In this bulletin:

• 8 U.S. troops die in Afghan copter crash
• Militant mob kills worshippers in eastern Afghanistan
• Al-Qaida Releases Video of Afghan Attack
• Afghan revolt becoming "liberation war": NWFP Governor
• NATO success in Afghan war down to intelligence
• NATO troops mistakenly shoot dead an Afghan man
• NATO south Afghan mission has enough troops -Canada
• Dutch-Australian unit in Afghan region virtually surrounded by Taliban: mullah
• UN-Afghan Over 2 million Afghan refugees registered in Pakistan:UN
• Pakistan: Friend or Foe?
• The Afghan crucible
• Afghan relief efforts neglect Kandahar hospital, paramedic says
• 34m saplings to be planted this year
• Govt asked to put off privatisation process
• Foundation of township laid in Kabul
• Afghanistan's proxy war

8 U.S. troops die in Afghan copter crash

By NOOR KHAN Associated Press Writer

SHAHJOI, Afghanistan — After radioing in an unexplained loss of power and engine failure, a military helicopter crashed early Sunday in southeastern Afghanistan, killing eight U.S. service members. Fourteen survived with injuries.

Officials immediately ruled out enemy fire as a cause of the crash, which left charred wreckage of the twin-rotor Chinook scattered on a dusty, open plain in Zabul province, just 50 yards from the main Kabul-Kandahar highway.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility for any attack on the chopper, which went down under overcast skies in a region where Taliban militants are active.

It was the deadliest single incident this year for the 47,000 U.S.-led coalition and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

The helicopter was carrying 22 U.S. service members when it had a "sudden, unexplained loss of power and control and crashed," U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. David Accetta told The Associated Press, adding the cause would be investigated.

"It was not enemy-fire related," said Col. Tom Collins, spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force. "The pilot was able to radio in that he was having engine problems. We're confident it was not due to enemy action."

Seven U.S. Humvees and three Afghan military vehicles parked around the crash site. About 35 American soldiers and 15 Afghan army soldiers blocked reporters from entering the area. Afghan troops searched every passing vehicle and their passengers.

Zabul provincial Gov. Dilber Jan Arman said it was possible that the helicopter crash was due to bad weather.

The military relies heavily on helicopters for transport and operations because of Afghanistan's forbidding terrain and lack of passable roads. Dust and high altitude of Afghan's mountains take a heavy toll on helicopter engines.

A U.S. military statement said details of the crash or the helicopter's mission would not be released until "completion of recovery operations."

Thousands of U.S. forces are deployed in southeastern Afghanistan, including in Zabul, where they have a base under NATO command.

The province has long been a hotbed for militant supporters of the former Taliban regime who have stepped up attacks over the past year.

In May 2006, another U.S. CH-47 Chinook crashed attempting a nighttime landing on a small mountaintop in eastern Kunar province, killing 10 U.S. soldiers.

In 2005, a U.S. helicopter crashed in Kunar, after apparently being hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, killing 16 American troops.

Another crash of a civilian helicopter last year in southeastern Khost province killed up to 16 people, including the wife and two daughters of a U.S. civilian worker.

Meanwhile, NATO reported its forces had shot dead two Afghan civilians whom they mistook as suicide bombers in separate incidents.

A man who "appeared to be chanting and refused to heed warnings to stop" was shot dead as he crossed a road Saturday about seven miles west of Kandahar city, the alliance said in a statement.

Troops thought he was carrying a device with protruding wires. They later found that "he had twine, straps and other materials protruding from his jacket, which resembled wires, but there were no explosives," it said.

NATO-led troops also shot to death another Afghan man on Saturday believed to be a suicide bomber as he ran between vehicles of a military convoy stopped near Kandahar's military airfield.

President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly called on U.S. and NATO-led troops to exercise extreme caution to prevent civilian casualties. Dozens of civilian deaths during operations by foreign troops have undermined his authority among Afghans.

Afghan troops, meanwhile, detained 11 suspected militants Saturday at a checkpoint in Sangin district of the volatile neighboring province, Helmand, said Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi.

The men were traveling in two trucks and were carrying mortar tubes when they were stopped, Azimi said Sunday.

In an operation that ended early Sunday, British and Afghan troops attacked a major Taliban headquarters south of Garmsir in Helmand, destroying three major compounds and a tunnel complex linking them, according to an ISAF statement.

There were no British or Afghan casualties. It was not immediately clear if any Taliban were killed or arrested in the operation.

Southern Afghanistan is the center of the growing Taliban insurgency as well as the world's biggest opium poppy-producing area.

Meanwhile, al-Qaida released a video showing a young man asking for forgiveness from family, friends and teachers before he purportedly carries out a suicide car bombing against foreign troops in Afghanistan.

The video also carries previously released comments from Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaida's No. 2 leader, as a train of armed men are shown walking through mountains and while an explosion hits a military vehicle on a turn in a road.

In the video, the man, who does not identify himself, asks his parents to pray for patience when they get word that he has been "martyred."

Last year, militant supporters of the resurgent Taliban stepped up attacks, targeting Afghan government and foreign security forces. According to the U.S. military, there were 139 suicide attacks during 2006, up from 27 in 2005.

Militant mob kills worshippers in eastern Afghanistan

AFP - KHOST - A mob of about 25 gunmen dragged five worshippers from a mosque in eastern Afghanistan and shot them, killing two, before later killing a policeman, a police chief said Sunday.

The gunmen, traveling by vehicle, attacked a police post in Paktia province late Saturday but fled after meeting "strong resistance," provincial police chief Abdul Rahman Sarjang said.

They escaped into a village where they were given refuge, he said, calling them "opponents of the government," which usually means Taliban insurgents.
"Later the armed men went into a mosque and took out five worshippers and shot them. Two of the five were killed and three were wounded," he said.

The assailants then moved on to a police post, attacking and wounding a policeman who later died. Police arrested villagers they suspected of giving the militants shelter. "The group of attackers was estimated at around 25 who possessed vehicles as well," Sarjang said.

The attack was similar to scores in recent years carried out by armed men linked to the extremist Taliban movement, which launched an insurgency after being removed from government in late 2001 by a US-led coalition.

Al-Qaida Releases Video of Afghan Attack

(AP)   Cairo - Al-Qaida posted a video Friday showing what it claimed to be an insurgent attack on U.S. and Afghan forces in Afghanistan, in an apparent attempt to disparage American claims of winning the war against the Taliban.

The video argues that the Afghan people support the insurgents and assist their attacks on U.S.-Afghan forces, and it comes as the United States and Britain deploy more troops to the country after the worst year of insurgency-related violence since the Taliban regime was overthrown in 2001.

The 24-minute video carries the logo of the al-Qaida media company, as-Sahab, and was posted on an Islamic Web site known for hosting extremist material. It was titled "Holocaust of the Americans in the land of Khorasan, the Islamic emirate: Capture of an American post, Arghandab." Khorasan refers to Afghanistan.

The tape begins with the deputy leader of al-Qaida, Ayman al-Zawahri, ridiculing President Bush's claim to have deprived al-Qaida of a safe haven in Afghanistan as a "barefaced lie."

Al-Zawahri, who speaks in Arabic with an English translation in subtitles, seems to be referring to Bush's speech on Jan. 10 when the president said that U.S. forces "took away al-Qaida's safe haven in Afghanistan _ and we will not allow them to re-establish it in Iraq."

With a narrator speaking in American-accented English, the tape shows video film of a purported attack on a military position in Arghandab, a district 100 miles northeast of the city of Kandahar.

The narrator, who sounds like the American al-Qaida member Adam Gadahn, claims that the position is "liberated" by the insurgents. The film does not show the insurgents capturing the target _ a compound of mud-plastered buildings in a valley _ during the nighttime battle. It only shows the insurgents walking through the compound in daylight.

"It is very likely that this base was voluntarily abandoned by coalition and Afghan forces, and that this (tape) is al-Qaida trying to capitalize on a coalition tactical retreat," said Evan Kohlman, an analyst at the U.S.-based globalterroralert.com.

The authenticity of the scenes shown could not be verified. When asked about the video, the district chief of Arghandab, Fazel Bari, told The Associated Press that the only recent clash in that area was last month when suspected Taliban militants ambushed a NATO and Afghan force on the road between Arghandab and Qalat.

Bari said the NATO and Afghan troops suffered no casualties, but they detained one man after the battle, which ended with the Taliban retreating. A NATO spokeswoman in Kabul called the video "pure propaganda."

The video "does not support any claim that it makes," said Lt. Col. Angela Billings, a spokeswoman for the NATO alliance in Kabul. "It seems to have been pulled together from a number of different events and disparate footage," Billings said, adding that the alliance has no record of such an incident in that area this month or last month.

The video was first obtained by IntelCenter, a U.S. group that tracks extremist messages. IntelCenter said the tape represented a "significant step up" in al-Qaida's video marketing. It was more than twice as long as previous operational videos, and it was distributed in two versions _ Arabic with English subtitles and another with an English voiceover.

An Afghan with a white beard and black turban tells the camera that local residents suffered under the foreign "devils." "No one could leave his house, not even for absolutions and prayers. We couldn't even light a lamp at night ... The people are very happy about the coming of the Taliban," he says.

Ali Mohammed Jan Aurakzai, the governor of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province which includes areas where many Taliban and al-Qaida militants fled after the 2001 war, claimed Friday that local populations are increasingly supporting the Taliban, frustrated by lack of influence in Kabul and insufficient economic aid.

"Today, they've reached the stage that a lot of the local population has started supporting the militant operations and it is developing into some sort of a nationalist movement, a resistance movement, sort of a liberation war against coalition forces," Aurakzai said at a news conference.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai and some U.S. military officials have suggested that Pakistani security forces are secretly aiding militants crossing into Afghanistan to mount attacks.

Pakistani Pervez Musharraf has rejected the charge as "preposterous," pointing to the deaths of hundreds of Pakistani soldiers in operations against militants on its side of the mountainous frontier.

Afghan revolt becoming "liberation war": NWFP Governor

Daily Times, Pakistan - 02/17/2007

PESHAWAR - Taliban-led insurgents are winning ever-greater public support in Afghanistan for a struggle that is taking on the character of a "liberation war" against foreign troops, NWFP Governor Ali Mohammed Jan Orakzai said on Friday.

He said cross-border attacks accounted for only a fraction of the insurgency in Afghanistan. The main reason for the Taliban?s return was the frustration of ethnic Pashtuns seeking more political say in Kabul and resentment of ongoing military operations and the lack of economic aid in the south and east of Afghanistan, he said. "Today, they've reached the stage that a lot of the local population has started supporting the militant operations and it is developing into some sort of a nationalist movement, a resistance movement, sort of a liberation war against coalition forces," Orakzai told a news conference.

Orakzai defended a September peace deal with pro-Taliban militants in North Waziristan. Pakistan-based militants may cause, at most, "20 percent of the problem in Afghanistan," he said. He forecast that militants would take years to defeat and the Kabul government and its foreign backers would one day have to negotiate with the Taliban. Orakzai said coalition forces in Afghanistan must match Pakistan?s commitment to preventing the cross-border infiltration.

NATO success in Afghan war down to intelligence

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CP) - Two senior Taliban field commanders have been vaporized in the sudden fiery clouds of precision air strikes in the last two weeks.

Other key insurgent leaders have been captured. Is it a stroke of good luck for NATO? Or is it a sign that the alliance is finally getting the upper hand in fighting the stubborn, secretive extremist movement that has long held southern Afghanistan in its grip? Since the middle of December, the alliance has targeted with growing accuracy hard-core Taliban leaders whose unshakable belief and brutal ways have played a big role in coercing others into the doing the fighting - and most of the dying - for them.

"I wouldn't attribute it to luck," Lt.-Col. Angela Billings, a spokeswoman for the alliance said of NATO's recent successes.

On Friday, Afghan security forces captured Taliban commander Mullah Duad Trabi in Khost. This follows the recent air strike deaths of Mullah Manan and Abdul Ghafour, both in the Musa Qala district of Helmand province.

In early January, senior Taliban spokesman Mohammed Hanif was captured trying to cross into eastern Afghanistan from Pakistan. A few weeks later, NATO claimed to have captured an unidentified senior militant who directed fighting against Canadian troops in Panjwaii last year.

"Certainly in the last few months we have taken opportunities to remove (hard-core) extremists," said Billings in an interview Friday from Kabul. "We targeted them to remove them from the picture so the (less committed) can join the reconciliation process."

But knowing the precise whereabouts of individual militants in the sprawling wasteland and mountain creases of Afghanistan requires more than table-top military strategy. It requires flesh and blood intelligence.

NATO commanders happily advertise that they're seeing increased co-operation among villagers who warn them whenever the Taliban are lurking. But that is a far cry from fingering potential leaders.

"I cannot get into specific, (but) we use a number of available sources to know the enemy better," said Billings. The effect of these meticulous strikes is two-fold.

It deprives the insurgency of key leadership, possibly blunting its ability to launch an anticipated spring offensive. The side benefit appears to be a round of finger-pointing among surviving militants suspecting there's a traitor in their ranks.

That element might have been set off by the Dec. 19, 2006, air strike that killed Mullah Akhtar Usmani and two of his deputies along the Pakistani border.

Usmani was the former Taliban foreign minister and the militant who personally vouched for the safety of supreme leader Mullah Omar and Osama Bin Laden. Usmani was also the insurgent military commander for the entire southern region.

The precision hit, and the assumption that somebody within militant ranks had betrayed him, reportedly set off a wave of recriminations within the Taliban, although such reports have been almost impossible track and verify.

Even people on the fringes of extremist ranks claim to have heard unconfirmed tales of infighting. "I have heard that Mullah Dadullah is involved in the case of Mullah Akhtar," said Mullah Naqib, the respected former mujahedeen commander and a former governor of Kandahar.

Dadullah, like Usmani, was a member of the Taliban ruling shura and considered one of the most blood-thirsty of militant commanders. Although he had no proof beyond the gossip circles of battle-hardened fighters, Naqib said many believe that Dadullah was responsible for the betrayal.

"Mullah Akhtar Usmani didn't like the leadership of Mullah Dadullah (and) that is one of the reasons that he killed him (with the help) of Americans last year," Naqib said in a recent interview with The Canadian Press conducted through a translator.

Naqib, a tribal elder who holds sway over the Arghandaub region north of Kandahar, is respected by Afghan President Hamid Karzai as well as the Taliban, to whom he surrendered the city of Kandahar in the early 1990s.

NATO troops mistakenly shoot dead an Afghan man

The Associated Press - Saturday, February 17, 2007

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - NATO-led troops mistakenly shot and killed an Afghan man in southern Afghanistan on Saturday, believing he was a suicide bomber, the alliance said in a statement.

The victim was shot as he ran between vehicles of a stopped military convoy near Kandahar's military airfield after troops believed he was a suicide bomber, the statement from NATO's International Security Assistance Force said.

"A gunner on one of the vehicles flashed a light at the individual after he kept moving toward the convoy, then fired warning shots," statement said. "When the individual failed to stop, ISAF forces fired upon him."

The wounded man was taken to a military hospital for treatment but later died of his wounds, the statement said. "ISAF deeply regrets this loss of life" said Lt. Col. Angela Billings, an alliance spokeswoman.

President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly called on U.S. and NATO-led troops to use maximum caution following the deaths of dozens of civilians during operations by foreign troops. These deaths undermine his authority among the people.

NATO south Afghan mission has enough troops -Canada

16 Feb 2007 17:07:32 GMT

OTTAWA, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Senior Canadian military officials, who have long complained there are not enough NATO troops in southern Afghanistan, said on Friday that alliance force levels in the region are now adequate.

Canada has 2,500 troops in the southern city of Kandahar and as recently as last October it said it could not maintain the mission without more support.

But the official tone changed sharply after President George W. Bush said on Thursday the United States would keep higher troop levels in Afghanistan ahead of an expected surge in Taliban attacks and called on NATO to commit more troops.

"The United States is putting in more forces, Britain is putting in more forces. We have sufficient force structure on the ground in the south at this moment to do the job that we have to do," said General Rick Hillier, chief of Canada's defense staff.

Canada complains that it and a handful of other nations bore the brunt of fighting with the Taliban last year while other NATO members stationed their troops in quieter parts of Afghanistan and restricted what they could do.

"Would we like to see more countries down there with us than the nine that are there? Of course we would," Hillier told reporters after speaking to a meeting of defense officials. "Right now we are in a much better position from NATO's perspective in my view now than we were a year ago."

Since sending troops to Afghanistan in 2002 as part of the U.S.-led war on terror, Canada has lost 44 soldiers and a diplomat -- most of them killed last year.

Canadian Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor told the meeting that "I think ... we'll be able to do our job in the south."

NATO says it expects the Taliban to mount increased attacks once the snows melt but Hillier said he doubts that militants would repeat last year's tactics of trying to engage Alliance forces en masse.

"We think we'll see a surge in Taliban operations ... We don't believe for example that they will ma

"They learned some painful lessons ... when they tried to do that. We think they'll concentrate on suicide bombers, vehicle bombers, IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and small ambushes, hit and run attacks."

Canada's Afghan mission is due to expire in February 2009 and Prime Minister Stephen Harper said on Friday that Ottawa would review its options closer to that date.

Dutch-Australian unit in Afghan region virtually surrounded by Taliban: mullah

MURRAY BREWSTER Saturday, February 17, 2007

TERIN KOWT, Afghanistan (CP) - As he asked God to bless a new trade school in a ruggedly beautiful, yet grindingly poor mountainous corner of southern Afghanistan, Mullah Maulwai Harmdullah tacked on a plea to NATO at the end of his prayer.

"We're surrounded by the Taliban," Harmdullah told an audience Saturday that included the military alliance's southern commander and two members of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's cabinet. "We need more security."

His appeal was echoed by the mayor of Terin Kowt, Mohammed Kabir, who added there needs to be more protection for schools, especially a girl's school, in the town, which is nestled in amid soaring, snow-capped peaks.

Both statements were polite rebukes of NATO's tip-toe approach to the Taliban in the sparsely populated province Oruzgan, north of Kandahar.

As further, not-so-subtle punctuation to their pleas, a U.S. Apache gunship circled overhead during the ceremony, conducting target practice outside the abundantly fortified base where the Afghan training school is located. The heavy drumbeat thud of the attack helicopter's Gatling gun was intermingled with the speeches.

One of the nine students at the school, which teaches rudimentary carpentry skills, said the town Tarin Kowt - known locally as TK - is largely safe but once out into the rural areas, militants are in charge.

"The other side of the river, there's a lot of difficulties there," said Najeebullha.

The approach in Oruzgan - spearheaded by the Dutch and the Australians - can best be decribed as war lite. The partners concentrate on winning the confidence of locals by keeping a low profile and never entering villages where they haven't been invited.


Unlike Canadians, Americans and British in provinces to the south of them, the Dutch and Australians have not aggressively patrolled far beyond the provincial capital or sought out extremists in the hinterland.

"I believe we're on the right track," said Maj.-Gen. Ton Van Loon, the Dutch commander, who also happens to be in charge of all NATO forces in southern Afghanistan.

He acknowledged the criticism Saturday but insisted the kinder, gentler approach to counter-insurgency warfare, which has thus far generated few casualties - either military or civilian - will work.

"I'm quite sure there are some areas in Oruzgan and also in other regions in the south and even in the east and west where we do not have full control, where the government does not have full control and that's what you need to work on," Van Loon said. "You have to start somewhere and this is where we've started."

Much like the controversial and now defunct ceasefire negotiated with the Taliban in Musa Qala, in the British zone of Helmand province, the experiment in Oruzgan has been criticized privately by other allies, principally the United States.

Van Loon insisted upon patience. "We are really making progress at the moment," he said. "Sometimes we are a bit too optimistic. You cannot expect Afghanistan - or Oruzgan to change in six months." "That's asking a bit too much."

The key to success lies in pouring on the reconstruction, he said, pointing to the practical benefit of training a new generation of carpenters and tradespeople.

The Australians, who are not members of NATO but contribute 400 engineers and soldiers to the mission nonetheless are also sold on the concept.

"We plant the seed in their heads to take on a saw instead of a rifle," Warrant Officer Second Class Greg Polson said of his carpentry students. "That's the choice we want to give them." Van Loon is confident once more young men are trained, their "story will be quick to spread."

But, Mullah Harmdullah warned if the Taliban learn the identities of the young men attending the month-long course, the students "would be slaughtered."

The men at the trade school are paid to attend. But the going rate of US$4 a day is three-times less than what the Taliban offers its new recruits.

UN-Afghan Over 2 million Afghan refugees registered in Pakistan:UN

UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 17 (APP): A four-month drive to officially register Afghan refugees residing in Pakistan ended Friday with more than 2 million of them registering with the Pakistani Government, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The data collected from this exercise will help UNHCR and the Governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan plan and manage the refugees who have fled decades of violence in their homeland, the Geneva-based agency said.

      The newly registered refugees, numbering 2,161,984, now hold Proof of Registration cards which are valid until the end of 2009 and recognize them as Afghan citizens temporarily living in Pakistan. Three out five registed were women and children under five years of age.

       Afghans without these cards, who are considered illegal migrants by the Pakistani Government, will have a six-week window between March 1 and April 15 to voluntarily return to their homeland with UNHCR’s assistance, the agency’s spokesperson, Ron Redmond told reporters in Geneva Friday, according to a press release issued at UN Heazdquarters in New York.

      UNHCR and the two governments agreed last week to the closure of four refugee camps in Pakistan, accommodating more than 230,000 Afghan refugees in total, primarily due to security concerns.

     New incentives for voluntary repatriation measures have also been announced, and Proof of Registration cardholders will receive an enhanced reintegration package of $60, double the amount distributed to those without cards, if they deregister them upon returning to Afghanistan. The two countries have agreed to pool resources to increase this package to $100.

      Displaced Afghans in Pakistan cite the scarcity of land and shelter as one of the top reasons why they cannot return home, according to a 2005 refugee survey. To this end, Afghanistan has launched several initiatives aimed at helping refugees returning home, including a land allocation scheme establishing 50 townships, with further plans to set up a total of 100 townships within three years.

Pakistan: Friend or Foe?

By Janet Levy - FrontPageMagazine.com | February 16, 2007

The resurgence of the Taliban, as well as cross border incursions of Al Qaeda terrorists into Afghanistan, has led to increased pressure, criticism and charges of complicity against Pakistan from Western leaders. The increase in terrorist activity has highlighted the failure of the Pakistani leadership to contain terrorism and dismantle its terrorist infrastructure, adding to the growing distrust of Islamabad as a true partner in the war against terror. Despite a pledge by Pakistan’s President, General Pervez Musharraf, to support U.S. efforts to extinguish terrorist groups, Islamabad is increasingly viewed as a partner to the resurgence of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Key to that view are various documents that indicate the extent of terrorist activity within Pakistan. An affidavit obtained during an FBI investigation of Hamid Hayat, an Islamic terrorist arrested in Lodi, California, in June, 2005, contains Hayat’s admission to FBI agents that he spent six months in an Al Qaeda training camp in Pakistan with hundreds of participants from around the world. According to an October 8, 2006 article in The Sunday Times, proof of Pakistan’s support of the Taliban was confirmed by American, NATO and Afghan intelligence, which obtained satellite photos and videos of training camps for Taliban soldiers and suicide bombers near Quetta.

Meanwhile, a recent report in the International Herald Tribune cited an interview with a Taliban commander who had been jailed by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency for his refusal to join the fight in Afghanistan. His arrest was falsely publicized as an example of Pakistan’s efforts to crackdown on the Taliban. The same report quoted former Pakistani government advisor, Husain Haqqani, who described the ruthless efficiency of the ISI in monitoring the communications and movements of Pakistanis. He disputed the possibility that a terrorist training camp could operate in Pakistan without ISI knowledge.

Other failures by Pakistan include a controversial peace agreement signed by the Pakistani government with the local mujahideen and Taliban of North Waziristan in September. President Musharraf promised that the agreement would bring peace to Afghanistan. In reality, it has had the opposite effect. It has created a safe haven for Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives and is viewed as a selling out of U.S. and Afghan interests. U.S. military spokesman Colonel John Paradis reported a "twofold, in some cases threefold" increase in attacks against Western and Afghan troops shortly after the treaty was signed.

Also disappointing for coalition forces that overthrew the Taliban during Operation Enduring Freedom was President Musharraf’s authorization of the release from jail of over 2,500 suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters caught in Afghanistan during the war. It is indeed revealing that since the beginning of the coalition’s fight against terrorists in Afghanistan, the Pakistani government has opposed elimination of the Taliban, calling instead for merely weakening the terrorist group and leaving in place so-called "moderates" within their ranks.

Further, Islamabad has insisted that any intelligence gathered about terrorist activity in Pakistani territory be passed on to Pakistani officials for action. Since the war in Afghanistan began, Pakistan has arrested and handed over to the U.S. several senior Al Qaeda leaders but no senior Taliban leaders have been captured and extradited to Afghanistan.

In the wake of criticism of its lackluster efforts to root out Al Qaeda and the Taliban, Pakistan has verbally reasserted its commitment to fighting the Islamic insurgency and strengthening its alliance with the United States. The importance of a posture of support for the U.S. anti-terrorism campaign in Afghanistan is not lost on Islamabad as it pursues its national interests. Lack of cooperation with Washington would jeopardize Pakistan’s aid-dependent economy, shift the balance in its relationship with India, affect its influence in Central Asia and possibly threaten its nuclear weapons capability. The Pakistani government receives $3 billion in U.S. assistance. It wants to be in a position to encourage a pro-Pakistan regime in Kabul and be involved in Afghan affairs. Pakistan also aspires to shift the balance of power in the region to be able to stand up to India and pursue its interests in Kashmir.

As part of Pakistan’s efforts to prove its commitment to the war on terror, it has revisited plans for walling off and possibly mining sections of its 1,700-mile border with Afghanistan along the hotly contested Durand Line. The Durand Line was imposed by the British in 1893 to separate Afghanistan from what was then British India and is now the North-West Frontier Province (N.W.F.P.) of Pakistan. Afghanistan has never accepted that the N.W.F.P. is part of Pakistan and refers to the natural border of the River Indus as its national boundary. In 1949, following India’s independence from Britain and the creation of Pakistan, Afghanistan declared the Durand Line invalid. Since that time, successive Pakistani governments have attempted without success to reach a bilateral agreement with Kabul to establish the Durand Line as the international border. No Afghan government, including the Taliban regime, has accepted this division.

Despite these obvious nationalistic interests, Pakistan has defended the barrier proposal as an important step toward stopping the flow of weapons and terrorists across the border. The proposal was made directly to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, possibly to secure approval and funding, and has not been discussed with Afghan officials. The proposed fence and mining will artificially divide the Pashtuns, the ethnic Afghans of the region, and has met with resistance from political parties in both countries. The plan, which will include designated monitored crossing points, is viewed as a unilateral way for Pakistan to define its desired borders, legally solidify control of the N.W.F.P. and achieve strategic depth against conflict with India. Formally establishing the border may also be a maneuver to secure Pakistan’s position for the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India natural gas project and quell fears of potential pipeline sabotage in Pakistan.

Although Pakistan is categorized as an ally of the United States in the war on terror and Bush has pushed Musharraf to do more to stop terrorists, it is increasingly clear that the Pakistani government is imperiling the position of the coalition forces in the region and pursuing its own national interests. As the Taliban have regrouped and reorganized their resistance with assistance from Islamabad, resentment of the American presence in Afghanistan has grown. Pakistan’s ill-advised deal with Waziristan has alienated Afghanis and is viewed as an attempt to destabilize their government and bring back the rule of the Taliban. Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has declared that, "There is an open campaign by Pakistan against Afghanistan and the presence of the coalition troops here."

Musharraf has done little to curb extremism in Pakistan and his actions have been a direct threat to U.S. anti-terrorist efforts. Under Pakistan’s watchful eye, Islamists continue to operate openly throughout Pakistan and export terrorism to Afghanistan. Can we really still afford to count on Pakistan as an ally? It is time for President Bush to seriously ask Pakistan, "Are you with us or with the terrorists?"

The Afghan crucible – LA Times editorial

President Bush's focus on that other war is welcome, but more than American military might is needed. February 18, 2007

'LAST YEAR, THE NUMBER of roadside bomb attacks almost doubled, direct fire attacks on international forces almost tripled and suicide bombings grew nearly fivefold." That's not a quote from one of the president's critics about Iraq — it's from the president himself, and he was talking about Afghanistan.

It's not quite fair to call Afghanistan the war the administration forgot. But it was heartening last week to hear President Bush give a speech about that other war for the first time in his second term, to acknowledge the growing Taliban threat and to call for a renewed U.S. and NATO commitment. Still, military power alone won't make Afghanistan secure — the country must also undergo substantial economic development.

Congress should approve Bush's request for $11.8 billion for the next two years of operations in Afghanistan, but this will not suffice. Without a plan to jump-start reconstruction — and convince the Afghan people that the civil society the West wants to build for them is not just obtainable but worth fighting for — all could be lost.

The old saw that there are no military solutions to political conflicts was never more true than in Afghanistan. Yet, in the five years since U.S. forces toppled the Taliban government with a "light footprint," the Bush administration has never spent enough on reconstruction, opium-crop substitution payments for farmers, road building, education, healthcare or jobs programs — or enough on security to make sure the rebuilding succeeds.

Bush will not get the full support and cooperation of NATO allies until he demonstrates that reconstruction is not a second priority to fighting Al Qaeda. There are serious differences with Germany, which has sent thousands of troops and spent millions in Afghanistan, commanded NATO forces and been responsible for security in the country's north, where Berlin believes its style of nation-building has been notably successful. The government of Angela Merkel has signaled it believes that Washington is relying too heavily on military solutions.

The war effort cannot be allowed to falter over an "Americans are from Mars, Europeans are from Venus" cultural divide on whether to emphasize military commitment or nation-building. Both approaches are necessary.

NATO needs to bear its share of the burden, contributing troops to the fight in the south and continuing to lift conditions on their deployment. And Washington, however distracted by its Iraqi adventure, cannot shortchange the effort to rebuild the nation whose failure led directly to 9/11. The possibility that democracy could fail in Afghanistan is awful to contemplate.

Afghan relief efforts neglect Kandahar hospital, paramedic says.

CanWest News Service - Saturday, February 17, 2007

Edward McCormick had heard the official claims about Canada's bold mission to reconstruct the war-torn province of Kandahar and bring help to its people.

Then last month, the Vancouver paramedic went to see for himself, travelling to Afghanistan with the Senlis Council, an international think-tank, to investigate the state of the civilian hospital in Kandahar city that serves a population of three million people.

Five years after the fall of the Taliban, and one year after Canada took charge of aid and development in Afghanistan's second-largest city, McCormick says Mirwais Hospital remains in a "state of complete decay ... a glaring symbol of the international community's lack of concern for the Afghan people."

His study, issued this week as part of a larger report on the war by the Senlis Council, is titled War Zone Hospitals in Afghanistan: A Symbol of Wilful Neglect.

Although the Canadian army runs a state-of-the-art field hospital for military personnel just outside town at Kandahar Airfield, plus a smaller medical facility at its satellite base inside the city, McCormick says none of the Afghan doctors and nurses he interviewed in Kandahar had ever seen a Canadian physician come into their hospital to help or even inquire about their needs.

The Canadian International Development Agency, the federal agency responsible for spending $100 million a year in Afghanistan - Canada's largest foreign-aid project - has admitted its money has been slow in reaching the people of Kandahar, and none has been spent on the hospital.

CIDA does have plans to build a $350,000 "waiting" facility for expectant mothers there, but construction has yet to begin.

McCormick, who has a master's degree in epidemiology from the University of British Columbia and worked as an advanced life-support paramedic in Vancouver, says the hospital needs so much more.

"When I walked into the hospital, it was so cold inside I could see my breath," he said in an interview this week from London, where the Senlis Council is based. "The place is filthy, and there is absolutely no medical equipment to be found anywhere, except a couple of blood-pressure cuffs."

McCormick spent a month in southern Afghanistan documenting the state of both Mirwais Hospital and Bost Hospital in neighbouring Helmand province, where Britain is running the reconstruction mission.

In both cases, he says, the hospitals lack heating in the winter and air conditioning in the summer.

Despite a new, Western-inspired Afghan constitution, which guarantees basic health care services to all citizens, McCormick says neither hospital has any diagnostic equipment, oxygen, war-zone trauma treatment services or even a reliable supply of medicine.

He says patients, including children, are dying needlessly from treatable ailments ranging from dehydration to war-related wounds.

"There is no sign of international aid in those hospitals," he says. "I asked 12 doctors, 'Have you ever spoken to a British or Canadian doctor?' They're in the neighbourhood with their own modern health-care facilities. But the foreign army docs have never bothered to go over and say hello."

Defence Department officials in Ottawa declined to respond to the Senlis Council study. The department's website says Canada does organize temporary medical visits to villages and towns in the area, in which Afghan doctors and nurses are hired to hold day-long clinics.

Meanwhile, Canadian military doctors at Kandahar Airfield have said their job is to treat wounded coalition and Afghan soldiers, not provide care to local civilians.

But McCormick says if Canada is serious about defeating the Taliban, then part of its counter-insurgency strategy should include aid to Kandahar's hospital - as well as medical help to civilians hurt by Taliban bombs and NATO air strikes.

McCormick says records at Mirwais show the hospital admitted 72 civilian bombing victims last year. None received any care from foreign physicians.

"It cost over $4 million to install the Tim Hortons on the military base in Kandahar," says McCormick. "I have nothing but respect for Canadian soldiers. I think they should have doughnuts. But if we as a country can put $4 million into installing that Tims there, we can surely put some money into the local hospital."

McCormick says even a small amount of money would go a long way at Mirwais Hospital. "We don't have to get a Hercules and put a CT scanner in it," he says.

"Hygiene is at the heart of modern health care, so lets just hire some people to clean the place. That's something that wouldn't cost a lot of money."

McCormick says Canada's failure to improve medical care in Kandahar is hurting not only sick and injured Afghans, but the overall mission itself.

"There is a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, and the neglect that continues to be demonstrated in Ottawa is fuelling support for the insurgency and endangering our troops."

34m saplings to be planted this year

KABUL, Feb 14 (Pajhwok Afghan News): More than 34 million saplings would be planted during the spring tree plantation campaign across the country, officials said on Wednesday.

Minister for Agriculture and Irrigation Obaidullah Ramin told a news conference here the government, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the public would take part in the tree plantation drive, scheduled to begin next month.

Ramin said the saplings included 22 million fruit-bearing and seven million non-fruit-bearing trees, which would be planted at specific locations all over the country.

In addition, five million more trees would be planted by farmers independently at the beginning of the spring season commencing from March. The minister said the countrywide drive would be kicked off two weeks ahead of the beginning of the new Afghan year.

He said 35 million trees had been planted across the country over the previous two years, while the number had been increased to 34 million during the current year. The saplings had been produced domestically and not imported from abroad, he informed.

Decades of war and civil strife had destroyed greenery in most parts of the country. However, the government, with the help and cooperation of NGOs and other partners, had launched concerted efforts over the previous few years to grow more trees in the country.

Govt asked to put off privatisation process

KABUL, Feb 14 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The lower house of parliament on Wednesday voted to put off privatisation of the state-owned enterprises till the approval of the relevant law from the House.

The decision was taken during the session after majority of the members voted in favour of postponement of the privatisation process for the time being.

Speaker of the House Younus Qanuni said that law regarding privatisation of the state-owned enterprises had been forwarded to the parliament for approval. He said the government should wait till the approval of the law from the parliament.

The MPs presented the issue for discussion in the backdrop of the recent announcement by the Finance Ministry regarding privatisation of more than 50 state-owned enterprises.

During the debate, some members voice concern over the privatisation process and said it would further increase unemployment in the country and harm the interests of employees of the target units.

Foundation of township laid in Kabul

KABUL, Feb 15 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Minister for Rural Rehabilitation and Development engineer Yousaf Pashtun laid foundation of a modern residential scheme in Deh Sabz district of this capital city on Thursday.

The new residential scheme will have 20,000 houses and is part of the extension plan of this central capital. The scheme named Deh Sabz is located some 25 kilometres north of Kabul. Addressing the ceremony organised in this connection, the minister said construction of the new township would be completed in the coming five years.

Homeless people, living in Kabul, would get houses in the new scheme, said the minister. He added prices of the houses would range from 18,000 to and 20,000 US dollars and the owners would return the amount in 15 to 20 years in installments ranging from 100 to 150 USD per month.

He hoped construction of the new township would solve residential problems up to a large extent in the capital. He said contract of the construction work had been awarded to a private company in the name of Korea - Afghan Construction Company.

This was the first residential scheme of its kind in the central capital Kabul, said the minister, who added more such schemes would be launched in the provinces in the future.

Afghanistan's proxy war

The Boston Globe - By Xenia Dormandy | February 16, 2007

THE PAPERS ARE full of the slow demise of Afghanistan. The Pakistanis are to blame; no, the Afghans; no, the United States. America didn't do enough or did too much. NATO isn't stepping up to the plate, or is it the Germans, or the French people. Is it the Taliban, Al Qaeda , or Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence that is pulling the strings? Is President Karzai powerless, or is he boosting the warlords, or is he a puppet for Americans , or all three? The blame is widespread.

But a large part of the problem is being missed. There's talk about the U S -Pakistan-Afghanistan tripartite, but it's the wrong one. The focus should be on the Afghanistan-Pakistan-India triangle.

In the 1980 s and early 1990 s, Afghanistan was a proxy battleground for the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. One could argue that America was the winner in that battle (the Soviet Union and Afghanistan certainly weren't), except that US actions then created the threat from the Taliban today. There were no winners.

America and the Soviet Union brought two other neighbors into that Cold War fight: Pakistan and India. India stood by the Soviet Union as it quietly did in many other areas. Pakistan and its intelligence service became the middleman between the United States and the mujahedeen (later to form the Taliban).

When Soviet forces pulled out in 1989, Pakistan continued to support the rebels; India supported the forces that years later became the North Alliance. Now, 15 years later , the battle over influence in Afghanistan has not stopped. India is working on hearts and minds, opening consulates and providing over $750 million in infrastructure and training support, while Pakistan is trying to bridge the hostility existing since the Afghan and Pakistan governments ended up on different sides. And so the proxy war continues with a different cast.

There is more to this unacknowledged war than merely emotion and history. As long as India and Pakistan remain hostile to each other , Afghanistan is strategically important to both. It is vital to Pakistan that it not have unfriendly powers on both its east (India) and west (Afghanistan) borders, just as from India's perspective, Afghanistan would provide a good strategic high-ground to squeeze Pakistan. Economically, too, Afghanistan holds great promise. The United States last year tied Afghanistan and Pakistan together through the creation of Reconstruction Opportunity Zones along their mutual border which would get American tax exemptions. Afghanistan also is the l inch pin of the trade routes and energy pipelines to Central Asia. So, if the United States is going to reverse this sad decline in Afghanistan, it will need the support of both India and Pakistan. These two great nations should learn from past mistakes -- fighting over Afghanistan is not the solution. The costs are too great for all parties. The United States and Afghanistan need to find ways to invest both nations in helping to make this country a success; they clearly need all the help they can get.

This is going to require a fundamental change in attitudes in both the Indian and Pakistani governments. But there are some concrete efforts that could start the process.

First and foremost, a quadrilateral group composed of India, Pakistan, the United States, and Afghanistan should be created (in addition to the ongoing tripartite group that excludes India). This would put both India and Pakistan in a position where they would need to engage together on solutions to Afghanistan's problems.

Second, Pakistan should start to allow Indian goods to travel over land through Pakistan to Afghanistan, significantly reducing the costs of much of the assistance that India currently provides. Third, the four countries should put more effort into renewing the long-discussed pipeline through the three nations, providing much needed energy to the region and an alternative to the Iranian pipeline.

Eventually, India, Pakistan, and the United States shouldconsider a joint Provisional Reconstruction Team in the northwest of Afghanistan, away from the Pakistan border. All these efforts are going to be hard and long in coming. But, unless a way to mitigate the underlying Pakistan-India tension in Afghanistan is found , this country will continue to be a battleground for this largely unspoken war. What's more, the benefits of building cooperation and trust in Afghanistan will help address the wider India-Pakistan conflict and enhance security across the region.

[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.]