In this bulletin:

• U.S. general now leads NATO Afghan force
• New chief for Nato Afghan force
• Taliban commander killed in Afghanistan
• Setback for general who put his faith in tribal peace deals
• Afghanistan Ready for Talks with Pakistan: Spanta
• Islamabad warned against nursing hegemonic ambitious towards Afghanistan
• Afghani FM: Rogue Pakistani agents boosting Taliban
• Bomber kills Pakistani soldiers
• AFGHANISTAN: Grave concern over impunity plans for war lords
• Afghan jirga invited to discuss peace options
• EDITORIAL: Thus spake General Musharraf
• Afghan security better thanks to RCMP
• DISPATCHES FROM AFGHANISTAN
• Taliban campaign targets girls' schools
• Afghan schools take on the Taliban

U.S. general now leads NATO Afghan force

Kabul (AP 2.4.07) - The highest-ranking U.S. general to lead troops in Afghanistan took command of 35,500 strong NATO-led force Sunday, putting an American face on the international mission after nine months of British command.

Gen. Dan McNeill replaced British Gen. David Richards at the helm of NATO's International Security Assistance Force at a time of increased violence and just before an expected uptick in fighting as spring settles in.

McNeill, who served as coalition forces commander in Afghanistan in 2002-03, told several hundred people gathered for a change-of-command ceremony that ISAF's mission was to facilitate Afghanistan's reconstruction so the "Afghan people might enjoy self-determination, education, health and the peaceful realization of their hopes and dreams."

"We will quit neither post nor mission until the job is done or we are properly relieved," McNeill said.

The appointment of McNeill, one of only 11 four-star generals in the U.S. Army, raises the profile of the American mission here two weeks after the U.S. Department of Defense extended the tour of 3,200 10th Mountain Division soldiers.

There are now 26,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, the highest number since U.S.-led troops ousted the Taliban in 2001 for hosting Osama bin Laden. About 14,000 American forces fall under NATO command; 12,000 troops focused on training Afghan forces and special operations fall under the U.S.-led coalition.

During his nine months as commander, Richards oversaw the bloodiest year in Afghanistan since 2001. About 4,000 people died in insurgency-related violence in 2006, according to an Associated Press count based on numbers from U.S., NATO and Afghan officials.

Richards also was a prominent backer of a controversial peace plan in the southern town of Musa Qala. Under that October deal between the government and village elders, NATO, Afghan and Taliban soldiers were not allowed into the town. But that agreement apparently fell apart on Wednesday and Thursday, when an estimated 200 Taliban fighters overran Musa Qala.

Only 90 minutes before the handover ceremony on Sunday, a NATO airstrike killed a senior Taliban leader riding in a car near Musa Qala, spokesman Col. Tom Collins said.

Collins said the Taliban leader was killed within that 3-mile zone with the approval of the Afghan government. He said no NATO or Afghan forces were on the ground in Musa Qala.

Collins didn't immediately name the person killed in the strike, but Mohammad Wali, a Musa Qala resident, said the airstrike killed a Taliban leader named Mullah Abdul Gafoor and some of his associates while they were riding in a truck through a small village just outside Musa Qala.

Another resident, Lal Mohammad, told The Associated Press on Saturday that the fighters in Musa Qala were being led by Gafoor, the hardline militia's corps commander in western Afghanistan during the Taliban regime.

Gafoor's brother, Mullah Ibrahim, and eight other suspected Taliban militants were killed late last month in a NATO airstrike just outside Musa Qala, which prompted Gafoor to lead the militants into the town, Wali said.

Musa Qala saw intense battles between Taliban fighters and British troops last summer and fall. The fighting caused widespread damage to the town of around 10,000 inhabitants, most of whom were forced to leave.

British forces withdrew from Musa Qala in October after the truce, which turned over security to local leaders and prevented NATO forces from entering the town.

Richards, who was replaced Sunday as NATO's commander, told the AP on Saturday that "very surgical and deliberate" force would be used to evict the fighters from Musa Qala, where he said the alliance's strategy of avoiding military action has driven a wedge between residents and Taliban insurgents.

Richards also oversaw NATO's largest-ever ground battle, a fight in southern Afghanistan in September to oust between 1,000 and 2,000 Taliban fighters who had massed for an assault on Kandahar city, the Taliban's former stronghold.

"There was last year some skepticism about NATO," Richards said at the ceremony Sunday. "Today that has gone."

The Taliban made a "good attempt" at an offensive last fall but failed and won't again try to take on NATO troops in a mass battle, Richards said in an interview on Saturday.

Richards in September warned that Afghanistan was at a tipping point and that if life did not improve for Afghans over the winter many would switch their allegiance to the Taliban.

He said he is now optimistic NATO will succeed and that he was "delighted" that his warning may have spurred the U.S., Britain and Poland, among other nations, to commit more troops and money.

Along with the additional 3,200 troops, the Bush administration last month said it would ask Congress for $10.6 billion to train and equip the Afghan army and for reconstruction.

Also Sunday, a suicide bomber in an explosives-filled car attacked a NATO convoy outside the town of Kandahar, said Haji Razaq Khan, a police official. No NATO troops were injured in the blast and the bomber was killed, he said.

New chief for Nato Afghan force – BBC

UK General David Richards has handed over control of the Nato force in Afghanistan to US General Dan McNeill at a ceremony in the capital, Kabul.

Gen Richards headed the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) for nine months, as troop levels increased from 9,000 to more than 33,000.

Isaf faces a fierce Taleban offensive in southern regions, and has asked for further reinforcements. But so far only the US and Britain have pledged to send more troops.

It has been a challenging time for Gen Richards, the BBC's Alistair Leithead in Kabul says. Gen Richards faced Taleban attacks in the south where US, British, Canadian and Dutch troops were deployed in areas previously outside the control of the government, our correspondent says.

He also made deals with local elders, which was followed in one area, Musa Qala, by the Taleban moving into an area recently vacated international troops.

Nevertheless, he marked the end of his term in charge of the Nato force by declaring that the conflict in Afghanistan is a "winnable war".

In a BBC interview, Gen Richards said the Taleban commander in the disputed town of Musa Qala in Helmand province, Mullah Abdul Ghafoor, was killed in an air strike overnight.

"It's almost 100% certain that... the leader of the Taleban grouping in Musa Qala that intimidated the people and took over the centre, has just actually been taken out in an air strike along with some of his leading henchmen."

Speaking to the Associated Press, he said the Taleban had failed to recover from a major battle last year. "They know in a conventional sense their attempt, which I will give them credit for was a good attempt, failed when they gathered 1,000 fighters in one place."

Gen McNeill took command of the multinational headquarters in a ceremony on Sunday morning, and said his aim would be to improve the lives of ordinary Afghans. "Our mission is to facilitate the reconstruction of Afghanistan.

"We will enable the institutions of Afghanistan so that the Afghan people might enjoy self-determination, education, health and the peaceful realisation of their hopes and dreams."

Gen McNeill has been based in Afghanistan before, and will take on the Isaf mission of bringing security and development, and helping win over the people for the Afghan government, our correspondent says.

He says there has been some criticism from US quarters of the British policy of making peace deals with local elders. The new commander is expected to have more troops available to him than Gen Richards could call upon.

But there is an uncertainty as to whether Gen McNeill might take a more direct approach to the counter-insurgency but that is yet to be seen, our correspondent says.

Taliban commander killed in Afghanistan

The Associated Press - Sunday, February 4, 2007

KABUL - As the United States took command of NATO-led troops in Afghanistan, a precision strike Sunday killed a key Taliban commander near a southern Afghan town overrun by militants.

A spokesman for the alliance, Colonel Tom Collins, said that the strike near the town of Musa Qala killed a "high-level Taliban leader" and was conducted in "full coordination with the government." He did not identify the suspected leader.

Musa Qala, the town where a peace deal between village elders and government was in place since last October, was overrun Thursday by Taliban fighters who disarmed local police officers, ransacked the district center and hoisted their trademark white flag.

The United States, which has just doubled its combat troops in Afghanistan, took over command of the 33,000- strong NATO force amid warnings of a bloody spring offensive by the Taliban.

The force's departing commander, the British general David Richards, who in his nine months in charge saw his force grow from 9,000 and push into the Taliban heartland in the south for the first time, said 2006 had been a crunch year for the rebels and they had failed.

"Because last year they really did see that they had an opportunity to defeat NATO," Richards said Saturday. "As I've said, we foiled that attempt and much more."

"The Taliban do talk about a spring offensive. I won't use that term, because all they offer is more death, destruction and despair, against the vision of hope and growing prosperity of the government and the international community."

Last year was the bloodiest since U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban in 2001 after the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.

More than 4,000 people, a quarter of them civilians and 170 foreign soldiers, died, mainly in fighting in the south and east, bordering Pakistan, where the Taliban and other militants have havens and training grounds.

Late last month, the United States extended the tours of duty of some of its soldiers, effectively raising troop levels by 2,500 for the next few months, which the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Ronald Neumann, said was almost a doubling of combat forces on the ground.

Washington has been pressing its allies for more troops, and for an end to restrictions some countries impose on how and where their soldiers can fight.

But so far only Britain and Poland have committed more men and women and France is pulling its special forces out.

The extra U.S. troops will help provide a rapid reaction force that Richards and other commanders constantly pushed for but were never given.

The Taliban warned last month that 2007 would be "the bloodiest year for foreign troops" and said they had 2,000 suicide bombers ready for a spring offensive when the winter snows melt in the next few months.

Last year saw a massive jump in suicide bombings, previously almost unheard of here, as militants copied tactics from Iraq.

Analysts warned that there were still not enough troops in Afghanistan. They said that attention had been distracted by Iraq and that this would be the decisive year for the battle here.

"From the beginning, the United States did not put sufficient forces in Afghanistan in order to prevent a counterinsurgency from resurging," said Sean Kay, an international security expert and professor of international relations at Ohio Wesleyan University.

"NATO continues to suffer from this — there are simply not enough troops to carry on a successful counterinsurgency campaign in the south.

"As the Taliban get further entrenched, the public there gets further drawn into their grip.

"And when we don't have enough troops to accomplish the mission, those that are taking risks do not have adequate reinforcements other than heavy air power, which when applied doesn't exactly fit into a successful hearts-and- minds strategy."

Setback for general who put his faith in tribal peace deals

Telegraph.co: 04/02/2007 - General David Richards, the British commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, faced a major setback to one of his pet projects yesterday on the eve of handing over to an American general.

In his nine months as commander, the general championed the British policy of supporting peace deals with the Taliban conducted by tribal elders so that the guns could fall silent and reconstruction get underway.

The fall of Musa Qala may well herald the early start of a spring offensive by the Taliban to pre-empt the desperately-needed Nato reinforcements now arriving in southern Afghanistan.

Gen Richards said this week he was confident Nato could meet the challenge. "I have banned talk of a Taliban offensive," he told The Daily Telegraph before the fall of Musa Qala.

"They will certainly give it a go this spring but what I talk of is a Nato campaign because a campaign brings reconstruction, development, improvement of governance and better relations with Pakistan - all within the cloak of more security. "

His legacy remains controversial both in Afghanistan and Nato countries. But even his critics acknowledge that he had a tough assignment with an undermanned and under-equipped force, a lack of international commitment and having to deal with generals around the world as well as warlords in Afghanistan.

Last year, Nato beat back Taliban offensives with only 80 per cent of the troops that were needed, few helicopters and no strategic reserves. Ironically, Gen Richards's diplomatic efforts to bring in more troops is now working just as he leaves.

"My successor will have another 5,000 troops - three crack US battalions of the 82 Airborne Division, 1,000 Poles and more Brits," he said. There are presently 32,000 Nato troops in Afghanistan, while another 10,500 US troops operate under a separate command.

A mobile reserve force of 1,000 US troops - something that Gen Richards has pleaded for but never received - "is now kitting out in Kandahar," he said.

The Afghan army has 40,000 trained troops who are set to receive new equipment in the next two years when its strength will increase to 70,000. "We can hold the ring and more in 2007 and by the end of the year things could be looking very good," said Gen Richards.

Critics, including President Hamid Karzai and senior US officials, have accused Gen Richards of being too soft - towards Pakistan which has allowed Taliban infiltration into Afghanistan; towards European members of Nato who have refused to drop the restrictive caveats their troops operate under and even towards the Taliban due to the deals in Musa Qala.

Gen Richards defended his record. "The Taliban failed to achieve a single one of their military objectives in 2006 - the defeat of Nato, seizing Kandahar, kicking the Brits out of Helmand or a reign of terror in Kabul," he said.

His peace deal with the Taliban has been lacerated by US officials and his replacement, the American Gen Dan McNeill, who starts work tomorrow, is expected to reject all such deals in the future.

Afghanistan Ready for Talks with Pakistan: Spanta

By Raza Mumtaz 'Pakistan Times' Executive Editor/UK Bureau Chief

LONDON (UK): Afghanistan Foreign Minister Dr.Rangeen Dadfar Spanta said here on Friday that his country was ready for talks with Pakistan on all the outstanding issues facing the two countries.

Speaking at a news conference at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, he said it was in the interest of both the countries to see a stable Afghanistan." If there is stability in Afghanistan, the whole region will be peaceful and prosper and develop as well."

Dr.Spanta said the trade relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan have grown manifold since the ouster of Taliban government.

The volume of trade between the two neighbouring countries now stood at US $ 1.3 billion compared with mere US $ 23 million when the Taliban were in power, he said.

He opposed the mining of the border areas with Pakistan and termed it as "practically impossible and financially not feasible" given the long border between the two countries.

The Afghan Foreign Minister expressed hope that Afghan refugees living in Pakistan and Iran would eventually return home. He said some 4.5 million Afghan refugees were living in these countries and to bring all of them home require huge financial cost.

He noted that the international community has already committed funds to enable these Afghan refugees to return home and was hopeful that all the displaced persons would come back to their homeland in due course of time.

Responding to a question, he said Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline was still a live issue and they were waiting for the appointment of new Turkmenistan leader to succeed late President Saparmurat Niyazov for resuming further discussion on it.

The Afghan Foreign Minister, in UK for the past two days to hold bilateral discussion with the British officials, also opposed nuclearisation of the region.

Responding to another question, he said Afghan government was ready to give amnesty to those political groups who accept the Afghan constitution and abide by the laws of the country.

Islamabad warned against nursing hegemonic ambitious towards Afghanistan

London, Feb 3 (ANI): Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta has warned Pakistan against 'nursing hegemonic ambitious towards Afghanistan', and advised it to stop "using terrorism as an instrument of foreign policy".

Some circles in Pakistan in their self-interest were out to destabilize Afghanistan "because they subscribe to a hegemonic policy against us which is a continuation from the days of Taliban," the Dawn quoted him as saying.

Spanta, who here on his first visit to the UK, asked Pakistan to reduce and control what he termed as cross-border terrorism and to stop financing terrorist cells which (according to him) were being used to train the terrorists.

He said that Afghanistan had been discussing with Pakistan about this matter to remove all the misunderstandings and misperceptions. "We want to be friend of Pakistan, we are ready to open all our roads. Today our bilateral trade has reached over a billion dollars whereas during the Taliban days it was only 23 million dollars," he added.

He further said that a peaceful and stable Afghanistan was in the interest of Pakistan and the region, but warned once again that "there is no chance of Afghanistan accepting the hegemony of another country." (ANI)

Afghani FM: Rogue Pakistani agents boosting Taliban

Rogue elements of Pakistan's military intelligence service, the ISI, have reequipped the Taliban and are seeking to destabilize Afghanistan, the country's foreign minister claimed Friday.

While on a two-day visit to London, Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta told the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) that "within Pakistan's military intelligence establishment there is a very powerful circle who are seeking a protracted Afghanistan, not an independent Afghanistan."

Unless these "elements" within the ISI are stopped it will be "impossible to succeed in the stabilization of Afghanistan," Spanta said.

In a press conference at the Foreign Office in London, the Afghan foreign minister argued that peace was in the interests of both nations. "If there is stability in Afghanistan, the whole region will be peaceful and prosper and develop as well," he said.

Spanta said his government was ready to offer an amnesty to all those who would accept the Afghan constitution and abide by the rule of law. However, "in order to establish and sustain cordial" relations between the two nations, Afghanistan's national sovereignty must be respected.

The "Taliban's sudden collapse" in 2001 had led to an "excessive optimism" that did not match the "reality on the ground," he noted. Driven from the field of battle, the Taliban had regrouped "in their safe sanctuaries outside Afghanistan," he said.

"Those who created the Taliban in the first place took full advantage of our excessive optimism and conflicting priorities by reenergizing the Taliban. In our backyard, for almost two years, the Taliban were given new training, equipment and structure. Therefore, their sudden apprehension was not spontaneous, but it was well planned and forthcoming," the foreign minister said.

Pakistan has repeatedly denied any link between the ISI and the Taliban in recent years. In a November 18 interview with the German magazine Focus, Pakistan's president General Pervez Musharraf stated such claims were baseless.

Pakistan is not a "banana republic" and its army is "well organized and loyal" to the government, he said.

While Pakistani Pathan tribesmen may have been supporting the Taliban and other opponents of the Karzai regime, allegations that the ISI were involved were "baseless and incorrect," Musharraf said. (Jerusalem Post)

Bomber kills Pakistani soldiers – BBC

Two Pakistani soldiers have been killed in a suicide car bomb attack in the north-west of the country, police say. The bomber rammed a military convoy on a road near Tank, about 50km (30 miles) west of the city of Dera Ismail Khan, near the Afghan border.

The convoy was reported to have been heading for the restive tribal area of South Waziristan. North and South Waziristan are believed to be strongholds of pro-Taleban and al-Qaeda militants.

Six soldiers were wounded in the attack, police said. A Reuters journalist at the scene said the bomber's car had been totally destroyed by the force of the blast. No-one has admitted carrying out the attack.

Controversial peace deals have been reached with pro-Taleban militants in the area, but last week the air force bombed a suspected militant camp in South Waziristan, which is thought to have killed about 20 people.

AFGHANISTAN: Grave concern over impunity plans for war lords

04 Feb 2007 - Source: IRIN - Reuters and AlertNet are not responsible for the content of this article or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author's alone.

KABUL , 4 February (IRIN) - The United Nations and a leading human rights group in Afghanistan have expressed concern over a draft law that seeks to grant impunity to Afghans accused of committing war crimes during 25 years of conflict in the country.

On 31 January, the 249-seat lower house (Wolesi Jirga) of Afghanistan's National Assembly approved and voted in favour of a draft law granting impunity to all those who committed war crimes during the Soviet occupation, from 1979 to 1989; the civil war that followed until 1996; and during the Taliban rule until late 2001. Some members of the lower house said that the motion would boost reconciliation in Afghanistan.

The bill also calls on opposition groups such as Hezb-e-Islami of Gul Buddin Hekmatyar and the Taliban, who are waging a deadly insurgency against the government, to join the peace process.

The draft bill still needs to be endorsed by the 102-member upper house (Meshrano Jirga) of parliament and then signed by President Hamid Karzai before it is enforced as law.

"In order to bring reconciliation among various strata in the society, all those political and belligerent sides who were involved one way or the other during the two and half decades of war will not be prosecuted legally and judicially," the motion passed by the lower house says.

Some analysts say the bill was passed by the lower house of parliament because warlords and ex-communist officials are the majority in it. Rights groups say, if accepted, it will excuse war criminals involved in nearly 30 years of conflict which have cost the lives of more than 1 million Afghans and forced millions of others to leave the country.

"Only victims and the people of Afghanistan, who suffered decades of war and human rights violations, can make the decision about giving amnesty to war criminals in our country," Ahmad Nader Nadery, spokesman of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), told IRIN in Kabul.

"AIHRC welcomes efforts for promoting reconciliation, but at the same time we believe granting blanket amnesty will only permit impunity in our country," Nadery said.

In a statement issued on 1 February, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) agreed with the concerns expressed by rights groups.

"For any process of national reconciliation to succeed, the suffering of victims must be acknowledged and impunity tackled. No one has the right to forgive those responsible for human rights violations other than the victims themselves," the statement read.

It added that the proper implementation of the Action Plan on Peace, Reconciliation and Justice - a three-year plan launched by President Karzai in December last year - was essential for addressing post-war justice in Afghanistan.

The plan contains five key elements: acknowledgment of the suffering of the Afghan people; strengthening state institutions; finding out the truth about the country's bloody past; promoting reconciliation; and establishing a proper accountability mechanism.

In implementing this plan, the Afghan people have the full backing of their international partners, including the UN, the UNAMA statement said.

Some government officials supported the new bill. "All Afghans, including those who are currently fighting against the government, can join the reconciliation process," Khalid Farooqi, an MP from the south-eastern Paktika province, said.

Others spoke out against it. Shukaria Barakzai, a leading women's rights activist and member of the lower house, said the bill contradicted the current constitution of Afghanistan. "It was only a clear attempt by warlords to bury their atrocities and crimes," Barakzai, who protested against the bill, said.

"According to our constitution, everyone has equal rights. It is not the responsibility of parliament to make such decisions about war crimes but it is only the duty of our judiciary," she added.

In a December 2006 report, the New York-based NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) said President Karzai and his international backers failed to address post-war crimes in Afghanistan. It said several high-ranking officials of the current Afghan government had been implicated in war crimes during the factional war in the early 1990s in Kabul.

HRW listed parliamentarians Abdul Rabb Rasul Sayyaf, Mohammed Qasim Fahim and Burhanuddin Rabbani, Minister of Energy Ismail Khan, Army Chief of Staff Abdul Rashid Dostum, and current Vice President Karim Khalili as major human rights violators.

Afghan jirga invited to discuss peace options - Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Jirga Commission (PJC) on Saturday decided to invite the Regional Peace Jirga Preparatory Commission of Afghanistan this month to discuss options to stabilise Afghanistan and restore peace in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

The PJC met here with Interior Minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao in the chair. It decided to invite Pir Syed Ahmad Gillani, the chairman of the Afghan jirga commission, to Islamabad and work out modalities for the holding of Pak-Afghan jirgas on both sides of the border to stabilise the region.

The commission resolved to move forward on a peace initiative introduced by President Pervez Musharraf during his visit to Kabul on September 6, 2006. It said the peace initiative would help fight off violence and militancy in the region. It agreed that a peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan was in the interests of Pakistan and the region. The commission decided to hold meetings frequently to remove hurdles in achieving peace and normalcy in Afghanistan.

NWFP Governor Lt Gen (r) Ali Jan Orakzai, Balochistan Governor Owais Ahmed Ghani, Dr Syed Ghazi Gulab Jamal, minister for culture, and Sardar Yar Muhammad Rind, minister of state for frontier regions, attended the meeting.

EDITORIAL: Thus spake General Musharraf – Daily Times editorial (Pakistan)

On Friday, General Pervez Musharraf addressed a press conference and spoke extensively on Afghanistan, the Taliban and Al Qaeda threat, Pakistan’s role in the war on terror and the responsibilities of the international community to streamline Afghanistan. His defence of what Pakistan is doing, why and how the other players, regional and international, are falling short of their commitment, came on the heels of several developments. These included a visit to Pakistan by four top NATO commanders, a series of allegations in the western media that Pakistan is helping the Taliban, TV grabs shown by Kabul authorities of alleged Pakistani Taliban confessing that Pakistan’s intelligence agencies were sponsoring their activities, and remarks by US National Intelligence Director Chief John Negroponte that Al Qaeda has found a solid hideout in Pakistan for its operations in the region and beyond.

While General Musharraf did not name anyone, especially the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, who has been vociferous in his condemnation of Pakistan lately, his tone was firm and, at times, even aggressive. He called the allegation that the Pakistan government or the ISI may be helping the Taliban, “preposterous”. General Musharraf said that while some tactical mistakes may have been made, the government was very clear about the overall strategy of using a combination of force and peace deals to tackle the Taliban threat and neutralise them. He also detailed the various measures taken by Pakistan to thwart cross-border movement, including deployment of troops in the tribal areas, patrolling, use of human intelligence, and the decision to fence parts of the border. He wanted to know if troops on the other side were taking equally effective measures and responded by saying that they were not. “If our intelligence has failed, and we primarily use human intelligence, then they have also failed despite relying on aerial and other technical means to collect intelligence,” he said.

He also criticised stories that the Taliban were operating from camps near Quetta and some other parts of Balochistan and said that Pakistan had been asking the international community to do something about these camps and the refugees but no one had paid any heed to it. “What should we do: throw them out, barb-wire the camps. What is the solution?”

The thrust of General Musharraf’s briefing was simple: we have been doing what all we can but winning this war is not just Pakistan’s responsibility; it’s the responsibility of the international community. Nothing that we do makes the international community happy. When we try to float the idea of fencing, voices are raised against that measure also. We are not the perpetrators but victims of terror and we are alive to the danger of Talibanisation. We have lost more than 700 troops so far in the tribal area.

On many counts General Musharraf is right. NATO’s commitment to combat in Afghanistan has been severely lacking. This was clear at the Riga summit last year. France and Germany are still reluctant to commit troops to combat zones for a number of reasons and want the United States to present a timetable for withdrawal. The US itself, since the Iraq misadventure, has lacked the firm commitment with which it began the operation in Afghanistan. The mayhem in Iraq has not only tied up US troops in that region, it has also created opportunities for insurgents in that country and in Afghanistan to link up and share human and other resources. NATO military commanders have conceded that the Taliban in Afghanistan are using offensive techniques employed by militants in Iraq.

This linkage has obviously increased the capacity of the Taliban-Al Qaeda elements in Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan to make mischief. Pakistan’s operations in the tribal area have been conducted in the teeth of opposition from diverse political elements. General Musharraf himself has been the target of assassination attempts. Also true is the fact that Pakistan cannot allow the war within the tribal areas to degenerate into a civil war. Hence the compulsion of the peace deals.

Unfortunately, these peace deals have been made from a position of weakness and therefore it is difficult to put the Taliban down. But it is also true that the insurgency has now taken on the character of a Pashtun nationalist movement. That has happened, as analysts have pointed out, because Kabul has been unable to deliver on the promises of reconstruction and rehabilitation. Corruption within the Karzai government and the influence of the drug lords are two other factors Kabul has failed to address effectively. The other day the Wolesi Jirga, Afghanistan’s lower house, passed a non-binding resolution granting amnesty to all jihadi commanders. The move clearly shows the internal fault-lines and the pressures on the Karzai government. In this backdrop Mr Karzai has chosen to attack Pakistan. But the problem with his allegations is that Pakistan has never denied that people from its side are not crossing over into Afghanistan. Islamabad’s position is that because Kabul does not have effective control of its territory, the Taliban can link up with sympathisers east of the Durand Line and make trouble for both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The way out of this is to stop the blame-game, as General Musharraf pointed out and cooperate on all sides to fight the problem. Kabul must not object to select fencing because it will help curb the unpalatable cross-border flow. Similarly, joint monitoring of the border and more effective control west of the Line is required. Intelligence, we presume, is already being shared. There is also need to look at the trouble in broader terms. The US cannot subtract Afghanistan from its strategic reset in the Middle East and its policy on Iran. If Iran is attacked, it would be utterly naïve to think that Afghanistan could still be streamlined — or that chaos in one part of the region will not have a deadly impact on other parts of it.

Internally, of course, General Musharraf needs to ensure that elements that still might harbour the old mindset are continuously identified and weeded. He may also want to use secular Pashtun elements within the NWFP to reclaim the space from religious parties. Moreover, reverting to the old system in the tribal areas may not guarantee success. The FATA reforms package, gathering dust, needs to be brought out. Opening up may after all have a salutary effect on the situation. The problem has to be tackled at multiple fronts and from the short- to the medium- and the long-term.

Afghan security better thanks to RCMP

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Afghan National Police are making progress towards standing on their own two feet, despite a recent series of ambushes and targeted assassinations of officers in Kandahar province, say RCMP trainers.

Over the last few weeks, more than a dozen police have been killed in at least three separate attacks in which Taliban militants have claimed responsibility.

The death toll might have been higher had it not been for the training provided by Canadian police based at the provincial reconstruction team (PRT) base.

"We try as best we can to improve their survivability by teaching the in-service skills we do here," said Supt. Dave Fudge, whose unit has spent over a year mentoring local cops.

"I think we are progressing. The sentiment on the street is the security situation in Kandahar is improving. That's very positive."

Fudge said he's seeing a more disciplined force emerging, especially when it comes to handling roadside bomb attacks, but noted they still have a long way to go.

DISPATCHES FROM AFGHANISTAN

For the first time in recent history, the women of Afghanistan's military are growing in numbers, and advancing in their roles as practical military soldiers. As Tim King reports, the women of Afghanistan are also gaining status and acceptance.

(KABUL, Afghanistan) - Under Taliban rule in Afghanistan, men abused women in the streets for simple infractions like not wearing a burka. But there is no doubt that women here today are making advances.

Afghan women armed with the AK-47 assault rifle conducted their first live firing exercise this week. This historic occasion marks true progress in the Afghanistan woman's struggle to gain equality.

American women have had their own challenges in gaining equality, and the operation speaks wonders to people like U.S. Army Lt. Amanda Straub, and other Americans like Navy Lt. Janet Arencibia, who say those who understand the significance of this progress find it emotional.

One distinguished soldier, the Afghanistan Army's only female general, says her female soldiers view their military service as a lifetime commitment.

The truth is, many of the women present on the firing range lost a great deal over the last twenty-five years, losses including husbands and sons.

Attesting to the desire to build gender equality, Major Mohammad Shappor of the Afghan National Army says their evolving culture embraces the change and growth of women in military service.

For their first time firing the AK, these women performed well at the 100 meter target. Many placed rounds in the man-sized target, and all say it was a good first experience with live fire.

Taliban campaign targets girls' schools

By Massoud Ansari in Dara Adamkhel and Gethin Chamberlain, Sunday Telegraph - 04/02/2007

The notice pinned to the board outside the Mohammed Hussain Maila girls' school in Dara Adamkhel was uncompromising: "We have decided to bomb the school building. If any of the students shows up and dies as a result, she will be responsible for her own death."

It was a warning the young pupils at the school in Pakistan's North-West Frontier knew should be taken seriously. Four other schools in the lawless tribal region area had already been bombed. Within a matter of days, half of the 506 pupils at the school had been withdrawn.

Across the border in Afghanistan, the Taliban's antipathy towards the education of girls is well-documented, and has led to the murders of at least 61 teachers in the past 18 months and the razing of 183 schools. But now hard-line Islamists in Pakistan - known as local Taliban - have launched their own campaign against girls' schools, claiming the pupils are being "westernised".

Parents have been warned to keep their daughters home and drivers who transport pupils to schools have been threatened with dire consequences unless they desist.

"We always wanted our daughter to acquire education, but we are scared," said Baaz Khan, a businessman, who took his 11-year-old daughter from the school.

"It is really awful not to educate our daughters, who have the challenges of the modern world ahead of them, but for me and my friends, the very thought of having to carry the dead bodies of our young daughters out of the wreckage of a bombed school is equally unnerving."

Lateef Afridi, a former member of the national assembly, said that with only 1 per cent of the women in the frontier region receiving an education, the future was gloomy.

"If the situation prevails and people are forced to keep their daughters uneducated, the future is certainly bleak and we are all doomed," he said.

Other schools in Dara Adamkhel, a town of 100,000 people about 40 miles south of Peshawar, have suffered the same fate and some are contemplating closure.

People in the town say militants have taken a cue from Waziristan, the tribal region bordering Afghanistan, where most of the girls' schools - including 180 community schools for girls set up with the assistance of the Norwegian government - have been closed.

There has also been an increase in militant activity in the past year . Barbers have been told not to shave off beards, music and video shops selling Hollywood and Bollywood movies have been bombed, and slogans have appeared on walls urging support for the militants. "Martyrdom is a shortcut to heaven!" one reads. "Rise! Rise, you who yearn for heaven," says another.

The campaign is frustrating attempts by the Pakistan government to win over the population of the tribal areas. "They are going back to the dark ages," said one senior American diplomat in Islamabad. "Schools are being built in the tribal areas but they kill the teachers and assassinate tribal leaders and people who criticise them."

The diplomat said the government of Pakistan was struggling to maintain order. "There is a big contest for the hearts and minds of the local people," the diplomat said. "Give the government credit - it is trying to bring back law and order by empowering the tribal leaders, but Pakistan law is not in effect in the tribal areas."

In November, two people were killed as they tried to plant a bomb at a girls' school in Sheraki, but three other school buildings in Pirwal, Sunikhel and in Haji Noor Ali Kili were all badly damaged in attacks. At least eight people were injured when a bomb exploded at the al-Noor school during a workshop on health awareness run by the UK-based charity, Response International.

Notices have also been posted around the town warning people not to co-operate with international organisations, including the World Bank and the Red Cross.

A decree issued last week by Mufti Khalid Shah, a religious leader, said: "All these NGOs are working on the agenda of Zionists; it is a duty of every Muslim to destroy their offices, attack their vehicles and to kill its members."

He added: "It is permissible to use weapons of mass destruction against these -infidels."

The Pashtun tribes of the area are traditionally independent-minded and many disagree with the edicts. But there is widespread fear about the threat posed by the militants, who appear highly organised and resourceful.

"We have got squads of fedayeen [suicide bombers] and if anyone tries to harm any of our members, these fedayeen would attack them from right, left and centre," one warning notice read.

Far from standing up to the militants, officials in the town appear to be toeing their line, ordering female teachers and students of government schools to wear the cover-all white burqa on their way to and from schools.

At a meeting with headmasters of the girls' schools last week, Kohat Abdul Ghafoor, a political official, said that the female teachers should replace their "fashionable black" burqa which does not cover the full face with the traditional white burqa.

Human rights activists have criticised the local authorities. "This approach of the political administration to the problem is quite amazing, showing their helplessness in which the female school teachers and students, even those as young as eight-years-old, are being threatened if they do not wear the burqa," said Imran Khan, of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

Afghan schools take on the Taliban

'Defense committees' have been formed to fend off the insurgents' attacks, which some fear will rise in the spring. By Laura King, LA Times Staff Writer - February 4, 2007

WACH TANGI, AFGHANISTAN — Even before the winter wind had scattered the ashes of their village school, the people of this poor hamlet in eastern Afghanistan decided they had to fight back.

On a bitterly cold night last month, suspected Taliban militants set fire to all five "classrooms," housed in canvas tents donated by a humanitarian agency. It was one of nearly 200 schools across the country burned in the last year by Islamic insurgents.

Four hundred more schools were closed by threats and intimidation, driving more than 130,000 students from their classrooms and dealing a harsh blow to massive international efforts to rebuild an education system ravaged during the years of Taliban rule.

Over the last three months, however, the rate of attacks has fallen dramatically, with fewer than half a dozen schools believed to have been targeted. Education officials attribute the decrease at least in part to a nationwide drive to create local "defense committees" for schools, enlisting the help of tribal elders, Islamic clerics and, in some cases, homegrown militias.

The people of Wach Tangi, which lies about 10 miles north of Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province, believed their village was too remote and their tent school too rudimentary to attract the notice of any Taliban militants in the area.

The road leading to the village of 1,800 people resembles a dry riverbed: winding, pitted and stone-strewn. So arid and forbidding is the landscape that in the Pashto language, Wach Tangi means "valley without water."

But on the night of Jan. 6, arsonists took the trouble to make the journey, and methodically set each tent ablaze. Villagers raised the alarm within moments, but it was too late. The classrooms vanished in a whoosh of flames that scorched the stone foundations and charred the metal support poles.

"We realized right away that we had made a big mistake by not doing more to protect ourselves, to protect our school," headmaster Wali Mohammed said.

A posse of village men took to the dry hills, trying unsuccessfully to track the arsonists. The next day, virtually all of Wach Tangi's families, even the poorest, agreed to chip in what they could to have armed men guard the school at night once it reopened.

Within two days, the village had organized a protection committee made up of its most influential citizens, charged with the task of keeping the school, its pupils and its teachers safe.

The school is up and running again, in UNICEF-donated tents. Students still have the schoolbooks that were home with them when the old school was burned, and more are on the way from donors.

But the fire remains fresh in everyone's mind.

"Those who did this to our school are enemies of our country," said Abdul Wahed, a white-bearded tribal elder. "We won't allow this to happen to us or to our children."

Afghanistan's Education Ministry has encouraged grass-roots school-protection initiatives in recent months, even though the central government has no money to fund them. There are no reliable figures, but the ministry believes more than half the country's 9,000 schools are under some form of locally organized protection, whose effectiveness remains to be seen.

"There just aren't enough police to watch over every school in the country," said Zuhoor Afghan, a ministry spokesman. "But the local people know their own towns and villages best. They know who is a stranger; they know who has business there and who does not."

Villagers are aware that their vigilante methods could cost them their lives. The Taliban, whose name means "students," see Western-style education as a threat to their concept of a pure Islamic state. Their followers regard modern education as a force for Western colonialism.

Wahed, the elder in Wach Tangi, said he did not know what would have happened if villagers had caught up with armed men on the night of the fire.

"We had only a few old guns," he said with a shrug. "But we would have done our best against them."

Likewise, the night watchmen hired by the village are equipped only with handguns, little match for the automatic rifles carried by Taliban fighters.

Still, the villagers believe their newfound watchfulness will be a deterrent. And the school-protection committee members are trying, each in his own way, to help stave off attacks.

The mullah on the committee has been using mosque sermons to emphasize that nothing in the Koran forbids girls from receiving an education, as they do in Wach Tangi, where about half the nearly 500 pupils are girls. Boys study in the morning and girls in the afternoon.

One of the tribal chieftains on the committee is calling in favors from kinsmen nearby, asking them to keep their ears open for word of any threat. Another committee member has lobbied the police to mount more frequent patrols, winning a sympathetic hearing from a commander who grew up in the area.

Many of those associated with the school remain deeply fearful. Teacher Gul Anar said that after the fire, she considered abandoning her work. Dozens of teachers have been killed in Afghanistan, and she was afraid of becoming a victim too.

"I was terrified," she said. "And losing our school was such a very sad moment. But then I thought of my students, how eager they are to learn, and I decided I must continue."

Some educators believe that the recent lull in school burnings and other attacks is only partly due to the establishment of protection committees. Violence traditionally decreases during the coldest months, and they think the insurgents will become more active again during the spring.

Other school officials believe that the Taliban, after initially underestimating the strength of the country's education ethic, may have discerned that the school-burning campaign was backfiring.

"People hated it during the time of the Taliban, when their daughters could not study and when nothing was taught in the schools but theology," said Mohammed, the Wach Tangi headmaster. "Attacking schools is not going to make them popular again. Even they can see that."

In what may have been a concession to that sentiment, a Taliban spokesman in the country's south announced last month that the movement would begin opening schools of its own, at which girls "eventually" would be welcome.

Educators and Western military officials scoffed at the notion. "What's the curriculum going to be — suicide bombings?" asked Mark Laity, the chief spokesman in Afghanistan for NATO.

"We don't believe for a moment that education is a genuine goal of these people…. They don't want Afghanistan to have a functioning government or civil society."

"It's only a ruse," said Afghan, of the Education Ministry. "If they did open schools, they wouldn't teach anything but religion — no mathematics, no language, no history."

In the classroom tents of Wach Tangi, teachers said, they still had not been able to adequately explain to their pupils why their school had been a target.

"After the fire, they asked me over and over again, 'Why? Who would do this?' " said teacher Shoiabullah, who uses one name. "We didn't have a real answer for them. We said only that we would try our best to keep it from happening again."

[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.]