In this bulletin:

• Failure in Afghanistan would threaten US, European security: US adviser
• NATO chief in Afghanistan for talks
• Report: Afghanistan's Karzai praises Pakistani steps against cross-border attacks
• Afghan ambassador to US says Pakistani army has power to counter terror and extremism
• Taliban crossings build border anger
• Prodi: Afghanistan's latest casualty may survive
• Australia hasn't decided on further troop deployment in Afghanistan: PM
• From Iraq to Afghanistan
• France defends its military contribution in Afghanistan
• Turkmenistan Writes Off $4M Afghan Debt
• Russian FM due to arrive in Kabul
• Spokesperson comment on Pakistan policy toward Afghan Media
• Liberals back Afghan mission until 2009
• Canadians pay Afghan farmers for land
• Editorial: A Problem of Passivity
• Editorial: Afghanistan a true test for NATO
• Opinion: Afghan headaches
• Afghan warlords plan pro-amnesty law demonstration
• Crimes of politics
• Charity closed after protest over "Christianity activity" in Afghan district
• US bill to empower Afghan women
• Afghan TV debates NATO strategy towards Afghanistan

Failure in Afghanistan would threaten US, European security: US adviser

AFP 02/21/2007 - BRUSSELS - US National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley on Wednesday urged NATO members to increase spending on alliance efforts in Afghanistan, warning that failure of the mission there undermine European and US security.

Hadley, who held talks in Brussels with North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, said failure in Afghanistan would be a "tragedy" and called for increased funding for the operation.

"Both Europe and North America are increasing their contribution to the NATO mission. We are working together to ensure that if there is a spring offensive that it is a spring offensive of NATO against the Taliban which will help advance the security of that country," Hadley said at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

"It is important that that mission succeeds so that Afghanistan does not become again a safe haven for terror," he added. "To fail would be a tragedy for the Afghan people but it would also threaten the security of both Europe and North America," he warned.

Hadley called on NATO member states to "step up in terms of our spending, in terms of developing the right kind of capability and showing the kind of solidarity that this alliance of multiple countries can work together to achieve a common mission".

A 33,000-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, largely comprising US troops, is deployed in Afghanistan as part of efforts to tackle a growing Taliban insurgency and expand the influence of the weak central government.

Hadley and the NATO chief also discussed other key areas of concern including Iran, Iraq, the Middle East, Kosovo and relations with Russia, Hadley, a key adviser to US President George W. Bush, told reporters. Later Hadley met with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

Between now and Friday Hadley will also hold talks with his German and Russian counterparts in Berlin and Moscow, with Afghanistan on the agenda along with Kosovo, Lebanon and other Middle East issues, a US national security adviser spokesman said in Washington.

Last week the alliance's military chief warned that NATO nations are putting the lives of their soldiers in danger in Afghanistan by refusing to provide enough troops to fight off the Taliban,

"If you don't source this to 100 percent," said NATO military commander US General Bantz Craddock, "it places every NATO soldier there at greater risk." Craddock said that NATO's military needs are "probably filled to 93 or 94 percent". On the same day a purported Taliban commander said the militia was ready for its "biggest ever" offensive in Afghanistan this year.

NATO chief in Afghanistan for talks

Kabul (AFP) - NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer was in Kabul on Thursday for talks with Afghan and alliance officials on the Taliban insurgency and reconstruction, a NATO spokesman said.

Scheffer, who arrived here on Wednesday, was likely to meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai and other government officials late on Thursday, NATO spokesman Nicholas Lunt told AFP. The alliance's chief has already met with US General Dan McNeill, the commander of the 37-nation, NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, Lunt said.

The Secretary General is also due to meet some non-governmental organizations and to travel to some outlying Afghan provinces before his three-day visit ends, Lunt added. "He'll go around the country before leaving," Lunt said, but would not give details because of security reasons.

NATO has more than 35,000 troops in Afghanistan operating under a UN-mandated peacekeeping mission. Many are based in the south and east where Taliban militants are active.

Last week NATO military chief US General Bantz Craddock warned that the alliance's members were putting the lives of their soldiers in danger in Afghanistan by refusing to provide enough troops to fight off the Taliban.

An insurgency by the fundamentalist Taliban claimed more than 4,000 lives in 2006, making it the deadliest year in Afghanistan since US-led forces ousted the Islamic regime five years earlier.

Report: Afghanistan's Karzai praises Pakistani steps against cross-border attacks

The Associated Press - Thursday, February 22, 2007 - ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: The Afghan government is happy with recent Pakistani steps to prevent Taliban militants from mounting crossborder attacks, President Hamid Karzai said in remarks published Thursday, while urging Islamabad to follow up with further efforts to counter the guerrillas.

Pakistan's The News newspaper quoted Karzai as saying in an interview that Taliban attacks in Afghanistan had declined in recent months and that Pakistan had taken welcome steps to stem the flow of militants across the mountainous border.

"We have seen an improvement in the situation. My government is happy with some of the measures adopted in this regard. But we feel that Pakistan needs to do more to tackle the problem," Karzai was quoted as saying.

The United States is also pressing Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to do more to tighten security along the border and clamp down on militant hide-outs and training camps in Pakistan's border regions ahead of an anticipated surge in violence this spring.

However, U.S. officials have sought to end a war of words between Karzai and Musharraf, who has angrily rejected accusations from Afghanistan that Pakistani forces are secretly helping the militants.

In the newspaper interview, Karzai said he and Pakistani president — both vital U.S. allies in its war against terrorism — had decided to end their public feud and that the two nations "would prosper as friends."

Still, he pointed out that most attacks in Afghanistan take place along the Pakistani border and said that almost all of the suicide bombers attacking targets in Afghanistan were foreigners.

NATO troops supporting Karzai's feeble government are bracing for an anticipated surge in violence in Afghanistan once spring brings warmer weather and melts snow in mountain passes used by insurgents. The News said Karzai had cast doubt on recent claims that the Taliban was readying as many as 10,000 fighters for the new fighting season.

Afghan ambassador to US says Pakistani army has power to counter terror and extremism

The Associated Press - Wednesday, February 21, 2007 - WASHINGTON: Afghanistan's ambassador said real power in Pakistan is in the hands of its army, which he said is capable of countering extremism and terror in the two countries.

"The real institution in charge is the military," Said Tayeb Jawad said in an interview Wednesday. He sidestepped an assessment of the effectiveness of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, himself an army general.

Afghanistan long has criticized Pakistan and its president for not cracking down as vigorously as Afghanistan would like on terrorist training camps on its side of a long border with Afghanistan.

Pakistan, by contrast, says it is working hard to counter terrorism. On a visit to Washington last September, Musharraf won praise from President George W. Bush. "We are on the hunt together," Bush said, referring to an effort to find and neutralize Osama bin Laden, leader of the al-Qaida network, and other terror chiefs.

Jawad said the army holds the cards. "The army is a powerful and capable institution to reduce the influence of extremism and also to fight terrorism and extremism effectively," the diplomat said. One mechanism the two countries are exploring is empowering tribal elders on both sides of the border to use armed tribesmen to reduce raids by insurgents.

Jamad said Afghanistan and Pakistan have established a commission to take up the proposition and hope to have a joint jirga, or meeting, early in the year with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Musharraf attending.

All countries affected by terrorism including Pakistan, NATO countries and the United States should work together to reduce the terror threat, he said.

Pakistan has been a refuge for Taliban and al-Qaida militants since the U.S.-led invasion that removed the hard-line Taliban militia from power in Afghanistan at the end of 2001. Al-Qaida's forces who had enjoyed an Afghan haven under the protection of the Taliban left at the same time.

An upsurge in border crossings by Taliban fighters is widely expected in a few months with the melting of snow in the mountains.

Last year some 4,000 people died, mostly militants, in clashes with U.S. and other NATO forces, particularly in Afghanistan's south and east. It was the worst bout of violence to rock the country since the removal of the Taliban government.

Taliban crossings build border anger

Afghan, Pakistani officials trade blame as fighters move back and forth with ease - GRAEME SMITH - From Thursday's Globe and Mail

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — The angry words between leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan reached a new pitch in recent days as politicians from the two countries blamed each other for the Taliban's growing strength.

Politicians often hurl insults at their counterparts across the mountainous border, but the accusations grew more pointed this week as a senior Pakistani official described the Taliban as fighting a "liberation war" against troops occupying Afghanistan, and an Afghan governor responded by accusing Pakistan of attacking his country with the help of Taliban proxies.

"They're fighting for Pakistan, with the help of Pakistani rupees," said Kandahar Governor Asadullah Khalid, speaking to a small group of reporters at his office. "It's not a war for independence; it's a war for money."

The latest round of verbal sparring started on Friday, when Ali Mohammed Jan Aurakzai, governor of Pakistan's vast North West Frontier Province, told a press conference that Afghanistan has brought the insurgency upon itself. "It is developing into some sort of a nationalist movement, a resistance movement, sort of a liberation war against coalition forces," Mr. Aurakzai said.

The NWFP governor, a retired lieutenant-general, was appointed in May of 2006, after Pakistan had waged a bloody and unsuccessful campaign against insurgents in the lawless border province. Less than four months later, Mr. Aurakzai brought an official end to the fighting with a controversial peace deal that gave Taliban fighters amnesty on condition that they stop their violence.

The U.S. military, which patrols along the nearby Afghan border, has complained that the agreement gave insurgents more freedom inside Pakistan and has resulted in a sharp increase in cross-border attacks.

Mr. Aurakzai defended the peace deal, saying that infiltration of militants across the border causes, at most, 20 per cent of the fighting inside Afghanistan.

"With the passage of time, [Taliban] strength has been swelling and today they've reached the stage that a lot of the local population have started supporting the militant operations," the Pakistani governor said.

Two days later, Kandahar's governor slapped a printout of the Pakistani official's remarks on a coffee table with disgust. "This is shameful for General Aurakzai, because he is Pashtun, and the insurgents are killing Pashtun brothers on both sides of the Durand Line," he said.

The Kandahar governor was referring to the Pashtun ethnic group that straddles the border, also known as the Durand Line, which has never been accepted by Afghanistan as a legitimate international boundary.

Observers say that Pakistan's reluctance to take action against the Taliban is related, in part, to Islamabad's fears of Pashtun nationalists who call for independence or unification of tribal areas with Afghanistan.

Rather than offering assurances that Afghanistan has no aggressive intentions towards Pakistani territory, Afghan officials often speak favourably about the Pashtun nationalists who agitate inside Pakistan -- mirroring the rhetoric from some Pakistani officials, who describe the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan as a Pashtun uprising.

"In Pakistan there are some nations working for independence," Mr. Khalid said. "But over the last three decades they were under pressure because of the fighting in Afghanistan."

The Afghan Foreign Ministry in Kabul also issued a strongly worded condemnation of the NWFP governor's comments this week.

In Islamabad, a government spokeswoman distanced the Pakistani government from the remarks, saying they were misinterpreted. The two governments officially co-operate on security issues, and a new Joint Intelligence Operations Centre in Kabul, staffed by military officials from both sides of the border, is scheduled to be fully operational by April.

Located inside the Kabul headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the JIOC is intended to improve relations between the tense neighbours by allowing officials to share information.

But Afghanistan has already given Islamabad its intelligence about the location of Taliban training camps inside Pakistan, Mr. Khalid said, and Pakistani authorities have failed to take action.

"Everywhere in Pakistan, in famous cities, they have Taliban training centres -- in Quetta, Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar," he said. "In the meantime, they talk about checkposts at the border. They must destroy the training centres."

Prodi: Afghanistan's latest casualty may survive

Radio Netherlands - The collapse of the Italian government led by Prime Minister Romano Prodi, who tendered his resignation to President Giorgio Napolitano on Wednesday evening, painfully exposed the divisions within his centre-left coalition.

In the Senate, where Mr Prodi held a majority of just a few votes, only a few dissenters from the ranks of his own coalition were needed to bring him a defeat in an important foreign policy vote. This left him with no option other than to resign, although his role is not played out yet.

The now caretaker prime minister has said he is ready to continue on in government on condition that the dissidents maintain coalition discipline in future. Intensive negotiations are indeed already under way.     

The immediate cause of the crisis was the Prodi government's Afghanistan policy. A majority in his coalition wants to extend the deployment of the more than 1,900 Italian soldiers already in Afghanistan. However, a number of far-left members of parliament regard the West's operations in the country as a colonial war and are therefore categorically opposed to the proposed extension. Although the opposition - led by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi - is in favour it said right from the start that, for tactical reasons, it would not support the cabinet.

Gamble - After days of difficult negotiations with the dissenters, Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema brought the issue to a head on the eve of the vote by saying that the cabinet would fall if its motion to extend the deployment was rejected. But his gamble failed: one dissident voted against and two abstained, which meant 158 senators supported Prodi while 160 rejected the policy.

Paradoxically, the same senators who caused the cabinet to fall are now publicly begging Prodi to continue, saying they rejected his Afghanistan policy but are otherwise loyal to the prime minister. If he were to call for a vote of confidence they would support him. They realise that the alternative - new elections - would almost certainly mean the return of Silvio Berlusconi, thereby probably ruling out far-left government participation for many years.

Loss of goodwill -A series of drastic reforms and continuous arguments in his coalition have cost Romano Prodi much goodwill in the nine months his cabinet has been in office, and recent opinion polls put Silvio Berlusconi in the lead. Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema said on Wednesday evening that new elections would bring 'another ten years of Berlusconi'.   

That must be a daunting prospect to Romano Prodi, which explains why has agreed to continue with a slightly reshuffled cabinet albeit subject to one very strict condition: he wants a clear mandate from all the coalition parties allowing him to govern without extensive consultations with each party on every single issue, as has been the case so far. If his demand is met, he will emerge from the crisis a stronger leader. But it is far from certain that the dissenters will give him his way.

Meanwhile, Italy's military role in Afghanistan hardly appears to play any role at all any more. The opposition voted against the motion on Wednesday for tactical reasons, but is almost 100-percent in favour of extending the funding for the Italian contingent in Afghanistan. The government proposal is in fact not really at issue at all and will ultimately be approved by parliament without much fuss.

Australia hasn't decided on further troop deployment in Afghanistan: PM

Australian Prime Minister John Howard said the Australian government has not made a decision on further troop deployment in Afghanistan.

His statements came following reports that Australia is likely to nearly double its troop numbers in the Asian country by sending 450 extra troops to join more than 500 personnel already there.

"We are looking at the situation, and as (Defense Minister) Doctor (Brendan) Nelson indicated this morning, there are some people over there having a look at it," Howard told reporters in Perth, capital of the state of Western Australia. "I don't rule out some increase there but the government has not made that decision," he said.

Australia currently has some 550 troops inside Afghanistan, including 370 as members of the reconstruction task force engaged in development projects in Oruzgan province in south-central Afghanistan. Nelson said earlier Thursday that a small defense force survey team would travel to Afghanistan to determine the shape of a larger commitment.

Nelson said it was important that the Taliban were prevented from regaining a stronghold in Afghanistan. Last year saw the toughest fighting across southern Afghanistan since the Taliban regime was ousted in late 2001.

The Australian Labor Party, the country's main opposition party, has persistently opposed Australian involvement in the Iraq conflict, but it has backed an Australian presence in Afghanistan. Xinhua

From Iraq to Afghanistan

By Malcolm Farr - February 23, 2007 12:00 Daily Telegraph

THE Federal Government yesterday refocused its anti-terrorist efforts from Iraq to Afghanistan with a warning of a looming "do or die" showdown. Defence Minister Brendan Nelson said a review was being made of troop requirements and hinted the crack SAS units might be deployed to the war-ravaged country again.

"All of our intelligence suggests that the Taliban will this year mount a significant do-or-die offensive across Afghanistan, including in Oruzgan," Dr Nelson said. "If we do need to redeploy Australian defence forces to Afghanistan, we will."

Australia currently has some 550 soldiers in Afghanistan, including 370 as members of the reconstruction task force. Two Australian Chinook helicopters, supported by 110 personnel, operate from Kandahar. They will withdraw at the end of next month.

Labor leader Kevin Rudd backed the strengthened effort, saying that $3 billion in "narco finance"' from the heroin trade was paying for terrorism. He also said the Bali bombers had trained in Afghanistan.

"For five years Labor has been a consistent supporter of the war against Osama bin Laden and the Taliban in Afghanistan, just as we have for the last four years been a consistent opponent of the war in Iraq," he said.

The Government yesterday rejected Labor cals for a troop reduction in Iraq to match the 1500 pull-down announced by British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The rejection came as an exclusive online poll for The Daily Telegraph revealed little support for an open-ended Australian commitment to the war in Iraq.

Just 26 per cent of more than 3200 respondents agreed that Australian troops should "stay the course" in Iraq with 34 per cent wanting to bring the troops home now. A further 39 per cent agreed with a withdrawal over the next few months.

France defends its military contribution in Afghanistan
CanWest News Service - Wednesday, February 21, 2007

OTTAWA - France says it is not abandoning its Canadian ally in volatile southern Afghanistan and has chided Canada's Senate for publicly suggesting that.

The French embassy in Ottawa this week sent a letter to Liberal Senator Colin Kenny after the upper chamber's national security and defence committee, which he chairs, criticized France and Germany in a report for not sending troops to southern Afghanistan, where Canadian soldiers are battling the Taliban insurgency.

While Canadian politicians and military officials have complained in recent months some of their NATO allies are not pulling their weight in southern Afghanistan, they have refrained from singling out specific countries.

But French officials decided they could not stay silent after Kenny's committee crossed that line. "The general message that we want to send is that France has not turned a blind eye to Canada's call for help," said a senior French diplomat.

The Senate report urged Canada to send more personnel to train Afghan army and police officers, and it questioned how some countries could contribute to this function because it could expose them to combat.

"Since NATO countries like Germany and France don't want to engage in battle, how will this training get done?" the report says. "Some of our allies are doing a lot of saluting, but not much marching. So what does this say about the future of NATO?"

In their rebuttal to Kenny, the French point out they are playing an important role in training the Afghan army, with 51 instructors committed to April to training efforts in the volatile southern and eastern regions, and further commitments beyond that to train special forces.

The letter also points out France's 1,100 ground troops are charged with securing the "fragile" capital of Kabul, which has also come under attack from suicide bombers and faces threats from Taliban infiltrators.

The letter notes Paris has foot the bill for some very expensive military hardware to support Canada's efforts, including air support and helicopters.

"Fighting in Afghanistan is not only about having more men on the ground but also air support which we can provide, but you know it represents a high cost," said the diplomat.

Canada has not deployed fighter jets to the Afghan mission, but has said it would buy large tactical lift helicopters later.

The French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, with 2,000 troops, is being deployed to the Indian Ocean, to support the NATO mission in Afghanistan. French air support has already dropped at least one 250 kg bomb in support of Canada's efforts to fight the Taliban, and France has dispatched two EC 725 Caracal transport helicopters.

"We are so heavily committed elsewhere that we can hardly do more neither in Afghanistan, nor anywhere else by the way, although we would like to, of course," said the French official.

France has 16,000 troops deployed on foreign soil, making it the second largest contributor to United Nations peacekeeping and third overall contributor to NATO. This includes 1,650 troops in Lebanon, 3,700 to the West African country of Cote D'Ivoire, 1,100 in Chad to prevent violence from spilling over from neighbouring Darfur, as well as 2,200 in Kosovo.

By comparison, Canada has slightly less than 3,000 troops deployed on foreign soil, with 2,500 of them in Afghanistan. Sudan is the recipient of the next largest contingent of Canadian troops with 44 military personnel attached to UN missions in the country's troubled south and western Darfur region.

"Of course, we end the letter by paying tribute to the courage of the Canadian forces in this country," the diplomat said.

Since 2002, 44 Canadian soldiers and one diplomat have been killed in Afghanistan. France has suffered 10 military fatalities in Afghanistan since then, but its embassy pointed out the country has lost 200 soldiers in the Balkans and Lebanon as well as "dozens" in Africa in recent decades.

Last week, Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor backed away from the tough talk that has been directed at some NATO countries, saying the alliance now has the resources it needs to do the job in the south and eastern sections of Afghanistan.

Turkmenistan Writes Off $4M Afghan Debt
Associated Press 02.21.07, 10:01 AM ET

Turkmenistan has written off almost US$4 million (euro3 million) in debts owed to it by neighboring Afghanistan for electricity, President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov said in remarks televised Wednesday.

Berdymukhamedov, who last week succeeded the late autocratic ruler Saparmurat Niyazov, said the debt accumulated since 2002 was eliminated as a "goodwill gesture" to help Afghanistan's recovery.

Since the U.S.-led offensive that ousted the Taliban militia from power, Turkmenistan has supplied electricity to Afghanistan's northern regions via Soviet-built power transmission lines at a discounted price.

Turkmenistan, whose immense oil and gas reserves allow cheap generation of electricity, also plans to build more transmission lines to the Afghan capital Kabul and farther to Pakistan and India.

Berdymukhamedov has vowed to continue the long-standing policy of neutrality conceived by Niyazov, who died in December after two decades of absolute power.

Russian FM due to arrive in Kabul

Released on: Feb 22, 2007 - Ministry of Foreign Affairs

At the official invitation from Dr. Ragnin Dadfar Spanta, foreign minister of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, H.E. Mr.Serge Larov foreign minister of the Russian Federation is due to arrive to Kabul for a one day visit on February 23, 2007. 
This trip follows a visit of the afghan foreign minister to Russian Federation, in October last year. During this visit, Mr. Serge Larov will call on President Hamid Karzai, Chairs of the Lower and Upper houses to discuss and exchange ideas on issues of mutual interest and concern between Russian Federation and Afghanistan. Mr. Serge Larov will also inaugurate the rehabilitated embassy of Russian Federation in Kabul.
At the end of this visit, Dr. Rangin Dadfar Spanta and Mr. Serge Larov will have a joint press conference at the ministry of foreign affairs of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.

Spokesperson comment on Pakistan policy toward Afghan Media

Released on: Feb 21, 2007 – Ministry of Foreign Affairs

The Ministry’s Spokesperson Mr. Baheen called upon Pakistani’s authorities to allow broadcasting Afghan TVs to Pakistan. Referring to Pakistanis media’s privilege to freely broadcast to Afghanistan, Mr. Baheen described the ban on the Afghan media contrary to the international norms, freedom of expression and the principle of good neighborliness and expressed his wish to see the removal the ban as soon as possible.   

Liberals back Afghan mission until 2009

CAMPBELL CLARK - Globe and Mail Update

OTTAWA — The federal Liberals will support Canada's NATO mission remaining in southern Afghanistan until 2009 but call for another country to take over afterward, according to sources in the party.

Split between hawks and doves, Stéphane Dion's opposition party has hammered out its long-promised common-ground position that includes signalling to allies that Canada will give up the leadership of the Kandahar-based NATO mission at the end of its current tour, two years from now.

When he took the reins of the Liberal Party in December, Mr. Dion said he would have little patience for a rising Canadian death toll unless the mission achieved better results. But he also faced a faction of MPs, including deputy leader Michael Ignatieff, who adamantly oppose early withdrawal.

Tomorrow, Mr. Dion will deliver an address in Montreal outlining his party's new position. Liberal sources said the key elements have been hammered out in meetings of MPs over several weeks.

Canadian troops moved from Kabul, the Afghan capital, to the more dangerous Kandahar province at the beginning of 2006, where a reconstituted Taliban has conducted a series of bloody offensives. Forty-three Canadians have been killed since the Canadian military deployed to Afghanistan in early 2002.

Last spring, Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper extended the mission, initiated by the previous Liberal government, to February 2009. But some candidates then running for the Liberal leadership, including Mr. Dion, suggested Canada might consider withdrawing sooner.

Now, the Liberals have decided to back the current Kandahar mission until the end of that current deployment, hoping to avoid criticisms that they would abandon a Canadian international commitment.

They will also argue that the mission is misguided and losing support from Afghans, that the West should change its approach and that Canada should tell NATO to find another country to take over the mission in 2009.

However, one Liberal said that does not mean Mr. Dion will rule out a possible future role for Canadian troops in other parts of Afghanistan.

That position will allow the Liberals to criticize the Conservative government on its conduct of the Afghan mission, but might also reduce its impact as an issue differentiating the two parties in an election campaign. Now only the NDP is calling for early withdrawal.

In addition, the Liberals will propose changing Canada's approach to Afghanistan, including a bigger commitment to development aid, political efforts aimed at broadening the support of the Afghan government and combatting corruption, and dealing with the illegal opium-poppy crop that helps finance the Taliban.

The Liberals say public support for the mission is waning because the Conservatives have focused Canada's role too much on military efforts and not enough on diplomacy and development aid. The Conservative government has insisted it is doing both, but that it is impossible to deliver aid without securing a strife-torn region.

Many experts have recently called for a major increase in both troops and aid. In January, the United States and Britain announced increases in their troop contingents in the country, and U.S. President George W. Bush said he would seek an additional $10.6-billion over two years.

Canadians pay Afghan farmers for land
Canadian Press - Thursday, February 22, 2007

PATROL BASE WILSON, Afghanistan (CP) - Money, it seems, does not buy peace of mind, especially for war-weary Afghan farmers, who have over the last couple days received C$938,000 in compensation for land bulldozed by Canadians to build a road west of Kandahar.

For refugees returning to their homes in Zhari district after being driven away months ago by heavy fighting, the money is welcome recompense, but there is still a deep sense of unease.

"We're very disappointed about the insecure situation in this region," said Bismalah, a farmer with a deeply lined face, who returned to his land three weeks ago.

"The only thing we need is security. This is our wish. If the Canadians give us hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars, but we are living in an insecure situation, we don't like money; we like security."

In order for Bismalah and roughly 55 other farmers to get their money, they had to pass through a security cordon that included personal searches, armed escorts into the base and a display of Canadian military firepower in the form of a pair of Leopard C2 tanks.

For Shafikahn, a somewhat more affluent landowner, it was an illustration that the peace around here was tenuous at best and the recent decision to flee his home a second time was justified. "Half of our family is still living in the city so we decided to move back to the city," said the remarkably tall farmer who could only guess his age to be between 40 and 48 years.

"The reason is we are scared that maybe somebody will do something evil in this area, open fire or put some mine in this area and we'll be taken and accused for this. For this reason we left this area."

The construction of Route Summit, a 4½-kilometre stretch of pavement that connects the once-volatile Bazaar-e Panjwaii with the region's main highway, was a military necessity. The old, winding gravel road served as a magnet for Taliban extremists who persistently mined the area.

Three Canadian soldiers died defending the road and its construction crews since building began last fall. And even now as the asphalt is applied the army maintains a series of heavily fortified positions along the route strong points it eventually intends to turn over to Afghan security forces.

Arriving back home after spending the better part of four months in rented flats in nearby Kandahar, both farmers said they were surprised to see the road on their property, but have now adopted a community-minded attitude.

"I was a little bit upset with (NATO) when I saw the road on my land, but Afghanistan needs new roads and schools . . . for the public, so I'm very happy," Bismalah said through a translator.

The compensation each farmer received varied, depending upon the amount of land they own and how much of it was chewed up by the road and 45 metres of clearance required on each side.

It is the second settlement handed out by Canadians, as farmers along the southern portion of the route, right outside of Bazaar-e Panjwaii, received their payment totalling $218,000 early in the new year. With the illegal narcotics industry a backbone of the economy here, there was careful vetting of each application.

"We are not paying for anything other than the loss of use of legal land," said Col. Bob Chamberlain, the new commanding officer at the provincial reconstruction team base.

"The government of Afghanistan's policy and the government of Canada's policy is we will not pay for hashish plants or marijuana plants or simple (plots of) sand. It had to be proven agricultural land or residential land and this process is clearly understood by the Afghans."

In negotiating the rates of payment, Sgt. John Courtney, the local civilian-military affairs team leader, had to live down Taliban propaganda that claimed Canadians wouldn't pay for the land and the reputation of the Soviets, who's heavy-handed expropriation tactics still live in the memory of rural Afghans. The Russians, he was told, would simply take whatever they wanted and dictate the price.

It took months of delicate negotiations to win the trust of not only farmers, but local village elders. "You need to include the Afghan people and because rightfully so; it's their land and they need to involved in the process," said Courtney, whose last official duty before heading home was to watch the envelopes stuffed with Afghan dollars handed over to the farmers.

The compensation was separate from the actual cost of building the road. The Canadians assumed the roughly C$500,000 for the design and building of the 1.4-kilometre portion running into Panjwaii. The Germans have agreed to spend the equivalent of $1.8 million for the northern portion in Zhari, while the Americans are expected to build the bridge over the Argandaub River.

Editorial: A Problem of Passivity

Once again the United States stands by while al-Qaeda operates in a safe haven.

Washingtonpost - Wednesday, February 21, 2007

AFTER THE attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, there was a painful and sometimes bitter debate in this country about how two administrations could have failed to take decisive action against an obvious threat -- al-Qaeda's camps in Afghanistan. The Sept. 11 commission concluded that it was partly a "problem of imagination": Few U.S. officials considered the possibility that al-Qaeda was capable of reaching out from its remote base to stage devastating strikes on New York and Washington.

We know now that allowing al-Qaeda a safe haven can have terrible consequences for U.S. homeland security. And yet the Bush administration appears to be letting the threat develop again. For several months U.S. intelligence officials and independent observers have been telling journalists -- most recently at the New York Times -- that al-Qaeda has established several camps in the Pakistani territory of North Waziristan, along the Afghan border. Those camps are populated by Pakistani, Afghan and foreign militants; some may be Westerners who are being trained for attacks in Europe or the United States.

The camps have operated unhindered since at least September, when Pakistan's military ruler, Pervez Musharraf, agreed to a separate peace deal with local Taliban leaders. Since then, cross-border attacks by the Taliban into Afghanistan have tripled, according to the U.S. military. Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders in Waziristan have developed a "complex cooperative relationship," Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry, the outgoing U.S. commander in Afghanistan, testified before the House Armed Services Committee last week. Yet no action has been taken, either by the United States or by Pakistan, its nominal ally in the war on terrorism.

President Bush accepted and endorsed Mr. Musharraf's truce with the militants when it was reached. Now senior administration officials acknowledge that it has created serious problems. "A steady, direct attack against the command and control in Pakistan in sanctuary areas is essential," Gen. Eikenberry said. In separate congressional testimony, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, "President Musharraf . . . has to do something." Mr. Musharraf has done nothing. Instead, he has continued to defend his deal with the Taliban and suggested that similar havens should be created in Afghanistan. The provincial governor who brokered the deal held a news conference last weekend at which he said the truce was a success and called the Taliban's terrorism against U.S. and NATO forces "a resistance movement, sort of a liberation war."

The administration's response to such statements -- and Pakistan's failure to act -- has been to heap praise on Mr. Musharraf and to express sympathy for the pressure he is said to be under. Such indulgence, which has gone on for five years while the general has tempered his action against Islamic extremists and suppressed Pakistan's pro-Western democratic parties, will be hard to defend if the consequences of allowing al-Qaeda a safe haven are unchanged. "Direct intervention against the sanctuary in Afghanistan apparently must have seemed . . . to be disproportionate to the threat," said the Sept. 11 commission report. Is that how the administration thinks of Waziristan?

Editorial: Afghanistan a true test for NATO

Washington Times - By Helle Dale - February 21, 2007

While the attention of Washington is focused on Iraq, the other military front in the struggle against militant Islam is warming up. Afghanistan has until now shown better promise of success than Iraq. Yet there are clear signs that this spring will be an intensely challenging time for the Afghan government and for the NATO coalition forces operating to support it. We are being warned that a Taliban spring offensive is in the works, and how NATO responds will be crucial, both for the future of Afghanistan and for NATO as well.

The demise of the NATO alliance has been pronounced any number of times since the end of the Cold War (and before for that matter), and the search for reasons for its continued relevance has been on ever since the disappearance of the Soviet Union. As Europe and the United States have found growing areas of disagreement, particularly in public opinion, the cohesive tissue represented by NATO has become at once both more important and harder to protect.

Furthermore, in the context of growing EU ambitions to have its own foreign policy and its military chain of command and missions, as distinct from those of NATO, it is an alliance that is under strain. Here, Afghanistan takes on crucial importance. It really is a test case for NATO's future out of area operations, a fact that no NATO member would dispute.

It is, therefore, a matter of considerable puzzlement and concern that NATO allies that have contributed to the roughly 35,000 strong NATO stabilization in Afghanistan have also taken steps to undermine the mission. (The United Sates has 13,000 troops, of which 9,000 are not operating under NATO command.) This is not very much compared the 162,000 troops in Iraq and certainly not in comparison with the size of Afghanistan. In addition the Taliban, al Qaeda and their various allies have sanctuaries in Waziristan across the Pakistani border. Their activities have doubled in 2006 as compared to the year before.

The brunt of the fighting in the dangerous areas of Afghanistan is borne in addition to the Americans by the British, the Canadians, the Danes, the Dutch and the Poles. Though many other NATO countries have contributed, this in no way looks today like an alliance built on the "three musketeers principle," a fact that is of considerable frustration to those who have stepped up to the plate.

As President Bush stated last week in a speech at the American Enterprise Institute, "For NATO to succeed, member nations must provide commanders on the ground with the troops and the equipment they need to do their jobs... As well 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 take a stand. The alliance was founded on this principle: An attack on one is an attack on all. That principle holds true whether the attack is on the home soil of a NATO nation, or on allied forces deployed on a NATO mission abroad. By standing together in Afghanistan, NATO forces protect our own people, and they must have the flexibility to be able to do their job."

A similarly strong message was delivered by Sen. John McCain in Munich the week before, as he challenged NATO members to lift the caveats on their troop deployments that are preventing them from acting effectively and cohesively. He also agitated for more troops, at least matching the projected U.S. troop increase of 3,000. Both speakers noted that we need this to provide stability to increase the size of the Afghan military standing currently at 30,000, less than half of what is needed.

Mr. McCain was explicit about the meaning of Afghanistan for the future of NATO, and his analysis is spot on. "Failure in Afghanistan risks reversion to its pre-9/11 role as a sanctuary for al Qaeda terrorists with global reach, a defeat that would embolden Islamic extremists, and the rise of an unencumbered narcostate... If NATO does not prevail in Afghanistan, it is difficult to imagine the alliance undertaking another "hard security" operation -- in or out of area and its credibility would suffer a grievous blow."

In the world of the 21st century with its less predictable international environment and its asymmetrical threats, preserving alliances is as important as ever, for the United States and Europe alike.

Opinion: Afghan headaches

Ria Novosti 20 Feb 07 - MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Pyotr Goncharov) -It has become bad form not to lash out at NATO and the United States for their actions in Afghanistan.

Many analysts are convinced that NATO's affairs there could not get any worse, and that the U.S. is getting bogged down there like it is in Iraq; that the situation in Afghanistan is going from bad to worse; that NATO and the U.S. are repeating the Soviet Union's mistakes and are doomed to the same fate. However, I believe these assessments are not quite fair.

Needless to say, Afghanistan is going through troubled and sensitive times. The nation has been in the process of consolidation for the last five years, since the rout of the Taliban from Kabul. Today, the situation has reached a boiling point. On the one hand, the reformers want to build a modern democratic society in an Islamic framework that will be based on universal human values and will therefore be largely secular; on the other hand, the Taliban and their eternal opponents, the Mujahideen (war lords), would like to return Afghanistan to their own versions of the past.

Today, the balance has clearly tilted in favor of the reformers, and now the main goal is to keep this success going. During his meeting with Russian experts in Moscow in early February, Ambassador Christopher Alexander, deputy special representative of the United Nations secretary general for Afghanistan, outlined two obvious trends now underway. First, the Taliban has become markedly more active; second, the economy and social relations are getting better, and, most importantly, Afghan society is undergoing consolidation. There are some grounds for these conclusions.

In 2006, the Afghan economy grew by 10%-12%. I will disappoint the cynics right away: this growth has nothing to do with drug trafficking. It resulted from the intensive development of communications and construction, including road building, and trade.

Agriculture, the economy's backbone, is showing signs of hope. Before, it seemed to have been shattered beyond repair. For the first time in 10 to 15 years, Afghan peasants had a surplus of produce, meager as it was, for export to neighboring Pakistan and India.

Credit for this success goes to the financial support Kabul receives from donors around the world, first and foremost, the Afghan assistance package agreed upon in London in February 2006. Essentially, this is a five-year contract between Afghanistan and the world to revive the former's economy by providing $10.5 billion in aid.

Importantly, it provides support to the Afghan national solidarity program, whose primary objective is to invigorate government agencies at the grassroots level. Up to now they have been the weakest link in the process of Afghanistan's recovery.

Under the program, local authorities at the level of shuras (councils) of kishlaks (villages) and regions submit their development plans for consideration by the Afghan Ministry of Rural Reconstruction and Development and international sponsors. These plans provide for repairs of roads and bridges, construction of schools, paramedical centers, hospitals, and irrigation facilities. The international organizations earmark up to $50,000 to every recipient of aid, and monitor the spending. The ministry has received a total of $650 million. The program has already covered more than 17,000 of Afghanistan's 34,000 kishlaks. Indicatively, women are active on the local shuras, and not only in Kabul's suburbs, but also in eastern provinces, such as Paktia.

Consolidation is a painful process for the nation, because it is bound to run into a huge obstacle: the Pashtuns' historical dominance will run up against the growing role of national minorities, first and foremost, Tajiks, Hazara, and Uzbeks. These minorities were predominant in the Northern Alliance, which fought the Taliban, and now that they have come to power, they are reluctant to share it with Pashtuns. This problem is not unsolvable, but it requires time.

Afghans themselves believe that the government in Kabul has substantially enhanced security in the country's northern, western, and central provinces. A car ride from Herat to Kabul is a routine event now. The situation in all northern provinces is about the same, but it is much worse in the south and southwest, where the Taliban have become much more active.

Thus in 2006 more than 2,000 militants took part in hostilities on the Taliban's side. In effect, these were army operations. The number of terrorist attacks with explosives grew substantially, and there were 176 suicide bombings (in 2005, the relevant figure was no more than 100). The past year set a record in the number of victims - more than 4,000 dead, compared with about 1,000 in 2005.

In the early stages of its counterterrorist campaign, the U.S. considerably weakened the Taliban's influence in the south and southeast of Afghanistan. The latter started increasing their influence mostly in the Pashtun-inhabited south for both objective and subjective reasons. But one of the main factors in the Taliban's revival was the support it received from some quarters in Pakistan's political establishment and radical Islamic movements.

This question is very sensitive for Afghanistan. Many local experts believe that Britain and China, which have levers of influence on Islamabad, should increase their efforts to end this support.

Today, there are two foreign military structures in Afghanistan: American troops and NATO's International Security Assistance Force with a total strength of 43,000. But today Afghanistan needs not only - and maybe not so much - military aid, as political and economic assistance from the world community.

The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily coincide with those of the editorial board.

Afghan warlords plan pro-amnesty law demonstration

Kabul (AFP) - Afghan warlords Thursday announced plans for a demonstration in Kabul in support of a controversial bill that would give amnesty for crimes committed during the country's years of conflict.

The planned demonstration on Friday at the Kabul sports stadium comes after the upper house of parliament approved the legislation on Tuesday. The lower house passed the bill in January, but President Hamid Karzai, whose agreement is needed for the bill to become law, has yet to sign it.

"In the gathering, the people will show their support for the jihadi leaders and for the amnesty bill," said Waqif Hakimi, spokesman for Jamyat Islami, one of the Islamist factions involved in the country's 1992-1996 civil war. "It will be huge. I think 50,000 people will attend."

Interior Ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary confirmed that a "big" demonstration was planned, and said authorities had asked for a peaceful gathering.

Commanders and fighters of the jihad, or holy war, against the 1980s Soviet occupation have been accused of war crimes and abuses including murder and torture during the 1992-1996 civil war that followed the Red Army's defeat.

The United Nations and Afghanistan's top rights body have said only the victims of abuse should be allowed to forgive the perpetrators.

Crimes of politics

Los Angeles Times editorial - 02/22/2007

Many members of Afghanistan's parliament are alleged war criminals. But the nation isn't ready to try them.

HOW DOES A government prosecute people for crimes against humanity when the suspects happen to be running the government? That's the question facing Afghanistan, where men suspected of horrifying acts of rape and murder sit in parliament and hold other high offices.

The question of what to do about these suspected mass killers heated up Tuesday when the upper house of Afghanistan's parliament passed a resolution calling for amnesty for those accused of war crimes. The same resolution has already passed in the lower house and will become law if approved by President Hamid Karzai. Its success is unsurprising because many of those voting on the resolutions were previously regional warlords who might otherwise be subject to prosecution.

Following the Soviet pullout in 1989, Afghanistan was torn by years of civil war, during which warlords who had fought in the resistance movement began battling each other ? and committing atrocities against civilian populations. Then, in 1996, the Taliban came to power, and it ruled until the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. At the time, the United States found these disaffected warlords to be convenient allies, but now they're creating some serious governance headaches.

The ideal solution for Afghanistan would be to create a body similar to South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which, starting in 1996, helped heal the wounds left by decades of apartheid rule. Those who committed human rights abuses were granted amnesty if they publicly testified about their crimes. Yet South Africa, unlike Afghanistan, didn't have to contend with entrenched politicians who control large swaths of territory with armed militias. It also had the capacity to prosecute those who refused to step forward, while Afghan courts are a work in progress.

Nonetheless, the parliament's amnesty resolution is a step backward. It's hard for the Afghan people to have much faith in their government when many remember all too well the campaigns of terror waged by some of their current leaders. Where the government has no credibility, the rule of law doesn't hold sway.

So if court trials are an impossibility, reconciliation is impractical and amnesty is self-destructive, what's left? For now at least, the status quo. Karzai's best course would be to reject the amnesty law until the country is ready to face the horrors of its recent past. The international community, especially NATO, should be doing more to help Afghanistan build the institutions and civil society necessary for it to do so.

Charity closed after protest over "Christianity activity" in Afghan district

Text of report in English by Afghan independent Pajhwok news agency website

Fayzabad, 20 February: Angry protests by residents and local religious scholars forced officials of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) to close down its sub-office in the northern province of Badakhshan.

Residents say the protests were sparked by distribution of pamphlets and booklets by the AKDN officials 'inviting people to Christianity.' The angry protestors, led by local Ulema (religious scholars), attacked the AKDN office in Keran-o-Minjan district three days back.

Mohammad Shafi, 55, a prayer leader in the district and one of protestors, told Pajhwok Afghan News the AKDN office had started preaching and inviting locals to convert to Christianity.

He asked the government to arrest those responsible for the "heinous" deed. The people would continue their protest till the arrest of the AKDN officials, he warned.

Another protestor, who did not disclose his name, said the AKDN and some other non-governmental organizations were preaching Christianity in the province. He said they would not allow the AKDN or other NGOs to convert people to Christianity.

Provincial chief of AKDN Mohammad Darajat, however, rejected the allegations and said their office was not involved in anti-Islam propaganda. He said the Kiran-o-Minjan office of AKDN had halted operations and the staffers had been sent on leave for security reasons.

Deputy Governor Shamsur Rahman Shams said some miscreants had shown versus of the Holy Quran to local mullahs with some distortions, which touched off the protests in the district. He said the papers had been printed in Pakistan.

Mawlawi Ataullah Mohammadi, member of the provincial Ulema council, said they would also join the protest if the AKDN was found involved in any anti-Islam activity. He said the government must arrest and punish those responsible for the act.

US bill to empower Afghan women

Pajhwok - 02/20/2007 - NEW YORK - A group of US law-makers have introduced bills in both chambers of the US Congress to provide financial assistance of more than one billion USD for empowering women in Afghanistan.

Led by two C0ngresswomen, at least a score of lawmakers have introduced the bills under which the sum of one billion USD would be provided for empowerment of Afghan women in three years.

The Afghan Women Empowerment Act of 2007 bill has been tabled in the House of Representative by the Democrat Congresswoman from New York, Carolyn B. Maloney, along with 14 co-sponsors, while in the Senate it has been sponsored by leading Democrat Senator Barbara Boxer and supported by four others.

Recognizing the fact that women have been the prime sufferers of civil war and violence in Afghanistan for the past several decades, the bill proposes to allocate five million USD per annum from 2008 to 2010 for the Afghan Ministry of Women Affairs and $10 million per annum to the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC).

The largest chunk of $30 million per annum is proposed to be allocated for grants to women-led non-profit organisations to support activities like construction, establishment and operation of schools for married girls and girls' orphanages, vocational training and human rights education for women and girls, healthcare clinics for women and children.

Sponsors of the Afghan Women Empowerment Act of 2007 argue that protection of rights of women and girls along with their participation is key to re-establishing democracy in Afghanistan.

Afghan TV debates NATO strategy towards Afghanistan

Afghan analysts, government officials and MPs have discussed the West's changing strategy towards Afghanistan in a debate on Afghan independent Tolo TV's weekly discussion feature, the "Gozaresh-e Shashonim" ("The 6:30 Report") programme on 19 February. The guests on the programme agreed the international community wanted security in Afghanistan, which would benefit the world as a whole. They saw as positive US efforts to boost Afghanistan's army and police to enable the country to defend itself. One guest saw the Afghan government moving closer to the USA rather than Europe due to its greater military and economic power. Several guests expressed concern about the use of aid money and the need to have a specific strategy for spending it and professional people in government to do so.

The presenter began the debate by saying that Afghanistan is the country which brought NATO to Asia for the first time and NATO came to Afghanistan with a strategy. He added: "NATO's first failure in its first mission in Asia would be bad for the treaty. Following the deployment of NATO to Afghanistan, an international meeting was held. The NATO member states are committed to assisting and not leaving Afghanistan alone, but the procedure of assistance and presence of NATO in Afghanistan is up for discussion among the NATO member states, Afghanistan and the regional countries. There is no doubt that NATO is facing various security challenges. An increase in the Taleban's offensive and the deterioration of the security situation in the south has raised suspicions about the fight against the Taleban and giving privileges to Pakistan by some Western countries. These suspicions caused differences among the countries involved in Afghanistan. The countries present in Afghanistan changed their strategy in 2007 so that most of the assistance would be focused on strengthening the domestic security forces. The assistance in the fields of counter-narcotic campaigns and the hastening of the reconstruction process demonstrate the renewed commitments of the West and a change in their strategy."

Daud Moradiyan, a senior adviser for the Afghan Foreign Affairs Ministry, said the world community believes that security in Afghanistan would prove useful to the entire world and that it is trying to ensure security and establish independence in Afghanistan. He added: "The world community has come to understand that there are some specific circles in Pakistan which do not want a developed and independent Afghanistan. The problem for the world community is our shortcomings in having a strategy in fighting, thwarting or convincing those circles in Pakistan. The world community has a strategy in this field, but there are various ideas about implementing it."

The presenter said the USA's more than 10.5bn dollars assistance has optimized the government of Afghanistan in terms of reinforcing the national army, police force and intelligence service. He added: "A big part of the US assistance focused on the military. There would be significant changes in the security forces, the government would take control of security throughout the country and the army and police force would be further strengthened if the aid money was spent rationally. The allocation of a huge amount of money will boost the security and military forces. The US's assistance is a source of optimism both in terms of publicity and practice."

Malek Stez, an Afghan researcher, said that there were five significant factors behind the US strategy in the region. He added: "First of all, the United States of America wants to boost the number of security forces of Afghanistan. The number of the national army of Afghanistan should reach 70,000 and the police force 81,000 by 2008. Following the completion of military programmes in Afghanistan, America wants Afghanistan to have a powerful intelligence service. There is a new strategy in organizing the security programmes in Afghanistan. The second is the reinforcement of NATO in Afghanistan. America knows that it has a very significant role in NATO. NATO's role in the region will not prove useful if America does not play an active role in NATO and the biggest mission of NATO, which is in Afghanistan, will fail."

Daud Moradiyan said that he was optimistic about the future of Afghanistan and one of the factors behind his optimism was the long-term commitment of the world community to Afghanistan. He added: "Afghanistan has various problems and shortcomings. We cannot overcome these problems without the assistance of the world community."

The presenter said that the principle which constitutes the US guidelines is based on its strategy in the region and that one of the factors behind the constitution of the US guidelines in Afghanistan is the reinforcement of the army which could fight terrorism in the country effectively. He asked: "What is the USA's aim behind the reinforcement of the army. The allocation of a huge amount of money for strengthening the Afghan army by the US has displeased its ally, Pakistan."

Malek Stez: "Mr Bush also has a long-term strategy with Pakistan in the region. Speaking in the Congress, he said that the US policy depends on the situation between Afghanistan and Pakistan. In view of this, the US government will donate some money to the Pakistani government through which the Pakistani border forces will be strengthened. The USA is expected to establish 110 checkpoints along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. In this way, it wants to supervise the region. On other hand, the USA has decided to reinforce the Pakistani border police in terms of technology so that it can supervise the regions which are controllable by Afghanistan and Pakistan. In general, if you review the new US strategy towards Afghanistan, it simulates the US strategy towards Pakistan during the Cold War. America wanted to bring the Pakistani army into power and boost its influence over the army. This means that the army of Pakistan is very powerful, but it is completely under the influence of the US army in terms of professionalism and techniques. In addition, the Pakistani intelligence service, which plays an important role in Pakistan's foreign policy, is under the direct influence of the. I believe the USA is trying to make Afghanistan like Pakistan in order to have its influence in the region."

Daud Moradiyan said that the world community is helping Afghanistan to establish an independent, free, developed and democratic society. He added: "The world community is following the aims of the government of Afghanistan. There is no doubt that there are some circles in Pakistan trying to influence the government of Afghanistan from the inside and make it dependent on Pakistan through other means. In fact, the world community is not behind this.

Ghafor Lewal, the head of the Centre for Regional Studies, underlined the importance of having defence forces and defence system. He said: "The defence forces should be well-equipped to enable them to defend the country. There is a difference between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pakistan is controlled by its army, but the army in Afghanistan is only used for defending the country and the government is controlled by civilians. I do not believe there is a parallel between Afghanistan and Pakistan."

The presenter said that there is serious tension about the use of the assistance by the government of Afghanistan. He added: "The government of Afghanistan has failed to build the capacity for spending the aid money over the last five years. The failures in use of the aid money will diminish the interest of the donor countries. Afghanistan is experiencing its final opportunities to attract international assistance. The government of Afghanistan failed to spend a huge quantity of the developmental budget last year, which was allocated by the donor countries. The people of Afghanistan are facing problems as a result of the huge international assistance and their government's failures in spending it. On other hand, the government of Afghanistan is critical that it has not received the pledged aid money."

Sediq Sahel, an Afghan researcher, said that the people of Afghanistan were not optimistic because of a lack of sound management in the country. He also said that the officials who are leading politics and the military in the country were not professionals and they were not able to spend the allocated budget. He underlined the importance of having a specific strategy in achieving the goals. He added: "We are not sufficiently capable of spending 10.6bn dollars and overcoming the problems. We need an immense fundamental change in terms of professionalism. Afghanistan is not facing a lack of [expert] men and we have professionals. The appointments have been made based on favouritism following the establishment of the interim government."

Konduz MP Moin Mrastial confirmed the failures in terms of capacity building and appointing officials based on their competency and merit throughout the country. He added: "The world community and the government of Afghanistan have taken positive steps in this regard, but they did not meet the expectations of the world community and the government of Afghanistan. If the government of Afghanistan does not have the capacities and the aid money is not spent, I am afraid the international community will not respond to us positively when we request more money in the coming years."

Daud Moradiyan: "Pledges about further assistance by the USA and the EU to Afghanistan is good news for Afghanistan. Unfortunately, despite the understandings in Afghanistan, Afghanistan has enjoyed a very small amount of assistance in view of the existing problems in the country. Afghanistan enjoyed very little assistance from the world community compared to Lebanon, Bosnia and Kosovo. In addition to the little assistance to Afghanistan, the other problem in this country is the procedure of using it. Some money was spent in fields where it should not be spent. Both the Afghans and a part of the world community take advantage of this assistance. In our meetings with NATO officials, we discussed an increase in quantity and quality of the assistance. We should fight against the corruption which exists both in Afghanistan and in some parts of the world community."

Malek Stez said that the government of Afghanistan was not very successful and as a result of which, Europe and the USA viewed the government of Afghanistan suspiciously. He added: "The new US and Europe policies have a similarity, which is boosting the capacity of the government of Afghanistan. The management of the government of Afghanistan has split into two parts which have links with these governments. In general, the government of Afghanistan is getting closer to the Americans than to the Europeans. The US military and economic power in Afghanistan brings the government closer to the US strategy willingly or unwillingly. The USA insists on the third and fourth factors which are capacity for building of government and reform of the government and curbing administrative corruption. It believes when there are good connections between these factors, the international aid will at least be used for the good of the government of Afghanistan."

Daud Moradiyan said that the tradition of dependence on foreigners was risky. He said that he had witnessed that foreigners were asked to resolve even minor problems. He added: "Experiences showed that the entire problems of a country cannot be resolved by another country. If we want to build our country, we should learn how to stand on our own feet. We should fight against the tradition of dependence to the foreigners."

Malek Stez: "The US and UK policies are similar in the region. The US doctrine has always been under the influence of the UK doctrine, because the UK's doctrine and diplomacy are older than the ones of US in the region, which affects US policy. Therefore, there is a joint policy between the US and UK. In fact, the USA has some problems with other EU countries. The last statement of the USA about its new strategy in the region shows that it is trying to negotiate with the EU countries such as Germany, France, Italy and Spain in terms of diplomacy and geopolitics."

The presenter concluded the programme by saying that new strategies had been used in Afghanistan since the start of 2007. He underlined that the outcome of these strategies and the use of international aid could have either positive or negative outcomes. He hoped the experiences of the previous years would prove helpful in the use of assistance in the current year.

[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.]