In this bulletin:

• Separate bomb explosions kill 3 civilians, 4 Taliban in southern Afghanistan
• Afghanistan welcomes Dutch mission extension: ministry
• Concern at UN of growing drug production in Afghanistan
• Afghanistan: Resurgent Taliban Slows Aid Projects, Reconstruction
• On the Stockpile Destruction
• Afghanistan records 266 HIV cases, mostly intravenous drug users
• Afghan Tradition Masks Political Ambush
• Bush Says Funding Iraq, Afghan Wars Is Congress's Top Priority
• The Sharif factor comes into play
• Army defiant despite Pakistan's divide
• Top Marine: Send us all to Afghanistan
• Giving Afghan girls a first: opportunity
• ACC U-15 Elite Cup: Afghanistan cricket team qualifies for semis

Separate bomb explosions kill 3 civilians, 4 Taliban in southern Afghanistan

Associated Press / December 1, 2007

KABUL, Afghanistan - A roadside bomb hit a civilian vehicle in southern Afghanistan on Saturday, leaving three people dead, while a mine explosion killed four suspected Taliban fighters at a wedding party, officials said.

The militants were attending a wedding party in southern Zabul province when a land mine they were carrying exploded accidentally, killing four and wounding eight others, said provincial police chief Gen. Yaqoob Khan.

Khan said the insurgents had been planting roadside bombs hoping to hit NATO and U.S. forces.

Separately, a roadside bomb exploded near a car and killed three civilians 5 kilometers (3 miles) north of Lashkar Gah, the main city in Helmand province, provincial police chief Mohammad Hussain Andiwal said.

He said the mine was planted on a road commonly patrolled by NATO and Afghan forces.

This year has been the most violent since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Insurgency-related violence has claimed nearly 6,200 lives, according to a tally of figures from Afghan and Western officials.

Afghanistan welcomes Dutch mission extension: ministry

Sat Dec 1, 2:52 AM ET - KABUL (AFP) - Afghanistan welcomed Saturday The Netherlands' decision to extend its military presence in the country but said the long-term solution to security lay in building the Afghan army.

The Netherlands' centre-left coalition government announced Friday it would extend until December 2010 the mandate of its 1,650 troops serving under a 38-nation NATO-led force. It had been due to expire in August 2008.

"This is a positive step and we welcome it," Afghan defence ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi told AFP.

"But for a long-term solution, we want the Dutch government and the international community as a whole to focus on building our own Afghan National Army," Azimi said.

The Afghan army currently numbers about 50,000 men who are being trained and equipped with the help of the international community, namely the United States.

It is projected to grow to 70,000 but officials say a much bigger force would be required to stabilise the fractured country.

Afghan soldiers are taking part in the fight against the Taliban -- the main militant group behind the violence -- but depend on NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and a separate US-led coalition.

Switzerland announced last month it would recall its two military personnel in ISAF by March next year.

Concern at UN of growing drug production in Afghanistan

UNITED NATIONS: The majority of the states participating in the meetings of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs expressed deep concern about the increasing drug production in Afghanistan and its serious consequences for the security of the region and the rest of the world.

The Chairman of the Group of 77 and China, Sudan’s Ambassador in Vienna Sayyed al-Amin, in a speech to the meetings of the Commission, which concluded here the other day. said that drug production in Afghanistan is 90 percent of the world production.

This, he said, is a serious indicator for the nations of the world to accelerate the development of new plans to reduce this production, which now threatens many states neighboring Afghanistan and others far from it via smuggling trade.

The group urged the United Nations Office in Vienna for fighting Drugs and Crime to report to the upcoming 51st meeting of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs on the drug trade in Afghanistan at the present time and ways to address it.

On the other hand and in relation to the same subject matter, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) declared that it completed yesterday, Thursday, in cooperation with the Russian police academy, a training course for a group of Afghan police officers, which focused on the latest methods for the detection and investigation of drug trafficking cases.

Security affairs adviser of the organization Kevin Carty contends that the smuggling of heroin is considered among the most serious issues that threaten security in the world, pointing out that the training of the Afghan police force to combat smuggling crimes falls under various assistance channels of the United Nations to Afghanistan to help it overcome this serious problem.

The United Nations Office on Drugs in Vienna had said in a report published in Vienna earlier this year that drug production in its different forms, especially cannabis, opium, and amphetamine in the world rose by 16 percent last year, while the rate of increase in Afghanistan stood at 17 percent, making this country -- for the second consecutive year since the fall of the Taliban -- the leader among opium-producing countries in the world.

The report indicated that the reality of drugs in Afghanistan remains a source of concern, especially that Afghanistan controls by itself 90 percent of the global production of heroin. Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Turkey are key crossings for the passing of smuggled drugs from Afghanistan while the United States and Western Europe, Canada and Australia are the largest consumer markets in the world for these drugs.

According to initial estimates the proceeds from drugs sold on the black market and the quantity of seized drugs worldwide amounted to about USD 322 billion in 2003.

Afghanistan: Resurgent Taliban Slows Aid Projects, Reconstruction

By Ron Synovitz

Afghanistan -- British Royal Marines mounting an Operation to clear compounds used by the Taliban in the area of Barikjo in Kajaki, 30Jan2007

British troops search for militants in the Kajaki district, site of a key development project

epa

November 30, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- The past year has been the deadliest for U.S. and NATO-led forces in Afghanistan since the Taliban regime fell in late 2001. But while the number of suicide bomb attacks and civilian deaths has risen, perhaps the most disconcerting development is that the violence has set back major reconstruction projects aimed at significantly improving the lives of millions of Afghans.

Of more than 14,000 reconstruction works under way, NATO officials have described the Kajaki hydroelectric dam in Helmand Province as the project with the most strategic and psychological significance. NATO announced in early 2007 that its key objective in the south was to secure the area around the Kajaki dam.

In March, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer even suggested that progress on security in Afghanistan in 2007 could be measured by NATO's ability to keep Taliban fighters away from Kajaki to allow workers to build a new road to transport a giant power turbine to the dam site. "When the turbine in that dam is [installed], it will give power to 2 million people and their businesses" from Helmand Province to Kandahar, de Hoop Scheffer said. “It will provide irrigation for hundreds of farmers. And it will create jobs for 2,000 people. The Taliban, the spoilers, are attacking this project every day to [try to] stop it from going forward."

By the beginning of June, when NATO declared that a combined U.S.-British assault called Operation Axe Handle had killed most Taliban fighters in the Kajaki valley or forced them to withdraw, reaching that goal still appeared possible. U.S. civilian officials working on the Kajaki project had also told RFE/RL that they hoped residents of Kandahar city would start receiving electricity from Kajaki's new turbine by early 2008.

But despite NATO's declarations of battlefield success, Taliban fighters have been able reinfiltrate the area -- causing enough havoc to delay construction of the road meant to link Kajaki to the town of Gereshk.

By late November, the road still was not complete. Without the road, workers have not been able to transport the power turbine to Kajaki -- leaving British and U.S. forces unable to claim success on that key objective of 2007.

Emboldened Insurgents

Still, security for the reconstruction of the Kajaki dam is not the only measure by which foreign troops have failed to meet their stated objectives.

A secret White House report leaked to the “Washington Post” in November concluded that the 2007 war effort in Afghanistan had not met the strategic goals set by the U.S. military. That National Security Council document reportedly says that while U.S. and NATO-led troops have been successful in individual military battles against the Taliban, the militants still appear able to recruit large numbers of fighters. It also says that while many foreigners, especially Pakistanis, are joining the Taliban, the main source of new recruits seems to be unhappy Afghans.

“At this moment, the Taliban and insurgent groups are feeling very emboldened -- they feel a momentum behind them,” Joanna Nathan, the Kabul-based director of the International Crisis Group's Afghanistan program, told RFE/RL. “That then drives many other factors in conflict. For the most part, those involved in the fighting are joining in because of disillusionment and disenfranchisement. They are feeling left out of government or administration, or they feel that their tribal community is [being left out] and they are not being heard. They feel they haven't seen the international assistance that was offered. All these other things now feed into [the problem]. And the Taliban are very clever at working on local fissures and conflicts."

Nathan added that the Taliban's resurgence does not mean that it has the ability to capture and control cities. But its guerrilla tactics have slowed reconstruction and humanitarian projects.

"I'm really hoping now that the world is beginning to wake up to the seriousness of what is happening in Afghanistan today,” Nathan said. “We really are seeing almost half the country -- in the south and east now -- being terrorized. These are guerrillas. It's not some sort of large standing army that is controlling and administering those areas. But they are making those areas largely inaccessible to humanitarian assistance and to development -- which stops the government's outreach."

Public Outrage

Officials in Kabul say ordinary Afghans are becoming increasingly angry about the hundreds of civilian deaths caused by NATO or U.S.-led coalition air strikes that have gone awry. Authorities say their anger makes it easier for the Taliban to recruit new fighters. On the other hand, Afghans also are put off by more than 140 suicide bombings carried out by extremists in the past year that have killed more than 200 civilians -- the worst year of suicide bombings in Afghan history.

Christine Fair, a researcher who studied suicide attacks in Afghanistan during 2007 for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, says recruitment for suicide bombers extends across the border into the tribal areas of Pakistan, and that madrassahs play a major role. “But there is a larger point that most Afghans are not familiar with," Fair said. "There are Afghans who are involved, not only in the capacity of suicide attackers, but they are also involved obviously in safe houses. They are obviously involved in the production of bombs. They are involved in getting bombers to targets. At every point of the provision of suicide attacks, an Afghan is necessary. This is something the Afghans...need to deal with."

Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said during a visit to Kabul in November that both the Taliban and foreign troops in Afghanistan are responsible for mounting civilian deaths. Arbour accused the Taliban of deliberately targeting civilians in suicide bombings -- including teachers and humanitarian workers -- in a bid to destabilize the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Arbour also said the number of civilians accidentally killed by NATO or coalition air strikes had reached "alarming levels" during 2007. "In my discussions with ISAF commanders, I am persuaded that they are well aware of the significance of this problem [of civilian casualties] and were receptive to the call that they should have methodologies that will act as preventive measures so as to diminish the civilian exposures to their activities," Arbour said.

Foreign Casualties

Meanwhile, casualties in 2007 among foreign troops in Afghanistan climbed to the highest level since the collapse of the Taliban regime in 2001. More than 240 foreign soldiers were killed during the first 11 months of this year.

The NATO Secretary-General admits that one of the biggest failures of the alliance during 2007 was in the area of training and equipping Afghan government troops, who are meant to eventually take over security operations from U.S. and NATO-led forces.

"We are not doing enough as NATO allies and NATO partner nations in what should be one of our main priorities,” de Hoop Scheffer said. “And that is training and equipping the Afghan National Army."

With some NATO countries showing reluctance to increase troop deployments to Afghanistan, military commanders of the alliance now say they would like predominantly Muslim countries in North Africa and the Middle East to help train Afghan security forces.

As for reconstruction, NATO is now taking a new tack. Major General Garry Robison, the NATO-led ISAF mission's deputy commander for stability, said today that the Western military alliance is now seeking to distance itself from the reconstruction projects that it carries out.

Partly, he said, the tactic is aimed at increasing an Afghan "sense of ownership" in the work, and partly to avoid the projects being blown up by the Taliban.

Robison, who has overseen ISAF's reconstruction work for the past 12 months, said foreign aid works best when it has an "Afghan face" and responds to real local needs.

"What we're wanting to do is to help and deliver in line with local priorities,” Robison said. “And by engaging local development councils for their priorities, by engaging local employment and contractors, we try and give the community a sense of ownership."

(RFE/RL correspondent Ahto Lobjakas contributed to this report from Brussels.)

On the Stockpile Destruction

Released on: Nov 28, 2007

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan at the 8 th Meeting of the State Party (8MSP) to the Ottawa Convention at Jordan last week, formally announced the successful destruction of all its known stockpiled anti-personnel landmines in Afghanistan, meeting the requirement of the stockpile-destruction benchmark of Article 4 of the Convention of the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines on their Destruction known as the Ottawa Convention. At the Stockpile Destruction Demonstration Event held at the Deh Sabz today, newly cleared anti-personnel landmines along with other explosive remnants of war were destroyed to symbolize the continuing efforts of the Government of Afghanistan’s mine action program efforts towards a mine free Afghanistan.

The widespread and indiscriminate use of anti personnel mines during more than two decades of war has turned Afghanistan into one of the world’s most heavily mined countries in the world. More than four million Afghans, around 17 percent of the population, are living in one of the 2,374 mined communities and are struggling to cope with the legacy of Afghanistan’s brutal war. As the Government of Afghanistan became the 126 th Member State to the Ottawa Convention in March 2003, it fully committed itself toward destroying all the minefields by 2013. Hence, in the last four years of the operation, more than 500,000 stockpiled anti-personnel mines in Afghanistan have been destroyed. As a result of collaborative efforts of our donors, implementing partners and brave de-miners, the Government of Afghanistan has successfully completed the task for the first step of the Ottawa obligation and is fully committed to meet the next de-mining requirement by 2013.

Since 2003, Ministry of Defense has led the stockpile survey and destruction process through UNDP supported program known as the Afghanistan New Beginnings Program (ANPB). The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been responsible for monitoring and reporting on the Ottawa Treaty obligations assisted by UN Mine Action Center in Afghanistan (UNMACA).

The Government of Afghanistan would like to express its appreciation to the donor community, implementing partners and the more than 8000 de-mining personnel for their hard work and generous support toward this monumental endeavor. We are also indebted to the European Union for their generous assistance for the coordination and financial support of this Stockpile Destruction Demonstration Event and continued support in all other areas of mine action program in Afghanistan.  We also thank the Canadian Government and our valuable international donors in partners for their generous and long term support to the mine action programme in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan records 266 HIV cases, mostly intravenous drug users

By RAHIM FAIEZ Associated Press / December 1, 2007

KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghanistan has recorded 266 HIV cases, two-thirds of whom contracted the virus through intravenous drug use, the public health ministry said Saturday.

Deputy Public Health Minister Faizullah Kakar said 75 percent of those infected are men, and seven people are known to have died from AIDS, the disease caused by the HIV virus.

"I'm sure that there are more people with the HIV virus than we know," Kakar said. "We are going to launch a survey to find out exactly how many people are affected."

Sixty-six percent of the people known to be infected with HIV are intravenous drug users who contracted the virus through needle-sharing, and others were migrant laborers who left Afghanistan for work, he said.

Accurate statistics are very hard to come by in Afghanistan, which has been wracked by violence and war for nearly three decades.

About 70 young people marched through a public park Saturday carrying banners about AIDS awareness as part of a campaign by the Afghan Red Crescent Society for World AIDS Day.

Well-known Afghan actors took part in the day's activities, performing a play in a park in central Kabul to inform people about the disease.

"Most of our people don't know about AIDS. These kinds of awareness programs are very useful," said Mohammad Usman, a photographer who was watching the play in Shar-e Naw park.

A study released last month by ActionAid Afghanistan found that while the country does not have a large number of HIV cases, there is a high risk that the disease could spread because of an increasing number of injecting drug users.

Of 99 injecting drug users interviewed, nearly half did not know HIV could be spread through sharing needles, the group said.

ActionAid also interviewed 56 female commercial sex workers and found that only 4 percent had heard of AIDS.

Afghan Tradition Masks Political Ambush

At a Gathering of Village Elders, the U.S. Helps Set in Motion an Enemy's Downfall

By MICHAEL M. PHILLIPS - Wall Street Journal December 1, 2007; Page A5

ZEROK, Afghanistan -- The villagers handed out red roses. The elders lined up to welcome guests to their ancient tradition, the shura. And John Gibson, a U.S. Army captain with sunburned cheeks, warmly embraced Haji Taday, a tribal leader with a black Abe Lincoln beard.

But what looked like a reunion with an old friend last month was really a political ambush of a bitter enemy.

"He takes us for fools," Capt. Gibson, smiling slightly, said minutes after hugging Mr. Taday. "We just got enough evidence to move against him."

In Afghanistan's insurgency, politics is warfare by other means. U.S. officers knew that if they wanted to take down Mr. Taday -- both a major figure in the local Taliban and chief of Zerok's council of elders -- they would have to avoid cultural missteps that could hand propaganda victories to their enemies.

So for the next hour, U.S. and Afghan officials used the shura, a traditional Pashtun gathering of respected senior villagers, to discredit Mr. Taday before his peers and engineer his downfall. They succeeded, but not in the way they expected.

Capt. Gibson's boss, Lt. Col. Michael Fenzel, commander of the 1st Battalion of the 503rd Infantry Regiment, set the snare hours before the elders arrived at the Zerok district center. In a private meeting at the adjacent American combat outpost, the colonel laid out the case against Mr. Taday before a few trusted Afghan officials, including both the chief of intelligence and the head of shura for Paktika Province, where Zerok is located.

Lt. Col. Fenzel had a receptive audience. The Afghans had their own suspicions about Mr. Taday, not least because his nephew is Commander Sangeen, widely known to lead one of the Taliban factions in the area. Mr. Taday has provided safe haven for foreign fighters who cross the Pakistani border, some 20 miles away, and move into Zerok District, according to U.S. and Afghan intelligence reports. Mr. Taday also arranged the theft of a green Ford Ranger pickup truck from the Afghan National Police and delivered it to his nephew to use as a suicide car bomb, according to U.S. intelligence reports.

At the pre-shura meeting, Lt. Col. Fenzel told the Afghan officials he wanted the police to arrest Mr. Taday immediately. But Nawab Waziri, the provincial head elder, argued that such a move on shura day would cause an uproar. The colonel agreed to hold off, and the group headed next door to the shura at the district government office, a single-story building with broken windows, surrounded by a stone wall topped with razor wire.

Mr. Taday was waiting for them in the courtyard, lined up with the other elders. Appearing to be in his 60s, short and rotund, he wore a gray tunic and loose trousers, with a long brown vest and dirty white turban, striped delicately in black.

Despite the friendly embrace, Mr. Taday knew he had been in the captain's sights for months. In July, insurgents ambushed two U.S.-Afghan troop convoys near the Zerok outpost, leaving a pair of Afghan soldiers dead. Afterward, Capt. Gibson summoned the Zerok elders, pulled Mr. Taday into a room and yelled at him for 20 minutes, pausing only so the interpreter could translate the obscenity-laced tirade into Pashto.

"You say you're in charge and that there is security in Zerok, but there's not," Capt. Gibson said at the time. "Either you're lying to me or you're working for them. Which is it?"

At the shura last month, Afghans delivered the message. An Afghan army officer opened with a verse from the Koran, an effort to show that the Taliban, known for their fierce interpretation of Islam, don't have a monopoly on faith. "For 30 years we've been fighting and killing innocent people," said Mr. Waziri, the provincial chief elder. "It's time we stop fighting."

"Innocent people get killed when the Taliban attack," said the provincial intelligence chief, Yaseen, who uses only one name. "Every day they fire rockets. They put bombs in the roads. Where are the fighters coming from? You elders are helping them. Don't sell out your country for five rupees."

The Afghan officials urged all of the elders to come forward with information about insurgent movements. "You don't care about your country," Qadar Gul, the subgovernor for Zerok District, chided them. "You don't care about your area. You are Taliban."

As the Afghan officials spoke, Capt. Gibson, his lip full of Copenhagen snuff, took care of side business. He quietly radioed his men to order a symbolic artillery and mortar barrage intended to ward off potential attackers in the ridgelines above the base. He relayed Lt. Col. Fenzel's orders that the guns fire only illumination or smoke rounds, not explosive munitions that might endanger civilians -- and only after the shura ended.

From across the room, the village doctor asked Capt. Gibson when he would receive $1,500 in promised compensation for four cows and four chickens killed in a firefight between Taliban fighters and U.S. soldiers. "It will be next week," Capt. Gibson assured him.

Meantime, the Afghans began to direct their comments more pointedly at Mr. Taday, and his body spoke of his discomfort. He crossed his arms tightly, and, at one point, dropped his beard to his chest and his head to his hands.

"I know you," Mr. Yaseen said. "OK, you know me, but I'm not an insurgent," Mr. Taday responded.

Mr. Yaseen and other Afghan officials interrupted Mr. Taday on several occasions, a rudeness meant to diminish his stature before his peers. Mr. Yaseen challenged him to provide the names of Taliban fighters to the intelligence service, while Mr. Taday continued to protest his innocence.

"I support the government," he said. "Everyone knows Sangeen is a bad guy, but we can't do anything about it. He lives in Pakistan. There are no insurgents living here in Zerok."

Last to speak was Lt. Col. Fenzel. "We will always conduct ourselves with respect for your culture and your religion, Islam," he promised the elders.

"As your guests, we would ask for your protection," he added. "My pledge to you is that our forces will always conduct themselves as guests. When you know the Taliban are coming, let us know so we can provide security."

The colonel then looked directly at Mr. Taday. "You can't be on both sides," he warned. Mr. Taday stared glumly at the floor.

The next day, Lt. Col. Fenzel got word that other shura members -- who U.S. officers say had long remained quiet for fear of Commander Sangeen -- now planned to depose him. At the same time, the colonel began working to secure orders from the provincial governor, Akram Khapalwak, to have the police arrest Mr. Taday. They never got the chance.

Three days later, Mr. Taday, his son and three bodyguards traveled from Zerok to a nearby town where he met with the local head of the Afghan intelligence service, according to a U.S. intelligence report. Another son told a local official later that his father also met with American intelligence agents that day.

On the way home, as the sun went down, Taliban insurgents ambushed Mr. Taday's vehicle, blasting it with rocket-propelled grenades and killing all five men inside.

Insurgents then launched rockets at the Zerok outpost, but missed their target by a couple of hundred yards. U.S. troops counterattacked with a barrage of mortars and artillery, killing 10 Taliban fighters, thought to be the same group that had ambushed Mr. Taday, according to a U.S. intelligence report.

Using live images from an unmanned spy plane, the U.S. soldiers later watched as three trucks carried the corpses of Haji Taday, his son and bodyguards along mountain roads and dried riverbeds back to his home village. When they arrived, the drivers sprinted into the houses to deliver the news, and dozens of men swarmed around the bed of a pickup truck, apparently to glimpse Mr. Taday's body.

Lt. Col. Fenzel was stunned by the turn of events. He didn't think the other shura members would be bold enough to have Mr. Taday killed. So he surmised that Taliban loyal to one of Commander Sangeen's rivals had seen Mr. Taday meet with the government spy boss and assumed that he was betraying them.

One Afghan official with access to intelligence reports said that the killers had left a letter with the bodies, accusing Messrs. Taday and Sangeen of betraying the Taliban cause. Days later, insurgent factions in the area battled each other, leaving two fighters dead, the official said. His report couldn't be verified.

That night, Lt. Col. Fenzel called Gov. Khapalwak and told him of Mr. Taday's fate. The governor said he would inform the local media that the Taliban had murdered one of Zerok's respected village elders.

Bush Says Funding Iraq, Afghan Wars Is Congress's Top Priority

Holly Rosenkrantz Sat Dec 1, Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush said that funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan should be Congress's top priority when it returns to Washington next week, and he lashed out at Democrats for not acting on his spending request.

``Continued delay in funding our troops will soon begin to have a damaging impact on the operations of our military,'' Bush said in his weekly radio address today.

Congress, which returns to work Dec. 3 after a two-week recess, hasn't acted on a $50 billion down payment on the $190 billion Bush requested earlier this year because the legislation contains language calling for a troop withdrawal from Iraq. Senate Republicans have blocked majority Democrats from passing the legislation, and Bush has threatened to veto any measure that includes a withdrawal provision.

In response, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has directed the military service chiefs to start planning for the layoff of about 200,000 civilian employees and contractors by mid-February if Congress doesn't approve a supplemental funding request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan before money runs out Dec. 14.

The threatened furlough is a first for the Pentagon, which in March and last year temporarily transferred money from the annual budget into wartime spending until Congress passed all of an emergency spending bill.

``It is time for the Congress to do its job and give our troops what they need to protect America,'' Bush said in his radio address.

Bush also called on Congress to update the foreign intelligence surveillance act, pass legislation to prevent middle-income families from being subject to higher levies under the alternative minimum tax, and to finish its work on annual spending bills.

So far, Congress has approved just one of the 12 annual appropriations bills that funds government operations. Democrats are seeking to end a budget fight with Bush by drafting a single catch-all measure that contains a smaller increase in domestic spending than they had previously demanded.

The Sharif factor comes into play

By M K Bhadrakumar, Asia Times Online / December 1, 2007

The United States is watching with anxiety Pakistan's painful march towards democracy, and it does not like the look of it. The return of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif to Pakistan has completely altered the political calculus and took Washington by surprise.

By insisting on Sharif's return to Pakistan, Saudi Arabia took matters into its own hands. Washington should have read the signal that something was stirring in Riyadh when, a fortnight earlier, the Saudi ambassador to Pakistan made an characteristic public display of intervening with President General Pervez Musharraf for the release of the former director general of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) , Hamid Gul, from detention under the draconian state of emergency provisions imposed this month.

Gul is no ordinary mortal. He has an impeccable record - both as a serving corps commander and as a retired general - of campaigning for Pakistan's destiny within an arc of Islamic countries stretching from Afghanistan to Turkey. He has consistently advocated strategic defiance of the United States. Twenty years ago, he co-authored a strategic rethink ("regional strategic consensus paper") while serving as the ISI chief under president Zia ul-Haq, preparing Pakistan for its post-Afghan jihad phase when the US was set to drop it as an ally.

Gul is a staunch believer in the "Islamic bomb". Of course, that was also the time in the late 1980s when Pakistan was considering the outright "sale" of a nuclear bomb to Saudi Arabia to rid itself altogether of the irksome dependence on American aid, apart from arranging the supply of Chinese long-range CSS-II nuclear-capable missiles to Saudi Arabia. Gul is an untiring believer in the jihad. Some say he once personally took Osama bin Laden to meet Nawaz Sharif.

Rise of Islamist nationalism

Yet, Washington didn't take note when Musharraf acceded to the Saudi request for Gul's freedom. The promptness with which the Saudi wish was accommodated by the Pakistani establishment should have alerted the US.

Unsurprisingly, the specter that is haunting the George W Bush administration is whether the baton of the democratic transformation of Pakistan will pass into the hands of conservative nationalist Islamic forces instead of the "moderate liberals" (read Benazir Bhutto) chosen by Washington. Bush admitted his personal sense of frustration when he told the Associated Press: "I don't know him [Sharif] well enough." Regarding Sharif's links with Islamic parties in Pakistan, Bush added: "I would be very concerned if there is any leader in Pakistan that did not understand the nature of the world in which we live today."

Sharif, on his part, point-blank refuses to acknowledge Bush's recent efforts to bring about Pakistan's democratic transformation. He would recall his association with president Bill Clinton and stress he didn't know Bush. On Wednesday, Sharif touched on Bush's "war on terror". Referring to the military crackdown in Pakistan's Swat Valley, Sharif said Islamabad ought to think before complying with the demands of foreign powers. He caustically added: "This is our country, and we know better how to solve our problems."

Sharif estimated his remark would find good resonance in Pakistani opinion. Senior unnamed US officials, in turn, have leaked to the American mainstream newspapers - including The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the San Francisco Chronicle - the Bush administration's disquiet that Sharif might spoil the "war on terror".

They paint Sharif as a conservative politician who connived with Abdul Qadeer Khan's nuclear proliferation and hobnobbed with the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and argue that he stands in the way of the emancipation of Pakistani women. They cherry-pick from Sharif's tumultuous political life and find fault with him for just about everything that went wrong in Pakistan in the recent two to three decades. But that is grossly unfair. There is almost nothing that Sharif did while in power at which Bhutto didn't try her hand.

The Bush administration squirms that its techniques of political management failed to work with the formidable Pakistani establishment. The rapidity of the unfolding of political events in Islamabad has left Bush with no option but to keep eulogizing Musharraf's leadership qualities - even as the general systematically rubbished Bhutto's political prospects. Maybe an apocalyptic vision of a Sharif-led Pakistan may help justify the Bush administration's continued support of Musharraf.

Washington's demands today have virtually narrowed down to a lifting of the emergency rule in Pakistan - something that Musharraf is in any case getting ready to do. In fact, Musharraf has no more use for the emergency rule now that he has overcome the judicial challenges that threatened to prevent him from becoming a civilian president. He remains obstinate only in his refusal to restore the pre-November 3 judiciary that he sacked. But that is understandable. The political parties themselves are divided about the issue.

Sharif's options

Sections of the Pakistani establishment keenly expect Sharif to unify the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) factions to thwart any residual chances of Bhutto's bid for power. They seek a repetition of the broad alliance on the pattern of the IJI (Islami Jamhuriat Itehad, or Islamic Democratic Alliance) of 1988, which was an alliance of the PML and Islamic parties with the help of the military and the ISI. The point is, even though Sharif may have a bitter feud with Musharraf, that doesn't diminish his acceptability to the Pakistani establishment, for whom he still remains a former ally.

Arguably, Sharif's natural inclination ought to be to settle for a deal with the military-intelligence establishment. But these are early days. Sharif is probing. He is grandstanding. He is reconnecting with his support base in Punjab. He is weighing what is there in the elections for him. Will his candidacy be accepted since he stands condemned by court judgement? The constitution debars him from becoming prime minister for a third time.

Meanwhile, some elements have been clarified. First, Sharif may not resort to agitational politics. He could easily be a rabble rouser, but the Saudis wouldn't want him to do anything by way of stirring up things that threatened to destabilize the existing political order in Islamabad. Saudi interest lies not in undermining nuclear-armed Pakistan but to be able to navigate it if the gyre of Shi'ite Iran's influence continues to widen in the region.

Again, Sharif continues to view Bhutto with distrust. Sharif is keen on the PML functioning within a united front under the banner of the All Parties Democratic Movement (APDM), but he can't ensure the alliance's cohesion, especially the Islamic parties. The ISI used to handle such matters for him previously. He also rejects an outright merger of his party with the ruling party PML (Q) but isn't averse to defectors from the "King's party" joining his ranks. The APDM on Thursday announced a boycott in principle of January's parliamentary polls (Bhutto did not), but that is not necessarily the end of the matter.

Within this code of conduct, it is not surprising Musharraf has concluded he could learn to live with Sharif's hot words as long as the elections go ahead as scheduled. Musharraf reiterated on Thursday soon after being sworn in as the civilian president that he is determined to hold the elections on January 8, "come hell or high water". The big question is whether the main political parties will participate. The legitimacy of the polls would ease pressure on Musharraf from the international community.

The powerful head of the PML-Q, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, and his cousin and Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi (who was until recently perceived to be the next prime minister) have hinted that a post-election understanding with Sharif cannot be ruled out. Sheikh Rashid, who is close to Musharraf, said: "You cannot rule out anything in Pakistan. If Musharraf can meet Benazir and if Nawaz Sharif can return to Pakistan before the elections, then everything is possible."

Musharraf himself hinted at the horse-trading that lies ahead when he hoped politicians wouldn't repeat the 1990s' political culture. He held out a sort of olive branch when he expressed the hope on Thursday in front of a distinguished audience in Islamabad that he "personally" thought that Sharif's return to Pakistan would "prove good" for the country.

Musharraf vs Kiani

Musharraf also announced on Thursday that Phase 3 of his program of democratic transition has commenced. Clearly, the speculation hogging the current discourses over Pakistan - as regards the inevitability of a clash of personalities involving Musharraf and the newly appointed chief of army staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani - completely overlooks the obvious reality that these two protagonists are virtually joined at the hip in the post-election scenario in Pakistan.

Their core interests are inextricably intertwined. The Pakistani army can never hope to get a president anywhere as deeply committed as Musharraf for safeguarding its corporate interests. As for Musharraf, who lacks an independent political base, he would be intelligent enough to know the limits to his presidential authority.

At any rate, the last thing a quintessential soldier like Musharraf would do would be to bypass the military's interests in favor of "civilian supremacy". Historically, the nearest that the military could manage to reach by way of an entente cordiale with the presidency within the framework of Pakistan's ruling troika - comprising president, prime minister and army chief - was when the bureaucrat par excellence, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, took over in the dramatic circumstances following Zia ul-Haq's death in a plane crash in August 1988. But Khan still needed to ingratiate himself with then-army chief General Aslam Beg.

Musharraf and Kiani go back a long way. That is to say, the extent to which the military has gone to ensure that Bhutto doesn't become part of the troika in Islamabad, as was the case 19 years ago, must be put in its proper perspective. Musharraf and Kiani pursued a common agenda after determining what is best for Pakistan's political stability. The military has successfully thwarted Washington from imposing Bhutto on the regime. An IJI-type ruling alliance would serve the military perfectly well at this juncture.

Regional implications

The regional and international implications are going to be far-reaching. If the US strategy, under the garb of creating a "truly democratic" regime in Pakistan, was to create a troika in Islamabad that would be amenable to its manipulation, things haven't quite worked as expected. Pakistan's army will remain the dominant force in the country's national life. But the US would have to continue to renegotiate Pakistan's cooperation for the "war on terror".

The new army chief shares Musharraf's basic outlook and, more important, shares Musharraf's limitations in partnering with the US against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Washington cannot afford to damage its equations with the Pakistani military by threatening to cut off aid. Don't even threaten violation of Pakistan's territorial integrity by US Special Forces. The US would do well not to push the military unwillingly into clashes with their own tribesmen, either.

The US will be compelled to factor in with greater sensitivity the Pakistani military's adversarial stance with regard to India, which also includes its widespread resentment about the inconstancy of American friendship and, more recently, the perceived US tilt toward India as its preferred strategic partner in the region. At some point, Washington might well be compelled to review its refusal to enter into nuclear cooperation with Pakistan on the pattern of its proposed deal with India.

India on guard

Any diminution of Washington's ability to influence Pakistan's Kashmir policy or its covert trans-border activities aimed at bleeding India would cause uneasiness in Delhi. In recent years, Delhi drew comfort imagining Washington effectively kept the Musharraf regime in check from raising tensions with India. There is even a body of opinion among security analysts in Delhi that continued, open-ended American military presence in Afghanistan is a good thing as it makes Musharraf more forthcoming in dealing with India. To them, the "war on terror" in Afghanistan is of importance as the Americans shackle the Pakistani military.

Delhi would also take note that for the first time, a former chief of the ISI, the agency that calibrates tensions with India, has risen to the top of the military. Kiani has had extensive experience in dealing with India in various capacities - as director general of military operations during the standoff with its neighbor following the December 2001 terrorist attack on the Parliament in New Delhi, as general officer commanding the Pakistani army's 12 divisions based in Muzaffarabad, which is the staging ground for the insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir, and as ISI chief.

The Taliban will gain

To be sure, the hardening of the power structure in Islamabad is taking place at a time when some sort of a power-sharing arrangement with the Taliban is on the cards in Afghanistan.

One could disregard the international policy think-tank Senlis Council's latest assessment that the Taliban have a permanent presence in 54% of Afghanistan, controlling "vast swaths of unchallenged territory, including rural ones, some district centers, and important road arteries"; or its assertion that the insurgency is exercising "a significant amount of psychological control, gaining more and more political legitimacy in the minds of the Afghan people". Even then, it is difficult to quarrel with the assertion by the reputed London-based group that "the question now appears to be not if the Taliban will return to Kabul, but when ... and in what form. The oft-stated aim of reaching the city in 2008 appears more viable than ever."

Therefore, if a democratically elected IJI-type representative government assumes power in Islamabad at the present juncture, that would work greatly in the Taliban's favor. Such a government would include political leaders who have had extensive dealings with the Taliban in the 1990s. Equally, such a government might not see eye-to-eye with the US's way of conducting the "war on terror" in Afghanistan or with the overall American approach that "there is almost no problem across the region that can't be resolved by bombing" (to quote a British commentator).

The shift in Islamabad may prove particularly crucial at a time when there are signs that President Hamid Karzai himself might be beginning to wonder in his own way if there could be an Afghan solution to the war. Karzai must surely begin to weigh the high probability that the next government in Islamabad would be rooted in Islamic nationalism. The US (or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) would lack the capacity to block any political accommodation that such a representative civilian government in Islamabad might seek with the Taliban, be it at the local or at the national level. In sum, the political developments in Islamabad in the coming weeks could well accelerate the return of the Taliban to Kabul. Karzai would be sensing that already.

Saudi motivation

Conceivably, Saudi Arabia's insistence on Sharif's return was at least partly motivated by its skepticism over the efficacy of the democracy project choreographed by the George W Bush administration for Pakistan. The Saudis, with their prodigious memory, would recollect what another democracy project by the Jimmy Carter administration led to in neighboring Iran - the Islamic revolution of 1979.

Besides, Saudi Arabia feels disillusioned by the bloody mess that the Bush administration's "war on terror" has created in the region. The criticality of the Afghan situation is worrisome as Saudi national-security concerns are directly affected. Riyadh estimates that the time may have come to seek an Islamic solution to the crisis. (Turkey's Islamist President Abdullah Gul will be arriving in Islamabad on Tuesday within a few weeks of Saudi King Abdullah's visit to Ankara.)

Saudi influence will be predominant on any IJI-type government in Islamabad. The Saudi calculation would be to work toward a political accommodation of the Taliban as a step in the direction of isolating the radical elements, which have gained ascendancy in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border regions.

US must rethink strategy

In sum, the Bush administration's ill-conceived scheme to bring about a transitional partnership between the Pakistani military and the "political center" has floundered. The US pursued its partnership project even when it became apparent that the military wouldn't cohabit with Bhutto. The result was a near impasse.

The Saudis stepped in at that point and a new transition strategy attuned to Pakistani realities has begun to unfold. Much as the Pakistani military understands the strategic imperative of keeping a working relationship with the US and realizes that anything else would be catastrophic for Pakistan's interests, it is also incumbent on Washington to reconcile that there are limits beyond which it cannot push the general headquarters in Rawalpindi.

Equally, Washington must accept that Islamic nationalism is a permanent feature of Pakistani national life. The West cannot impose its clones on Pakistan's democratic life. There is a high probability that Nawaz Sharif may turn out to be the future of Pakistan.

Indeed, there were past occasions when Washington was much less than fair in its attitude toward Sharif. Washington's weakness for Bhutto is legion. Alright, Sharif's entire university education might have been restricted to Lahore and he might not be networking with highflying think-tankers in Washington; he might not have shared his toothbrush with Peter Galbraith or wasn't on first-name terms with Zalmay Khalilzad, the high-profile US ambassador.

Sharif might not have thought it important enough to hire talented public relations firms to burnish his "image" in the US media. But, even then, the Bush administration should not remain sulking that Sharif wasn't its choice for leading Pakistan's democratic transition. Life must move on. Besides, it is the Pakistani people's choice that should matter.

Robert Oakley, who served in the Ronald Reagan administration as the National Security Council's Pakistan hand during the Afghan jihad in the 1980s and subsequently served as ambassador in Islamabad, wrote that Washington must prepare to come to terms with Sharif's leadership of Pakistan. "He [Sharif] commands a strong following and, most important, has traditionally been strongly supported by the Pakistani military and intelligence services," Oakley concluded.

Oakley suggested that Washington should facilitate discussions between the military and civilian leaders on appointing a senior civilian to serve as interim president, replacing Musharraf. "An interim president could then prepare for truly free and fair elections and a return to the rule of law." In essence, he advocates an alibi for Washington to reconcile with Sharif. But unfortunately, that would also be an alibi for continued American intervention in Pakistan's internal affairs.

M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for over 29 years, with postings including India's ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001).

Army defiant despite Pakistan's divide

By Syed Saleem Shahzad, Asia Times Online - December 1, 2007

KARACHI - General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani, within days of taking over as chief of army staff from General Pervez Musharraf, who is now Pakistan's civilian president, has reshuffled his top brass, including the five corps commanders and head of military intelligence.

The message coming from army headquarters in Rawalpindi is that while politically the country will attempt to institute a "liberal democracy" following national elections next month, the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaeda will be orchestrated by the Pakistani Army in direct coordination with Washington.

Contacts tell Asia Times Online that sector commanders of the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in the country's four provinces will also be changed. In September and October, Musharraf made sweeping changes to his top cadre, so it is clear Kiani is building a new team of his own. Kiani himself was made a full general in Musharraf's reshuffle, as was Tariq Majeed, who was made chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee.

On the political front, a major opposition alliance, the All Parties Democratic Movement, said on Thursday it had decided in principle to boycott the January 8 parliamentary elections. Its prominent parties include the Pakistan Muslim League, led by former premier Nawaz Sharif (recently returned from exile), the Jamaat-i-Islami Pakistan and the Tehrik-i-Insaaf, led by cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan.

This move shows the sharp division that has emerged in Pakistan. The above parties have now distanced themselves from Islamabad's link to Washington in the "war on terror".

Those backing this nexus now include Musharraf's ruling Pakistan Muslim League Quaid-i-Azam; the Pakistan People's Party led by Benazir Bhutto; former pro-Taliban cleric and former leader of opposition in Parliament, Maulana Fazlur Rahman and his Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam; and the sub-nationalist Pashtun Awami National Party led by Isfandiyar Wali. Also in this bloc are the Muttehida Qaumi Movement and the Pakistan People's Party (Patriot group). Bhutto further emphasized this division by meeting with Musharraf on Thursday.

The realignments in the army and on the political landscape will have a direct bearing on how Pakistan proceeds at a strategic level. In theory, broader policy matters have to be approved by the National Security Council headed by Musharraf, but in fact the chief of army staff - Kiani - will make the decisions.

Kiani, incidentally, was not Musharraf's first choice. Insiders tell Asia Times Online that Majeed was preferred. His new position as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee is ceremonial. Washington fancied Kiani, the former director general of the ISI, in which position he had extensive interaction with politicians and foreign intelligence agencies.

Kiani took over the entire operations of the "war on terror" in October when he was promoted to vice chief of army staff, which coincided with Pakistan raising the level of its operations against militants in the Waziristan tribal areas. F-16 fighter aircraft were used to bomb suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban sanctuaries. The entire town of Mir Ali in North Waziristan was cleared, with most of its residents leaving for Bannu, Peshawar and Dera Ismail Khan in North-West Frontier Province (NWFP).

The present operations in the Swat Valley in NWFP are another example of aggressive military tactics under Kiani. The valley is not a tribal area and comprises settled districts that have fallen under control of renegade militants led by Maulana Fazlullah, a self-proclaimed Pakistani Taliban leader. The army used heavy artillery and gunship helicopters to bomb the positions of Pakistani militants and civilian casualties were reported.

Fighters loyal to Fazlullah tried to test Kiani this week by announcing a ceasefire and sending a message to the army that since Musharraf had gone, they wanted to give peace a chance.

Kiani's answer was swift. He sent the army into positions abandoned by the militants and even into urban areas in the valley. Kiani seems to be in no mood to show any sympathy towards the militancy and has threatened to bomb any suspected hideouts without first trying to negotiate a truce with tribal elders, as was the case under Musharraf.

The immediate post-military rule period after eight years of Musharraf has clearly thrown up stark political divisions, but at the strategic level (that is Kiani) it guarantees Pakistan's smooth relations with Washington.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief.

Top Marine: Send us all to Afghanistan

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The top general in the Marine Corps told CNN he is pressing to shift all Marine combat operations from Iraq to Afghanistan.

Marine Corps Commandant James Conway is meeting Friday with Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Marines already are fighting in Afghanistan, but many also have been deployed in western Iraq since 2003.

Conway said if his proposal is approved, the shift would be at least a year away, and would be accomplished during the routine rotation of forces.

Conway said al Qaeda in Iraq has been defeated and peace agreements are likely to hold in Iraq's Anbar province, where U.S. Marines have been operating.

The general said he would tell Gates that the mission in Afghanistan is better suited to the Marine Corps' combat doctrine, and that having the Army concentrate on Iraq and the Marines on Afghanistan would make sense. Conway also said the plan would allow him to give Marines two months off for every month they spend in combat.

The plan faces some logistical problems, because the Marines -- who traditionally work closely with the Navy -- would be operating inland and would still need to rely on the Army and Air Force for support.

The move would also depend greatly on the United States' ability to reduce its forces in Iraq over the next year.

Last month, before he had been briefed on Conway's plan, Gates told a Pentagon news conference, "I would say that if it happens, it'll be long after I'm secretary of defense."
Some people thought that meant Gates was opposed to the idea, but aides said he knew very little about the proposal.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a military audience at the Army War College this week, "It's certainly something we're chewing on, and I actually said publicly my recommendation to the secretary on this was to wait until next year, until we kind of do the overarching next steps based on how things go in Iraq."

Giving Afghan girls a first: opportunity

By Bella English | December 2, 2007

From comfortable Duxbury to provincial Afghanistan comes a gift from the heart, and from the head: A girls' school is rising in a village outside Kabul where no girls have been educated in years. It's all thanks to the Duxbury Rotary Club, and a resourceful woman named Razia Jan of Marshfield.

Jan is an Afghan who came to the United States for her own education in 1970 and never left. She became a US citizen, had a son - now a film and theater director in Los Angeles - and opened her own business, a dry cleaning and seamstress shop in Duxbury.

She has also, over the past two years, been raising money to build the girls' school in a village outside Kabul. In August, she was in her native land to watch the first floor of the two-story school building go up. When it is complete this winter, the school will have eight classrooms. "We'll start from 4 or 5 years old but might get a 16-year-old who has never been in school," says Jan.

Girls' schools in the Afghan provinces are rare; under the Taliban, more than 700 schools were burned, and fear remains in the countryside. So aside from raising funds and the roof, Jan will be raising hopes as she goes door to door begging parents to send their girls to school.

"We'll assure them this is a safe place," says Jan. Already, the mayor of the province has promised that his daughters will be the first to enroll.

In January, Jan will return for two weeks and start moving furniture into the Zabuli School, named after an Afghan banking pioneer who died a few years ago at 102. His wife, a key donor to the cause, will attend a fund-raiser in Duxbury today for the school.

The keynoter at today's event is best-selling author Khaled Hosseini, who wrote "The Kite Runner" and "A Thousand Splendid Suns." Hosseini, who lives in Los Angeles, appeared in Duxbury two years ago and helped raise nearly $50,000 for the school. He was born in Kabul, where his mother taught at a girls' high school.

The Rotary Club hopes to raise $60,000 to $70,000 today to finish the school, which will open in March. "It's a beautiful school, all concrete, with electrical wiring, computers, six bathrooms, and filtered water," says Jan. Because villagers are helping build it, she says, "they would never let anyone destroy it." There's already a boys' school nearby.

"Most people support girls' being educated. They are so smart, I can't tell you. Just give them the opportunity, and they learn so quickly," she says.

The Zabuli School is only Jan's latest humanitarian effort. Shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, she made two large quilts, each one bearing the imprinted photographs and a short biography of every person killed during the attack on the Pentagon, and presented them in the new chapel there. She made fleece blankets with the American flag pattern and organized Duxbury residents and schoolchildren to buy and cut fabric for hundreds more blankets, which she made. She drove down to New York, to the firehouses near ground zero, and delivered many herself.

She also made a huge quilt - 30 feet long and 12 feet wide - with 356 squares, each containing a photo and a bio of the dead firefighters; she had taken the images and biographies off the Internet, enlarged them, and scanned them onto a special canvas before sewing them together with batting and lining. Then she did the same for the Port Authority and New York City rescuers who died.

In the past couple of years, she has been sending boxes of shoes, toys, quilts, clothes and other goods through the US soldiers stationed in Afghanistan. It's the best way she knows to help her people: Afghan citizens and American soliders. The items, she explains, are for the troops to distribute to the villagers: a good-will gesture. Apparently, it works. "Before, the soldiers say, the people would run like ants going to their hole when they saw them. Now, they run to the soldiers and thank them. It benefits our soldiers," she says. She also makes sure the soldiers themselves have care packages.

A couple of years ago, Jan accompanied soldiers to a village the troops had adopted after US bombs had partially destroyed it. At a hospital, a man sobbed that he didn't have money to take his dead wife home and asked the soldiers for help. Jan told him the soldiers didn't have money to give him. Outside, she handed a sergeant the equivalent of $100 in Afghan money and told him to give it to the man. "There were old and young people lying there without limbs, and this man tried to kiss the sergeant's feet, hands, face. The sergeant was crying," she recalls. She told him: "These 20 men lying there might like to kill you but now they'll never put their hands on you."

She concludes: "That's how you have to work. Our soldiers come first."

This isn't all this people's ambassador has done. Over the years, with the help of the Duxbury Rotary Club, she has provided more than 30,000 pairs of shoes to Afghan children. A month ago, she was honored as a Woman of Excellence by the Germaine Lawrence School, a residential school for at-risk girls in Arlington.

Her latest dream, about to become reality, is to help girls in wartorn Afghanistan, where by definition all are at risk. Today's fund-raiser at the Duxbury Performing Arts Center, which starts at 1 p.m., will include a silent auction, remarks and book-signing by Hosseini, Afghan folk dancing, and food. For more information, go to duxburyrotary.com.

ACC U-15 Elite Cup: Afghanistan cricket team qualifies for semis

Kabul, Dec 1 (Xinhua) Afghanistan has made its way into the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) Under-15 Elite Cup semi-finals in Kathmandu, a local newspaper reported here Saturday.

'Afghanistan Thursday inflicted a crushing defeat on Kuwait before marching into the semi-final of the competition,' Bashir Khan, the manager of Afghan team, was quoted by the Daily Outlook as saying.

The 10-day ACC Under-15 Elite Cup 2007 features Afghanistan, Nepal, United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, Kuwait, Singapore, Chinese Hong Kong, Bhutan and Oman.

[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.]