In this bulletin:

• Taliban briefly seizes town; police flee
• 2 killed as drivers protest in Herat
• Insurgents attack Kandahar convoy
• Thirteen Cdn. soldiers injured in Afghanistan
• Journalist gunned down in Afghanistan
• UN envoy in Afghanistan says Talibanization poses threat to Pakistan
• Waziristan deal not working: US
• PAKISTAN: U.S. FUNDING CONSTRUCTION OF 100 POSTS ALONG AFGHAN BORDER
• Al Qaeda Chiefs Are Seen to Regain Power
• Arrest of "spy" a sore point for 2 nations
• Taliban Claims It Used Surface-To-Air Missile To Down Helicopter
• India is Afghanistan's most cherished partner: Hekmat Karzai
• Where the Taliban breeds
• Go-soft strategy not always the best option in Afghanistan
• The Afghan War, through our eyes
• SAFMA opens branch in Afghanistan
• Afghanistan bans poultry imports

Taliban briefly seizes town; police flee

Kabul (AP ) - Police fled a town in western Afghanistan on Monday and suspected Taliban militants briefly moved in — the second time in a month that the government has lost control of a district in the area.

The police fled to a forest near Bakwa in Farah province a day after a roadside bomb killed four officers involved in opium poppy eradication. A group of militants moved in and stayed for about 30 minutes, seizing three vehicles before leaving, said provincial Gov. Muhajuddin Baluch.

Baryalaj Khan, spokesman for the Farah police chief, said they had lost contact with police in Bakwa since 11:30 a.m. Interior Ministry spokesman Zemari Bashary said police planned to return to the town Tuesday.

The retreat followed Sunday's bombing of a car carrying the province's police chief on his return from destroying poppy fields. The police chief was unharmed, but four other officers in the vehicle were killed and two wounded.

Khan blamed Taliban militants for the attack, saying they were involved in the drug trade; he gave no evidence to support his claim. Bakwa lies about 40 miles from Afghanistan's biggest opium-producing province of Helmand.

Taliban militants overran Helmand's town of Musa Qala on Feb. 1, defying a peace deal between the government and elders last fall that capped weeks of fighting. The pact was supposed to bar both Taliban fighters and NATO soldiers from coming within three miles of the town center.

Thousands of residents have fled the area since the Taliban seized Musa Qala, fearing a NATO attack and renewed clashes with the militants. The government is negotiating with elders to get them to persuade the militants to leave.

NATO-led troops have a small presence in Farah province, but alliance officials in Kabul referred all questions on Monday's retreat to the Ministry of Interior. Officials there could not reached for comment.

In Ghor province, meanwhile, a clash between poppy farmers and police conducting eradication left one civilian dead and two wounded, said deputy provincial governor Kramuddin Rezazada.

Some 500 people had gathered to protest government attempts at poppy eradication following last year's record crop. Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium poppy. In 2006, production in the country rose 49 percent to 6,700 tons — enough to make about 670 tons of heroin.

The government rejected U.S. offers of ground-spraying and pledged it would step up poppy eradication using tractors and manpower.

In southern Afghanistan, suspected insurgents fired a rocket at a Canadian military's armored vehicle in the city of Kandahar on Sunday, but no troops were injured in the attack, said Capt. Alex Watsen, a spokesman for the force.

Canadians fired back, killing one suspected militant, Watsen said. One policeman also was killed in the ensuing gunfight, he said.

2 killed as drivers protest in Herat

The Associated Press - 02/19/2007 - KABUL - Hundreds of rickshaw drivers clashed with riot police in western Afghanistan on Monday, leaving two people dead and 10 wounded, officials said.

Police fired at the protesters after they attacked officers during a demonstration outside the provincial governor's office in the western city of Herat, said Ghulam Sarwar Hydari, deputy police chief.

The rickshaw drivers were protesting a local government decision to stop them functioning as taxis, following complaints from taxi drivers, he said. Authorities want the motor-propelled rickshaws to be used for transporting goods not people.

During the unrest, a rock thrown by a protester hit a policeman in the head, killing him. The rioting and gunfire also killed a civilian and wounded 10 others, Hydari said. Several taxis were damaged by the protesters, he said.

Insurgents attack Kandahar convoy

BBC News / Monday, 19 February 2007 - Insurgents have launched their heaviest attack to date on the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, targeting a Canadian army convoy.

None of the Nato-led forces were hurt, but the Canadians say their fire killed an Afghan policeman and a civilian in clashes that followed. Taleban forces said they carried out the attack. It comes as international forces prepare for an anticipated spring offensive by the militants.

Recently, insurgents including the Taleban have staged several suicide attacks in Kandahar but this is believed to be the first time they have deployed heavy weapons in the city.

Canadian forces are not confirming the identity of Sunday night's attackers, although the Taleban have claimed the ambush.

The BBC's Charles Haviland in Kabul says that if this is true, it marks a new and bolder type of attack inside the city which is the Islamic militants' traditional heartland.

The insurgents struck shortly before midnight using rocket-propelled grenades and small arms to attack a Canadian convoy which was crossing the city. A Canadian military spokesman told the BBC several armoured vehicles were damaged, forcing the convoy to stop again.

It then came under renewed small arms fire and the spokesman said two local people were killed by Canadian retaliatory fire. He said the civilian was killed after ignoring warnings to move away during the fire-fight and described the deaths as 'very regrettable'.

The Taleban said they had killed some of the Nato forces, but the spokesman denied this. The deaths of ordinary Afghans at the hands of foreign forces have fuelled resentment in the south of the country, our correspondent says.

Only on Saturday two others died in similar circumstances. also in Kandahar, he adds. Last year more than 4,000 people died in political violence in Afghanistan - the most since the Taleban were ousted in 2001.

Thirteen Cdn. soldiers injured in Afghanistan

Updated Sun. Feb. 18 2007 - CTV.ca News Staff

Thirteen Canadian soldiers sustained minor injuries when three armoured vehicles crashed into each other in Kandahar early Sunday.

The accident occurred on the same day a military helicopter crashed in southeastern Afghanistan, killing eight U.S. troops and wounding 14.

The traffic accident occurred before dawn as a convoy of recent arrivals moved between bases, said Maj. Dale MacEachern, a Canadian Forces spokesperson.

"I can't discuss the nature of (individual) injuries to the soldiers for reasons of privacy, but I can say they were all minor injuries,'' he said. "All of these soldiers are expected to go back to work.''

After the crash, the injured soldiers were all taken to the Canadian-led provincial reconstruction base for treatment. However, as a precaution, six of them were later air lifted to Kandahar Airfield's NATO hospital for further observation.

"It's just to be safe to make sure our soldiers are OK,'' said MacEachern.

The soldiers were travelling in light armoured vehicles, or LAV IIIs when the crash occurred. The LAVs incurred minor damage.

All of the injured soldiers are new to the theatre -- a fact not lost on officials who point out that every new troop rotation has seen a series of vehicle accidents.

"Our soldiers receive excellent training before they're deployed to theatre, but I don't think anything can quite fully prepare anyone for the nature of the roads here in Kandahar,'' said MacEachern.

Challenges for new arrivals to Afghanistan include a lack of speed limits, chaotic traffic and minimal enforcement.

The risk has proved fatal to Canadian troops. Last August Master Cpl. Raymond Arndt was killed in a truck crash. Prior to that, Master Cpl. Timothy Wilson, Cpl. Paul Davis and Pte. Braun Scott Woodfield were all killed in vehicle accidents. Canada has roughly 2,500 troops in Afghanistan.

Journalist gunned down in Afghanistan

Xinhua / February 19, 2007 - A local journalist has been killed by unknown armed men in Afghanistan's northwest Faryab province, said a local official Monday.

"Two armed men riding a motorbike opened fire on Rahman Qul near his home in Ankhoi district Sunday afternoon and killed him on the spot," provincial governor Abdul Latif Ibrahimi told Xinhua.

It is not clear if the attackers were militants and an investigation is underway, said Ibrahimi. Working for a local newspaper, Rahman Qul was a renowned journalist in his home province.

No group or individual has claimed responsibility for the attack so far. Unknown armed men gunned down two German journalists in northern Baghlan province last year. One Italian newsman was abducted in the troubled Helmand province months ago and was set free unharmed after three weeks in captivity.

Taliban militants have warned journalists not to report their casualties without verification with them.

UN envoy in Afghanistan says Talibanization poses threat to Pakistan

Pravda (Russia) / February 19, 2007 - The top U.N. diplomat in Afghanistan said Monday that Talibanization posed a threat to the region, particularly neighboring Pakistan, and warned that the hardline group's rule was not an experience worth repeating.

Tom Koenigs, the U.N. special representative to Afghanistan, also criticized a senior Pakistani official who last week likened the Taliban resistance to a nationalist struggle against foreign forces.

There is "a danger of Talibanization of the region ... particularly of Pakistan," Koenigs told reporters. "Other states should look at this experience (of Afghanistan) and make it very clear that they don't want to repeat this experience."

The Taliban ruled Afghanistan with an iron fist from 1996-2001, and was accused of widespread human rights violations and repression of women. Over the past year, their militant supporters have staged a military comeback, threatening the elected government in Afghanistan.

Pro-Taliban militants have also gained sway in Pakistan's tribal belt along the Afghan border, raising fears of a wider "Talibanization" of the region.

Koenigs said that some Pakistani politicians and officials were underestimating the Taliban's threat to international peace and security, just as the international community did when the Taliban first rose to power in the 1990s.

On Friday, Ali Mohammed Jan Aurakzai, the governor of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province which includes areas where Taliban and al-Qaida militants fled after the 2001 war that ousted the hardline regime claimed that ethnic Pashtuns in Afghanistan were increasingly supporting the Taliban, amid frustration over lack of influence in government and insufficient economic aid.

Aurakzai also said the support for militant operations in Afghanistan had developed into a nationalist resistance, a "liberation war against coalition forces."

"I have read the statements of Governor Aurakzai and I was very astonished," Koenigs said. "I think the Pakistani government has to clarify whether this is its official position or whether it is the position of a governor who should be corrected by the central government."

Koenigs also criticized Fazlur Rehman, the leader of an opposition Islamic party in Pakistan, for his pro-Taliban stance. Rehman's party leads the local government in North West Front Province, reports AP.

Afghanistan and some Western diplomats have accused Pakistan of allowing insurgents and Taliban elements to seek refuge and train on its soil. Pakistan, a key ally in the U.S.-led war on terror, says it does what it can to stop them and says most of the militants hail from Afghanistan.

Waziristan deal not working: US

By Anwar Iqbal Dawn (Pakistan) February 18, 2007 issue

WASHINGTON, Feb 17: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has expressed disappointment with the North Waziristan deal, saying that the plan has not helped reduce violence along the Pakistan-Afghan border.

In September, the Pakistan government signed an agreement with tribal leaders in North Waziristan, extracting from them a pledge to stop cross-border attacks by the Taliban.

Initially, the United States backed the deal, but has since changed its stance. The US military says that the Taliban have tripled their activities since the signing of the agreement.

Ms Rice told lawmakers in Washington on Friday that the United States had tried to support President Pervez Musharraf’s plan to empower tribal leaders to deal with cross-border activities.

But, she added, "Frankly, there have been some problems and some disappointments with that plan." Ms Rice said the United States had been clear with President Musharraf that he must do something about ending cross-border attacks.

SPRING OFFENSIVE: US ambassador-designate to Kabul, William Wood, told his confirmation hearing in Washington that the Taliban were preparing a major offensive this spring.

"Although the Taliban probably pose no strategic threat to the government of Afghanistan at this time, it is important that the Afghan government, local leaders, internal security forces, and International Security Assistance Force forces prepare for such attacks," he said.

Ambassador William Wood also told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee he would support US engagement with Iran in helping the Afghan government overcome its problems.

"In the case of Afghanistan, the United States and Iran have a number of interests in common: There are a number of areas where we could profitably work together if we could begin a process of engagement," he said.

"Iran is strongly counter-drug, for instance. They have one of the highest numbers of heroin addicts in the world, and their effort to fight the heroin trade is extraordinary.”

But he acknowledged that the US and Iran have to resolve their differences over Tehran’s nuclear programme before the two could cooperate in Afghanistan.

Mr Wood pledged to support the Kabul government's efforts toward eradication of poppy fields to control heroin production. He is currently Washington’s ambassador to Colombia, where the United States is aiding anti-drug and anti-insurgency operations in a country that is the world’s largest cocaine producer.

If confirmed, William Wood would replace Ronald Neumann as the top US diplomat in Afghanistan.

PAKISTAN: U.S. FUNDING CONSTRUCTION OF 100 POSTS ALONG AFGHAN BORDER

Washington, 16 Feb. (AKI/DAWN) - US president George W. Bush has said that the United States was funding the construction of 100 border posts along the Pakistan-Afghan border to provide Pakistan better access to this remote region. The US, he said, was also providing Pakistan air support to help fight the terrorists operating in the tribal belt.

"We've given him (President Musharraf) high-tech equipment to help the Pakistani forces locate the terrorists attempting to cross the border. We're funding an air wing, with helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, to give Pakistan better security, better swift response and better surveillance," he said on Thursday during a speech at Washington’s conservative American Enterprise Institute.

Bush said the part of US strategy is to help Musharraf defeat the terrorists and extremists who operate inside of Pakistan and for that "we're going to work Pakistan and Afghanistan to enhance cooperation to defeat what I would call a common enemy."

The US president expressed strong support for his Pakistani counterpart. "People say, well, do you think President Musharraf really understands the threat of extremists in his midst? I said, yes, I do. You know how I know? They've tried to kill him," he said.

"Al-Qaeda has launched attacks against the president of this country. He understands. He also understands that extremists can destabilise countries on the border, or destabilise countries from which they launch their attacks. And so he's launched what they call a frontier strategy and that is, to find and eliminate the extremists and deliver a better governance and economic opportunity."

He said that with US support president Musharraf was going to better be able to now deal with this problem.

Bush said that during his recent visit to Pakistan his defence secretary received “a good response” from Musharraf, “an ally in this war on terror and it's in our interest to support him in fighting the extremists”.

Bush recalled that at a dinner he hosted for Musharraf and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai on 28 September, he had urged the two leaders to put aside their differences and "strategise together" on ways to defeat the common enemy of terrorism.

Bush disclosed that he also met the two leaders privately to discuss shared interests. Despite tensions of their history, Bush said, both agreed to share intelligence and expand trade.

Bush said he also offered economic incentives to the two countries to end their differences, telling their leaders that Afghan and Pakistani entrepreneurs could export locally produced products to the United States duty free. "It's a tiny contribution for us … a major contribution for them,” he added.

Bush said he hoped to help Musharraf repel Taliban forces that had been holed up in the mountains between the two countries.

He announced that he was sending additional US troops and funds to Afghanistan to defeat an expected spring assault from the Taliban and urged NATO to do more, too.

"We'll deploy a replacement force that will sustain this increase for the foreseeable," future, said Bush. To buttress the Afghan government against expected attacks in the future, he said he was asking Congress for 11.8 billion dollars "to help this young democracy survive".

"When our commanders on the ground say to our respective countries `We need additional help', our NATO countries must provide it, he told an audience of mainly lawmakers, diplomats and academics.

Bush also urged some NATO countries to change their policy of not allowing their troops in Afghanistan’s combat zones. "Allies must lift restrictions on the forces they do provide so Nato commanders have the flexibility they need to defeat the enemy wherever the enemy may make its stand," he said.

Bush said he had extended the stay of 3,200 US troops now in Afghanistan for four months and he would deploy a replacement force for the future as well.

Bush said the US and NATO would also help increase Afghanistan's security forces -— doubling the army's size to 70,000 from 32,000 over the next two years.

The US president outlined an ambitious plan - from increasing the Afghan security and police forces to building the country's rural economy, in an effort - to stabilise the opulation. Among the important steps, he said, was helping to rebuild Afghanistan's highway system, and attacking poppy cultivation, which he called "a direct threat to a free future", and fight corruption in the courts.

Al Qaeda Chiefs Are Seen to Regain Power

By MARK MAZZETTI and DAVID ROHDE – The New York Times 2.19.07

WASHINGTON, Feb. 18 — Senior leaders of Al Qaeda operating from Pakistan have re-established significant control over their once-battered worldwide terror network and over the past year have set up a band of training camps in the tribal regions near the Afghan border, according to American intelligence and counterterrorism officials.

American officials said there was mounting evidence that Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, had been steadily building an operations hub in the mountainous Pakistani tribal area of North Waziristan. Until recently, the Bush administration had described Mr. bin Laden and Mr. Zawahri as detached from their followers and cut off from operational control of Al Qaeda.

The United States has also identified several new Qaeda compounds in North Waziristan, including one that officials said might be training operatives for strikes against targets beyond Afghanistan.

American analysts said recent intelligence showed that the compounds functioned under a loose command structure and were operated by groups of Arab, Pakistani and Afghan militants allied with Al Qaeda. They receive guidance from their commanders and Mr. Zawahri, the analysts said. Mr. bin Laden, who has long played less of an operational role, appears to have little direct involvement.

Officials said the training camps had yet to reach the size and level of sophistication of the Qaeda camps established in Afghanistan under Taliban rule. But groups of 10 to 20 men are being trained at the camps, the officials said, and the Qaeda infrastructure in the region is gradually becoming more mature.

The new warnings are different from those made in recent months by intelligence officials and terrorism experts, who have spoken about the growing abilities of Taliban forces and Pakistani militants to launch attacks into Afghanistan. American officials say that the new intelligence is focused on Al Qaeda and points to the prospect that the terrorist network is gaining in strength despite more than five years of a sustained American-led campaign to weaken it.

The intelligence and counterterrorism officials would discuss the classified intelligence only on the condition of anonymity. They would not provide some of the evidence that led them to their assessments, saying that revealing the information would disclose too much about the sources and methods of intelligence collection.

The concern about a resurgent Al Qaeda has been the subject of intensive discussion at high levels of the Bush administration, the officials said, and has reignited debate about how to address Pakistan’s role as a haven for militants without undermining the government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani president.

Last week, President Bush’s senior counterterrorism adviser, Frances Fragos Townsend, went to Afghanistan during a Middle East trip to meet with security officials about rising concerns on Al Qaeda’s resurgence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, an administration official said.

Officials from several different American intelligence and counterterrorism agencies presented a consistent picture in describing the developments as a major setback to American efforts against Al Qaeda.

A Split Over Strategy - But debates within the administration about how best to deal with the threat have yet to yield any good solutions, officials in Washington said. One counterterrorism official said that some within the Pentagon were advocating American strikes against the camps, but that others argued that any raids could result in civilian casualties. And State Department officials say increased American pressure could undermine President Musharraf’s military-led government.

Some of the interviews with officials were granted after John D. Negroponte, then the director of national intelligence, told Congress last month that “Al Qaeda’s core elements are resilient” and that the organization was “cultivating stronger operational connections and relationships that radiate outward from their leaders’ secure hide-out in Pakistan to affiliates throughout the Middle East, North Africa and Europe.”

As recently as 2005, American intelligence assessments described senior leaders of Al Qaeda as cut off from their foot soldiers and able only to provide inspiration for future attacks. But more recent intelligence describes the organization’s hierarchy as intact and strengthening.

“The chain of command has been re-established,” said one American government official, who said that the Qaeda “leadership command and control is robust.”

American officials and analysts said a variety of factors in Pakistan had come together to allow “core Al Qaeda” — a reference to Mr. bin Laden and his immediate circle — to regain some of its strength. The emergence of a relative haven in North Waziristan and the surrounding area has helped senior operatives communicate more effectively with the outside world via courier and the Internet.

The investigation into last summer’s failed plot to bomb airliners in London has led counterterrorism officials to what they say are “clear linkages” between the plotters and core Qaeda operatives in Pakistan. American analysts point out that the trials of terrorism suspects in Britain revealed that some of the defendants had been trained in Pakistan.

In a videotaped statement last year, Mr. Zawahri claimed responsibility for the July 2005 London suicide bombings. Included in the same tape was a statement by one of the London suicide bombers, pledging allegiance to Al Qaeda. Two of the four bombers traveled to Pakistan prior to the attack.

Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University, told the House Armed Services Committee last week that Al Qaeda “is on the march.” He said, “Al Qaeda in fact is now functioning exactly as its founder and leader, Osama bin Laden, envisioned it,” because, he said, Qaeda leaders are planning major attacks and inspiring militants to carry out attacks around the globe.

Other experts questioned the seriousness of Pakistan’s commitment. They argued that elements of Pakistan’s military still supported the Taliban and saw them as a valuable proxy to counter the rising influence of India, Pakistan’s regional rival.

Joint Efforts by Militants - Since 2001, members of various militant groups in Pakistan have increased their cooperation with one another in the tribal areas, according to American analysts.

The analysts said that North Waziristan became a hub of militant activity last year, after President Musharraf negotiated a treaty with tribal leaders in the area. He pledged to pull troops back to barracks in the area in exchange for tribal leaders’ ending support for cross-border attacks into Afghanistan, but officials in Washington and Islamabad conceded that the agreement had been a failure.

During a news conference days before last November’s elections, President Bush said of the campaign against Al Qaeda: “Absolutely, we’re winning. Al Qaeda is on the run.”

But in a speech several days ago, Mr. Bush painted a more sober picture of Al Qaeda’s current strength, especially inside Pakistan.

“Taliban and Al Qaeda figures do hide in remote regions of Pakistan,” Mr. Bush said. “This is wild country; this is wilder than the Wild West. And these folks hide and recruit and launch attacks.”

Officials said that both American and foreign intelligence services had collected evidence leading them to conclude that at least one of the camps in Pakistan might be training operatives capable of striking Western targets. A particular concern is that the camps are frequented by British citizens of Pakistani descent who travel to Pakistan on British passports.

In a speech in November, the director general of MI5, Britain’s domestic intelligence agency, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, said that terrorist plots in Britain “often have links back to Al Qaeda in Pakistan.” She said that “through those links, Al Qaeda gives guidance and training to its largely British foot soldiers here on an extensive and growing scale.”

Leaders Appear Secure - Officials said that the United States still had little idea where Mr. bin Laden and Mr. Zawahri had been hiding since 2001, but that the two men were not believed to be present in the camps currently operating in North Waziristan. Among the indicators that American officials cited as a sign that Qaeda leaders felt more secure was the release of 21 statements by Mr. bin Laden and Mr. Zawahri in 2006, roughly twice the number as in the previous year.

In the past, statements issued by Mr. bin Laden and Mr. Zawahri referred to events that were sometimes several weeks old, one official said, suggesting that the men had difficulty creating a secure means of distributing the tapes. Now, the statements are more current, at times referring to events that occurred days earlier.

American intelligence and counterterrorism officials said that most of the men receiving training in Pakistan had been carrying out attacks inside Afghanistan, but that Al Qaeda had also strengthened its ties to groups in Iraq that had sworn allegiance to Mr. bin Laden. They said dozens of seasoned fighters were moving between Pakistan and Iraq, apparently engaging in an “exchange of best practices” for attacking American forces.

Over the past year, insurgent tactics from Iraq have migrated to Afghanistan, where suicide bombings have increased fivefold and roadside bomb attacks have doubled. In testimony to the House Armed Services Committee last week, Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, the departing commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, said the United States could not prevail in Afghanistan and defeat global terrorism without addressing the havens in Pakistan.

Pakistani officials say that they are doing their best to gain control of the area and that military efforts to pacify it have failed, but that more reconstruction aid is needed.

Officials said that over the past year, Al Qaeda had also shown an increased international capability, citing as an example its alliance with the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, an Algerian-based group that has carried out a series of attacks in recent months.

Last fall, the Algerian group renamed itself Al Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb. Officials in Washington say they believe that the group is linked to a recent string of sophisticated car bombings and other attacks in Algeria, including a December attack on a bus carrying Halliburton contractors.

David Johnston contributed reporting from Washington, and Carlotta Gall from Islamabad, Pakistan.

Arrest of "spy" a sore point for 2 nations

Chicago Tribune - 02/19/2007 By Kim Barker - Afghans say he helped bin Laden cross border. Pakistan says that's absurd. He first confessed but now says he's an innocent pharmacist.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Afghan authorities announced a striking development at a news conference in December: They had arrested a Pakistani spy who confessed to smuggling Osama bin Laden into Pakistan from Afghanistan in 2005, and they had a videotape of the confession to prove it.

Yet, sitting in jail, the alleged spy, Sayed Akbar, denies it. He says he is an innocent pharmacist from a Pakistani border town who was mistakenly arrested by Afghan soldiers on his way to buy medicine for his clinic.

Akbar's original story, tantalizing but uncorroborated, has become another sore point in the prickly relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan, two U.S. allies that share a border but little else in the war on terrorism in South Asia.

The two nations and their leaders appear stuck in a spiral of mistrust and mutual accusations, while the porous border region remains a haven for Taliban fighters bent on bringing down the Afghan government.

Pakistani officials dismiss the accusations against Akbar, and U.S. officials doubt that he helped bin Laden. Afghan officials say Akbar, 38, is an example of how the Pakistani intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, has supported terrorism in Afghanistan.

In December, the spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai trumpeted Akbar's arrest, naming him as a key link between Pakistani intelligence and Al Qaeda. Afghan officials later gave the Tribune access to Akbar in prison and allowed a reporter to view his videotaped confession and his criminal file.

"This basically solves the enigma of why Osama bin Laden hasn't been captured for so long--because he was protected," said a top Afghan official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity.

Pakistani authorities say the claim about Akbar is absurd. Tasneem Aslam, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said the Pakistani Embassy in Kabul has unsuccessfully sought access to Akbar since learning about him in December. She suggested that he may have been forced into giving the confession.

"This is a very, very wild and baseless allegation," Aslam said. "This is somebody's imagination working overtime."

A U.S. military official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the tale of Akbar was "not particularly credible." He said the U.S. military had not interviewed Akbar.

But certain parts of Akbar's original videotaped story lend it credibility. He accurately identifies the head of the ISI in Pakistan's North-West Frontier province. The route he outlined also indicated he knew the region well and which path would be best at that time of year.

The Afghan intelligence official who interrogated Akbar said he believed Akbar recanted because the Afghan government failed to honor a promise--that Akbar's family would be moved to Kabul for safety reasons.

No charges yet - Since his arrest 10 months ago, Akbar has been jailed. He has yet to be charged, although Afghan law says he should have been charged within two months of arrest.

Afghan intelligence sources acknowledge they have not followed up on leads provided by Akbar, nor have they fully investigated his story. They say they do not have the resources to investigate the claims, nor the ability to travel into some regions they deem too dangerous.

"We will investigate, we will hear both sides, and then we will decide," said Judge Mohammad Tayyeb, in charge of the primary court for crimes against the country, who recently summoned Akbar for his first court appearance. "This is a very important case for the reputation of the court system of Afghanistan."

Bin Laden's whereabouts have long been a mystery. Some experts have suggested that he has hidden out in Nuristan or in Kunar province, also in eastern Afghanistan. In 2002, he allegedly showed up at a wedding for a daughter in Barikot, about 4 miles from the Pakistan border.

The Akbar case comes at a time when Afghan authorities have stepped up their condemnation of the Pakistani intelligence service, which they accuse of sheltering the Taliban.

In January, the Afghan intelligence agency released a videotaped confession by Mohammed Hanif, an alleged spokesman for the Taliban who had been captured. In the video, Hanif claimed the ISI helped the Taliban and protected the Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, in Quetta, Pakistan.

The ISI supported the Islamic fighters who drove the Soviet Union from Afghanistan in 1989, and later supported the Taliban. It's not clear how much Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf controls the ISI or the spy agency's efforts in the tribal areas.

In the 31-minute videotape, Akbar seemed measured, calm and friendly, gesturing with his hands and calling his Afghan interrogator "my brother."

There were no visible bruises on Akbar in the videotape. He said he spoke for a half-hour to bin Laden, who had been hiding in Nuristan province, in the basement of the home of a commander from militant group Hezb-e-Islami.

"I thought, this is the person the entire world is looking for," Akbar says on the tape. "He looked weak, sick. He didn't look very strong."

According to Akbar's confession, the ISI asked him and another agent to take bin Laden across the border in the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, between Oct. 4 and Nov. 3, 2005.

He said he and an ISI agent drove a disguised bin Laden to a spot in Kunar province, a Taliban stronghold. The team then walked, crossing a river near the border on foot, according to Akbar's taped confession.

After delivering bin Laden to ISI officials in Pakistan's Chitral region, Akbar said, he did not know what happened to the Al Qaeda leader.

Denying any connection - In late December, Akbar spoke to the Tribune for more than two hours in a grim concrete prison outside Kabul. The interview took place in front of prison guards and the Afghan intelligence official who had questioned him on the tape.

In the interview, Akbar seemed defiant and denied his earlier confession. The more the Afghan intelligence official laid out his case against Akbar, listing all the details in his confession, the more Akbar leaned back in his chair and denied any connection with the ISI.

In the jail, Akbar said he had never met bin Laden and called such allegations "nonsense." He said he did not remember what he had said in his videotaped confession--he only remembered the video camera.

"Maybe I was not in a proper mood, or maybe I was mentally ill," Akbar said. "Maybe I was beaten to say this."

Taliban Claims It Used Surface-To-Air Missile To Down Helicopter

Karachi, 19 Feb. (AKI) - (by Syed Saleem Shahzad) - Taliban fighters using Surface-to-Air Missile 7 (SAM 7) brought down a coalition CH-47 Chinook helicopter in south-eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, according to high-level Taliban sources speaking to Adnkronos International (AKI). According to the sources, who provided AKI with exclusive documents and video CDs, the attack on the helicopter marks the start of the Taliban spring uprising and the use of more sophisticated weapons in their fight against foreign forces. Coalition forces said aircraft crashed killing eight people because it had "a sudden, unexplained loss of power and control".

The Taliban sources told AKI that they would be using more advanced missile technology in their upcoming attacks. The militant group had acquired the surface to air missiles in 2005 and had arranged for a training programme for its fighters.

Previously the use of SAM missiles was restricted because of the inexperience of the Taliban fighters. The training programme was set up in al-Qaeda Shankiari training camp in the town of Khost in eastern Afghanistan where guerrilla fighters like Abul Lais Al-Libbi and others arranged for training sessions for the Taliban fighters.

"There are many more technological surprises in the store," said a Taliban source. Eight US military personnel were killed in the crash and 14 others wounded. The twin-engined Chinook troop carrier hit into the ground in Zabul province, just 50 metres from the main Kabul-Kandahar highway.

The CH-47 Chinook helicopter was carrying 22 US service members when there was a "sudden, unexplained loss of power and control," a US military spokesman said. Initial reports however stated that the crash was purely accidental, with the pilot having reportedly engine trouble before the crash occurred. A coalition statement also said that the Taliban had been building up forces in that area.

The Taliban has claimed responsibility for shooting down the helicopter with a missile.

India is Afghanistan's most cherished partner: Hekmat Karzai

Malaysia Sun - Sunday 18th February, 2007 - IANS

India has contributed over $750 million in terms of aid and construction to Afghanistan till now in almost every sector, including education and agriculture, and is the country's most cherished partner, says Hekmat Karzai, a cousin of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

'India is the most cherished partner of Afghanistan. The relationship between our two countries is only improving,' Karzai, director of the Kabul-based Centre for Conflict and Peace Studies, told INEP in an interview. Karzai said that India has awarded 500 scholarships for Afghan students.

'There is very high-level visibility and high-level (bilateral) delegations going back and forth. The relations have improved and I think India has been a very positive actor in the region,' said Karzai, who was in Brussels to attend a conference on Afghanistan organised by Centre for European Policy Studies, a Brussels-based think tank.

Commenting on Afghanistan-Pakistan ties, he said Afghanistan is grateful for what Pakistan had done during the Soviet invasion or even for Afghan refugees. 'The sad thing is that the relationship (between Afghanistan and Pakistan) has not been as fruitful as it could have been.'

Commenting on media reports of a major Taliban offensive, Karzai, who has served in his country's embassy in Washington, said he does not think it will be a serious challenge. 'We will deal with it with NATO and the coalition forces and the Afghan national army,' he said.

Where the Taliban breeds

Analysis | The porous Afghan-Pakistani border has been lawless since being imposed on Pashtun tribes in 1893. But this wild frontier must be tamed if Afghanistan is to flourish.

Olivia Ward- The Toronto Star February 18, 2007 - When Hassan Abbas, then a Pakistani police chief, went on a raid in the country's lawless border region, he was surprised to find himself outside his territory – and inside Afghanistan.

"We weren't the only ones who were confused," says Abbas, now a fellow of the Belfer Center at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

"For hundreds of years, people have been living on both sides of the border, and when it was divided they found it inconceivable that they should suddenly be residents of another country."

The story illustrates how porous is the wild, mountainous frontier that separates the two countries along the 2,400-kilometre line, which is still in dispute more than a century after it was negotiated by British diplomat Sir Henry Mortimer Durand.

But for Canadian and other NATO troops – and the traumatized people of southern Afghanistan – the border is real and menacing as they anxiously await a predicted spring onslaught of Taliban fighters and suicide bombers from Pakistan. The coming battles are said to be crucial for peace and stability in Afghanistan.

"Al Qaeda and Taliban leadership presence inside of Pakistan remain a very significant problem," said the outgoing American commander in Afghanistan, Lt.-Gen. Karl Eikenberry, urging a "steady, direct attack" on their operations bases in the border areas.

But those who are familiar with the turbulent border regions say the realities there are far more complex than Western policy-makers believe. And they warn that putting a stop to the "Talibanization" that is threatening both Afghanistan and Pakistan will not be accomplished by military means alone.

"The Pashtuns are the historically dominant group in the area, and they have been split by the Durand Line, so that there is a feeling their destiny has been interrupted," says Selig Harrison, director of the Asia Program at the Center for International Policy and author of five books on the border regions.

Moreover, he says, no foreign army has ever subdued the fierce border tribes. The Durand Line, which divided Pashtun tribes between British India and Afghanistan in 1893, is viewed with resentment by people on both its sides and many of them of them consider it irrelevant.

"When you look at the partition today, it doesn't make a lot of sense," says geography professor Jack Shroder of University of Nebraska, Omaha, who has mapped the rugged areas.

"In the time of the British Raj, it was a ploy to divide and rule, and they put down white rocks to mark it. But people move the rocks around, because the border doesn't exist for them."

Like the border, law and order is a fluid concept in the tribal lands. Pakistan has never managed to take control of the largely Pashtun area and created seven semi-autonomous units – Bajaur, Momand, Khyber, Orakzai, Kurram and North and South Waziristan – administered by federally appointed political agents.

Six smaller Frontier Regions provide a buffer between the agencies and the North West Frontier Province to the east. To the south is the large but sparsely populated province of Baluchistan, whose capital, Quetta, is said to be a Taliban command centre.

In the tribal regions, Pakistani courts and law enforcers have almost no sway, and the real power are the jirgas, or assemblies of elders, says Abbas, author of Pakistan's Drift into Extremism: Allah, the Army and America's War on Terror.

The border regions have a population of some 38 million, including members of 60 Pashtun tribes and 400 sub-clans. With a literacy rate of little more than 10 per cent, few job opportunities beyond subsistence farming, deeply conservative religious views and an abundance of guns, the regions are a staging ground for militancy, drug trafficking and numerous smuggling rackets. All these factors give the Taliban a head start in recruiting.

"The Taliban are sons of the soil, not foreigners," says Kamran Bokhari, a Toronto-based senior analyst for Strategic Forecasting Inc. "Over the past two decades, there has been a drift toward their kind of conservative Islam. An Islamist wave has hit the region, and there are many people who don't believe 9/11 happened and are convinced that there is a war going on against Muslims."

The tribal areas also have sheltered foreign and Afghan fighters fleeing previous wars in Afghanistan, and some of them have married local women and settled there.

Abbas says the Taliban was encouraged by "the Pakistani military's hidden alliance with religious political parties," in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks. When the United States urged Pakistan to attack the militants, the campaign was brutal but disastrous. In a territory where revenge is part of the traditional code, secular parties lost out and Islamists gained ground.

But pockets of secular Pashtuns who oppose extremism still remain, with little support from the government and constant threats from Islamist groups.

Some analysts point to these secularists as the hope for future peace on the borders. A leader of the nationalist Pashtun Awami National Party, Asfandyar Wali, recently defeated pro-Taliban politicians in an election in Bajaur Agency.

Nevertheless, Islamists in Bajaur have threatened local men against shaving their beards, and while some men have protested, Abbas says, the episode demonstrates the strength of extremism even in opposition areas.

But even among the Taliban, there are divisions and opportunities for negotiation, says veteran Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, author of several books on militancy in the borderlands.

"Negotiating with the present leadership (Mullah Omar, Mullah Dadullah and others) is not acceptable," says Rashid, adding that there are "moderate elements" who are willing to talk to the Afghan government and have met with the secular and nationalist Pashtun groups.

Rashid points out that the Pakistani government is deeply suspicious of those groups, fearing a new secession movement if they gain support. Pakistan rejected a recent peace plan put forward by Wali – and approved by Afghan President Hamid Karzai – to hold a jirga of tribal leaders from both sides of the border.

"Wali believes it's the last hope for the region," says Abbas. "But in Pakistan, it is difficult to challenge the military intelligence establishment."

Bokhari, who had a recent meeting with President Pervez Musharraf, says the Pakistani leader admitted he had "no magic wand" for solving the crisis on the borders but was open to political negotiation, as well as fencing and mining the frontier (the latter opposed by Canada). And Musharraf denied reports that the Pakistani intelligence service was supporting militants, saying that creating an unstable neighbour was against his country's interests.

But as the countdown to a predicted spring offensive continues, so will pressure on Musharraf to shut down Taliban bases in Pakistan's borderlands.

Says Harrison: "Since the economic viability of Pakistan depends on continued aid, a credible threat to cut it off would alarm the armed forces and other sectors of the Pakistani business and political establishment, forcing Musharraf to tack with the wind."

But most analysts agree that force alone will not be effective on the frontier. They say that tightly targeted attacks against the hard core of the Taliban, avoiding civilian casualties, should open the way for negotiations with those who are willing to lay down their arms.

"People who want to fight can be tackled militarily, and NATO must not allow (the militants) to believe they will just leave the area," says Abbas.

But Pakistan, he adds, is only part of the problem. "It's crucial to support development of Afghanistan. A person with a job, and kids in school, will think twice before picking up a gun."

Go-soft strategy not always the best option in Afghanistan

CanWest News Service; Edmonton Journal - Sunday, February 18, 2007

TARIN KOWT, Afghanistan - A new school opened in Afghanistan on Saturday - which might not sound like a big deal, except in Afghanistan it is huge. The Tarin Kowt Trade Training School is a symbol of everything that can go right in this devastated country - and a reminder of what is still so terribly wrong.

The NATO-run school will teach young men who are illiterate and impoverished, and therefore prime targets for Taliban recruiting, the rudiments of carpentry. They'll learn how to build tables and chairs, maybe even a coffee table. In the words of one of their teachers, they'll take up the saw, not the sword.

Which sounds wonderful, except that in order for the school to operate safely it has to be located inside a special military compound surrounded by blast walls. That, in turn, is located inside a large NATO base, Camp Holland, home to 2,000 troops near the town of Tarin Kowt, 100 kilometres north of Kandahar.

Security is such a dicey affair here that for the opening ceremonies, dignitaries arrived in a convoy of armoured personnel carriers. Reporters based at Kandahar Air Field were flown in on a helicopter that had three machine gunners and was shadowed by a second helicopter gun ship. The students - there are only nine of them - smiled bravely for the cameras even though they face death from the Taliban for taking the classes.

"I am not worried," said Rhmatullha, who, like many Afghans, goes by one name. He is 21 but looks younger, his beard a mere wisp. "I chose this for myself. I am very happy, my mother and father are very happy that I am learning carpentry. It will be a big change for my life."

Rhmatullha is bubbling with enthusiasm at the chance to escape the grinding poverty of one of the poorest regions of Afghanistan. This is the first time he has ever had an education. NATO is already calling the school a success story even though this story is barely past the first page.

It will be interesting to see how the plot develops and whether it will become a primer for Canada's efforts to win the hearts and minds of Afghans.

The Tarin Kowt school is being run by Australian soldiers who are taking a much different tact than Canadians, who are aggressively seeking out the Taliban in combat. The Australian troops have deliberately focused on reconstruction, leaving security in the hands of their partners on the base, the Dutch. The Dutch for their part are relying on an "ink spot" strategy where they win over little bits of the country at a time, careful not to stray too far from home base. Eventually, they hope the ink spots of peace and prosperity will spread to cover an entire region.

The Australians say they have become so adept at reconstruction that when they arrive at a local village they bring with them trucks loaded with prefabricated parts and can renovate a mosque or most other local structures in less than four hours. "We're not here to make promises," said Lt.-Col. Mick Ryan. "We're here to build things."

It's as if they're taking military advice from NDP leader Jack Layton who wants Canada to tone down it's combat role. Or it's as if they helped write last week's report from Canada's Senate which called on the government to funnel aid money directly through the Canadian military.

"If our troops are to be seen as liberators rather than invaders, their image needs all the help it can get," said the report." However, Australia's go-soft strategy is being criticized by some of the very same Afghan elders who celebrated Saturday's school opening.

Mullah Maulawi Harmadullah wants the Australians to learn a lesson from the Canadians and take the fight to the Taliban. After delivering the opening prayer, he glanced at the snow-capped mountains in the distance where the Talibs still holds sway and said bluntly, "We are surrounded."

Reinforcing the siege mentality, an Apache attack helicopter circled high overhead test-firing its machine guns. Harmadullah later told reporters he worries for the safety of the students who would be "slaughtered" if the Taliban discovered them going to a NATO-run school.

It is a terrible situation for Rhmatullha and a reminder of the deadly pressure the Taliban is trying to apply to Afghans - even those who want nothing more than to build their country one coffee table at a time.

The Afghan War, through our eyes

Val Ross visits a riveting new exhibit at the Canadian War Museum that, instead of artifacts, relies on video and photographs to tell its stories

VAL ROSS - From Monday's Globe and Mail - OTTAWA — Like the conflict it chronicles, Afghanistan: A Glimpse of War, which opened this month at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, is unfinished. The exhibition begins very precisely, with the events of Sept. 11, 2001, when al-Qaeda terrorists smashed planes into the World Trade Center in New York City, and of Sept. 20, when Canada officially decided to join the mission against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

But the final rooms of the show dwindle down to blank walls -- because who knows how the story ends?

A Glimpse of War fascinates on several levels. Compared to a typical exhibition, it has been created from precious few artifacts. Mostly it is made up of videos by documentary filmmaker Garth Pritchard, who's been over to Afghanistan five times since 2002, and the photos of Stephen Thorne, a Canadian Press photographer who accompanied the Canadian forces on their first helicopter assault in March 2002; he stayed for nine months between 2003-2004. It was because Thorne's son was dating the daughter of a war museum employee that the museum first learned of the trove of visual material available.

After contacting Thorne and Pritchard, staff assembled the show in 18 months -- breakneck by museological standards (last year's Clash of Empires show took more than a decade to organize).

Still, the few artifacts in this show have a powerful impact. Sept. 11, for example, is evoked not only through photos and texts but also $10,000 worth of Canadian $100 bills, crushed into a solid brick by the buildings' collapse (did they belong to one of the doomed Canadians working in the towers?). There's also a crumpled piece from one of the killer planes.

Nearby are the last messages from the doomed people inside the buildings, and newspapers blaring day-of-infamy headlines. But the museum's own low-key curatorial texts avoid editorializing. "We're sensitive that people will say this show is nothing more than propaganda for the government," says Dean Oliver, the War Museum's director of research and exhibitions. "We want the participants to speak more to you than I or the historian."

Indeed, the show is a case study in how to be as apolitical as possible -- a wise decision given the divisions in this country over Canada's involvement. Besides, as Oliver points out, "We don't have Cabinet records, we don't know why key decisions were made." Instead, the exhibition invites the public to editorialize by posting their comments on boards at key junctures.

By the 9/11 portion of the show, a young visitor has posted, "I was five and all I can remember is watching a plane flying into two towers and lots of blak [sic] dust." A more adult hand has written: "I am a firefighter. I lost close personal friends."

Another station poses the question: How should Canada have responded? "Exactly as they did!" responds someone signing herself "Widow of CF member." But another response is: "Le Canada devrait agir comme lui-même, non pas comme les Etats Unis" [in our own way, not the Americans']. In organizing Afghanistan, curators bypassed the region's history; there's only a glancing reference to U.S. funding of rebels in the 1990s, or about insurgents who proved eager to bomb a hand that fed them. However, a tantalizing sense of how some in the region regard al-Qaeda is evidenced by a box of a popular children's candy, which bears the startling label Osama Bin Laden Kulfa Balls.

In this show, Afghans sometimes are shown as rebuilders of their ruined country and its political institutions (my favourite footage shows women at a polling booth lifting their burkas to kiss each other in congratulation after voting). But mostly the locals are depicted as enigmatic allies or implacable adversaries -- in other words, as Canadian soldiers see them. Fundamentally, this is a show about Canadians: what we have done and endured since our troops officially arrived on Feb. 2, 2002.

We have shot -- a MacMillan Tac .50 long-range rifle is displayed under a rather proud reminder of the prowess of Canadian snipers. We have been shot at -- Pritchard's footage shows a U.S. surgeon slicing through the Canadian flag tattoo on a soldier's shoulder, and then removing shrapnel. We have killed and been killed -- a U.S. officer threw Thorne off the Kandahar military base on April 15, 2002 for taking photos of dead U.S. soldiers. Two days later Thorne was allowed back -- to cover the deaths of four Canadians killed by friendly fire.

The final elements of the show are the twisted wreckage of an armoured G-wagon destroyed by a roadside bomb, and the museum's video assemblage of photos sent by the families of 44 Canadian soldiers who have died in the conflict. It takes 15 minutes to see the whole thing. Many visitors stay for the duration, out of respect and because it's difficult to look away.

When I do look away, I discover one extra artifact that has been added to Afghanistan, a family snapshot of a young man taped to the museum wall. A Remembrance Day poppy and a black ribbon are pinned to the photo.

For now the curators are leaving it there. "It's the people's museum," says Oliver.

SAFMA opens branch in Afghanistan

KABUL, Feb 19 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The South Asia Free Media Association (SAFMA) on Monday formally opened its branch in Afghanistan.

The branch was opened during the visit of SAFMA's three-member delegation, including its India's general secretary Vinod Sharma, SAFMA's Pakistan president Nusrat Javeed and its NWFP president Rahimullah Yousafzai, to Kabul. The delegation had arrived here on Saturday.

Earlier, journalists from about 40 print and electronic media outlets elected Mohammad Halim Fidai as president of SAFMA Afghanistan during a gathering held here last night.

President of Afghanistan Independent Journalists Association (AIJA) Rahimullah Samandar was elected general secretary of the association. Other office-bearers of the association included: Fatana Gilani, vice president, Amanullah Khalilyar, second vice president, Humaira Kawoon and Abdul Zahir, joint secretaries.

Speaking to Pajhwok Afghan News, Fidai said the step would help Afghan journalists in establishing close relations with journalists from the South Asian countries and the world.

SAFMA's Pakistan president Nusrat Javeed said it would bring Afghanistan closer to the regional and international media. SAFMA's India general secretary Vinod Sharma said next meeting of the association would be held in April in New Delhi ahead of the meeting of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) member countries.

He said journalists from member countries should be allowed to visit each others countries without any hindrance.

A media organisation of the SAARC member countries, SAFMA was established in 1998 in Islamabad, capital of Pakistan. It held its first meeting in the same city. The member countries included: India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives and Afghanistan.

Afghanistan bans poultry imports

Gulf News (United Arab Emirates) -February 18, 2007 - [Agencies] - Kabul: Afghanistan has banned poultry imports to prevent the spread of the deadly H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus, an official said on Sunday.

The H5N1 strain was found in poultry in at least four provinces in 2006, leading to the killing of thousands of birds, although there were no human deaths.

Health ministry adviser doctor Abdullah Fahim said, "This decision is part of a precautionary and preventive measure." He added that the government was also focussing on public awareness programmes about the virus.

Afghanistan imports a large amount of poultry, mostly from Pakistan, but the ban imposed last week also applies to other countries hit by H5N1, including Britain, Turkey and Indonesia.

[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.]