In this bulletin:

• Musharraf in anti-Taleban pledge
• Karzai And Musharraf: Let's Work Together
• Pakistan, Afghanistan agree to fight militants
• Sherpao rebuffs notion US masterminded peace jirga in Kabul
• Two Alleged U.S. Spies Killed In Northwest Pakistan
• 29 dead in Afghanistan fighting
• Roadside bomb kills three US soldiers in Afghanistan
• Canadian soldiers injured by roadside bomb
• Afghan army waiting for promised arms from Canada
• Confusion over Taleban releases
• After Taliban news conference, Afghan government bans media from South Korea talks site
• Afghan Crisis Casts Shadow on Korea
• EU's Afghan police training mission dragging behind amid major problems
• Spain to pay for new Afghan army unit: report
• Pakistan-Afghan highway opened
• EDITORIAL: Whither Pakistan’s security if NATO leaves Afghanistan
• Japan's opposition calls for rethink of Afghan mission
• US behind Afghan warlord's rise, fall
• 35,000 flock to join the Afghan Scouts

Musharraf in anti-Taleban pledge

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf (top row L) and Afghan President Hamid Karzai (top row R) attend a peace "jirga", or gathering, in Kabul August 12, 2007. The Presidents of Pakistan and Afghanistan pledged on Sunday to work together to combat the common security threat of Taliban and al Qaeda militants.

Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf has addressed a "peace jirga" in Afghanistan, calling for a better mutual trust between the two countries.

Gen Musharraf said both countries had to work together to "defeat the forces of extremism and terrorism". He signed a six-point declaration with Afghan President Hamid Karzai pledging to continue the "war on terrorism".

Relations between the countries have been strained over the resurgence of the Taleban in Afghanistan.

Gen Musharraf acknowledged that Pakistan's tribal regions had harboured Taleban support and he pledged to prevent these elements from creating trouble.

Addressing about 700 tribal leaders from both nations, he spoke of the need to reach out to those who backed the Taleban but were not necessarily extremists. He asked Afghans to convince their "estranged brothers and sisters" to help rebuild their country.

The declaration signed by the two leaders called for the suppression of the illegal drug trade and the promotion of economic projects in their border areas.

They also pledged to set up a smaller 50-member jirga to meet regularly and entrench security measures as well as promoting dialogue with opposition figures.

The BBC's Charles Haviland in Kabul says the presence of Gen Musharraf at the jirga was a major boost for the gathering after he missed the four-day event's opening session on Thursday.

Gen Musharraf adopted a conciliatory tone and spoke of the strong ties between the two countries. He said the rise of militancy in the region was hampering efforts to improve prosperity while the rest of Asia forged ahead.

He told the audience: "Our societies face a great danger [from] a small minority that create violence and backwardness.

"These forces are disrupting peace and harmony, impeding our progress and development." Mr Karzai told the gathering that he was committed to building trust between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"I pray for the good relationship between these nations," he said. "The result of the jirga was excellent. I am very happy we had respectful leaders from both sides in this jirga."

Both countries are allies of the US and say that they want to quash terrorism, but many Afghan officials accuse Pakistan of harbouring Taleban and al-Qaeda fighters.

Islamabad denies this, pointing out that it has arrested senior militants and is battling its own Taleban threat in its tribal areas. However, tribal elders from Waziristan, the Pakistani region from which much of the instability stems, refused to attend the peace summit.

They said that without Taleban representatives present at the talks no solution could be found.

Karzai And Musharraf: Let's Work Together

Afghan And Pakistani Leaders Tell Tribal Leaders To Fight Extremism

KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 12, 2007 - (AP) Afghanistan and Pakistan must work together to fight a rise in hate and extremism that has held the two countries back while the rest of the world races forward with economic development, Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf told more than 600 Afghan and Pakistani tribal leaders Sunday.

Musharraf spoke at the closing session of a four-day "peace council" aimed at finding ways to stem the rising bloodshed in Afghanistan and Pakistan's border region.

He said Pakistan and Afghanistan are confronted with a "particularly dark form" of terrorism and that he had "no doubt" that Taliban militants find support in Pakistan and cross over into Afghanistan.

But he said the two countries, as "true Muslims," must isolate die-hard militants and "win the hearts and minds" of the people. "Our societies face a great danger in the shape of fringe groups, a small minority that preaches hate, violence and backwardness.

"These forces are disrupting peace and harmony in our societies, impeding our progress and development and maligning Islam, our noble faith of peace, tolerance and compassion," he said. "We must rescue our societies from this new danger and work together to effectively defeat the forces of extremism and terrorism."

Musharraf was greeted by an extended standing ovation as he and Afghan President Hamid Karzai walked into the grand, white tent hosting the meeting, or jirga. The Pakistani president had pulled out of speaking at the opening session on Thursday because of domestic issues, instead sending Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.

Karzai, who spoke only briefly Sunday following a longer address on Thursday, predicted that the jirga would have a "positive result."

"Afghanistan has confidence in its neighboring country," Karzai said. "I'm praying that both countries have peace and prosperity."

The idea for the jirga was hatched almost a year ago during a White House meeting between U.S. President George W. Bush, Musharraf and Karzai.

The Taliban, ousted by U.S.-led forces in late 2001, have stepped up attacks in the past two years. The violence has killed thousands, raising fears for Afghanistan's fledgling democracy.

U.S. and Afghan officials say Taliban militants enjoy a safe haven in Pakistani border regions, particularly Waziristan, where Washington also fears al Qaeda is regrouping. Pakistan says it has some 90,000 troops battling militants in the region, and that it is not a terrorist haven.

Refuting allegations from some Afghan officials that Pakistan tries to undermine progress in Afghanistan, Musharraf said Pakistan wants to see a strong, peaceful and stable Afghanistan.

"It is therefore painful for us to hear allegations that we are deliberately causing disturbance or violence in your country. We do not have such a policy and we will never have such a short-sighted and disastrous policy," he said.

"Taliban are part of the Afghan society. Most of them may be ignorant and misguided, but all of them are not diehard militants and fanatics who defy even the most fundamental values of our culture and our faith," he said.

He also said the countries must be "watchful against the machinations of outsiders who may try to create mistrust and a gulf between the two brotherly countries." He did not say who the outsiders are but referred to them as extremists and fanatics.

A joint declaration backed by all the participants said that terrorism is a common threat to both countries and that the fight against terrorism should continue to be an integral part of their national policies.

A smaller group of jirga participants will work to continue dialogue between the countries and to hold regular meetings. The group also condemned the cultivation and trafficking of opium poppies and other drugs and called for the international community to provide alternative professions for poppy farmers.

Interior Minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao, asked at a news conference afterward what he thought the jirga had accomplished, said it created an environment where "brothers" from two countries could sit together.

"This is going to send very good vibes throughout the country, throughout the region," he said. "This gives us strength, this gives us impetus, this gives us hope that the steps we have taken will lead us to the final destination, peace in this region."

Pakistan, Afghanistan agree to fight militants

SAYED SALAHUDDIN – Reuters August 12, 2007 - KABUL — Pakistan's president acknowledged today that Afghan militants operate from Pakistani soil, as he and his Afghan counterpart vowed joint efforts to fight the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

The two neighbours have more often traded barbed accusations than worked together to fight the threat from the Islamist guerrillas -- and Washington fears their dispute has helped militants hiding in the rugged border region.

A four-day council, or jirga, of Afghan and Pakistani politicians and tribal elders, drawing to a close in Kabul today, was agreed in Washington last year as a way to forge co-operation between the two sides.

"The joint peace jirga strongly recognizes the fact that terrorism is a common threat to both countries and the war on terror should continue to be an integral part of the national policies and security strategies of both countries," said a declaration agreed by some 700 jirga delegates.

"There is no other option for both countries other than peace and unity, trust and cooperation," Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf told the closing session of the jirga. "There is no justification for resorting to terrorism."

Afghan officials have frequently accused Pakistan of harbouring Taliban and al Qaeda fighters to weaken its neighbour.

Pakistan denies the charge, but President Musharraf acknowledged militants are operating from Pakistani tribal areas along the Afghan border which are largely outside government control.

"There is no doubt Afghan militants are supported from Pakistan soil. The problem that you have in your region is because support is provided from our side," he said.

Jirga delegates unanimously declared "an extended, tireless and persistent campaign against terrorism" and pledged the "governments and people of Afghanistan and Pakistan would not allow sanctuaries or training centres for terrorists in their respective countries".

President Musharraf pulled out of a commitment to attend the opening of the four-day jirga on Thursday, citing engagements at home.

His appearance at the end of the conference will have gone a long way to make up for his original failure to show up. His absence had been seen as a blow to a meeting already hit by a boycott by some Pakistani tribal elders.

"It is a very happy event that the jirga between two countries was convened," Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in a short speech. "It is ending with good results, achievements and a message for both countries."

The two countries agreed to set up a smaller jirga of 25 members from each side to hold regular meetings to ensure the decisions are carried through and organize a second large meeting in Pakistan in the future.

They also agreed to co-operate on economic and social projects aimed at undercutting support for the radical Islamist groups seeking to overthrow the governments of both countries.

The fact that the jirga went off without any major dispute between delegates and that the two sides agreed to work together in the future will be regarded as a success in itself.

The jirga is seen as a first step towards a unified approach to combatting militants who threaten security in both countries. The second jirga in Pakistan may yield firmer results.

A jirga is a traditional meeting among the Pashtun tribes that live on both sides of the border, where elders use consensus to try to peacefully settle disputes .

Sherpao rebuffs notion US masterminded peace jirga in Kabul

KABUL, August 11 (APP): Federal Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao said Saturday that the Pak-Afghan Joint Peace Jirga was not organized at the behest of the United States. President Pervez Musharraf and Afghan President Hamid Karzai were instrumental in arranging the landmark gathering to create necessary conditions for lasting peace in the region, Sherpao told the media.

“We are for better relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan and want peace to come. The peace moot has not been arranged at the behest of United States but it has been summoned as people of both countries and its leadership were willing to sit together to wipe out the problems from the roots.”

Sherpao, who talked to reporters at the Kabul Polytechnic Institute, said Pakistan is a sovereign state and “we are not bound to take dictation from any other country.”

He expressed satisfaction over performance of the working committees of the both the countries and said that members of these committees are cooperating and helping each other to finalize the recommendations.

The recommendations of the committees would be adopted unanimously after these were approved by the Executive Committee headed by former Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah and Sherpao.

The final declaration would be drafted in the light of the recommendations and would be presented with consensus to the jirga, the Minister said.

The Presidents of the two countries would put their signatures on the final declaration after its presentation to the jirga. Sherpao said proceedings of the jirga were continuing successfully with the working committees engaged in completing their task.

Two Alleged U.S. Spies Killed In Northwest Pakistan

August 12, 2007 -- Suspected Islamist militants have killed two Afghan men in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal region near Afghanistan.

Local officials said today that two notes found with the dead bodies indicate that the two men were suspected of spying for the United States.

Residents found the beheaded and limbless body of one man on the outskirts of the town of Miran Shah.

The body of another man was found in the town of Datta Khel. It is unclear whether the second man was beheaded or shot. (AFP, AP)

29 dead in Afghanistan fighting

Wire Services - August 12, 2007 - KABUL — A wave of Taliban attacks across Afghanistan killed 29 people, including four international soldiers and nearly two dozen militants, military officials said today.

The violence came after a week of intense fighting as the Taliban's al-Qaeda-backed insurgency, launched nearly six years ago, intensified into the summer.

Three soldiers with the U.S.-led coalition and their Afghan interpreter were killed near the border with Pakistan when they were hit by a bomb during combat, the force said in a statement.

Taliban fighters were responsible for the attack in Nangarhar province, a spokesman said. The coalition withheld their nationalities but most of the international soldiers in eastern Afghanistan are from the U.S. military.

Earlier, the British defence ministry announced that a British soldier was killed and five wounded after their patrol came under fire from Taliban insurgents in southern Afghanistan on Saturday.

The attack was in the volatile Sangin district of Helmand province, considered a hotbed of Islamic extremists and opium farmers said to help finance the insurgency.

Militants also ambushed an Afghan army patrol in Sangin overnight, the Afghan ministry of defence said. The attack sparked a fierce gun battle in which seven rebels were killed and seven wounded, it said.

Warplanes were called in to attack ground targets after rebels stormed an Afghan army post in southern Uruzgan province on Saturday.

“Four enemies were killed and their bodies are still at the battlefield,” the statement said. Three Taliban fighters were killed in a separate clash in the same area, it said.

The ministry also reported two Afghan soldiers were killed in the previous 24 hours but gave no details.

Militants meanwhile tried to overrun a district police headquarters in Wardak province overnight, sparking five hours of fighting which left four of the attackers dead, police said.

In neighbouring Ghazni, where the Taliban are holding 21 South Korean hostages, Afghan and coalition troops clashed Saturday with insurgents, four of whom were killed, they said.

An international military operation drove the Taliban out of government in late 2001 when the hardliners did not hand over their al-Qaeda allies in the weeks after the 9/11 attacks.

But the hardliners have been able to regroup in recent months and carry out daily attacks aimed at undermining the new administration.

Roadside bomb kills three US soldiers in Afghanistan

12 Aug 2007, 1800 hrs IST , AP

KABUL: A roadside bomb blast killed three US troops in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, bringing to five the number of international troops killed over the weekend, officials said.

The three troops were engaged in combat operations in Nangarhar province when the roadside bomb hit their vehicle, a statement from the US-led coalition said. A civilian interpreter was also killed.

The coalition did not announce the nationalities of the soldiers, though Noor Agha Zuwak, the spokesman for the Nangarhar governor, identified the troops as American. The majority of troops in eastern Afghanistan are from the US.

Elsewhere, one NATO soldier was killed and several others wounded in an attack on Saturday in the south, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said in a statement on Sunday.

Another NATO soldier was killed and two were wounded when a roadside bomb struck their vehicle during a patrol on Saturday in eastern Afghanistan, ISAF said.

ISAF did not give any further details such as the exact locations of the two incidents or the nationalities of the soldiers.

The five deaths brings to at least 127 the number of international troops killed in Afghanistan this year, including at least 61 Americans.

Canadian soldiers injured by roadside bomb

ALEX DOBROTA Globe and Mail Update August 11, 2007

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — Five Canadian soldiers suffered minor injuries early Sunday, when their armoured vehicle struck a roadside bomb and was ambushed on a secondary road linking Kandahar City to a major Canadian forward operating base.

The soldiers were riding an RG-31 Nyala in a combat supply convoy that had recently left Masum Ghar base in Panjwai district and was headed back to Kandahar Airfield.

Around 1:20 a.m. local time Sunday [Saturday afternoon in Canada], a roadside bomb struck the Nyala about 13 kilometres west Kandahar City. Moments later, Taliban insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades at the convoy, said Lieutenant-Commander Hubert Genest, a spokesman with the Canadian Forces in Kandahar.

The injured soldiers were taken by road to Masum Ghar and were to be evacuated by helicopter to Kandahar base. Four of them had recently arrived in Kandahar, likely from Quebec, to relieve troops with the Royal Canadian Regiment and the Princess Patricia's Light Infantry on a six-month rotation. They are all expected to survive, Lt.-Cdr. Genest said.

A total of 37 Canadian soldiers and one diplomat have died in bombings since the beginning of the Afghan mission, including suicide attacks.

As part of the latest string of Canadian casualties, six soldiers died last month in the Panjwai district, when an explosion engulfed their RG-31 Nyala, a vehicle designed to withstand the blasts of mines and roadside bombs.

Improvised explosive devices are often made with old Soviet anti-tank mines, concealed under roads and activated by pressure plates or remote control. They are responsible for 18 of the 22 Canadian deaths in Afghanistan over the past six months.

Afghan army waiting for promised arms from Canada

Updated Sun. Aug. 12 2007 - Canadian Press

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Toting obsolete equipment and an arsenal dating back to the Soviet era, the Afghan National Army says it's waiting for modern weapons promised by Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor.

The Afghan army, which Canada is counting on to take over fighting against the Taliban in coming months, still has yet to receive C-7 assault rifles and ammunition the Canadian government pledged to deliver, said Lt.-Col. Sherinshaw Khobandi.

In Ottawa, a Defence Ministry spokesman confirmed that supplies for the Afghan National Army are planned, but declined to specify a date when they will be delivered.

Khobandi said O'Connor should have replenished the arsenal, at least in part, during his last visit. O'Connor's last public trip to Afghanistan was in March.

"We had a good talk with him," he said through an interpreter during a visit to the Kandahar multinational base on Saturday.

"I suggested that he could help us with some weapons and some ammunition. His recommendation was that within the next few months, he'll supply us with brand new equipment from(the) Canadian Forces."

The C-7 delivery delay has slowed the preparation of Afghan recruits and stalled their takeover of combat operations against the Taliban.

For now, Afghan soldiers must rely on Soviet-era weapons, such as the Kalashnikov AK-47.

At best, the AK-47s are not as precise and have a shorter range than the C-7, which is the Canadian version of the American M-16.

Khobandi is waiting for the weapons with impatience. "I'm hoping and waiting for that day (to) come," he said.

"So that we can work together with the Canadian Forces, with their new equipment and then we'll be trained with the new Canadian equipment for future operations."

In the meantime, the Afghan military has a lot of work to do before it can match the firepower and challenge insurgents in place of Canadian troops.

In Kandahar province, less than 500 men are sufficiently trained and ready for combat. Canada's new tactical group commander in the Kandahar province, Lt.-Col. Alain Gauthier, remains optimistic.

Gauthier said Afghan soldiers will have sufficient numbers and will be adequately trained to secure districts around Kandahar City.

"This will permit us (the Canadian military) to enlarge our field of action farther into the province," said Gauthier, who replaced Lt.-Col. Rob Walker.

Confusion over Taleban releases – BBC

Hopes that the Taleban in Afghanistan might release two South Korean hostages have been thrown into disarray.

A Taleban spokesman told reporters on Saturday that the two had already been freed - but he now says the timing of the release has yet to be decided. The women - both of whom are ill - are among 21 South Korean aid workers kidnapped last month.

South Korean officials have held direct talks with the Taleban, who want their militants released from Afghan jails.

Taleban spokesman Yusuf Ahmadi on Sunday said the two ill hostages would be freed because of progress made during two days of talks in the central city of Ghazni.

However he added: "The time hasn't been decided. It could be today." Mr Ahmadi has at times given false information, reports the BBC's Charles Haviland in Kabul.

The Taleban have already killed two of the Koreans, including the leader of the group. The South Korean Christian aid workers were seized on 19 July. The original group of 23 - most of them women - was captured on the main road from Kabul to Kandahar.

It is thought the South Korean aid workers are being held in a number of small groups in a village about 10km (six miles) from Ghazni. The Afghan government, stung by criticism over a previous prisoner exchange, has ruled out a swap to secure the release of the Koreans.

After Taliban news conference, Afghan government bans media from South Korea talks site

The Associated Press -Sunday, August 12, 2007 - KABUL, Afghanistan: Afghan officials banned journalists Sunday from shooting photos and video or conducting interviews near the site where talks on the fate of 21 South Korean hostages are being held — new restrictions a day after two Taliban leaders held a news conference there.

Marajudin Pathan, the governor of Ghazni province where the hostages were kidnapped on July 19, said the ban was put in place during the negotiations because the Taliban might exploit the media spotlight.

"It's because the Taliban will take advantage and show off, so we don't want to give them that chance," Pathan said. "This is a terrorist group."

In an extraordinary scene that hasn't happened in years in Afghanistan, print journalists and camera crew crowded around two top Taliban leaders who gave an impromptu news conference outside the Afghan Red Crescent office on Saturday.

Mullah Qari Bashir and Mullah Nasrullah traveled to the city of Ghazni after being given an assurance of safe passage by the Afghan government. On the second day of hostage talks, they told reporters they thought the negotiations were going well and that they expected that the hostages would be released soon.

Veteran reporters in Afghanistan said the Taliban leaders' news conference was the first since the fall of the hardline militants in late 2001.

Pathan said the media ban would be lifted as soon as the hostage talks are over — "maybe within the next two days." He said the ban applied only to the area around the Red Crescent office, where the talks are being held, though journalists reported that police and intelligence officials told them the ban applied to the entire province.

Mujeeb Khalwatgar, the director of the Afghanistan Press Club, said such a media ban goes against the country's constitution and a recently passed media law.

"When the government provides an opportunity for two sides to sit together for negotiations, nothing should be hidden from the people," he said. "The intelligence service has no right to prevent them from carrying out their work."

Khalwatgar said the government can prevent journalists from revealing information that would harm national security, but that wasn't the case with the hostage negotiations.

"Why didn't they just prevent the Taliban from talking to the media yesterday?" he asked. Pathan said he was "100 percent for democratic order" but that "sometimes you have no choice."

He said the punishment for journalists breaking the order would be deportation from the province. Many journalists in Ghazni traveled to the region from Kabul to cover the hostage talks.

A journalist in Ghazni who asked not to be identified for his own safety said that an intelligence officer threatened reporters with arrest if they reported on the media ban. A spokesman for Afghanistan's Interior Ministry said he was not aware of the ban and would look into it.

Twenty-three South Koreans from a church group who intended to work as aid workers were kidnapped in Ghazni on July 19. Two male hostages have already been shot dead. Talks between the Taliban leaders and South Korean officials began Saturday.

Afghan Crisis Casts Shadow on Korea

By ANTHONY DEUTSCH, The Associated Press Saturday, August 11, 2007

SEOUL, South Korea -- The pews of the 12,000-seat auditorium are packed for Sunday services and the capital's skyline is aglow with red neon crosses. Those not inside the Yoido Full Gospel Church _ the world's largest congregation _ can watch the sermons online in 16 languages.

South Korea has an ancient tradition of Buddhism, but in recent times evangelists have put Christianity on track to becoming the nation's dominant faith. Korean missionary work, second only to the United States, places it at the forefront of the global search for converts.

But the kidnapping of 23 church volunteers in Afghanistan July 19 is forcing churches to think again.

In recent years, hundreds of volunteers have been expelled from Afghanistan, Egypt and China, while others were detained or killed in Iraq. Some press ahead in Somalia, even though it was declared off-limits by the Korean government.

Two of the hostages in Afghanistan_ a clergyman and another man _ have been shot to death and abandoned by the roadside. The fate of the remaining five men and 16 women, remains uncertain.

The church and the hostages' relatives say the volunteers were working on humanitarian projects and were not evangelizing.

They are mostly in their 20s and 30s, and belonged to the Presbyterian Saemmul Community Church, which has roughly 3,800 followers, in the town of Bundang just south of Seoul.

Many attended Bible school together and trained as nurses, teachers, musicians, engineers, and a hairdresser before setting off to Afghanistan on a trip headed by a pastor with the Korean Foundation for World Aid, a non-governmental agency guided by Christian beliefs.

There were 16,616 South Koreans posted in 173 countries as of January, according to the Korea World Missions Association.

The country's recent embrace of Christianity, once a tiny minority, has spurred one of the most dramatic national religious shifts in the last century. It now equals Buddhism at around 26 percent out of a population of 49 million, according to conservative estimates. The remainder have no stated religious affiliation.

Americans successfully introduced Christianity to Korea 120 years ago, but it has really gained a foothold since the 1960s, after 35 years of Japanese occupation and the 1950-1953 Korean War that left about 2 million Koreans dead.

South Korean missionary work is driven by a sense of postwar moral debt to the foreign missionaries who built schools, hospitals and orphanages. The church won further support for helping bring democracy to South Korea in the 1980s.

Christian groups also provide extensive humanitarian help to neighboring North Korea, as well as its citizens who flee into China to escape Kim Jong Il's dictatorship.

At U.S. theology centers, Korean missionaries are trained to work in potentially hostile environments by teaching culture and language rather than preaching.

"Many (Korean) ministers, theologians, and seminary professors have been educated in the U.S.," Sung-Deuk Oak, an assistant professor of Korean Christianity at UCLA, told The Associated Press. "American theology is powerful in Korea."

Cross-culture church planting, as it is known in Christian circles, has become "a worldwide trend" that is popular at Korean's dominant Presbyterian church, he said.

South Korean missionary work targets a geographical region of the northern hemisphere, known as the "10/40 window," between 10 and 40 degrees north of the equator, said Pastor Oh Sung-kwon, Secretary General of the National Council of Churches in Korea.

The area comprises roughly two-thirds of the global population _ predominantly Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, animist, Jewish or atheist _ and 55 countries considered the poorest and least evangelized. Several governments there, particularly Middle Eastern Islamic nations, prohibit Christian aid work and arrest or deport missionaries.

The hostage standoff shows how badly guidelines are needed, Oh said. He feels his government is "too conservative" in assessing potential risks, but acknowledges the church made mistakes.

"It was not a mistake to help Afghans in need, but it was a mistake not to consider security. We are sorry," he said in an interview. "Church leaders are reconsidering our missionary work."

Kim He-jung, a 27-year-old attending services at the Yoido church, said she wrote a will before traveling to Kazakhstan this year on a church trip. "I have received love from God and want to share it. I am ready to sacrifice myself," she said.

Seoul is home to 11 of the world's 12 largest Christian congregations, including Yoido, which began Bible classes in a tent in 1958 and now has 800,000 members and a goal of having 5,000 churches worldwide by 2010.

It runs the Osanri Prayer Mountain retreat, where the devout can lock themselves in cubicles for prayer and fasting, and attracts a million pilgrims annually, tens of thousands of them foreigners.

South Koreans "are very hardworking and deliberate in their faith," said Amanda Thompson, who attended the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in the United States with a sister of one of the slain hostages.

"They are a praying people," she said. "They have inspired me and I believe that they could do a great work of inspiration for other Christians as well _ especially in America."

EU's Afghan police training mission dragging behind amid major problems

Berlin, Aug 12, IRNA - The Afghan police training mission of the European Union is dragging behind amid a series of major organizational problems, the weekly Der Spiegel said in a report Sunday.

While most of the 160 EU police and legal experts are already in Afghanistan since June, they have hardly anything to do since the Afghan government has yet to name the participants of the training sessions.

The EU police instructors' mission, headed by German Brigadier- General Friedrich Eichele, is supposed to train leading Afghan criminal police officials as well as narco-detectives.

The European team is presently fulfilling its role as mentors for policemen who were trained in previous programs.

Another major unclear issue is how the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) can safeguard the 20-nation force, which is spread all over the war-torn country.

As a result of the unresolved Cyprus conflict, NATO-member Turkey has vetoed an agreement that regulates cooperation between the western military pact and the EU in Afghanistan, according to Der Spiegel.

Another dilemma is the fact that many of the trained police recruits offer their services to drug barons, the radical Taliban militia and local warlords, all of whom are paying higher salaries than the Afghan government. Germany has 60 instructors on the EU police team which was formed in May.

Spain to pay for new Afghan army unit: report

Madrid. Spain has begun negotiations to finance the creation of a new Afghan army unit for the northwestern province of Badghis in the war-torn country, a report said Sunday.

Spanish troops are currently deployed in the province as part of the NATO-led International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF), but Badghis does not have a permanent Afghan army unit, Spain's El Pais newspaper said.
Spain's defence minister is currently negotiating with Kabul on a "technical agreement" for the unit, which would be "under Spanish protection", the newspaper said.

All costs, including barracks construction and the purchase of vehicles and uniforms, would be financed by Spain, with the amount possibly reaching as much as 20 million euros (27 million dollars), according to El Pais. (AFP)

Pakistan-Afghan highway opened

KHYBER AGENCY, Aug 11: Transporters, traders and people from different walks of life breathed a sigh of relief after the Pakistan-Afghan highway was opened on Friday night for all types of vehicular traffic after three days of closure.

The highway was closed after the people of Naiki-Khel, a sub-tribe of Zakhakhel, blocked the road over a land dispute three days ago.

Officials said that the tribesmen who blocked the road had been handed over to the political administration in Landi Kotal.The administration after the dispute had closed the road for two days, demanding the handing over of the perpetrators.

The tribesmen of Zakhakhel assured the administration that after the return of their leaders from the Pakistan-Afghan grand jirga, problems of the road closure would be solved forever.

The closure of the highway had caused traffic jams and created a number of problems for commuters.—APP

EDITORIAL: Whither Pakistan’s security if NATO leaves Afghanistan

A Pakistani tribal elder and former member of parliament (MP), Malik Fazl Mannan Mohmand, addressed the Pak-Afghan Peace Jirga in Kabul and demanded that “Western forces” be thrown out of Afghanistan in favour of troops from Muslim countries. “There is no need for NATO forces. Bring Islamic countries’ troops,” said the wise man from Mohmand Agency in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas.

Interestingly, however, his Afghan counterpart, MP Sardar Mohammad Rehman Ogholi, demanded the ouster from Pakistan of “foreign terrorists” entrenched in the Pakistani tribal belt along the Afghan border. Thus each side demanded that the other get rid of its “foreigners”.

Meanwhile, everyone knows that Afghanistan would be overrun by Al Qaeda and Taliban forces if the ISAF-NATO and US forces left Afghanistan. Therefore the question arises: what would happen to Pakistan if Afghanistan were to be vacated by the UN-mandated foreign troops? Would the Afghan army, comprising a measly 35,000 men, which is barely capable after the mujahideen destroyed it in the 1990s, be able to fight the raiders coming from Pakistan? Already, the NATO-US foreign troops are hard put to defend the Pushtuns of Helmand, Uruzgan, Zabul and Kandahar provinces against the Taliban, but they are keeping at bay a wholesale invasion from Pakistan by giving the invaders battle in the provinces of Paktia, Kunar, Paktika and Khost bordering Pakistan’s Tribal Areas.

Most commentators in Pakistan protest that the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan is complicating the situation instead of bringing peace in the country. Typically, however, no one realises what effect their ouster would have on the security of Pakistan. Worse, the views of the Pakistani tribal elder at the joint jirga echo the universally held view in Pakistan that NATO has failed but is delaying a solution based on the will of the ‘deprived’ Pushtun majority population. Most also prefer an Islamic force in place of NATO.

The ouster of NATO from Afghanistan will, of course, redress the ethnic-demographic balance in favour of the Pushtuns, but it will no longer be a balance within the total Afghan population. What it will bring about is a much-empowered Pushtun population by reason of a “merger” with the Pushtuns of Pakistan’s Tribal Areas. A condominium of Taliban and Al Qaeda will stand behind this new balance. What will be the consequence of this?

Inside Afghanistan, it will cause the non-Pushtun ethnic unities to come together with “foreign” help from Afghanistan’s Muslim neighbours. The battle lines will be redrawn between the Pushtun south and the non-Pushtun north, including the Shia province of Bamyan being ruled by a female governor these days. Because of an imbalance of forces introduced by the Taliban and Al Qaeda elements from Pakistan, the countries of Iran and Uzbekistan, backed by some distant sympathisers like India and Russia, will stage interventions to prevent Pakistan from taking advantage of the situation. The region will explode in a replay of the great game all over again.

It seems to us that Pakistan’s national security establishment is still not fully attuned to the disaster in the making. If it has learnt any lessons at some level within the army it has not made them public. But one can sense the blowback of its failed strategy from the internal turmoil it is facing these days. The trouble with Malik Fazl Mannan Mohmand is that, just like Afghanistan, Pakistan doesn’t control its vast territories. If NATO is ousted from Afghanistan, Pakistan too will be overrun by a much strengthened Taliban-Al Qaeda combine. Just as Pakistan is hinterland to the Taliban’s forays into Afghanistan, Afghanistan will become hinterland to forays into Pakistan till a clerical-jihadist state is established here.

As for the replacement of NATO with Islamic troops, Pakistani opinion is naïve to a criminal degree. If the decision is taken at the Saudi-funded OIC, what combination of states will want to get into Afghanistan without triggering a grand Islamic internecine Armageddon? NATO in Afghanistan suits Iran and Uzbekistan — the last named supported by Russia — and India. Islamic troops sent to Afghanistan will have to keep the Arabs out or Iran will veto the plan. If the Islamic troops are Sunni, could they be sent into areas dominated by a Shia population? The question to ask is why can’t an Islamic army be sent to Iraq?

Al Qaeda is looking for a permanent base and thereafter wishes to be armed with nuclear weapons. It is not hidden from anyone that in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas Al Qaeda and the Taliban are joined at the hip. Al Qaeda tried to get into Somalia and was prevented by the US and Somalia’s neighbours. Then it tried to get a base in Iraq but there the Shia militias are too strong for it to establish itself. Pakistan is the most secure place for it to hide, with a population of 160 million already starry-eyed with admiration. With NATO gone from Afghanistan, Al Qaeda may even get to Islamabad with added force and put up a government there as sympathetic to it as the one in the NWFP.

After that, it will have nuclear weapons too. And that scenario should not be acceptable to any reasonable and patriotic Pakistani. *

Japan's opposition calls for rethink of Afghan mission

The Associated Press - Saturday, August 11, 2007 – TOKYO: The new president of the Japanese parliament's upper house called for a rethink of Japan's support of coalition forces in Afghanistan on Sunday, as a news report said his opposition party will suggest replacing that mission with humanitarian aid.

Coming off a crushing parliamentary election victory in July, the opposition Democratic Party of Japan has threatened to oppose renewing a law that allows Japanese navy vessels in the Indian Ocean to provide fuel to U.S.-led forces. The law has been extended three times since 2001 under the pro-U.S. ruling Liberal Democrats, and is set to expire in November.

The new Democratic head of parliament's upper house, Satsuki Eda, told a Sunday talk show that Japan should be cautious over again renewing its support. He also said Japan needed to review its relationship with its top ally, the United States.

"We must engage in serious debate over what an extension would mean for Japan, and for the world," Eda told public broadcaster NHK. "There is a need for debate on the nature of Japan's relationship with the U.S.," he said.

Eda's comment came as a news report said Sunday the Democrats may submit their own law on Japan's contributions to Afghanistan that focuses on medical and food aid, and assistance in education and vocational training.

The proposed law, which the DPJ aims to draft by October, may also involve providing logistical assistance to the U.N.-sanctioned multinational Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan, according to a report in the Nikkei business daily. PRTs serve as regional security umbrellas for development and reconstruction efforts to build infrastructure in the wartorn country.

Though protocol dictates that Eda, as president of parliament's upper legislature, should no longer speak for his own party, the appointment of an opposition lawmaker to the top job is expected to bring great changes to Japan's political landscape.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling coalition still controls parliament's more powerful lower house. However, many expect the embattled premier to make concessions to the Democrats over key issues, including the country's mission to Afghanistan.

Some within the Democratic party are starting to question the party's hardline stance against Washington, however.

"It's not in Japan's interest to withdraw," former DPJ leader Seiji Maehara told another talk show Sunday. "We must continue to discuss how Japan should contribute," he said on TV Asahi. "But we must contribute in some form."

US behind Afghan warlord's rise, fall

At Guantanamo, unruly chieftains join combatants - By Farah Stockman, Boston Globe Staff  |  August 12, 2007

GARDEZ, Afghanistan -- When US special forces wanted to defeat the Taliban, they befriended Abdullah Mujahid, the police chief of this mountainous province. They visited his home with a gift of chocolates, and gave money and equipment to his fighters.

Mujahid met frequently with US troops, and even arrested and handed over a suspect the US military sent to the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

But as the threat of the Taliban receded, US forces sought to replace Mujahid -- an illiterate leader who had been accused of corruption -- with a professionally trained police chief. Soon, Mujahid was accused of being responsible for an attack on US forces. He was sent to Guantanamo Bay, where he languishes not far from the man he arrested.

The fall of Mujahid offers a rare glimpse into the trials of postwar Afghanistan, where US special forces struggled to rein in the warlords they once wooed.

But it also reveals the extent to which the military is using the Guantanamo Bay detention center for a starkly different purpose than the one outlined by President Bush: to keep the worst terrorism suspects behind bars.

A Globe investigation found that the military has used Guantanamo Bay not just for terrorists "picked up on the battlefield" -- as Bush has repeatedly asserted -- but also for uncooperative or unruly tribal chieftains, many of whom had been key supporters of the US-led invasion.

The use of Guantanamo Bay for purposes other than fighting international terrorism could have legal significance, because Bush has tried to justify creating a place where detainees can be held without normal legal protections on the grounds that the prisoners are enemy combatants who might launch a terrorist attack if they are released.

Despite Bush's assertions, at least 52 detainees who had been held at Guantanamo Bay were not accused of ties to the Taliban or Al Qaeda, according to publicly released military records detailing the accusations against nearly 500 prisoners. At least a dozen were once officials in the post-Taliban government, arrested in their homes or offices during a broader US campaign to rein in warlords.

Mujahid was one. The former head of the United Nations office in Gardez, Thomas Ruttig, said he urged the Afghan government to remove Mujahid from his post because he was seen as an uneducated, disruptive, and corrupt figure. But Ruttig said he expected Mujahid to be fired or tried for corruption in Afghanistan, not held indefinitely in Cuba without a trial.

"I never dreamed he would be sent to Guantanamo," Ruttig said in a recent interview in Kabul.

John Sifton, a Human Rights Watch researcher, helped write a 2003 report that accused Mujahid and his inner circle of allowing their fighters to set up illegal checkpoints to take money from truck drivers. But he, too, said Mujahid should not have been sent to Guantanamo Bay.

"Guantanamo is not even vaguely the appropriate place for him," he said, adding that the administration shouldn't use its power to hold accused terrorists at Guantanamo to solve political or criminal problems in Afghanistan.

The distinction between Guantanamo and a regular military or civilian prison is significant because Guantanamo detainees are stripped of most of their rights, and can be held on unspecified charges without being given a chance to mount a normal legal defense.

For a year after Mujahid's arrest in July 2003, the military refused to release any information about why he was arrested. But in 2004, after a Supreme Court ruling forced the government to reveal why people were being held, the military accused Mujahid of "being responsible for" an attack in which a US soldier was killed, though UN and Afghan officials say Mujahid was not in Gardez at the time.

Then, in 2005, the military accused him of being a senior leader of a militant group operating in India-held Kashmir. But Pakistani news accounts suggest that another man by the same name who died last fall was a senior leader of that group.

Now, even the military has stopped saying that Mujahid belongs in Guantanamo Bay. In February, Pentagon officials informed his lawyers that he was among a group of at least 12 detainees who had been cleared to return to Afghanistan, either for release or further detention.

Pentagon spokesman Jeffrey Gordon declined to discuss the accusations against Mujahid, but said the decision to clear him for transfer does not "change the fact that he still poses a threat to the United States."

"We take into account many factors in the decision to transfer a detainee," Gordon said. "Those factors include the risk the detainee would pose if released, the prospects of the detainee reintegrating into society, and the capacity of the receiving government to hold the detainee if they deem detention is necessary to mitigate the threat."

Gordon declined to comment on why Mujahid had not yet been sent back to Afghanistan, where his wife and three children await him. Gordon said only that the US and Afghan governments are working on a transfer agreement.

Recently, Mujahid was moved from a communal living arrangement to a solitary cell, with only limited contact with other inmates.

"No one has told us why," said his lawyer, Carolyn Welshhans, who has taken his case pro bono, even though she has only limited access to him.

A call for volunteers

Enlisting the help of strongmen like Mujahid was once a key to the US strategy in Afghanistan. When the Taliban were defeated, only a few hundred US soldiers were on the ground -- most of them special forces Green Berets working alongside the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, a coalition of warlords who sometimes clashed in turf battles with one another.

In Gardez, Mujahid and his childhood friend Ziauddin -- who, like many Afghans, uses only one name -- filled the vacuum left by the fleeing Taliban. As members of the tiny ethnic Tajik minority, they suddenly had powerful patrons in the Tajik-led Northern Alliance and the new Afghan government.

Mujahid became police chief and Ziauddin became the local army commander. The government of US-backed President Hamid Karzai was so new that it had not yet begun to pay salaries or send equipment. So Mujahid and Ziauddin used untrained volunteers to patrol with their personal weapons.

Complaints quickly arose. Citizens in Gardez accused them of letting their fighters rob drivers at checkpoints, according to interviews with UN, US, and Afghan officials and a Human Rights Watch report. The fact that they came from a minority tribe also sparked opposition.

But many in town backed the two men, who were embroiled in a tribal war against Pacha Khan Zadran, a warlord in the south. Throughout 2002, the US military described Mujahid and Ziauddin's forces as pro-government in media reports, and called Zadran a renegade.

In spring 2002, US fighters recruited Mujahid and Ziauddin, among others, to help in the fight against remnants of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in a mountainous area known as Shaikot.

The key point of contact between local strongmen and US special forces was a sunburned man known only as "Commander Mike," according to current and former Afghan and UN officials. Special forces operate only under first names or aliases.

Commander Mike was known in the lawless mountainous provinces for brokering deals with local warlords, according to humanitarian workers and Afghan soldiers in the area at the time. They said he was known to use scare tactics before a negotiation, sometimes exploding harmless bombs in the air above the heads of Afghan commanders to get their cooperation.

Commander Mike gave Ziauddin money and a satellite telephone to fight in Shaikot, as well as shoes, uniforms, and camping gear for about 320 fighters, Ziauddin said in an interview.

Later, when Mujahid's father returned from a religious visit to Saudi Arabia, Commander Mike brought chocolates to the family home and was given perfume in return, according to Mujahid's brother.

A year later, in spring 2003, a second man also called Commander Mike appeared at the special forces base in Gardez. This man wore a beard and was a "real fighter," according to Faiz Zaland, an Afghan aide to the provincial governor at the time who also served as a translator for the US military there.

The new Commander Mike came at a time when the US military was trying to replace troublesome strongmen with educated, modern leaders. The US government was also trying to set up the first "Provincial Reconstruction Team" in Gardez to work with the Afghan government, hoping to win the confidence of citizens by kicking out corrupt leaders and turning Gardez into a model of good government, according to interviews with US officials who worked in Gardez.

The new Commander Mike kept up relations with Mujahid and Ziauddin for a time. In February 2003, Mujahid arrested a suspect he handed over to special forces. The suspect was later sent to Guantanamo Bay.

But at the same time, Commander Mike was quietly working to banish Mujahid and Ziauddin from Gardez, according to former and current Afghan and UN officials who met with him frequently in security coordination meetings.

Zaland said Commander Mike was responsible for the arrests of Ziauddin, Mujahid, and Hafizullah Shabaz Khail, a district officer of neighboring Zurmat. Khail, who was also sent to Guantanamo Bay, met an American named Mike at the Spindak Hotel for several days of talks shortly before his arrest, according to military transcripts of Khail's testimony.

"Mike was the guy who followed all the cases," said Zaland, the former military translator, adding that the Americans had lost patience with their former allies. "During the Shaikot operation, Ziauddin and Mujahid helped the coalition forces a lot. But they were just negative-minded. They were illiterate, from the smallest tribe. They didn't have any background in the military or police."

A key turning point came early in 2003, when General Dan K. McNeill -- now head of NATO's force in Afghanistan -- traveled to Gardez and met with Mujahid and Ziauddin to ask them to remove their fighters from two strategic hilltops that overlooked the town, according to Ziauddin and Zaland, the translator.

Ziauddin said he and Mujahid resisted and complained to their friends in the Afghan Ministry of Defense about the orders, saying that their enemies -- Pacha Khan Zadran and Al Qaeda -- would come in over the hills.

US forces eventually bombed Ziauddin's arms caches on the hills, but did not arrest him until many months later. Over time, US forces came to suspect Ziauddin and Mujahid of launching rockets at the new US Provincial Reconstruction Team base, according to interviews with US soldiers and Afghan officials who served in Gardez at the time.

Relations between Mujahid and the special forces deteriorated further in March 2003. US soldiers in Gardez had severely beaten a group of Afghan prisoners during an interrogation, and one of them had died, according to several former Afghan police and a report by the Afghan attorney general's office, which investigated the case.

The second Commander Mike ordered that the seven living prisoners be transferred to Mujahid's jail, according to the attorney general's report and Raz Mohammad Dalili, the Afghan governor at the time who helped make the arrangements for the transfers.

At a joint security meeting, Commander Mike threatened to kill Mujahid if he released the prisoners, according to the Crimes of War Project, a Washington human rights group that investigated the alleged abuse.

The Americans who dropped off the prisoners spoke briefly to Mujahid in his office behind a closed door and then drove away, said Mehboob Ahmad, Mujahid's personal driver.

Some of the prisoners were unconscious, and their bodies had turned black and blue, Ahmad said. Mujahid ordered that they be given medical treatment and mattresses, Ahmad said.

"Mujahid was upset. We all were," he said. "I think anyone who would have seen them in that condition would be upset."

Mujahid described the prisoners' injuries to Afghan military prosecutors, who later wrote a report recommending that the American soldiers be punished. In January of this year, two special forces soldiers received administrative punishments in connection with the prisoners' treatment. Major James Gregory, a spokesman, said at the time that the special forces command "takes all allegations of abuse seriously."

Weeks after the prisoners were dropped off at Mujahid's jail, the Afghan government decided to remove Mujahid from his post. Dalili, the governor, said in a recent interview in Kabul that the second Commander Mike helped persuade him -- and Afghanistan's central government -- to replace Mujahid with a professionally trained police chief.

Initially, Mujahid refused to allow the new chief into the town. But after negotiations -- and after Mujahid was offered a job as "highway commander" in Kabul -- he stepped down in an elaborate ceremony.

Around this time, Commander Mike called Mujahid to his office and advised him to leave Gardez, warning that he was at risk of being sent to Guantanamo Bay if he remained, said Ahmad, who drove Mujahid to that meeting.

Ruttig also recalled that Mujahid was told that he would be arrested if he stayed in Gardez.

Mujahid left Gardez for Kabul. He stayed a month, waiting for a letter of appointment for the new job, but it never came.

While he was away, US forces were ambushed near an abandoned police checkpoint near Gardez, killing one soldier and injuring two others.

Mujahid was held responsible for the attack because US forces believed that it had been carried out by one of his supporters as revenge for his removal from his post, Zaland said.

In July 2003, Mujahid returned to Gardez to attend a wedding. Days later, American forces arrived at his home and asked him to come to a meeting. He went willingly, but never returned. Months later, employees from the Red Cross in Kabul handed Mujahid's family a letter he had sent to them from Guantanamo Bay.

Mujahid's deputy at the police station, Fazel Ahmad Wasiq -- who today runs the US-assisted police training center in Gardez -- said it was a good thing for the town to get a new police chief. But he insists that Mujahid did not deserve to be sent to Guantanamo Bay.

After Mujahid's arrest, Wasiq said he visited Commander Mike and asked for an explanation.

"I said, 'You were so friendly with him. He was a good guy. Why did you arrest him?' " recalled Wasiq. The only explanation Mike gave, he said, was: " 'We were ordered to do it by higher-ups.' "

Six days after Mujahid's arrest, the Americans arrested Ahmad, his driver. Ahmad said they stripped him naked and at one point held him upside down for more than 10 hours during questioning. They asked him whether Mujahid had secretly hoarded weapons while he was police chief, he said.

"I replied that he has handed over all the weapons and kept not even a bullet," said Ahmad.

US soldiers also arrested Syed Nabi Siddiqui, a police colonel who had served under Mujahid and had stayed on to work with the new chief. Siddiqui said soldiers beat him, photographed him naked, and kept him in a cage while they questioned him.

"The American forces asked: 'Who is Mujahid? Is he a criminal? Did he kill somebody?' " Siddiqui said. "I replied that Mujahid is preventing the thieves from coming in the town."

Siddiqui said he also told them that -- decades ago -- Mujahid had been a member of Harakat-e-Mulavi, an Afghan group that fought the Russian invasion in the 1980s that is now believed to have ties to extremists. That allegation surfaced in Mujahid's file at Guantanamo Bay.

Both Ahmad and Siddiqui were released from US custody with a slip of paper that said they had been determined not to be a threat. They have both joined a lawsuit against former defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld protesting their treatment.

The Army's Criminal Investigation Command investigated their cases and found no evidence that they were abused, said Chris Grey, a spokesman.

For months, Ziauddin avoided arrest by staying in Kabul, where his allies gave him a job at the Ministry of Defense.

But he returned to Gardez in fall 2003, sparking swift complaints from Afghan officials who accused him of extortion and threats. Within days of his return, US forces arrested him and detained him at Bagram Air Force Base for about a year. He is currently unemployed, but free.

Four years after his arrest, Mujahid still sits in Guantanamo Bay. In 2004, he was told he could call witnesses from Afghanistan to try to prove that he is not an "enemy combatant." But officers later told him none of his witnesses could be found -- even Afghanistan's interior minister.

The accusations against Mujahid were not drawn up by the special forces soldiers who knew him in Gardez. The Pentagon hired emergency workers with two weeks' training to search through intelligence reports to create the files against the detainees, according to an affidavit by Rear Admiral James M. McGarrah, a top Pentagon official.

The first file, drawn up in 2004, accused Mujahid of membership in Harakat-e-Mulavi, the extremist group that fought the Russians. But a year later, all mention of Harakat disappeared, replaced by a new allegation: that he was a senior leader of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant group based in Lahore, Pakistan, that conducts terrorist operations in India-held Kashmir.

Mujahid was stunned. "It seems you have confused me for someone else," he said in 2005, at the one review hearing before US military officers that he receives each year.

Mujahid's lawyers investigated the allegation. A Google search turned up a clue: A man named Abdullah Mujahid was indeed believed to be a senior leader of Lashkar-e-Taiba. But that man had been killed in November 2006.

Mujahid's lawyers planned to highlight the apparent mistake. But this past February, they received an e-mail from Pentagon officials, telling them Mujahid had been cleared to return to Afghanistan.

Yet, six months have gone by and he languishes in his solitary cell. Gordon, the Pentagon spokesman, said the US government is working closely with Afghan officials to transfer detainees such as Mujahid home. Five Afghan detainees were sent home last week, but Mujahid was not one of them.

His friends in Afghanistan, along with his lawyers and human rights workers, maintain that his presence at Guantanamo Bay is a misuse of the powers claimed by the president to hold terrorism suspects -- defined by Rumsfeld as "the worst of the worst."

"Here we have a man who, by many accounts, was helping the United States, and fought against the Taliban, and we have evidence to demonstrate that," said Welshhans, his lawyer.

To indefinitely imprison anyone without a trial, let alone someone like that, is unconscionable." When -- or if -- Mujahid makes it home, he will find that much has changed. His father has died. His children, ages 7, 6, and 5, have grown up without him.

The town has grown, too. Wasiq, his former deputy and friend, now runs a new police training facility. His successor -- the professionally trained police chief -- was fired after allegations of corruption. His sworn enemy, Pacha Khan Zadran, is now a member of Parliament.

But a few things have not changed, according to the people of Gardez: Americans who use only their first names still broker deals, make arrests, and detain people across the restive countrywide. The insurgency they are fighting rages on. 

35,000 flock to join the Afghan Scouts

By Eleanor Mayne in Kabul, Sunday Telegraph

Daily Telegraph - BST 12/08/2007 - After nearly three decades of war, never has the motto "Be Prepared" had more resonance. As the worldwide Scout movement celebrates its 100th birthday this month, war-torn Afghanistan has become the unlikely setting for a boom in recruits.

More than 35,000 young Afghans have boosted the ranks of the Afghanistan Scout Association since the fall of the fundamentalist Taliban five years ago.

From conflict-ravaged Helmand to the capital Kabul, Scout groups have been established in 24 of the 34 provinces, and the government has included scouting in a new national education strategy.

Unlike their Western counterparts, however, the main aim of Afghanistan's Scouts is not map-reading or knot-tying. The focus is on peace. In a climate of continuing conflict, young Afghan Scouts are taught to pass on a message of non-violence by urging adults to lay down their weapons.

"We are telling the students in school to put down guns and work for peace," said scout leader Gul Ahmed Mustafa. "The children tell their parents. It is a very important message. They also do cleaning classrooms, watering flowers, planting trees, first aid and cleaning the city."

The Scouts, called "Sarandoy" in Pashto, are aged from seven to 25, with three categories equivalent to cubs, scouts and rovers. Scout troops are based at schools and one third are female. Leaders are usually teachers.

British Scouts would feel at home with many of their Afghan counterparts' rituals. The Scout promise is almost identical to the UK version, with its vow to "do my best and do my duty to God". The salute is the same and the motto "Be Prepared" is translated directly as "Tayarosay" in Pashto and "Umade Bashi" in Dari.

But in place of the British activity badges - with names such as artist, chef or collector - an Afghan Scout has only two options. The first is "literacy", which usually involves teaching a neighbour or family member to read and write. The second is "training", a programme based mainly around athletics and races. The children also practise tying knots and go camping in the mountains.

Mr Mustafa said: "We want many different badges. They are a necessity for Scouting. We plan to introduce the swimmer and the bicycler. But for now there are no swimming pools and not so many bicycles."

Lord Baden-Powell set up the first Scout camp for 20 boys on Brownsea island, in Poole Harbour, Dorset. It spread to Afghanistan in 1931 but was banned after the communist coup in 1978. There was an attempt to reinstate Scouting in 1996 but it foundered over the Taliban's ban on education for girls. The organisation was re-established in 2002 with support from the education ministry.

The setting of the association's national Afghan office highlights the country's turbulent history. Only a stone's throw from a stadium used by the Taliban for executions, the concrete building has bullet-scarred walls and barbed wire on its perimeter. There is no electricity and water is pumped from a well provided by the United Nations. Last year, the total budget for the country was only £1,470.

Safiullah Subat, chief of the Afghanistan Scout Association and the only full-time staff member, said: "The government wants to help but Scouting is not the first priority. There are so many problems."

But the future is brighter. The education strategy in-cludes a proposal to provide £18 uniforms for 20,000 Scouts and to recruit five Scout trainers for each province.

Mr Subat said: "We believe Scouting is very important for our country. In Scouting we are a family, whether Tajik, Uzbek, Hazara or Pashtun. It can create unity between the people of Afghanistan and between girls and boys."

[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.]