In this bulletin:

• Bush and Karzai discuss security
• Afghan President Bringing Bush a Gloomy Report on Security
• Text of Bush and Karzai conference
• Afghan president counters US rhetoric on Iranian role in country
• Taliban threatens more kidnappings
• Taliban warns of more kidnappings, say fate of South Koreans rests with Bush, Karzai
• Taleban rule the road in Ghazni
• Taliban Hits Airwaves in Southeastern Afghanistan
• Twenty-One Taliban Reported Killed In South Afghanistan
• New scourge of Afghan society
• Waziristan Elders Drop Out of Pakistani-Afghan Assembly
• Pakistan: Divided by Faith

President Bush, left, and Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai, right, arrive for a joint press conference, after their meetings, Monday, Aug. 6, 2007, at Camp David, Md. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Bush and Karzai discuss security

By Caren Bohan, Monday, August 6, 2007 - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Talks on Monday between President George W. Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai will focus on worsening violence in Afghanistan and the threat from militant hideouts across the border in Pakistan.

Bush's two-day meeting with Karzai at the Camp David retreat in the Maryland mountains comes as the U.S. president has found himself on the defensive over the troubled effort to rebuild Afghanistan and the failure to find al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Bush's critics contend those efforts have been hampered by a shifting of resources to the Iraq war.

With the six-year anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks approaching, Bush is eager to assure Karzai -- and the American public -- he is committed to shoring up Afghanistan and combating the Taliban and al Qaeda.

But Karzai, who arrived at Camp David on Sunday, brought little encouraging news about the hunt for bin Laden, telling CNN's "Late Edition" the United States and its allies were no closer than they were a few years ago to tracking down the elusive mastermind of the September 11 attacks.

"We are not closer, we are not further away from it. We are where we were a few years ago," Karzai said.

Bin Laden is believed by U.S. intelligence officials to be hiding in the rugged tribal region of Pakistan, an area near the border of Afghanistan that has been a source of concern to Karzai because it is seen as a hotbed of Taliban activity.

U.S. officials have underscored their support for Karzai, whose weak central government faces numerous challenges, including suicide bomb attacks by the Taliban, mounting civilian casualties and a burgeoning opium trade.

The Afghan president was treated on Sunday at Camp David to a dinner of fried chicken and mashed potatoes, hosted by Bush and his wife, Laura. On Monday, the two leaders were to hold a news conference at 11:25 a.m. EDT.

Despite his strong Western backing, Karzai has been the target of three assassination attempts and has struggled to build a robust central government amid longstanding tribal rifts and strong warlord control in the provinces.

The resurgence of the Taliban has led to the worst violence in Afghanistan since 2001, particularly over the last 18 months.

One issue Karzai wants to raise with Bush is his concern about a rise in deaths of civilians killed in airstrikes by U.S. and NATO-led forces aiming at the Taliban.

And Bush may want to broach U.S. concerns that Iran may be fueling violence by supplying weapons across the border.

However, Karzai on Sunday disagreed that Iran was a source of problems, describing it instead as "a helper" to Afghanistan and a supporter in its quest for peace.

Bush and Karzai also will discuss the crisis involving 21 Korean hostages seized by the Taliban in July. The kidnappers have killed two of the 23 initially captured and are demanding the release of Taliban prisoners in exchange.

South Korea has appealed to the United States and the Afghan officials to negotiate the release. Afghan officials are wary of making concessions for fear they might encourage more kidnappings.

"We are working very, very hard on this question," Karzai told CNN. "We will not do anything that will encourage hostage-taking, that will encourage terrorism. But we will do everything else to have them released."

White House National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said the United States urged the immediate release of the hostages and called the kidnapping an "an uncivilized and brutal act."

Afghan President Bringing Bush a Gloomy Report on Security

The New York Times - 08/06/2007 By Sheryl Gay Stolberg in Washington

ON THE eve of his Camp David meeting with George Bush, the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, painted a bleak picture of life in his country, saying that security had worsened and that the US and its allies were no closer to catching Osama bin Laden than they were a few years ago.

"The security situation in Afghanistan over the past two years has definitely deteriorated," Mr Karzai told CNN in a pre-taped interview.

"The Afghan people have suffered. Terrorists have killed our school children. They have burned our schools. They have killed international helpers."

As for catching bin Laden, Mr Karzai said: "We are not closer, we are not further away from it. We are where we were a few years ago."

The White House had hoped to use the two-day meeting - Mr Karzai's first visit to Camp David but his seventh meeting with President Bush - to showcase what Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the National Security Council, called both the "progress and challenges".

"Afghanistan has come a long way since October 2001, when the US first went in, but there is clearly more work to do," he said. Mr Karzai, though, spoke of the remaining work more than the progress, in what amounted to a cry for help.

He is trying to rebuild his war-torn country and strengthen his fragile government while confronting a resurgent Taliban, a booming opium trade, government corruption, mounting deaths of civilians and an al-Qaeda leadership that, US intelligence officials say, has reconstituted itself in the mountainous border territory between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

All those issues - as well as the pressing problem of trying to free 21 South Korean hostages seized by the Taliban last month - will be on the agenda at Camp David.

Afghanistan's ambassador to the US, Said Jawad, said in an interview last week that Mr Karzai would present Mr Bush with a request for more financial assistance, as well as "specific ideas" for how the aid should be spent, including better equipment and training for the Afghan police, more armoured vehicles, more guns and better airlift capability for the Afghan National Army.

The al-Qaeda threat, and in particular the failure to catch bin Laden, has been a source of frustration not only for Mr Karzai, but also for Mr Bush, who vowed to bring the al-Qaeda leader to justice, "dead or alive".

The failed hunt for top al-Qaeda operatives has also created friction between Mr Karzai and his Pakistani counterpart, General Pervez Musharraf.

Two Australian soldiers were wounded during a "contact" with the Taliban in southern Afghanistan this month.

A Defence spokesman, Brigadier Andrew Nikolic, said yesterday one of the two Special Operations Task Group soldiers wounded during a patrol in Uruzgan Province had been evacuated to a military hospital in Europe.

"He is in a stable condition and responding very well to treatment - we expect him to return to Australia in the near future." The other soldier received superficial wounds. The New York Times, Australian Associated Press

Text of Bush and Karzai conference

The Associated Press - 08/06/2007 - CAMP DAVID, Md. - Text of President Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Monday, as transcribed by CQ Transcriptions.

BUSH: Good morning. Thank you. Be seated. Welcome.

Appreciate a man I've come to admire, President Karzai, for joining us. Laura and I had the honor of hosting the president for dinner last night. He and I spent a lot of this morning just sitting down, alone, talking about our common interests, common concerns.

President Karzai is an optimistic man. He's watched his country emerge from the days of darkness to days of hope.

KARZAI: Absolutely.

BUSH: I appreciate your stewardship. I appreciate your commitment to empowering your people. I appreciate your strong stance for freedom and justice. And I'm proud to call you an ally in this war against those who would wreak havoc in order to deny people a chance to live in peace.

We're working closely together to help the people of Afghanistan prosper. We work together to give the people of Afghanistan a chance to raise their children in a hopeful world. And we're working together to defeat those who would try to stop the advance of a free Afghan society. Spent a fair amount of time talking about our security strategy.

You might remember, it was last winter that people were speculating about the Taliban spring offensive and about how the Taliban had regrouped and were going to go on the attack inside Afghanistan.

Well, there was a spring offensive, all right. It was conducted by U.S., NATO and, equally importantly, Afghan troops. And we went on the offense, because we understand that it is in our mutual interest to deny extremists the opportunity to derail this young democracy.

There's still a fight going on, but I'm proud to report to the American people that the Afghan army is in the fight. The government's in the fight, and the army's in the fight.
Afghan national security forces are increasing in strength. There's about 110,000 Afghans now defending their nation. And more Afghans are stepping up to serve.

And it's in the interest of the United States to help you develop that national army and local police that will send a clear message to the people of Afghanistan that the governments can help provide an opportunity for people to raise their children in a peaceful world.

There's a lot of forces there in Afghanistan supporting this government. And our 23,500 troops are proud to stand side by side with 26,000 troops from other nations. And we applaud those countries who have committed their troops to help Afghanistan succeed.

We've committed more than $23 billion since 2001 to help rebuild the country. I think our citizens will be interested to know, for example, that 7,000 community health care workers have been trained, that provide about 340,000 Afghan men, women and children a month with good health care.

I remember talking a lot about how the Taliban prevented young girls from going to school in Afghanistan. American citizens recall with horror to think about a government that would deny a young child the opportunity to have the basics necessary to succeed in life.

Today there are nearly 5 million students going to school in Afghanistan, a third of whom are girls. Still work to be done. Don't get me wrong. But progress is being made, Mr. President, and we're proud of you, proud of the work you're doing.

We talked about the need to stem the narcotics trade. I'm sure the president will comment on this. He understands that it's very important for farmers to be incented to grow crop other than poppy and that he knows full well the United States is watching, measuring and trying to help eradicate poppy cultivation.

We spend more than a fair amount of time on it. We spend a lot of time on it. And it's important that we get this right.

Mr. President, I appreciate your commitment to not only dealing with the poppy growers and the poppy crop, but also dealing with corruption. It's very important that our societies emerge in such a way that the people have confidence in the capacity of government to conduct the affairs ? conduct their affairs in a way that's above board and honest and transparent.

And finally, I do want to congratulate you on the joint jirga that's coming up.
This is a meeting between President Karzai, President Musharraf and representative elements from parts of their respective countries, all coming together to talk about reconciliation and how we can work together ? how you can work together ? to achieve a ? to achieve common solutions to problems.

And the main problem is to fight extremism; to recognize that history has called us into action, and by fighting extremists and radicals, we help people realize dreams. And helping realize ? people realize dreams helps promote peace. That's what we want.

You come from a part of the world, Mr. President, where there's a long history of violence and a long history of people seeking freedom. It's in the interest of the United States to be on the ? tip the scales of freedom your way.

We can only do so with strong leadership, and I appreciate the leadership you're providing. So welcome to Camp David.

KARZAI: Thank you very much. ... Thank you very much, Mr. President, for receiving me in Camp David. You and the first lady are generous and kind hosts. And thank you very much for that.

Mr. President, I'm here today to, once again, thank you and the American people for all that you have done for Afghanistan: for our liberation first and then for our stability and prosperity. We have gone a long way.

I've been here many times before in America, thanking the American people for what they have given to Afghanistan. I've spoken of roads. I've spoken of schools. I've spoken of clinics. I've spoken of health services. I've spoken of education. I've spoken of agriculture. I've spoken of lots of achievements. I've also had requests for help that you have delivered to us.

But today I'm going to speak about only one achievement that means so much for the Afghan people and surely to you and the rest of the world. That is that Afghanistan today, with the help that you have provided and our other allies have provided, can save, is saving the life of at least 50,000 infants after they are born and the life of 85,000 children under 5.

Mr. President, when you and I begin to think of the mothers who can have their babies safe today, then we know the value and the importance of this achievement. And thank you very, very much for this tremendous help. Afghanistan will have had 85,000 children living today had you not been there to help us, with the rest of the world.

BUSH: Thank you, sir.

KARZAI: That's a massive achievement. And I'm happy about it. I'm sure you are too. And so are women and mothers around the world. Mr. President, as we have gone a long way, progress has been made. We will still continue to fight terrorism. Our enemy is still there, defeated but still hiding in the mountains. And our duty is to complete the job, to get them out of their hideouts in the mountains and to bring justice to the people of Afghanistan, to the people of America, and to the people around the world who are threatened by these terrorists.

One of the significant steps that we have taken together with Pakistan to have an effective fight against terrorism, an effective fight against extremism and radicalism, was discussed during the dinner that you kindly hosted for me and President Musharraf. And the result of that is going to be seen in two days from today, the 9th of August, where, in Kabul, we will have the joint Pakistan-Afghanistan jirga.

I hope very much that this jirga will bring to us what we need, which I think it will. And thank you very much for this opportunity you caused us to have, the meeting, and to have a result of that.

Mr. President, we have a long journey ahead of us. But what we have traveled so far has given us greater hope for a better future, for a better life.

The Afghans are still suffering, but there are millions of Afghans who are enjoying a better and more secure life, who can send their children to school and who can work in their fields. And thank you very much for that. Yes, we do have the problem of poppies and narcotics in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is committed to fighting it, because this evil is first hurting us, and then youth in the rest of the world. So this is for Afghanistan to work against and for the rest of us to work against.

We are committed. It will take time. We are realistic about that. But the fight is there and I hope your assistance will continue to be delivered to Afghanistan to fight narcotics.

We have raised our army, indeed. We are working on our police. Our police needs a lot of improvement. And I'm glad that you have committed to helping us with the raising of a better police in Afghanistan.

The fight against corruption is going on. We have developed a mechanism, worked through a commission headed by the chief justice of Afghanistan, that will be ready in two months from now and will announced to the Afghan people on hows and measures and the time frame that we will need to have an effective fight against corruption in Afghanistan.

The rest, life is going on well with a lot of folk. We have a better administration, more capabilities. We can do lots of things on our own. And I'm sure your continued assistance will make life better for us. And thank you very much, Mr. President. Nice of you to receive me here.

BUSH: Thanks for coming.

A couple of questions.

Q: Mr. President, if you had actionable intelligence about the whereabouts of top al-Qaida leaders in Pakistan, would you wait for Musharraf's permission to send in U.S. forces, even if it meant missing an opportunity to take him out? Or have you and Musharraf worked out some deal about this already?
And, President Karzai, what will be your top concern when you meet with Musharraf later this week?

BUSH: I'm confident that with actionable intelligence we will be able to bring top al-Qaida to justice. We're in constant communications with the Pakistan government. It's in their interest that foreign fighters be brought to justice.

After all, these are the same ones who are plotting to kill President Musharraf. We share a concern. And I'm confident, with real, actionable intelligence, we will get the job done.

KARZAI: When President Musharraf visits Afghanistan on the 9th of August to inaugurate the joint Pakistan-Afghanistan convention, or jirga, together with me, we will be discussing further improvements in relations between the two countries.

The two countries are neighbors. They've been having extensive relationships with each other. And we'll be discussing improvement of those relations, on all aspects of them.

We'll also be discussing the possible outcome of the joint jirga between the two countries and how effectively, then, we can carry on the fight against terrorism in both countries and in the region, as a result of that jirga. So, It's going to be, I'm sure, a good meeting, ma'am.

Afghan press?

Q: I will ask in Pashtun and then I will translate my question. My question is for Mr. Karzai.

I will repeat in English, too, that four years ago in a press conference Mr. President Karzai said Taliban do not pose any threat to Afghan people. So who do you think supported Taliban to threaten the security by doing kidnappings and attacking the government officials and why?

KARZAI: Four years ago I did say that, and I continue to say that.

The Taliban do pose dangers to our innocent people, to children going to school, to our clergy, to our teachers, to our engineers, to international aid workers. They're not posing any threat to the government of Afghanistan. They're not posing any threat to the institutions of Afghanistan or to the buildup of institutions of Afghanistan.

It's a force that's defeated. It's a force that is frustrated. It's a force that is acting in cowardice by killing children going to school.

Who's supporting them is a question that we have been working on for a long time and since then. And I hope that the jirga between us and Pakistan will give us solutions to some of the questions that we have.

BUSH: Yes. One thing is for certain: We know the vision ? their vision of how to govern. They've been in power. I mean, they've had the opportunity to show the world how they think and what they do.

I mean, it's instructive for people to speak to, you know, a mother of a young girl about what life was like under the Taliban. These are brutal, cold-blooded killers.

KARZAI: Yes.

BUSH: That's what they are. And the fundamental question facing those of us who believe in freedom is whether or not we confront them and whether or not it's worth it, the effort, to spread an alternative to their hateful vision.

And we've come to the conclusion it is. And that's why President Karzai stands right here at Camp David discussing common concerns, common opportunities, about how to defeat a vision of darkness.

BUSH: That's what they are. They just don't believe in freedom. They don't believe it's possible to live in a society where people are allowed to express themselves in free fashion.

And it's ? this is really, they're part of an ongoing challenge that the free world faces. And the real question is whether or not those of us who have the blessings of liberty will continue to pursue policies ? foreign policy, security policy ? aimed at not only protecting our homeland, but aimed at laying a condition for peace to prevail.

Q: President Karzai said yesterday that he believed Iran was playing a helpful role in Afghanistan. Was he able to convince you, in your meetings, that that was the case, or do you still have concerns about Iran's role?

And I have a question for President Karzai as well. I'm just wondering if the president was able to give you the assurances that you sought about the effort to reduce civilian casualties in Afghanistan.

BUSH: Let me comment on the civilian casualties, if I might.

First, I fully understand the angst, the agony and the sorrow that Afghan citizens feel when an innocent life is lost. I know that must cause grief in villages and heartbreak in homes.

Secondly, I can assure the Afghan people, like I assured the president, that we do everything that we can to protect the innocent, that our military operations are mindful that innocent life might be exposed to danger. And we adjust accordingly.

Thirdly, it is the Taliban who surround themselves with innocent life as human shields. The Taliban are the cold-blooded killers. The Taliban are the murderers. The Taliban have no regard for human life.

And, therefore, we spent some time talking about ? the president rightly expressed his concerns about civilian casualty. And I assured him we share those concerns.

Secondly, it's up to Iran to prove to the world that they're a stabilizing force as opposed to destabilizing force.

After all, this is a government that has proclaimed its desire to build a nuclear weapon. This is a government that's in defiance of international accord, a government that seems to be willing to thumb its nose at the international community, and at the same time a government that denies its people a rightful place in the world and denies its people the ability to realize their full potential.

So I believe that it's in the interests of all of us that we have an Iran that tries to stabilize, not destabilize; an Iran that gives up its weapons ambitions. And therefore we're working to that end.

The president knows best about what's taking place in his country. And, of course, I'm willing to listen.

But from my perspective, the burden of proof is on the Iranian government to show us that they're a positive force.

And I must tell you that this current leadership there is a ? is a big disappointment to the people of Iran. I mean, the people of Iran could be doing a lot better than they are today. But because of the actions of this government, this country is isolated.

And we will continue to work to isolate it. Because they're not a force for good, as far as we can see. They are a destabilizing influence, wherever they are now.

The president will talk to you about Afghanistan. But I would be very cautious about whether or not the Iranian influence there in Afghanistan is a positive force. And, therefore, it's going to be up to them to prove to us and prove to the government that they are.

KARZAI: I had a good discussion with President Bush on civilian casualties. I'm very happy to tell you that President Bush felt very much with Afghan people, that he calls the Afghan people allies in the war against terror, and friends, and that he is as much concerned as I am, as the Afghan people are. I was very happy with that conversation.

Q: Mr. Karzai ... Can I ask my question in Dari first?

KARZAI: Please, yes.

Q; You have recently become a father, and also you have recently pardoned a teenage who suicide himself, and you said he was brainwashed.

KARZAI: Brainwashed, yes.

Q: Yes. What do you think about the future of Afghanistan in view of this problem?

KARZAI: Well, ma'am, the man ? the boy, I should say ? that I pardoned was a 14-year-old boy from Pakistan's South Waziristan agency. He was sent by his father to a madrassa to get education because he could not anymore afford to have him in school, because his mother had a heart ailment and they had to spend money on her treatment.

Having sent the boy to a madrassa, he disappeared from there.

After a few months his father heard that he was arrested in Afghanistan, and then he came to Afghanistan. And having seen that this was a teenage ? rather legally underage innocent boy, used by terrorists to kill himself and to kill other innocent people, I felt that it was the right decision to pardon him, to give him a new opportunity for education and a new life, and to send a message to his mother that, Your child is going to be back with you.

I'm very glad I did that. But this gives us a lesson about those who are the enemies of all of us, the enemies of people, who use young children, who brainwashes them and who forces them to kill themselves.

The message should be clear to the rest of the world about the evil that we are fighting, the heartless people that we are fighting, who don't even have any feeling for young children, for babies, for teenagers.

Most of that we know today that the terrorists are buying and selling suicide bombers. We have received calls in our government offices by handlers of suicide bombers that they want to sell them to us.

So it's become a trade ? a mean trade. Merchants of death are around there. So it's our job to get rid of them.

BUSH: Thank you very much.

Afghan president counters US rhetoric on Iranian role in country

By Agence France Presse (AFP) - WASHINGTON: Afghan President Hamid Karzai, a key US ally, contradicted US assessments of the threat posed by Iran and insisted in an interview aired Sunday that Tehran played a beneficial role in his region. "So far, Iran has been a helper and a solution," Karzai told CNN on the eve of a visit here Sunday to meet with President George W. Bush for talks on the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan.

"Iran has been a supporter of Afghanistan, in the peace process that we have and the fight against terror, and the fight against narcotics in Afghanistan," said Karzai, who became president with US backing in 2002.

His remarks differed markedly from the US stance, which sees Iran as a major menace that bankrolls terrorists, supplies arms to insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq, and seeks to develop nuclear weapons.

The position was reiterated on Sunday by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as she defended the decision to sell tens of billions of dollars in arms to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states to thwart Iran.

"I don't think anybody doubts that Iran constitutes a major challenge, security challenge, to our friends, our allies, and therefore to our interests in the Gulf region," Rice said.

But asked about US suggestions that Iranian weaponry was being funneled into Afghanistan, where Taliban fundamentalists were mounting a reinvigorated insurgency six years after their ouster, Karzai was noncommittal.

"We have had reports of the kind you just mentioned. We are looking into these reports," he said in the interview conducted Saturday.

He added that Afghanistan and Iran had "very, very good, very, very close relations, thanks in part also to an understanding of the US in this regard."

"We will continue to have good relations with Iran. We will continue to resolve issues, if there are any, to arise," Karzai said.

Also interviewed on CNN, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates responded to Karzai's comments by offering that Iran was "playing both sides of the street in Afghanistan."

"I think they're doing some things to help the Afghan government," said Gates, who just returned from a Mideast tour, adding: "I think they're also doing things to help the Taliban, including providing weapons."

Karzai also said that he would do everything to help free 21 South Korean missionaries short of actions that would encourage more hostage-taking.

Asked whether he would negotiate with the Taliban kidnappers to secure the release of the Koreans, Karzai said: "We will try everything to have them released safely and in security.

"We will do everything other than encouraging hostage-taking and terrorism to have them released," he added.

Karzai said the kidnappers, who seized the 23 South Korean church aid workers on July 19 and have killed two of them to try to force the government to release Taliban prisoners, mainly foreigners.

Taliban threatens more kidnappings

By RAHIM FAIEZ, Associated Press Monday, August 6, 2007 - GHAZNI, Afghanistan - The Taliban will keep kidnapping foreigners in Afghanistan, a purported spokesman for the group said Monday, adding that the Afghan and U.S. presidents were responsible for the fate of 21 South Korean hostages.

Qari Yousef Ahmadi, who claims to speak for the Taliban, said the lives of the hostages rest in the hands of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and President Bush, who are holding two days of talks at Camp David, Md.

"Karzai and Bush will have responsibility for whatever happens to the hostages," Ahmadi said.

An Afghan doctor who runs a private clinic said he had dropped off almost $2,000 worth of antibiotics, vitamins and first-aid kits in rural Ghazni province Sunday intended for the Koreans, two of whom are said to be extremely ill. Dr. Mohammad Hashim Wahwaj said their Taliban captors told him that they had picked up the medicines.

Karzai said in an interview Sunday with CNN that the Afghan government is working to free the South Korean hostages, but he indicated it would not give in to Taliban demands to release imprisoned militants in exchange for the Koreans' lives.

"We will not do anything that will encourage hostage-taking, that will encourage terrorism. But we will do everything else to have them released," he said.

Ahmadi said the Taliban will continue with its methods regardless of the results. "Whether the Kabul administration will do the (prisoner) exchange or not, it will not have any effect on our side. The process of kidnapping (foreigners) will be ongoing," Ahmadi said.

South Korea has asked the international community to be flexible in its policy of non-negotiation with terrorists. A South Korean presidential spokesman said his government was working separately on the hostages' release and cautioned against high expectations over the Camp David meetings. A spokesman for the hostages' families said they had little faith that the talks will end the nearly three-week hostage crisis.

In Seoul, an official said that South Korean diplomats had made contact with the captives. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, declined to give further details about the conversation with at least one of the captives, citing safety concerns.

Ahmadi said that the militants and South Korean officials remain in contact by phone, but have not yet agreed on a location where they can hold negotiations on the fate of the captives.

The husband of one of the hostages posted a video message on YouTube, telling his wife not to give up hope because they will see each other soon.

Ryu Hang-sik's wife, Kim Yun-yeong, was kidnapped with 22 other church volunteers in southern Afghanistan on July 19. The Taliban have killed two men and threatened to kill others, including 16 women, if the Afghan government doesn't release its fighters.

"For the sake of our children, stay strong and healthy. Please, hold on to positive thoughts," Ryu said in the message, read in Korean with English subtitles. "We will see each other soon."

About 150 demonstrators rallied at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, praying for the hostages' release and demanding U.S. help.

Meanwhile, foreign and Afghan troops killed 13 suspected militants in Zabul province after they tried to attack the checkpoint on the main road linking Kabul to the southern city of Kandahar, said Ali Kheil, the spokesman for Zabul's governor.

Taliban warns of more kidnappings, say fate of South Koreans rests with Bush, Karzai

The Associated Press, 08/06/2007 - GHAZNI - The Taliban will keep kidnapping foreigners in Afghanistan, a purported spokesman for the group said Monday, adding that the Afghan and U.S. presidents were responsible for the fate of 21 South Korean hostages.

Qari Yousef Ahmadi, who claims to speak for the Taliban, said the lives of the hostages rest in the hands of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and President Bush, who are holding two days of talks at Camp David, Md.

"Karzai and Bush will have responsibility for whatever happens to the hostages," Ahmadi said.

An Afghan doctor who runs a private clinic said he had dropped off almost $2,000 worth of antibiotics, vitamins and first-aid kits in rural Ghazni province Sunday intended for the Koreans, two of whom are said to be extremely ill. Dr. Mohammad Hashim Wahwaj said their Taliban captors told him that they had picked up the medicines.

Karzai said in an interview Sunday with CNN that the Afghan government is working to free the South Korean hostages, but he indicated it would not give in to Taliban demands to release imprisoned militants in exchange for the Koreans' lives.

"We will not do anything that will encourage hostage-taking, that will encourage terrorism. But we will do everything else to have them released," he said. Ahmadi said the Taliban will continue with its methods regardless of the results.

"Whether the Kabul administration will do the (prisoner) exchange or not, it will not have any effect on our side. The process of kidnapping (foreigners) will be ongoing,'' Ahmadi said.

South Korea has asked the international community to be flexible in its policy of non-negotiation with terrorists. A South Korean presidential spokesman said his government was working separately on the hostages' release and cautioned against high expectations over the Camp David meetings. A spokesman for the hostages' families said they had little faith that the talks will end the nearly three-week hostage crisis.

In Seoul, an official said that South Korean diplomats had made contact with the captives. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, declined to give further details about the conversation with at least one of the captives, citing safety concerns.

Ahmadi said that the militants and South Korean officials remain in contact by phone, but have not yet agreed on a location where they can hold negotiations on the fate of the captives.

The husband of one of the hostages posted a video message on YouTube, telling his wife not to give up hope because they will see each other soon.

Ryu Hang-sik's wife, Kim Yun-yeong, was kidnapped with 22 other church volunteers in southern Afghanistan on July 19. The Taliban have killed two men and threatened to kill others, including 16 women, if the Afghan government doesn't release its fighters.

"For the sake of our children, stay strong and healthy. Please, hold on to positive thoughts," Ryu said in the message, read in Korean with English subtitles. "We will see each other soon."

About 150 demonstrators rallied at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, praying for the hostages' release and demanding U.S. help.

Meanwhile, foreign and Afghan troops killed 13 suspected militants in Zabul province after they tried to attack the checkpoint on the main road linking Kabul to the southern city of Kandahar, said Ali Kheil, the spokesman for Zabul's governor.

Taleban rule the road in Ghazni

Alastair Leithead - BBC News, Ghazni, central Afghanistan Monday, 6 August 2007

Thunder echoed around the wide valley announcing the arrival of a blinding sandstorm that rushed along the roads and down corridors between tall, impenetrable mud compounds.

The dust whipped up around the police - dozens of them, all heavily armed - who accompanied us to the place where the South Korean church volunteers had been kidnapped.

They tentatively showed us where they think the 21 survivors are being held. In two weeks, two hostages have been killed and their bullet-ridden bodies recovered, but the rest appear to be still alive.

South Korean officials say a diplomat spoke to one of the hostages this weekend by telephone and medicines were dropped off for them in the desert.

The negotiations rumble slowly on and the government has vowed not to bow to demands for a prisoner exchange

For now there is little happening beyond talks about meetings to bring the situation to a peaceful conclusion.

A large mud compound by the side of the road now has at least three Afghan flags flying. Gun positions are mounted on the high walls and there are dozens of police accompanying us for security.

It was here in the Qarabagh district of Ghazni that a local bus, chartered by the Koreans, was stopped en route between Kabul and Kandahar and the foreign aid workers were taken away.

It is a two hour drive from the capital to this section of Route One, the main ring road that circles the Hindu Kush mountains that spread out like an open hand across central Afghanistan.

The road was resurfaced and secured by American troops after the Taleban were removed from power in 2001, and it was supposed to be a symbol of the new Afghanistan.

But the Taleban are back. They control the road and many of the villages by night and in places even by day. Their influence is spreading towards Kabul.

"You see the mountains in the distance? That is where we think the hostages are being held," one of the local police commanders told me, pointing to a ridge on the horizon we could barely see through the sandstorm and because it was so far away.

The police took us as far as they considered safe towards those mountains: just a couple of hundred metres off the main road.

Despite the heavy machine guns, rocket -propelled grenades and ability to call in Nato or Coalition forces for help, they are afraid of being attacked or being hit by a roadside bomb the Taleban might have left behind.

The police say the roads in and out of the area have been sealed off and there is no escape for the Taleban who are holding the South Koreans, but it is a vast area with 3,000 or more compounds - the huge, fort-like structures that are traditional Pashtun homesteads.

They could be in as many as 15 separate villages and so far the authorities have cautiously searched three, but there's still no sign of the Taleban, or their hostages.

The hostages have been split up into groups and the negotiations have been made more confused and chaotic by disagreements within the Taleban factions holding them.

And also by the mixed approaches of the Afghan delegation and the South Korean authorities who are now trying to deal directly with the insurgents.

The truth has been hard to come by and the media has been fed inaccurate information as part of the brinkmanship of trying to make a deal.

The Afghan ministry of defence dropped leaflets warning local people to leave for their own safety, and initially did not object to reports that a military operation was being launched to rescue the hostages.

But the area is vast and even with international help a rescue attempt would be incredibly risky both for those carrying it out and for the 21 South Koreans, most of whom are women.

For now, the emphasis is on talking and trying to bring this to an end without bloodshed, and with neither side losing face or being seen to give in.

Taliban Hits Airwaves in Southeastern Afghanistan

by Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson - NPR - Morning Edition, August 6, 2007 · The Taliban has hit the airwaves in southeastern Afghanistan through a new radio station called "Voice of Shariat."

The station, which broadcasts in Pashto most evenings, can't be heard in Kabul. But it's on the air in parts of American-dominated Paktia province, as well as Paktika, Logar and Ghazni provinces.

The station, which operates out of the back of pickup trucks, is gaining a following, even as the Afghan government is trying to shut it down. Those who've heard it say the programming plays on people's frustrations with the Afghan government and, not surprisingly, omits any reference to suicide attacks.

Twenty-One Taliban Reported Killed In South Afghanistan

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty - August 6, 2007 -- Provincial officials in southern Afghanistan today said that local and foreign forces killed at least 21 Taliban militants in an operation launched late on August 5.

The operation reportedly began after intelligence suggested a group of Taliban fighters in the Shah Joy district of Zabul Province were attempting to block the key highway between Kandahar and the capital, Kabul. No casualties were reported among Afghan or coalition forces.

Meanwhile today, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called for Germany to take a greater role in the international coalition in Afghanistan, and warned that a withdrawal of German would represent a victory for the Taliban.

In a statement published in the newspaper "Bild," Steinmeier called for broader German assistance in training and equipping Afghan forces. The German parliament is scheduled to vote in October on prolonging the mandate of the country's mission in Afghanistan, where it has about 3,000 troops.

And in Tokyo today, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe urged his political opponents to reconsider their opposition to extending Japan's non-combat mission in Afghanistan. Laws enacted after September 2001 that allow the officially pacifist Japan to provide fuel and logistical support to the international counterterrorism effort expire on November 1.

New scourge of Afghan society

BBC, 08/06/2007 By Bilal Sarwary - Corruption is the new scourge of Afghan society - and it is driving a lot of people into the hands of the Taleban.

Everybody talks about it and is affected by it - from taxi drivers, shop owners and officials - and most agree that corruption is spreading like a cancer through the vitals of society.

The Afghan government says it has launched a holy war against corruption, led by President Hamid Karzai's handpicked Attorney General, Abdul Jabbar Sabit.
The government has sacked, jailed and suspended dozens of officials all over the country for bribe taking.

But all this is not enough - people continue to suffer, and corruption by officials has taken on the shape of public extortion.
One morning recently I took a walk from the BBC bureau and arrived at Kabul's Ansari square. The place was brimming with traffic.

At the square was a traffic officer- wearing the white shirt and hat of the official traffic uniform. He was openly taking bribes - or baksheesh - from taxi drivers.

When he realised that I was a journalist, he pretended nothing had happened.
Kabul taxi driver Noor Agha, 34, has been driving since the fall of Taleban in 2001.

"There is more corruption than ever before, I pay traffic police all the time in Kabul. Nothing gets done without bribes."

Taxi drivers have to pay anything between from 10 to 300 Afghanis (20c to $6) to traffic police in Kabul - other Afghans admit they have to pay thousands of dollars for other things.
In fact, corruption now goes beyond the streets and deep into government offices and ministries.

Take, for example, the interior ministry. When I visited, there was a long queue of people waiting - most of them with papers in their hands.
Among them was 39-year-old Yar Mohammad from the south-eastern province of Paktika.

"I am here to transfer my job from Paktika border police to Khost. Inside the ministry they are asking me for $200. But I didn't join the police force to pay money and I don't have that kind of money."

Haji Daoud, 73, has came to Kabul to solve a tribal feud from Kundoz province.

"I am here to ask for my rights, but the people at the ministry are asking me for $15,000 to provide me with justice. How can this be right?"

Outside Afghanistan's central passport office there is a big queue - most people have come from the provinces. They complain they have to pay bribes in order to get their passports.

One of them is Ajmal, 29, from Khost province who is here to obtain an Afghan passport to travel to the Gulf.

"They are telling me that I am not an Afghan but from Pakistan, so I must pay $300 if I want to get a passport. "I voted in the elections, I was born here, but because of the war I lived my entire life in (the Pakistani region of) South Waziristan."

A senior official at Afghanistan's interior ministry admits that corruption is a problem, but he blames it on war, lack of capacity and lack of proper support from the international community.

"We have had 30 years of war, police salaries are low, the cost of living very high, and we need better salaries.

"Corruption will only vanish once we deny people the reasons to be corrupt. We also need to fire corrupt officials at the highest level. If we don't, then people will lose more trust in the Afghan government," he says.

Many Afghan officials are not keen openly to admit that corruption is widespread.

But Mirwais Yasini, a Member of Parliament in the lower house of the Afghan parliament is not so reticent.

"Afghanistan has topped the world's list of corrupt countries - it's like Nigeria," he says.

Other Afghans, like office worker Wagma Karimi, agree that corruption is at an all time high.

"In my view corruption and bribes have reached a stage beyond the imagination," he said.

"In the past when someone was asking for bribes he would do so in secrecy - but now it happens openly and no one seems to do any work without extra inducements."

All this is a far cry from 2001, when President Karzai came to power with the backing of International community.
Afghans were promised reconstruction, security and a corruption-free country - for the time being that dream appears to have evaporated at the hands of the fraudsters, pilferers and petty crooks.

Waziristan Elders Drop Out of Pakistani-Afghan Assembly

Reuters, 08/06/2007 - Tribal elders in Pakistan's North Waziristan region today said they will not go to Kabul on August 9 for a grand assembly, or jirga, aimed at building confidence between Pakistan and Afghanistan and dampening support for the Taliban.

Mamur Khan, chief of North Waziristan's Wazir Turikhel tribe, said the absence of Taliban representatives would make the assembly pointless.
Some tribal leaders also want Pakistan to withdraw troops from checkpoints in North Waziristan as a precondition for participation in the assembly.

At the four-day assembly, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf are due to address clerics, politicians, writers, and tribal chiefs from ethnic Pashtun regions on both sides of the border.
The border region has been destabilized by the presence of Taliban-linked militants, accused of crossing the border to carry out attacks in Afghanistan.

Pakistan: Divided by Faith

TIME - 08/06/2007 By Aryan Baker - A few weeks before Abdul Rashid Ghazi died in a shootout with Pakistani special forces, he told me about a young woman who had asked him to make her a suicide bomber. I was drinking tea with Ghazi, the deputy leader of Islamabad's radical Red Mosque, in his small office just off the mosque's main entrance. Outside, a man ? a boy really, with barely a beard ? paced nervously, an AK-47 gripped tightly in his hands. Inside, one of Ghazi's assistants updated the mosque's website, which promoted his campaign to spread Shari'a, or Islamic law, throughout the land. Another assistant was affixing labels to a stack of newly burned DVDs portraying American "aggression" in Afghanistan and Iraq. It was these heinous acts, said Ghazi, that inspired his young female acolyte to seek martyrdom. "Had I wanted to use her, I could have, because she was completely ready. But I sent her back, saying we don't need her, inshallah [God willing]."

On July 3, Pakistani forces laid siege to the mosque complex, which had housed some 5,000 students, teachers and clerics ? plus a host of heavily armed militants. On the eighth day, after many had fled or surrendered, the soldiers raided the compound. Ghazi was killed, along with 11 soldiers, some 80 militants and a dozen women and children who may have been used as human shields. (The Red Mosque remains a magnet for violence: last Friday, a suicide bombing at a restaurant behind the mosque killed at least 13.) After the July 11 assault, the President, General Pervez Musharraf, addressed the nation. This was not a day of celebration, he said: "We have been up against our own people ... They strayed from the right path and became susceptible to terrorism." Then Musharraf posed wider questions meant for Pakistan but relevant, too, to the rest of South Asia: "What kind of Islam do these people represent? What do we want as a nation?" Today, 60 years after partition created Pakistan and India, Islam on the subcontinent is in the grip of a crisis whose central dilemma is the religion's place and role in modern society. It is a crisis 150 years in the making.

On the afternoon of March 29, 1857, Mangal Pandey, a handsome, mustachioed soldier in the East India Company's native regiment in Barrackpore, near Kolkata, attacked his British lieutenant with a musket, then a sword. At his trial Pandey swore that he acted alone, but his hanging a week later sparked a subcontinental revolt known to Indians as the first war of independence and to the British as the Sepoy Mutiny. Retribution was swift, and though Pandey was a Hindu, it was the subcontinent's Muslims, whose Mughal King nominally held power in Delhi, who bore the brunt of British rage. The remnants of the Mughal Empire were dismantled, and Bahadur Shah, the last Indian Emperor, was exiled to Burma. Five hundred years of Muslim supremacy on the subcontinent was brought to a halt.

Following the 1857 war, Muslim society in India collapsed. The British imposed English as the official language for both education and communication. The impact was cataclysmic. Muslims went from near 100% literacy in Urdu to 20% within a half-century. The country's educated Muslim élite was effectively blocked from administrative jobs in the government. Between 1858 and 1878, only 57 out of 3,100 graduates of Calcutta University ? then the center of South Asian education ? were Muslim. In the 1880s, only one Muslim was enrolled for every 25 students at the British-run colleges. While discrimination by both Hindus and the British played a role, it was as if the whole of Muslim society had retreated to lick its collective wounds.

From this period of introspection two rival movements emerged to foster an Islamic ascendancy. Revivalist groups blamed the collapse of their empire on a society that had strayed too far from the teachings of the Koran. They promoted a return to a more pure form of Islam, modeled on the life of the Prophet Muhammad. Others embraced the modern ways of their new rulers, seeking Muslim advancement through the pursuit of Western sciences, culture and law. From these movements two great Islamic institutions were born: Darul Uloom Deoband in northern India, rivaled only by al-Azhar University in Cairo for its teaching of Islam, and Aligarh Muslim University, not far from New Delhi, a secular institution that promoted Muslim culture, philosophy and languages, but left religion to the mosque. These two schools embody the fundamental split that continues to divide Islam in the subcontinent today. "You could say that Deoband and Aligarh are husband and wife, born from the same historical events," says Adil Siddiqui, information coordinator for Deoband. "But they live at daggers drawn."

The campus at Deoband is only a three-hour drive from New Delhi through the modern megasuburb of Noida. Strip malls and monster shopping complexes have consumed many of the mango groves that once framed the road to Deoband, but the contemporary world stops at the gate. Lost, my translator and I wander the campus in search of the guesthouse that Siddiqui indicated would be our meeting point. The courtyards are packed with bearded young men wearing long, collared shirts and white caps. The air thrums with the voices of hundreds of students reciting the Koran from open-door classrooms. My translator's requests for directions are met with averted eyes, vague gestures and mumbled responses. Finally we get an answer, but as we turn a corner, a voice calls out, "You are not supposed to be here; women are not allowed." That's not entirely true ? later that day Siddiqui takes me on a tour through the same courtyard ? but Deoband practices strict segregation between the sexes, and does not offer education to women. "They have their own institutions," says Siddiqui, waving vaguely in the direction of the gate.

Founded in 1866, the Deoband school quickly set itself apart from other traditional madrasahs, which were usually based in the home of the village mosque's prayer leader. Deoband's founders, a group of Muslim scholars from New Delhi, instituted a regimented system of classrooms, coursework, texts and exams. Instruction is in Urdu, Persian and Arabic, and the curriculum closely follows the teachings of the 18th century Indian Islamic scholar Mullah Nizamuddin Sehalvi. Graduates go on to study at Cairo's al-Azhar and Islamic University of Medina in Saudi Arabia, or found their own Deobandi institutions. Today, more than 9,000 are scattered throughout India, Afghanistan and Pakistan, most infamously the Dara-ul-Uloom Haqaniya Akora Khattak, near Peshawar, where Mullah Mohammed Omar, and several other leaders of Afghanistan's Taliban first tasted a life lived in accordance with Shari'a. Islamabad's Red Mosque follows the same school. Siddiqui visibly stiffens when those names are brought up. They have become synonymous with Islamic radicalism, and Siddiqui is careful to disassociate his institution from those that carry on its traditions, without actually condemning their actions. "Our books are being taught there," he says. "They have the same system and rules. But if someone is following the path of terrorism, it is because of local compulsions and local politics."

Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, founder of the Anglo-Mohammedan Oriental College at Aligarh in 1877, studied under the same teachers as the founders of Deoband. But he believed that the downfall of India's Muslims was due to their unwillingness to embrace modern ways. He decoupled religion from education, and in his school sought to emulate the culture and training of India's new colonial masters. Islamic culture was part of the curriculum, but so were the latest advances in sciences, medicine and Western philosophy. The medium was English, the better to prepare students for civil-service jobs. He called his school the Oxford of the East. In architecture alone, the campus lives up to that name. A euphoric blend of clock towers, crenellated battlements, Mughal arches, domes and the staid red brick of Victorian institutions that only India's enthusiastic embrace of all things European could produce, the central campus of Aligarh today is haven to a diverse crowd of male, female, Hindu and Muslim students. Its law and medicine schools are among the top-ranked in India, but so are its arts faculty and Quranic Studies Centre. "With all this diversity, language, culture, secularism was the only way to go forward as a nation," says Aligarh's vice-chancellor, P.K. Abdul Azis. "It was the new religion."

This fracture in religious doctrine ? whether Islam should embrace the modern or revert to its fundamental origins ? between two schools less than a day's donkey ride apart when they were founded, was barely remarked upon at the time. But over the course of the next 100 years, that tiny crack would split Islam into two warring ideologies with repercussions that reverberate around the world to this day. Before the split manifested into crisis, however, the founders of both the Deoband and Aligarh universities shared the common goal of an independent India. Pedagogical leanings were overlooked as students and staff of both institutions joined with Hindus across the subcontinent to remove the yoke of colonial rule in the early decades of the 20th century. But nationalistic trends were pulling at the fragile alliance, and India, an unruly collection of rival states coerced into unity under Mughal rule, then again under the British, began to splinter along ethnic and religious lines. Following World War I, a populist Muslim poet-philosopher by the name of Muhammad Iqbal began to frame the Islamic zeitgeist when he questioned the position of minority Muslims in a future, independent India.

Once called the prophet of Hindu and Muslim unity for poems espousing intercommunal unity, Iqbal became increasingly concerned with the fate of the Jewish diaspora in Europe. "Iqbal saw the solidarity of Jews crumble under the cultural majority of Christian Europe," says Fateh Mohammad Malik, chairman of Pakistan's National Language Authority and editor of a book on Iqbal's political thought. "He was worried that the same fate would befall the Muslims. He thought that if they sacrificed their culture at the altar of Indian nationhood, slowly they would be absorbed and made extinct."

The solution, Iqbal proposed to a stunned congregation of the All India Muslim League on Dec. 29, 1930, was an independent state for Muslim-majority provinces in northwestern India, a separate country where Muslims would rule themselves. The response was explosive. The then British Prime Minister, James Ramsay MacDonald, declared that "the poet Iqbal has spoiled all our efforts," to keep a united India. The next day, an editorial in the Times of London trumpeted a pan-Islamic plot to create a contiguous Muslim empire spanning the Middle East, Iran, Afghanistan and now the sensitive regions bordering the Russian empire.

When asked by a Muslim student group the name for this new nation, Iqbal was at a loss, according to Malik. As an afterthought he suggested taking letters from the names of the provinces: Punjab, Afganiyat or the North-West Frontier, Kashmir and Sindh, ending with Baluchistan. The Hindu newspapers derided the composite name, mocking both Iqbal and the idea of a separate Muslim state. But the name stuck, and the idea of Pakistan was born.

The embryonic nation might have been given a name, but its identity was still uncertain 17 years later when the idea became reality. Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the Savile Row-suited lawyer who midwifed Pakistan into existence on Aug. 14, 1947, as leader of the Muslim League, was notoriously ambiguous about how he envisioned the country once it became an independent state. Both he and Iqbal, who were friends until the poet's death in 1938, had repeatedly stated their dream for a "modern, moderate and very enlightened Pakistan," says Sharifuddin Pirzada, Jinnah's personal secretary from 1941 to 1944. But mindful of the fragile and fractious consortium of supporters for the new nation, whose plans for independence from both India and Britain were only finalized on July 18, 1947, Jinnah rarely elaborated on his religious views. "He was a very liberal-minded Muslim," says Pirzada. "He rejected the idea that Pakistan would be ruled according to the righteous caliphs of Islam; he did not want a theocracy. At the same time he was very careful not to make a commitment one way or the other so that Muslims would not be alienated."

Both religious conservatives and secular liberals have appropriated Jinnah's words, actions and manners to prove their claims on Pakistan's identity. Clerics that once dismissed him as an infidel for his secular leanings before partition now embrace him for his borrowings from the Koran in his talks. Liberal newspaper editorials quote fragmented speeches to bolster claims that he was an avowed secularist. Jinnah's own wish was that the Pakistani people, as members of a new, modern and democratic nation, would decide the country's direction. "There is no contradiction," says Pirzada, who has watched the debate rage for 60 years. "An Islamic state can be a fully modern state, unless you say it should be ruled by a theocracy. Jinnah was against theocracy. That is what matters."

But rarely in Pakistan's history have its people lived Jinnah's vision. The nation was barely a decade old when President Iskander Ali Mirza declared martial law in an attempt to save his presidency from growing unpopularity. "That was the blackest day in our history," says Senator Khurshid Ahmad, the deputy chief of Pakistan's largest Islamist party. "Even our elected rulers became despots." Pakistan has been cursed ever since. Only twice in its 60-year history has Pakistan seen a peaceful, democratic transition of power. Pakistan considers itself a democracy, but its governments have rarely had a mandate from the people. With four disparate provinces, over a dozen languages and dialects, and powerful neighbors, leaders ? be they Presidents, Prime Ministers or army chiefs ? have been forced to knit the nation together with the only thing Pakistanis have in common: religion.

Following the 1971 civil war, when East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, broke away, the populist Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto embarked on a Muslim identity program to prevent the country from fracturing further. General Mohammed Zia ul-Haq continued the Islamization campaign when he overthrew Bhutto in 1977, hoping to garner favor with the religious parties, the only constituency available to a military dictator. He instituted Shari'a courts, made blasphemy illegal, and established laws that punished fornicators with lashes and held that rape victims could be convicted of adultery. When the Soviet Union invaded neighboring Afghanistan in December 1979, Pakistan was already poised for its own Islamic revolution.

Almost overnight, thousands of refugees poured over the border into Pakistan. Camps mushroomed, and so did madrasahs. Ostensibly created to educate the refugees, they provided the ideal recruiting ground for a new breed of soldier: mujahedin, or holy warriors, trained to vanquish the infidel invaders in America's proxy war with the Soviet Union. Thousands of Pakistanis joined fellow Muslims from across the world to fight the Soviets. As far away as Karachi, high-school kids started wearing "jihadi jackets," the pocketed vests popular with the mujahedin. Says Hamid Gul, then head of the Pakistan intelligence agency charged with arming and training the mujahedin: "In the 1980s, the world watched the people of Afghanistan stand up to tyranny, oppression and slavery. The spirit of jihad was rekindled, and it gave a new vision to the youth of Pakistan."

But jihad, as it is described in the Koran, does not end merely with political gain. It ends in a perfect Islamic state. The West's, and Pakistan's, cynical resurrection of something so profoundly powerful and complex unleashed a force whose roots can be found in al-Qaeda's rage, the Taliban's dream of an Islamic utopia in Afghanistan, and in the dozens of radical Islamic groups rapidly replicating themselves around the world today. "The promise of jihad was never fulfilled," says Gul. "Is it any wonder the fighting continues to this day?" Religion may have been used to unite Pakistan, but it is also tearing it apart.

In India, Islam is, in contrast, the other ? purged by the British, denigrated by the Hindu right, mistrusted by the majority, marginalized by society. India has nearly as many Muslims as all of Pakistan, but in a nation of more than a billion, they are still a minority, with all the burdens that minorities anywhere carry. Government surveys show that Muslims live shorter, poorer and unhealthier lives than Hindus and are often excluded from the better jobs. To be sure, there are Muslim success stories in the booming economy. Azim Premji, the founder of the outsourcing giant Wipro, is one of the richest individuals in India. But, for many Muslims, the inequality of the boom has reinforced their exclusion.

Kashmir, a Muslim-dominated princely state whose fate had been left undecided in the chaos that led up to partition, remains a suppurating wound in India's Muslim psyche. As the cause of three wars between India and Pakistan ? one of which nearly went nuclear in 1999 ? Kashmir has become a symbol of profound injustice to Indian Muslims who believe that their government cares little for Kashmir's claim of independence, which is based upon a 1948 U.N. resolution promising a plebiscite to determine the Kashmiri people's future. That frustration has spilled into the rest of India in the form of several devastating terrorist attacks that have made Indian Muslims both perpetrators and victims.

A mounting sense of persecution, fueled by the government's seeming reluctance to address the brutal anti-Muslim riots that killed more than 2,000 in the state of Gujarat in 2002, has aided the cause of homegrown militant groups. They include the banned Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), which was accused of detonating nine bombs in Bombay during the course of 2003, killing close to 80. The 2006 terrorist attacks on the Bombay commuter rail system that killed 183 people were also blamed on SIMI, as well as the pro-Kashmir Pakistani terrorist group Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). Those incidents exposed the all-too-common Hindu belief that Muslims aren't really Indian. "LeT, SIMI, it doesn't matter who was behind these attacks. They are all children of Musharraf," sneers Manish Shah, a Mumbai resident who lost his best friend in the explosions. In India, unlike most of the time in Pakistan, Islam does not unify, but only divide.

Islam has also proved divisive in Bangladesh, even though the country is overwhelmingly Muslim. There, over the past few years, a similar fight for the soul of the country has taken place, between the secular vision of Bangladesh's nationalist founders, who led the 1971 war of secession from West Pakistan, and a more fundamentalist vision that embraces political Islam. After the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the more Islamic of the two main parties, came to power in 2001 with the support of small fundamentalist Islamic political parties, Western diplomats and intelligence agencies feared that the pro-Islamic grouping was turning a blind eye as Bangladesh became a base for jihadi groups. A series of bombings around the country, including 500 near-simultaneous explosions in August 2005, finally forced the government to round up extremist leaders and jail them. Since then, according to opinion polls, support for fundamentalism, always small, has declined, and the country's problems have centered on its massive corruption and political violence, which led to a de facto military coup in January. Religious tensions, says Najma Begum, professor and chairwoman of the Department of Islamic History and Culture at the University of Dhaka, have been manipulated by mainstream politicians not because they genuinely believe in fundamentalist Islam but for political gain. "They exploit the support of lesser-privileged people so they can get into power and make money," says Najma. "We are not fundamentalist in Bangladesh; we are moderate."

Still, many South Asian Muslims insist Islam is the one and only force that can bring the subcontinent together and return it to preeminence as a single whole. "We [Muslims] were the legal rulers of India, and in 1857 the British took that away from us," says Tarik Jan, a gentle-mannered scholar at Islamabad's Institute of Policy Studies. "In 1947 they should have given that back to the Muslims." Jan is no militant, but he pines for the golden era of the Mughal period in the 1700s, and has a fervent desire to see India, Pakistan and Bangladesh reunited under Islamic rule.

That sense of injustice is at the root of Muslim identity today. It has permeated every aspect of society, and forms the basis of rising Islamic radicalism on the subcontinent. "People are hungry for justice," says Ahmed Rashid, Pakistani journalist and author of the seminal book Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia. "It is perceived to be the fundamental promise of the Koran." These twin phenomena ? the longing many Muslims have to see their religion restored as the subcontinent's core, and the marks of both piety and extremism Islam bears ? reflect the lack of strong political and civic institutions in the region for people to have faith in. Pervez Musharraf asks Pakistanis what they want. But the real question is what they, as well as Indians and Bangladeshis, Muslims and non-Muslims, believe.

- with reporting by indrani ghosh nangia and simon robinson/new delhi and ershad mahmud/islamabad

[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.]