In this bulletin:

• Afghanistan peace jirga under way
• Afghanistan, Pakistan must work together: Karzai
• Rice calls Musharraf as Pakistan weighs state of emergency
• Low expectations at Pak-Afghan jirga
• Joint jirga meaningless without peace in Waziristan: MMA MNA
• Pak-Afghan joint efforts required for peace: Wali
• ‘UK worried over Taliban’s advance’
• Korean aid groups to pull out of Afghanistan
• UN: Afghanistan's Cereal Production Doubled Since Taliban Fell in 2001
• British Criticize U.S. Air Attacks in Afghan Region
• Afghanistan at Odds With U.S. on Plan to Curb Opium
• At Least 35 Militants, Six Police Killed In Afghanistan
• 16 Afghan nationals arrested in Balochistan
• Passenger jets may have been target of Afghan missile: official
• A last chance
• Editorial: Predictable pantomime of joint jirga in Kabul
• ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS LOOMS AS CONFLICT GOES ON

Afghanistan peace jirga under way – BBC

Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz (L) and Afghan President Hamid Karzai attend a peace 'jirga' in Kabul August 9, 2007. Afghan and Pakistani political and tribal leaders met in Kabul on Thursday to agree ways to combat Taliban and al Qaeda attacks, but its authority was dented from the outset after Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf pulled out. REUTERS/Ahmad Masood (AFGHANISTAN)

A three-day "peace jirga" or tribal council on combating the Taleban has begun in the Afghan capital, Kabul. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who was to attend, has pulled out citing other commitments.

But Afghan leader Hamid Karzai was upbeat as he opened the jirga, saying it brought together "brother nations".

Up to 700 tribal elders, clerics and leaders of both countries have been invited - but not the Taleban, who have called for a boycott. Tribal elders from Pakistan's North and South Waziristan also refused to come.

Pakistani and Afghan tribal leaders gathered in the huge tent where the meeting is taking place.

Mr Karzai told them: "We are very proud today that this peace jirga has brought two countries, two brothers, two close neighbours together. "There is no doubt this jirga will be successful," he said.

Gen Musharraf has sent Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz in his place and assured Mr Karzai his "full support" towards making the jirga a success, according to Pakistan's foreign ministry.

The Afghan government says it is disappointed that the Pakistani leader has decided not to attend.

A spokesman for Mr Karzai told the BBC that the Pakistani president would have made a significant contribution to the gathering, but denied that the jirga would be undermined by his withdrawal.

Correspondents say Gen Musharraf's decision to pull out may be intended as a snub to the US-sponsored jirga, following recent statements by US presidential candidates about alleged Pakistani failings in the "war on terror".

But US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack has not ruled out the possibility of Gen Musharraf attending at some point.

"We'll see if President Musharraf is able to attend any portion of the meeting," he said. A spokesman for Mr Karzai said building peace and stability was still the council's intention.

The idea of a joint Afghan-Pakistan peace jirga was first suggested by Mr Karzai during talks with US President George W Bush in September.

In October, President Karzai said he saw the jirga as an attempt to revive Pashtun civil society on both sides of the border, to combat what he called the growing "Talebanisation" of the region.

Jirgas are a traditional method of decision-making and dispute-resolution. The Taleban have denounced the jirga, calling the process "George Bush's initiative". Supporters of the Taleban say talks that do not include them could be futile.

Abdul Ghafoor Haideri, secretary general of Pakistan's Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) told the Associated Press news agency: "This is only a display, which cannot produce the true views of the Afghan people."

The BBC's Bilal Sarwary, however, said there was some optimism in Kabul. Our correspondent says the sight of Pakistani flags throughout the city is unusual because there is normally a climate of mistrust between the two countries.

The Afghan spokesman for the jirga, Asif Nang, said that the jirga would look at "what causes the insecurity, locate the hideouts of terrorists, track finances and find out how we could deal with the whole problem".

Afghanistan, Pakistan must work together: Karzai

Kabul (AFP) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai told hundreds of Afghan and Pakistani tribal leaders that both nations could defeat a resurgent Al-Qaeda and Taliban if they worked together.

Karzai's remarks came as he opened three days of talks on rising Islamist extremism in the absence of his Pakistani counterpart Pervez Musharraf, who abruptly pulled out of the meeting the day before.

He was joined by Musharraf's replacement, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, in calls for unity at the meeting, called a "peace jirga," but both leaders also repeated often-traded accusations on the roots of the unrest.

With 700 delegates and elders on hand from tribal areas straddling the rugged border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan -- an area said to be rife with militants -- Karzai said the two nations shared a common destiny.

"I am confident. I believe... if both Afghanistan and Pakistan put their hands together, we will eliminate in one day oppression against both nations," he said.

"If the problem is from the Afghanistan side, we should seek ways to solve it. If the problem is in Pakistan, we should find solutions for it," he said in Kabul, where thousands of police and soldiers were on patrol for the meeting.

The jirga has been billed as an opportunity for the tribal leaders, most of them men with large turbans and long beards, to thrash out a strategy to deal with the escalating terrorism threat.

Along with elements from Al-Qaeda, the Taliban have been able to regroup since being ousted from power in Kabul by the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.

Karzai and Musharraf have traded recriminations about the root of the unrest, while the Pakistani leader has been angered by US accusations that his government is not doing enough to counter the militant threat.

The Afghan leader said he had often asked Pakistan: "Why from your soil and administration is this evil coming to us. Why is it bothering us?"

Islamabad had denied involvement, he said, and now it was the task of the the jirga to answer these questions. "Who are they who bother Pakistan and Afghanistan?" he asked. "Who is training them? By whose money are they being trained?"

Karzai said he did not consider the Taliban-linked violence in Afghanistan to be the work of Afghans, but enemies of the country and Islam.

Aziz said, however, it should not be forgotten that "first and foremost the Taliban are Afghans." And Afghanistan cannot blame others for the lack of reconciliation among its people, he said.

He strongly condemned Al-Qaeda, which he said had to be dealt with firmly and mainly through military means.

"Terrorism, militancy, the violent creed preached by Al-Qaeda, extremism and Talibanisation represent pain, intolerance and backwardness in our societies and a phenomenon that has maligned our great and noble faith, Islam."

"They are not the future of Pakistan or Afghanistan. We must fight these dark forces with determination and resolve," he said.

Nearly 100 Pakistani delegates from tribal areas where Al-Qaeda and Taliban extremists are said to be most active have boycotted the meeting, mainly in protest at the Pakistani military presence in their areas.

But one of the Pakistani delegates who did attend, Malik Zarin Khan from Mohmand Agency, said he hoped the meeting would go some way towards halting the spread of Taliban-linked violence.

"This fire, either months later or a year later, will reach us too," he told AFP. "We are hoping this jirga helped solve the problem."

The jirga is being held in a huge tent in the grounds of a college on the outskirts of the Afghan capital.

Rice calls Musharraf as Pakistan weighs state of emergency

Last Updated: Wednesday, August 8, 2007 | The Associated Press

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke at length late Wednesday with Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf as the key U.S. anti-terrorism ally weighed imposing a state of emergency due to security concerns in the nuclear-armed nation.

Rice spoke by phone to Musharraf in a call that took place in the early hours of Thursday in Pakistan, where officials said an emergency declaration was being considered and that the president would soon meet with his cabinet to discuss the option, a senior State Department official said.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation, refused to discuss the substance of the 17-minute conversation that began shortly after 2 a.m. Thursday Pakistan time.

The call came after Pakistan's minister of state for information said Islamabad might impose a state of emergency due to "external and internal threats" and deteriorating law and order in the volatile northwest, near the border with Afghanistan. A Musharraf aide said the president would meet his cabinet later Thursday.

Pakistani television networks reported that a declaration of an emergency was imminent, although senior officials said no final decision had been made.

Musharraf is under growing U.S. pressure to crack down on militants at the Afghan border because of fears that al-Qaeda has regrouped there, and the matter has spilled over into the campaign for the 2008 U.S. presidential elections.

But some believe the possible declaration of a state of emergency may be tied to domestic politics. Musharraf's popularity has dwindled and his standing has been badly shaken by a failed bid to oust the country's chief justice — an independent-minded judge likely to rule on expected legal challenges to the president's bid to seek a new five-year presidential term this fall.

Earlier, Musharraf abruptly cancelled his planned attendance at the Thursday opening of a peace meeting in Afghanistan that is to bring more than 600 Pakistani and Afghan tribal leaders together with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who had been touting the gathering as a sign of progress earlier this week.

Rice's call to Musharraf followed comments by State Department spokesman Sean McCormack who said the U.S. understood Musharraf's abrupt decision to skip the meeting.

"President Musharraf certainly wouldn't stay back in Islamabad if he didn't believe he had good and compelling reasons to stay back," McCormack told a regular briefing. "Certainly we would understand that."

Just hours before those remarks, McCormack had told reporters the United States hoped Musharraf would be able to attend at least some of the meeting, if not the opening, and that U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson had been in touch with Pakistani officials to determine how Islamabad would be represented.

The U.S. administration, which had brokered the meeting, was initially surprised by Musharraf's cancellation, particularly after Karzai repeatedly expressed satisfaction about the meeting at a joint news conference with U.S. President George W. Bush on Monday at the Camp David, Md., presidential retreat.

The idea for the peace meeting was hatched in September 2006 during a meeting between Bush, Karzai and Musharraf in Washington as a way to stem rising cross-border violence.

Low expectations at Pak-Afghan jirga

By Iqbal Khattak – Daily Times - KABUL: A 360-strong Pakistan delegation arrived here in the Afghan capital Wednesday for the three-day Afghan-Pak Peace Jirga starting today (Thursday). amidst hopes for a joint strategic alliance between the two bickering neighbours against terrorism.

“The maximum achievement (of the jirga) would be that we discuss all controversial issues between Pakistan and Afghanistan and we decide to continue (dialogue) till we reach a conclusion agreeable to both sides,” Pakistan delegation member Khalid Aziz told Daily Times.

He said the “minimum achievement” would be that the jirga improve bilateral relations between the two counties and set up a framework to discuss security matters further.

Delegates from both sides appeared divided over the final outcome of the jirga, and also on their feelings towards Pakistan.

“No matter how much you want to hide from us, we can see who is helping terrorism in Afghanistan and where it is coming from. It is coming from Pakistan,” said Afghan delegate Haji Naeem Kochey from Logar province, as Uzbek and Tajik delegates nodded their heads in agreement.

Many delegates said a dramatic outcome should not be expected, but the three-day meeting of elders, technocrats, clerics, journalists and government officials was a good start.

“We will lay a foundation for the elimination of terrorism in the region,” Haji Naeem told Daily Times. “We have to find a way for peace,” added Khair Muhammad, another Afghan delegate.

Pakistani MNA Mehmood Khan Achakzai of the Pukhtoonkhawa Milli Awami Party suggested that the Taliban should be invited to talks. “If Maulana Fazlur Rehman can be leader of the opposition in Pakistan, why can’t Mullah Omar be opposition leader in Afghanistan?”

Mufti Hanifullah, a tribal cleric from Bajaur who said he was under threat from militants in South Waziristan, echoed sentiments that the Taliban should be involved in the talks. “How can you expect a jirga to be successful when the second party to the conflict is left out?”

He added that peace in Afghanistan would be difficult to achieve as long as foreign forces remained in this country.

Asfandyar Wali Khan of the Awami National Party called the holding of the jirga “a good beginning” but did not have great expectations. “We have to know the ground reality before deciding,” he said.

Afghan and International Assistance Security Force personnel guarded the Pearl-Continental and Serena Hotels where the Pakistani delegates are staying.

Afghan and Pakistani sources told Daily Times that the jirga would conclude with agreement that there was no military solution to the current conflict in Afghanistan and it would “set in motion a process to generate a new dynamic for opening negotiations with all estranged and marginalised Afghan groups who are engaged in resisting the present dispensation”.

Another 50-member peace and conciliation jirga would be authorised by this jirga and the government of Afghanistan to open dialogue with the Taliban on how best and how soon the violence in the country could be ended. It will comprise 25 members from each country and they will all be tribesmen, with no government officials.

Joint jirga meaningless without peace in Waziristan: MMA MNA

ISLAMABAD (Daily Times): North Waziristan Member of National Assembly Maulana Nek Zaman, while rejecting the government demand of reviewing the jirga boycott decision, has said until Pakistan solves its own problems, it cannot discuss peace in another country. He termed the joint peace jirga meaningless without peace in Waziristan.

In an interview with NNI, he said the MNAs had urged the government to settle the problem through negotiations and jirgas instead of using force, but the government had not accepted their request. He said the members of Parliament and elders of North and South Waziristan were refusing to participate in the Pak-Afghan Peace Jirga in protest.

Maulana Nek Zama said it is a tribal tradition to never accept any decision taken at gunpoint, adding it was not a proper method of solving the problem.

According to tribal customs, he said a jirga consisted of the concerned parties and points of contention. This jirga has no defined concerned parties, he added.

Answering a question, Maulana Nek Zama called upon the government to take solid steps for a solution to the Waziristan problem.

He also called for the withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan to allow the Afghan people to decide their fate.

He said the government had violated the peace pact it had signed with the North Waziristan tribesmen by increasing the deployment of troops to the check posts in the region, instead of reducing them as agreed in the treaty.

He said on the one hand, the government was trying to maintain peace in the region by holding peace jirgas, while on the other it was simultaneously trying to settle the problems in Waziristan through force.

He said the protestors had made it clear to the government that any troop involvement in Waziristan would only complicate the situation and increase the problems. He demanded the government also solve the Waziristan issue through jirgas and negotiations. nni

Pak-Afghan joint efforts required for peace: Wali

KABUL: Awami National Party (ANP) President Asfandyar Wali Khan has said that both Pakistan and Afghanistan would have to jointly work for lasting peace in the region. Talking to APP after his arrival in Kabul to participate in the joint peace jirga on Wednesday, he said the ANP believed in the politics of non-violence and wanted to resolve all outstanding issues through dialogue. “The basic objective of our participation in the grand jirga is to find a viable solution to the prevailing lawlessness, terrorism, extremism and other outstanding issues faced by the region through dialogue,” he added. app

‘ UK worried over Taliban’s advance’

(DAWN) - LONDON, Aug 8: UK ministers believe that if Afghanistan falls into the hands of the Taliban, Pakistan may also fall, with dire consequences for British security. According to a report in the Guardian, Britain has been pressing for greater cooperation between Pakistan and Afghanistan, but recognises that the border means little to local tribes.

Britain still believes its counter-insurgency techniques are working, and the fact that the Pakistan and Afghan government will hold a joint parliament (Jirga) this week shows there is a mood to cooperate.The British Foreign Office has decided that Afghanistan, and not Iraq, is the frontline in its battle to defeat terrorism, even if it may take decades to improve the country -- as well as far greater international coordination than at present.

The UK military also wants to concentrate its forces in Helmand province, an area described by Tony Blair as the crucible in which the battle for the 21st century will be fought.

The decision by Foreign Secretary David Miliband to go to Kabul was intended as a symbol that the UK regards Afghanistan and Pakistan as vital to fighting terrorism.

The Foreign Office does not seem to favour a radical change in policy in battling against opium production in Helmand, saying greater security will gradually lead farmers to sow alternative and currently less profitable crops.

Korean aid groups to pull out of Afghanistan

GHAZNI, Afghanistan (AP) — South Korea's ambassador told tribal elders from eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday that Korean aid organizations would pull out of the country in a month, an apparent effort to help free 21 hostages being held by Taliban militants, a news report said.

The governor of the region where the hostages are being held, meanwhile, said South Korean officials and Taliban militants were close to agreeing on a location for a face-to-face meeting.

Gov. Marajudin Pathan also said he thought the Taliban's demand of a release of prisoners was a dead issue, but that a ransom payment might solve the hostage crisis.

The South Korean ambassador Kang Sung-zu told Pashtun tribal leaders from Nangarhar province that Korea wouldn't let any more of its citizens or aid organizations travel to Afghanistan, and that aid organizations currently in the country would have to leave within a month, the Afghan TV station Tolo reported.

The ambassador also said that if the 21 hostages are released and if the Afghan government can provide a security guarantee, then Korean aid organizations might one day return to the country.

The Pashtun tribal leaders who traveled to the South Korean Embassy in Kabul come from the same ethnic tribe that the majority of Taliban fighters are from. A person who answered the phone at South Korea's embassy said he couldn't comment. The embassy spokesman did not answer his phone late Wednesday.

The 23 South Koreans were abducted July 19 in Qarabagh as they traveled by bus from Kabul to the southern city of Kandahar. Two of the captives have since been executed by the Taliban.

Pathan, the local governor, said medicines donated by an Afghan doctor and the Korean government have helped the hostages, and that two captives who were extremely ill have recovered. He said the captives are being held in four groups in Ghazni province — three in Qarabagh district and one in Andar district.

He said that Korean and Taliban officials had to find a solution to the crisis in the face-to-face meeting because there would be no other negotiating avenues. He said a location agreement was expected within the next two days.

Taliban militants, meanwhile, clashed with police in the same district where the Koreans were abducted, police said. Four militants were killed and six wounded.

The militants withdrew after exchanging fire for about an hour with police at a checkpoint in Qarabagh district on Tuesday, said Mohammad Zaman, the deputy provincial police chief. He said no police were hurt in the clash.

There was no immediate indication that Tuesday's clash was linked to the hostage crisis.

There has not yet been a breakthrough in negotiations almost three weeks into the hostage ordeal. The captives — volunteers from a church group who planned to do health work in Afghanistan — include 16 women and five men.

"We are trying to secure their release through negotiations," said Zemarai Bashary, the spokesman for Interior Ministry.

Authorities are putting pressure on the elders, tribal leaders and clerics of the area to convince the Taliban to free the captives, Bashary said. "If that is not enough, we will see what sort of plan could be effective in the future," he said.

The Taliban are demanding that Afghan authorities and the U.S. military release a number of militant prisoners in return for freeing the South Koreans. Afghan authorities have so far refused any exchange, fearing it could lead to more kidnappings, despite South Korea urging "flexibility" in the case.

"If you make deals you create opportunities for the enemy of Afghanistan to take more foreign hostages," Bashary said.

Marajudin Pathan, the governor of Ghazni province, said that South Korean officials and the Taliban would agree late Tuesday on a meeting place for their first face-to-face talks. However, South Korean officials and Taliban on Wednesday denied that any agreement on the venue was reached.

The Taliban have said they are ready for face-to-face talks even in government-controlled territory, provided that the United Nations guarantees their delegation's safety.

The Taliban have said they have separated the captives into smaller groups. Afghan authorities believe they are being held in different parts of Ghazni. Remote areas of the province are known to be in Taliban hands.

UN: Afghanistan's Cereal Production Doubled Since Taliban Fell in 2001

Monday August 6, ROME (AP) -- Afghanistan's cereal production has more than doubled in the six years since the fall of the Taliban regime, thanks mainly to good weather and the development work of aid organizations, a U.N. food agency said Monday.

Despite continuing violence in the country, Afghanistan's cereal output is expected to reach 4.6 million tons in 2007, compared with 2 million tons in 2001, when a U.S.-led invasion drove the Taliban from power, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said.

Although Afghanistan is nearing self-sufficiency, it will still need to import 700,000 tons of cereals in 2007-08 to cover its needs, with 600,000 tons being purchased on world markets and the rest provided as food aid, the Rome-based agency said in a statement.

Aside from several consecutive years of generally favorable weather, the statement also credited the increase on projects run by the agency, which employs 400 staff in the country, and by other aid groups.

The agency cited projects including the creation of an Afghan seed industry, restoration of irrigation systems and substitution of the country's huge poppy cultivation, which accounted last year for more than 90 percent of the world's heroin supply.

British Criticize U.S. Air Attacks in Afghan Region

By CARLOTTA GALL, Published: August 9, 2007, SANGIN, Afghanistan — A senior British commander in southern Afghanistan said in recent weeks that he had asked that American Special Forces leave his area of operations because the high level of civilian casualties they had caused was making it difficult to win over local people.

Other British officers here in Helmand Province, speaking on condition of anonymity, criticized American Special Forces for causing most of the civilian deaths and injuries in their area. They also expressed concerns that the Americans’ extensive use of air power was turning the people against the foreign presence as British forces were trying to solidify recent gains against the Taliban.

An American military spokesman denied that the request for American forces to leave was ever made, either formally or otherwise, or that they had caused most of the casualties. But the episode underlines differences of opinion among NATO and American military forces in Afghanistan on tactics for fighting Taliban insurgents, and concerns among soldiers about the consequences of the high level of civilians being killed in fighting.

A precise tally of civilian deaths is difficult to pin down, but one reliable count puts the number killed in Helmand this year at close to 300 civilians, the vast majority of them caused by foreign and Afghan forces, rather than the Taliban.

“Everyone is concerned about civilian casualties,” the senior British commander said. “Of course it is counterproductive if civilians get injured, but we’ve got to pick up the pack of cards that we have got. Other people have been operating in our area before us.”

After months of heavy fighting that began in early 2006, the British commanders say they are finally making headway in securing important areas such as this town, and are now in the difficult position of trying to win back support among local people whose lives have been devastated by aerial bombing.

American Special Forces have been active in Helmand since United States forces first entered Afghanistan in late 2001, and for several years they maintained a small base outside the town of Gereshk. But the foreign troop presence was never more than a few hundred men.

British forces arrived in the spring of 2006 and now have command of the province with some 6,000 troops deployed, with small units of Estonians and Danish troops. American Special Forces have continued to assist in fighting insurgents, operating as advisers to Afghan national security forces.

It is these American teams that are coming under criticism. They tend to work in small units that rely heavily on air cover because they are vulnerable to large groups of insurgents. Such Special Forces teams have often called in airstrikes in Helmand and other places where civilians have subsequently been found to have suffered casualties.

In just two cases, airstrikes killed 31 nomads west of Kandahar in November last year and another 57 villagers, half of them women and children, in western Afghanistan in April. In both cases, United States Special Forces were responsible for calling in the airstrikes.

The chief British press officer in Helmand, Col. Charles Mayo, defended the American Special Forces and said they were essential to NATO’s efforts to clear out heavily entrenched Taliban insurgents.

An American military spokesman said United States Special Forces would continue to operate in Helmand for the foreseeable future. He denied that their tactics had caused greater civilian deaths and blamed the Taliban for fighting from civilian compounds.

“U.S. Special Forces have a tremendous reputation not only in combat operations but also in training and advising the Afghan National Security Forces,” Lt. Col. David Accetta, a spokesman for American forces in Afghanistan, said in an e-mail response from Bagram air base.

United States Special Forces had also provided development and medical assistance, which, with the combat missions, “can be said to have ‘turned the tide’ in Helmand,” he said.

But the senior British commander, who spoke on condition of anonymity during an interview in July, said that in Sangin, which has been calm recently, there was no longer a need for United States Special Forces. “There aren’t large bodies of Taliban to fight anymore; we are dealing with small groups and we are trying to kick-start reconstruction and development,” he said.

Orders had just come down from the NATO force’s headquarters in Kabul, which is led by Gen. Dan K. McNeill of the United States, re-emphasizing the need to avoid civilian deaths, he said.

“The phrase is: ‘It may be legal but is it appropriate?’ No one is saying it is illegal to use air power, but is there any other way of doing it if there is a risk of collateral damage?” he said.

For months, frequent reports of civilian casualties have trickled out of Helmand, scene of some of the fiercest battles of the recent war. But there has rarely been independent confirmation of the reports because the province has been too dangerous for journalists to visit.

Yet there is no doubt there have been civilian casualties, and British and Afghan officials acknowledged that they had seen some of them.

Villagers brought the bodies of 21 civilians killed in airstrikes May 8 on the village of Sarwan Qala to show the authorities in Sangin, they said. United States Special Forces were battling the Taliban on that occasion and called in the strikes, the United States military said in a statement at the time.

Three days later the nearby village of Sra Ghar was hit. British soldiers at a base called Robinson just south of Sangin said they had received 18 civilians around that time who were wounded in an American operation and flew them out to NATO hospitals for treatment.

On a rare visit to Helmand in mid-July, a journalist encountered children who were still suffering wounds sustained in that bombing raid or another around that time. Their father, Mohammadullah, brought them to the gate of the British Army base seeking help.

His son, Bashir Ahmed, 2, listless and stick thin, seemed close to death. The boy and his sister Muzlifa, 7, bore terrible shrapnel scars. NATO doctors had removed shrapnel from the boy’s abdomen at the time of the raid and had warned his father that he might not survive, but two months later he was still hanging on.

The father said the bombing raid killed six members of the family and wounded five. His wife lost an arm, and the children’s grandmother was killed, he said.

Altogether, he said, 20 people were killed in the airstrikes after Taliban fighters came through the village. He figured that the planes had bombed them mistakenly, because the Taliban were fighting United States forces well below the village at the time.

He said that he opposed the Taliban, but that after the bombing raid the villagers were so angered that most of the men who survived went off to join the insurgents. Whether people would support the foreign troops “depends on the behavior of ISAF,” Mohammadullah said, referring to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. “If they treat the civilians well, they will win.”

It is in fact the possibility of the population turning against them, or the unpopularity of the campaign back home, that most concerns the military, one NATO military official said. “We know we can beat the Taliban on the ground,” the official said. “The issue is the population.”

A civilian NATO from Kabul added, “The problem is Afghans are waking up and thinking: ‘Why are they doing this?’ ”

Maj. Dominic Biddick, commander of a company of British soldiers in Sangin, is making a big effort to ease the anger and pain as his men patrol the villages. He has a $5,000 good-will fund and hands out cash to victims he comes across, like the farmer whose two sons were shot in the fields during a recent operation. And he has $10,000 a month to spend on community assistance programs. “If you are genuinely caring, you can win friends,” he said.

Capt. Catherine Fisher, a civil affairs officer in Sangin, said that over six weeks ending in July she had received requests from 75 families who had lost relatives or property in recent fighting.

But while some of the victims and local people blame the Taliban for bringing violence to Helmand, hostility and bitterness toward the foreign forces remains.

“The Americans are killing and destroying a village just in pursuit of one person,” said Mahmadullah, 24, referring to Osama bin Laden. “So now we have understood that the Americans are a curse on us, and they are here just to destroy Afghanistan. They can tell the difference between men and women, children and animals, but they are just killing everyone.”

A trained mullah from the village of Kutaizi, half an hour from Sangin, Mahmadullah reacted with sarcasm to the idea that reconstruction and assistance could change the minds of the people.

“First they kill me, and then they rebuild my house?” he said. “What is the point when I am dead and my son is dead? This is not of any worth to us.”

Afghanistan at Odds With U.S. on Plan to Curb Opium

By Janine Zacharia

Aug. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Afghanistan is at odds with a U.S. strategy to stem opium production that is funding the Taliban and other militants opposed to President Hamid Karzai's rule, according to a top Afghan diplomat.

While the Bush administration is seeking to expand efforts to destroy opium poppy plants, Afghanistan wants to emphasize long-term crop substitution.

``We think it's better to put more resources on preventing cultivation because once it's cultivated, it's too late,'' Said Jawad, Afghanistan's ambassador to the U.S., said in an interview yesterday. ``You eradicate it, you lose the support of the people.''

The debate over how to counter Afghanistan's burgeoning output of opium, the raw material for heroin sold on European streets, is likely to sharpen tomorrow with the release of a U.S. drug-fighting strategy.

``Right now the approach of the United States is more emphasis on eradication,'' Jawad said. ``But not only us, your friends the British do not agree with that either, and say no, that's not the right approach.''

Jawad stressed that rather than ``punishing extensively the farmers, we have to go after traffickers.'' President George W. Bush and Karzai discussed the problem when they met Aug. 6 at Camp David in Maryland.

Bush, with Karzai at his side, said the Afghan leader understands that farmers must be given the incentive to ``grow crops other than poppy and that he knows full well the United States is watching, measuring and trying to help eradicate poppy cultivation.''

William Wood, the new U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, said in late June that ``there is not yet a consensus regarding eradication.'' He lamented last year's results -- about 20,000 hectares (50,000 acres) or 10 percent of the total Afghan crop eliminated. Wood was ambassador to Colombia while the U.S. mounted a major effort there to shrink cocaine production.

``As a result, we are exploring new techniques that we will coordinate with the government of Afghanistan and the international community,'' Wood said in a statement posted on the U.S. Embassy's Web site.

In Colombia, the U.S. funded the spraying of herbicides on coca fields by crop dusters protected by helicopter-backed military forces. The Colombians also use the more labor-intensive approach of pulling up plants by their roots.

The anti-drug effort, known as Plan Colombia, is aimed at curbing the flow of drug money to guerrillas and strengthening the authority of the elected government.

Ambassador Thomas Schweich, U.S. counter-narcotics coordinator in Afghanistan, told a conference in Washington two weeks ago that eradication would be pursued in places where alternatives to opium poppies are available. He said research shows that about a quarter of the poppy crop needs to be destroyed in such areas to deter farmers from planting it the next year.

``When they see they got a one in four chance of losing everything, they'll start thinking about taking the alternative that was developed,'' he said, according to a recording of his remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Schweich said other steps, including interdiction of opium and a campaign to inform the public about drug-terrorism ties, would be needed. A U.S. government assessment of its counter-narcotics program in Afghanistan, released on July 31 by the inspectors general of the State and Defense departments, illustrated what a failure the U.S. effort has been to date.

During fiscal year 2006, the U.S. spent more than $420 million combating Afghan narcotics. Still, the number of Afghans involved in cultivation grew to 2.9 million from 2 million in 2005, equivalent to an eighth of the population.

Acreage devoted to poppy cultivation in 2006 was about 59 percent higher than in 2005. In 2006, income generated inside Afghanistan from the narcotics industry represented about 60 percent as much as that from legal economic activities.

``It is self-evident that there is no politically feasible way to outspend economic incentives that drive the narcotics trade,'' the inspectors general said. If the entire poppy crop were converted to heroin, its street value would be $38 billion, they estimated.

A State Department report earlier this year described a relationship in which traffickers supply weapons and money to the Taliban in exchange for the protection of drug trade routes and poppy fields.

The consequences are stark for the U.S. efforts to weaken al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the report said.

Without an effective counter-narcotics effort, ``the corrupting influence of the narcotics industry would likely set the stage for Afghanistan's reemergence as a safe haven for international terrorist operations,'' the inspectors general said.

The U.S. has 23,500 troops in Afghanistan and has spent more than $23 billion on reconstruction since the 2001 invasion that toppled the Taliban.

US to unveil new Afghan anti-drug strategy

Reuters - The United States plans to unveil a strategy to fight Afghanistan's drug trade by giving provincial governors more money to eradicate poppy crops and pursue economic development, US officials said.

The effort also aims to better co-ordinate counter-narcotics and counter-insurgency work in Afghanistan, which in the past 18 months has seen its bloodiest fighting since US-led and Afghan forces toppled the Taliban movement in 2001.

US officials said the new strategy for Afghanistan, which is the source of about 90 per cent of the world's opium, would include a public education campaign against growing opium poppies, the key ingredient for heroin.

A State Department official, who spoke on condition that he not be named because the strategy is not yet public, said the new approach seeks to grapple with the fact that the insurgency and the drug trade are increasingly intertwined.

It also reflects the belief that provincial governors are often better at cracking down on poppy cultivation than the federal government and should be given incentives to do more.

"In provinces where the governor has established effective control, poppy is going down. . . Much of the decline in provinces where there is good governance has been through governor-led eradication," the official said.

"The first step is to provide more incentives and support for provinces – for governors – that take effective action. . . and to give them money to spend on (economic development)."

A congressional aide said the plan would include the implicit threat that governors who did not take on the drug trade would get less money for development.

"They are going to roll out a plan that's heavy on carrots and sticks," said the aide, saying the message boiled down to "you have got to do less opium if you want more projects."

A report by the State Department's inspector general last week said US goals for eradicating Afghan opium poppies were unrealistic and that this year's crop may exceed last year's. According to a UN estimate, opium production in Afghanistan rose by as much as 50 per cent in 2006.

The report found "no realistic possibility of outspending economic incentives in the narcotics industry" and said the $420 million (210 million pounds) spent by the United States on eradication in Afghanistan last year was dwarfed by the estimated $38 billion "street value" if the poppy crop were converted to heroin.

The Taliban, which ruled Afghanistan under strict principles of Islamic law, drastically reduced poppy growing throughout the country before it was ousted in 2001.

But in recent years poppy growth has increased dramatically, especially in southern provinces where the Taliban has encouraged it.

Afghanistan has seen a rise in Taliban suicide bombings, roadside bombs and attacks in recent months. More than 6,500 people have been killed in the past 18 months, the bloodiest period since the Taliban government was toppled in 2001.

One aspect of the new US strategy is to better co-ordinate counter-narcotics work with the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, US officials said.

This could include closer co-operation on intelligence sharing as well as better co-ordination on efforts to eradicate poppy crops and to interdict drug shipments.

At Least 35 Militants, Six Police Killed In Afghanistan

August 7, 2007 -- Fresh clashes in Afghanistan have left 35 Taliban fighters and six policemen dead. U.S.-led coalition forces killed more than 20 militants when they repelled a rare frontal attack on a U.S. military base.

A coalition statement said that Afghan National Army units and coalition forces beat back the morning attack on  U.S. Firebase Anaconda, in the southern Oruzgan Province.

It said that as 75 fighters attacked the base, air support was called in. Four civilians, including two girls aged under 12, were also injured when they were hit by rocket-propelled grenades fired by the militants.

Separately, Afghan police said that insurgents attacked a police patrol in the southern Kandahar Province, sparking a battle that left six police and 15 militants dead.

16 Afghan nationals arrested in Balochistan

QUETTA: The security forces deployed in District Chaghi arrested 16 Afghan nationals in Balochistan here on Wednesday.

According to government sources, Frontier Corps personnel arrested them at a check post while checking their travelling documents. None of the Afghanis had their travel documents and they were arrested according to the foreign act.

Meanwhile, the Iranian border Security forces arrested 10 Pakistanis who were trying to enter Iran illegally. The Iranian border Security forces handed them to the Levis forces on the Taftan border. According to sources, these Pakistanis wanted go to Europe through Iran to earn money. Online

Passenger jets may have been target of Afghan missile: official

AFP, 09/20/2002 -An anti-aircraft missile found on the outskirts of the Afghan capital was aimed along the flight path of civilian passenger jets using Kabul's airport, a government information official said today.

Afghan police acting on intelligence found the missile armed and ready to fire at Maidan Shahr in Wardak of Kabul, said Sidiq Ullah Tawhidi, deputy director of the information service. "It was on the flight path of commercial jets, but the target may just as easily have been military planes belonging to coalition forces in Afghanistan," Tawhidi said.

A last chance

By Karl F. Inderfurth, The Boston Globe - Wednesday, August 8, 2007

When President Bush hosted President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan at Camp David earlier this week, it was their ninth meeting since U.S.-led military forces ousted the Taliban from power in late 2001. It may also prove to be their most fateful. Time is running out to get things right in Afghanistan.

The battle for Afghan "hearts and minds" is in danger of being lost because of rising civilian casualties and war damage. The Karzai government is losing the support of Afghans due to widespread corruption, the failure to provide needed social services, and its inability to control large parts of its own territory. A U.S. National Intelligence Estimate says Al Qaeda has established a new safe haven on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Meanwhile, international support for "staying the course" in Afghanistan is slipping. The Taliban surge in suicide bombings, hostage taking and killing of foreigners is taking its toll.

Bush said that the two leaders talked about their security strategy. In the weeks ahead, that strategy should focus on two overriding priorities - what can be done to enhance the Afghan president's ability to govern at home and what steps can be taken to reinvigorate the international community's commitment to a stable and secure Afghanistan over the long term.

A July report by the British House of Commons Defense Committee provides valuable guidance on both of these objectives. Entitled "UK operations in Afghanistan," it contains 39 conclusions and recommendations based on the British experience in that country, including in the volatile southern province of Helmand where Taliban resistance is the fiercest.

A refrain throughout the report is that Afghan reconstruction and development (jobs, roads, water, and electricity), rather than military power alone, is the key to winning over Afghans and achieving a successful outcome. Among the report's key recommendations - and ones the United States should support - are:

First, coordination of the international effort in Afghanistan - involving a 37-nation coalition, scores of international agencies and non-governmental organizations, and billions of dollars in aid - is a huge task and not going well, setting back the reconstruction effort. The UN needs to appoint a high-profile and authoritative individual to coordinate resources, ensure coherence and work closely with the Karzai government.

Second, violence is increasing and spreading to previously more peaceful provinces and the capital, Kabul. Also increasing are the numbers of civilians killed and injured as a result of NATO and U.S. military activity, undercutting support for the foreign presence in Afghanistan and fueling the insurgency. All efforts must be made to minimize civilian casualties.

Third, NATO is falling short on its planned military requirements for Afghanistan. The reluctance of some NATO members to provide troops for the Afghan mission is "undermining NATO's credibility" and its operations. A strategy is needed to persuade these NATO governments to address this deficit.

Fourth, the international community should put greater emphasis on training the Afghan National Police - seen as the weakest link in the country's security reform program - and address corruption in the judicial system. A recent conference in Rome pledged $360 million to train judges and build new prisons and courts. Karzai told the conference an urgent problem is low salaries, a major contributor to corruption of the system.

Fifth, the effort to redirect Afghanistan's "narco-state" economy lacks clarity and coherence. International disagreements over the appropriate means of poppy eradication must be addressed along with more active development of alternative livelihood schemes.

Finally, Afghanistan's relations with Pakistan and Iran are vital to its future. Iran's effort to check the flow of narcotics across its border with Afghanistan is welcomed (as Karzai also did at Camp David), but concern is expressed about reports that "explosives originating from Iran have been used by insurgents in Afghanistan." In response, engagement with Iran is recommended: "This underlines the urgent necessity for the West, particularly the U.S. and the UK, to foster constructive dialogue with as many parts of the Iranian government and its offshoots as possible."

One senior British official says the next 18 months are critical for Afghanistan: "If we do not make progress in that time, we could be in deep trouble." This period coincides with Bush's remaining term in office. Afghanistan's future and Bush's presidential legacy are, as they have been since 9/11, inextricably linked.

Karl F. Inderfurth, assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs from 1997 to 2001, is a professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. This article first appeared in The Boston Globe.

U.S. Senator Defends Pakistan's Prez

(AP) - Following a meeting with Pakistan's leader, the Senate's second-highest ranking Democrat on Wednesday defended the country's efforts to battle al Qaeda along its mountainous border with Afghanistan.

Speaking with reporters in a conference call from Iraq, Sen. Dick Durbin said Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf voiced concern over news reports that portray him as not doing enough to eradicate al Qaeda.

"It would be a mistake to conclude that they are not making the effort. I believe they have," Durbin said, citing the deaths of 600 Pakistani soldiers. "I just believe they can be more effective in the way they're doing it."

Durbin, the Senate's second-highest ranking Democrat, said Musharraf did not talk about fellow Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, who has been criticized by Pakistan's government for suggesting he was prepared to send U.S. military forces into Pakistan if that is what it would take to eliminate al Qaeda as a terrorist threat.

Durbin has been traveling in South Asia and the Middle East, including Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, where he arrived Wednesday. He met with Musharraf on Tuesday.

Durbin is scheduled to be in Jordan on Thursday at a refugee camp with Democratic Sen. Bob Casey.

In Iraq, he visited U.S. troops at a remote patrol base and later met with Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker in Baghdad.

He said he envisions that even with U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq there would still be some U.S. military personnel embedded with Iraq's army for training purposes. He did not speculate about how many troops should remain. The U.S. military presence now hovers around 165,000.

During much of the day Wednesday, Durbin was at a U.S. patrol base about 10 miles outside of Baghdad along the banks of the Tigris River, where he met with a force of about 900 servicemen, including many from Illinois.

In Afghanistan, Durbin had meetings with officials in Kabul and took a trip to a border region with Pakistan, where he said al Qaeda and Taliban forces often gather. "I believe the Afghanis are anxious to stop the Taliban infiltration and al Qaeda as well," he said. "So, I have an optimistic feeling about this."

He cautioned that U.S. allies from NATO are still needed in Afghanistan. "This is the war we should have focused on — the war we can win," Durbin added. "We have to do our best to finish this."

Meanwhile, Casey, on his first trip to Iraq, said he has been telling Iraqi leaders that Americans are troubled by the lack of political progress by the country's politicians.

"The troops have met every assignment, they've beaten the odds time and again, they've done everything we've asked them to," Casey said in a conference call with reporters. "You could make a good argument they've won the war, but some still say that we need lots more time and lots more troops and lots more in the way of resources."

Casey, who voted against a January plan that increased the number of troops in Iraq, said the Bush administration and political leaders in Iraq should be making progress that matches the intensity that U.S. troops have shown. He jas has not advocated for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops, but he has supported measures that would bring most troops home by April.

Editorial: Predictable pantomime of joint jirga in Kabul

The three-day joint Pak-Afghan jirga, opening today, is sure to make shipwreck amid sweet nothings. President Pervez Musharraf has pulled out at the last minute and is sending the prime minister, Shaukat Aziz, instead. The joint statement at the end of it will be meaningless. Messrs Hamid Karzai and Shaukat Aziz will be present and have discussions with their fingers crossed behind their backs. Each side will field 350 members handpicked for backing their own official line, and a meaningless farce will be choreographed by two states suffering from a solid erosion of their writs in their territories.

On the Afghan side, the jirga as a concept is in the Constitution, and Loya Jirga is actually a parliament elected at the district level. In Pakistan, the jirga inhabits the shady tribal administrative system based on a draconian Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) run by a political agent. Since 2001, the system in Pakistan has collapsed and the political agent has been ousted by the frontal conflict between the Pakistan army and Al Qaeda. The 350 men for the Pakistani side had to come from the Tribal Areas abutting on Afghanistan and it is not clear how many will actually make it.

Of course the jirgas in Pakistan have taken a beating along with the office of the political agent. Elders thought to be favouring Islamabad have been beheaded by the Pakistani Taliban on the payroll of Al Qaeda. The jirga is a collection of confused pale-turbaned individuals not sure if they will live to see another day after toeing the government line. The jirgas from North and South Waziristan — the two agencies most involved in terrorist infiltration into Afghanistan — have refused to go to Kabul. Why?

They have refused because the Pakistan army has moved into the agencies after the two “deals” it made with them fell apart. The latest news is that army, using helicopters and artillery, has attacked the terrorist compounds in North Waziristan and killed 10 terrorists. In the Zhob district in Balochistan, abutting on the Tribal Areas, 14 Taliban have been arrested although it is inexplicable why they were called Taliban and not Al Qaeda if 10 of them were Uzbeks and Tajiks. The only political party with influence in Waziristan, the JUI, refused to take part in the jirga when its chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman declined to go to Kabul.

Funnily, the 350 men chosen to represent Pakistani tribes are divided into groups, each headed by people belonging to the establishment, including governors from the NWFP and Balochistan, related federal ministers and other “experts” favoured by the government. This means the jirga has been brainwashed so well that hardly any brains are left in it. On the Afghan side, people chosen to represent those most affected by the cross-border raids by the Taliban have been handpicked by President Karzai who wants to show Pakistan that he can give as good as he takes.

Kabul already fears the hand of Pakistani intelligence in the structuring and brainwashing of the Pakistani jirga. Understandably, the Pakistani side is fearful of a biased Afghan jirga composed of ethnic representatives most hit by the Taliban strikes and therefore most virulently opposed to Pakistan. Judging by the general uninformed opinion in Pakistan, the jirga is going to tell the Afghans to start talking to the Taliban to achieve peace in the country. That will mean talking to Mullah Umar and, finally, to Ayman al Zawahiri of Al Qaeda. But there are other characteristics of the two jirgas that must also be noted.

The two jirgas of course hate each other for backing the wrong party at home. The Pakistani jirga considers President Karzai a stooge of the Americans and a renegade Pushtun; the Afghan jirga equally considers President Musharraf a stooge of the Americans and considers Pakistan a trespassing state whose hunger is not appeased by occupying a swathe of territory they think belongs to Afghanistan. In fact Pushtun nationalism in Afghanistan is based on the repossession of these territories after undoing the Durand Line. No matter who comes to power in Kabul the first thing he rejects is an official acceptance of the Pak-Afghan boundary.

There is one thing though on which the Afghan and Waziristan jirgas tacitly agree. They both despise President Musharraf. The Afghan experience with the Pakistan army from 1996 onwards, as the power behind the cruel governance of the Taliban, has been nightmarish. The pursuit of “strategic depth” by the Pakistan army against India inside Afghanistan has been the cruellest period in Afghan history. Contrary to thinking in Pakistan, neither the Pushtuns nor the other nationalities in Afghanistan hold a brief for Pakistan.

The joint jirga is not a South Asian idea. It is the product of a typically Western mind that thinks that structured dialogue is the answer to all disputes. But talking is not what we do in our region. We isolate ourselves, stew in our own juice till positions drift continentally away from each other and war is seen as the only solvent. Like the Indo-Pak peace talks, the “peace” jirga is an alien American idea which no one likes but to which we have to dance a slow, insincere pantomime, even as we curse the Americans under our breath all the while. *

ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS LOOMS AS CONFLICT GOES ON

KABUL, 30 July 2007 (IRIN) - Afghanistan will face a serious environmental crisis, which will have grave consequences for millions of its estimated 27 million population, if the government and international aid organisations continue ignoring the country's degrading environment, experts warn. "More than 80 percent of [Afghanistan's] land could be subject to soil erosion… soil fertility is declining, salinisation is on the increase, water tables have dramatically fallen, de-vegetation is extensive and soil erosion by water and wind is widespread," said a recent report - called Sustainable Land Management 2007 - by Afghanistan's Ministry of Agriculture and Food (MoAF). Abdul Rahman Hotaky, chairman of the Afghan Organisation for Human Rights and Environmental Protection (AOHREP), said there many reasons why the future of the country's environment was grim: more than 26 years of armed conflict, population displacement and extended drought; the misuse of natural resources; the lack of a law enforcement authority; and the lack of appropriate policies for the environment.

Deforestation
"In the last two decades, we have lost over 70 percent of our forests throughout the country," Hotaky told IRIN on 29 July in the capital, Kabul. Extensive deforestation has has multiple social, environmental and economic implications for million of Afghans, Hotaky added. One of the immediately visible humanitarian implications of deforestation is the country's increasingly vulnerability to various natural disasters, specialists say. "Recently, we witnessed increasing numbers of floods, avalanches and landslides as a result of deforestation," said Hazrat Hussain Khaurin, the director of the forests and rangeland department in the food and agriculture ministry. According to government statistics, until the early 1980s, about 19,000sqkm of Afghanistan's 652,225sqkm territory was covered by forests, which were a sustainable source of income for the government and its citizens. Because of the many years of war since then, Afghanistan now faces the complete eradication of its forests, Khaurin said.

Desertification
While agriculture and animal husbandry constitute the backbone of Afghanistan's underdeveloped economy, up to 50 percent of its farmlands have not been cultivated for the last two decades due to various natural and human factors, indicated the Sustainable Land Management 2007 report. Afghanistan's geomorphology has historically comprised highlands, rugged terrains and flatlands, and partly arid deserts. However, the deserts have been rapidly expanding in southern, eastern and northern regions of the country. "Neither the government nor impoverished Afghan farmers have the basic technology or required resources to resist widening desertification," said Khaurin. "Thousands of hectares of agricultural land have been covered by moving sands in seven southern and southwestern provinces," he added. Bushes and other plants that once created natural buffers against sand movement and flash floods flows have been used as fuel by local residents for many years.

Many Afghans refugees who return to their rural communities from neighbouring countries find it impossible to cultivate infertile and arid land with very little irrigation and farming facilities. "Desertification has exacerbated already widespread poverty among many Afghan farmers who seem hapless to tackle problems created by this natural crisis," said Hotaky of the human rights and environment protection body. Against a rapidly increasing population, which requires food, fuel and shelter, among other things, the volume of Afghanistan's agricultural produce has decreased by 50 percent decrease over the past few years, the food and agriculture ministry said.

Lack of attention
For decades, Afghan governments who have came to power have concentrated on winning wars, ensuring stability and solving political dilemmas while paying little attention to a degrading environment, specialists say. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in a study found that Afghanistan's long-term environmental degradation is caused, in part, by a complete collapse of local and national forms of governance. Should Afghanistan fail to address its environmental problems within its reconstruction period, it will face "a future without water, forests, wildlife and clean air", according to UNEP's Post Conflict Assessment for Afghanistan.

[Disclaimer: The content of this news bulletin does not necessarily reflect the view or policy of the Afghan Government, unless specifically stated as such. The collection of articles and commentaries from Afghan and international news sources is provided for informational purposes, and accuracy of the news is the responsibility of the original source.]