akaa, father of three, agrees. He has moved his family to the capital, and says that the shift is permanent.

“You could not pay me to go back to Musa Qala,” he told IWPR. “My children cannot go to school there, I cannot live. I sold all my land and am buying a shop in Lashkar Gah. I will never go back.”

Abdul Mane, another refugee, is just as adamant.

“I cannot return, because the Taleban say that I am a spy,” he said. “They have threatened me with death. I have not seen my parents in three months.”

Bu those who remain say life has never been better.

“When the government was controlling Musa Qala, you could not leave the house with 1000 rupees in your pocket (about 25 US dollars),” said Abdul Hadi. “There were thieves everywhere. But now things are quite different. Everyone is happy and feels free, you can carry gold and no one will steal it from you.”

Security concerns among Helmandis are wider than the threat from insurgents. Official corruption and police inaction made the cities unsafe, with those in uniform being seen as just as likely to perpetrate a crime as to prevent one. And residents feared government and foreign troops as much as they feared the Taleban.

“If the government cannot control the situation, we have to let the Taleban rule,” said one shopkeeper, who did not want to be named. “We were sleeping in the desert, because there were bombs and fires in our district every night between one and three a.m. When the government launches an operation, they give no warning.

“People were dying – we buried five or six bodies every day, most of them civilians. The graveyards were full. A bomb fell on one house and five members of the family were killed. The Taleban notify us when they intend to operate.”

“We hate the local authorities, because they destroyed our family,” said another local resident. “On March 22, the Taleban came to us and said ‘we are fighting tonight, protect yourselves’. So we packed up the car and went to the desert. The fighting began at seven p.m. As we were driving, the Taleban shot at our car and my wife and uncle were killed.

“We sat all night in the desert, and when we came home we found the doors to our house broken and all our belongings stolen by the local authorities. What are we supposed to do? We cannot sue the government or the Taleban, and both sides just come and beat us on our heads.”

In addition to the violence, Helmand’s most important revenue source, opium poppy, is under threat from foreign-backed eradication campaigns.

According to a 2006 report by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, UNODC, Afghanistan now produces over 90 per cent of the world’s heroin. And the undisputed champion of Afghan production is Helmand, where this season, according to provincial officials, more than 70 per cent of the land has been planted with poppy. Last year’s harvest made up more than 40 per cent of the Afghan total.

This means that an overwhelming majority of Helmand’s farmers have invested their economic survival in the fields of bright red flowers that dot the landscape.

The government launched a widely publicised eradication effort in February, but, once again, it has bogged down in corruption, and the results have fallen far short of expectation. The one undeniable effect seems to have been to drive farmers right into the arms of the Taleban.

“We are growing more poppy this year than ever before,” said Hamidullah, a farmer in Musa Qala. “The Taleban tell us ‘as long as we are here, no one can destroy your poppy’. The government cannot come here now, because there is another power here. It is the government of the Taleban.”

“I am growing poppy, and now I am happy,” agreed Muhammad Meer. “I do not have to worry about the government coming to destroy my crop. The Taleban is not saying anything against poppy, and they have not asked us for help. We are very happy now.”

The Taleban seem to have learned something from the past. At least for the present, they are refraining from the more excessive aspects of their former brutal rule.

“The Taleban this time do not punish people for their short beards or long hair,” said Abdul Mane. “They do not bother people for listening to music or watching television. We are very happy about the present situation in our district.”

Hamidullah agrees. “We have a new kind of life now,” he said. “Nobody asks us ‘why did you shave your beard?’ or ‘why are you watching a movie?’ This is the Taleban, but it’s a new kind of Taleban. We love our life. Come to Musa Qala. If you are here for a few days, I am sure you will never want to leave.”

IWPR is running a journalism training programme in Helmand province. This story is a compilation of trainee reports.

Should the West Negotiate with the Taliban?

Charles Hawley
Spiegel Online / April 4, 2007

German Social Democrat leader Kurt Beck has sparked a firestorm of criticism for his suggestion that the West negotiate with moderate elements within the Taliban. But at least one German commentator thinks that might not be such a bad idea.

It was a suggestion that almost immediately drove a wedge into Germany's governing coalition. Kurt Beck, head of the junior coalition partner Social Democrats (SPD), finished off a trip to Afghanistan on Sunday by presenting his own suggestion for how Afghanistan might be pacified once and for all: Why not invite all parties involved in the conflict to Berlin for negotiations?

Sounds reasonable enough, perhaps -- especially given that violence in the region is on the increase as the Taliban steps up efforts to battle Western troops. But in Berlin, the proposal was almost immediately seen as a suggestion that the West sit down at the table with pro-Shariah, radical Islamists. And it didn't take long for Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats to begin sharply upbraiding Beck. The SPD leader "didn't think it through properly," said CDU foreign policy expert Ruprecht Polenz, a sentiment echoed by CDU foreign policy speaker Eckart von Klaeden. Others likewise joined in the cacophony of criticism.

Beck received support from his own party and also from the Greens. But given the severity of the reactions in Berlin, he backed down a bit on Tuesday. "One should investigate whether it is possible to come to an agreement with moderate and conciliatory powers," he said before adding that negotiating with murderers is an impossibility.

Still, the clumsy proposal has left the impression in the minds of many that Beck wants to negotiate with the Taliban. It is a topic that German commentators have been eyeing throughout the week -- and on Wednesday, they pounced.

SPIEGEL's very own Henryk M. Broder, author of the book "Hurray! We're Capitulating," blasts Beck for his naiveté:

"By now, we know the destruction the Taliban has caused and what they are capable of. One can't resent them for wanting to regain power. But inviting them to a round table to give them the possibility of contributing to the solution of a problem that they themselves caused shows an irrationality that borders on voodoo. Next, Kurt Beck could suggest involving drug dealers in the fight against the drug trade and asking brothel owners how best to contain forced prostitution.

"On the other hand, it would be interesting to see just what an Afghanistan conference which included the Taliban would look like and what would be discussed. Whether one should stone or merely shoot adulteresses? Whether thieves should have just one hand chopped off or both? And how many lashes those who listen to music should receive?"

The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung on Wednesday likewise can't avoid slipping into sarcasm when looking at Beck's proposal:

"The world has been trying to help Afghanistan for six years. The destruction following the civil war is huge while the steps toward reconstruction have been small. Likely, that's because nobody asked Kurt Beck. The SPD boss, during his first visit to Afghanistan, didn't even need three days to develop an idea: A peace conference, maybe even in Germany, and maybe with Taliban participation."

"There is a reason for the breathless speed with which Beck is currently developing foreign policy concepts.... The skepticism in Beck's party regarding the engagement in Afghanistan is growing. In the autumn, the extension of the mandate is up for a vote and the SPD's credibility is at stake. Those who have a reputation as a party of peace cannot show too great a respect for diplomacy...."

Surprisingly, the center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung doesn't blast Beck for his proposal, but rather upbraids him for the way he went about making it:

"There can be no peace in Afghanistan -- as in Iraq -- without the attempt to bring moderate powers among the insurgents into the fold. Western powers have come to that same realization, not least because their diplomatic and military representatives on site are insisting on it. But the proposal should come from those involved and should only be publicly discussed after discreet preparations have already been made. It could be that a peace conference ... emerges as the best formula. But a German party leader in Kabul should not be the one to introduce such an idea."

Conservative daily Die Welt also has a few suggestions for how Beck should have behaved during his visit to Kabul:

With his suggestion, Beck "grants the Taliban -- or their ostensible moderate elements as was later added -- a political status that they have not earned. The primary goal in the country is not conciliation, but that of suppressing the Taliban in the south and stabilizing the more-or-less secure conditions in the rest of the country. That is the tremendous challenge that the ISAF troops are trying to meet on a daily basis -- a challenge that necessarily has a military component. Well meant reconciliation proposals that come from far, far away are out of place."

The left-leaning Berliner Zeitung on Wednesday is one of the few voices to actually take a closer look at Beck's proposal:

"The international community made a grave mistake by not having included the moderate Islamists in the pacification process. Had some of them been at the table during the first Afghanistan conference in Bonn in 2001, the situation would perhaps not be as muddled as it is now. But at least there is the opportunity to not repeat mistakes made in the past. It could be Afghanistan's last chance."

"The existence of radical Islamists is a fact in Afghanistan and it will stay that way. This part of society may have a peculiar mentality, but it can't be simply bombed away. Trying to negotiate with this part of the society has nothing at all to do with appeasement. Rather it is recognition of reality."

'Many killed' in Pakistan clash

BBC News / Wednesday, 4 April 2007

At least 44 people have died in fierce fighting in Pakistan's tribal region of South Waziristan, officials say.

The fighting took place after heavily armed local tribesmen began to act on a tribal council edict to drive out foreign militants linked to al-Qaeda.

Reports says Pakistan's army is also involved, and that three soldiers have been killed.

Officials say more than 200 people have died in more than two weeks of battles between tribesmen and Uzbek militants.

Locals say the number is lower.

Final push

The latest fighting began early on Wednesday when tribal forces attacked several positions held by Uzbek militants.

The BBC's Barbara Plett in Islamabad says some 1,000 Pashtun tribesmen armed with rockets, mortars and machine guns answered a call from a tribal council for a final push against the foreign fighters.

Hundreds of Uzbek militants live in South Waziristan. For many years, many of them have been allies of the local tribesmen who also support the Taleban.

The government has signed peace deals in South and North Waziristan in which the tribal elders have agreed to disarm or evict their foreign guests and to stop militants crossing the border to fight foreign troops in Afghanistan.

Officials say the fighting shows this strategy is working but some observers believe the government has helped instigate the battles by, for instance, spreading negative propaganda about the Uzbeks.

Local tribesmen have also accused the Uzbeks of not respecting their culture.

Locals report that soldiers have been helping the tribesmen, although the army denies this.

There are also some tribesmen fighting alongside the Uzbeks.

Pakistani Tribesmen Declare Jihad Against Militants Linked to al-Qaida

By Benjamin Sand Islamabad 04 April 2007

Tribal forces in Pakistan's remote border area with Afghanistan have killed more than 40 foreign extremists linked with al-Qaida in some of the worst fighting yet in the region. From Islamabad, VOA Correspondent Benjamin Sand reports the clashes occurred a day after tribal elders declared war on the mostly Uzbek militants.

Pakistani officials say hundreds of tribesmen in South Waziristan led an offensive against the foreign militants.

Local residents say the tribal force killed or captured scores of mostly Uzbek fighters outside the area's main town, Wana.

Pakistan Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao described the violence as a positive development in the fight against regional extremists.

He says the clashes stem, at least in part, from a government effort to enlist local tribes in the fight against foreign militants.

Pakistan recently signed a series of controversial peace agreements with tribal elders in the region who have promised to get rid of foreign militants in exchange for a freer hand in local affairs.

Violence has engulfed much of the countryside around Wana where local tribes have clashed with the Central Asian militants in recent weeks.

Officials say more than 250 people have been killed, including at least 200 foreigners.

Area residents say the conflict took another step toward all out war on Monday when tribal elders declared a jihad against the foreigners. Hundreds of well-armed tribesmen are reportedly on the move, ready to kill any foreigners in the region.

Thousands of Arab and Central Asian extremists flooded the area from neighboring Afghanistan in 2001, after U.S. forces ousted the hard-line Islamist Taleban regime in Kabul.

U.S. and Afghan officials say Pakistan's tribal areas remain a staging ground for pro-Taleban guerillas trying to overthrow Afghanistan's U.S.-backed democracy. But security experts in Pakistan say South Waziristan's growing civil conflict is not necessarily a sign of progress.

Retired General Talat Masood says the fighting is essentially an internal power struggle and neither side is genuinely committed to improving regional security.

He says the foreign militants may have strong ties to al-Qaida, but the local tribes still support the Taleban and remain deeply opposed to Pakistan's central government.

[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.]