In this bulletin:

• President Hamid Karzai Meets Canadian Foreign Minister
• Canada gives $10M for Afghan police salaries
• MacKay targets Pakistan during Afghan sojourn
  Pakistan needs to do more on Taliban, U.N. says
• Afghans protest on border against Pakistan mining plan
• Pakistan to identify areas for mining along border with Afghanistan
• AFGHAN BORDER DISPUTE TAKES TOLL ON SECURITY
• Suicide attack wounds three Afghan soldiers
• RFE/RL News digest 01.08.07
• British struggle to hold Taliban
• Taliban leader's powerful vanishing act
• Pakistan editorial sees "limitations" of Afghan president
• Terrorism dogs Pakistan in ’06: Over 900 killed in 657 attacks
• ‘Human pipeline’ of terror linked to Pakistan: report
• With Us or Against Us
• Drug mafia, CIA blamed for sacking of Afghan governor
• Afghan security forces destroy poppy fields
• Afghan minister opens power project in western province
• Italy to help revamp public parks in Afghan capital
• Starving Afghans sell girls of eight as brides

Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay, right, talks with Afghanistan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta Monday, Jan. 8, 2007, while touring the headquarters of the provincial reconstruction team in Kandahar city, Afghanistan. (AP PHOTO/CP, Bill Graveland)

President Hamid Karzai Meets Canadian Foreign Minister

Kabul (Presidential Press Release) - On January 07, President Hamid Karzai met Peter Mackay, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada, at the Gul Khana Palace.

President Hamid Karzai and Foreign Minister Mackay discussed security in Afghanistan and the region, the fight against terrorism, and Afghanistan’s reconstruction.

Foreign Minister Mackay reassured President Hamid Karzai of the continuation of his country’s assistance to the fight against narcotics, terrorism, and corruption, and appreciated the Afghan Government's efforts in these fields.

Foreign Minister Mackay said, “Canada will continue assisting the Afghan people in ensuring security, accelerating reconstruction work, boosting the Afghan economy, and strengthening and equipping the Afghan security forces, until they are able to stand on their own feet.

Foreign Minister Mackay stated that Canada will donate an extra US$ 10 million for Afghanistan's Law and Order Trust Fund, and will further assist the micro-credit loan projects through the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development under the National Solidarity Programme (NSP).

President Hamid Karzai thanked Foreign Minister Mackay for the assistance of the people of Canada to the security and reconstruction of Afghanistan and said, “Canada is among the countries which has helped Afghanistan enormously in the past 5 years, and the Afghan people will never forget their generosity.”

“Police reform is well underway, however, Afghanistan needs the international community’s continued assistance for enabling the Afghan security forces in meeting the current challenges on their own.”

President Hamid Karzai also said that Afghanistan will send more Afghan National Army troops to the south of the country to fight terrorism alongside the Canadian forces.

Canada gives $10M for Afghan police salaries

Last Updated: Monday, January 8, 2007 - CBC News - Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay began his final day in Afghanistan Monday with an announcement of millions of dollars to help pay the salaries of Afghan police.

MacKay, who arrived in the country on Sunday, ate breakfast with Canadian troops in the southern Afghan region of Kandahar.

He announced Canada would contribute $10 million toward regular weekly salaries of Afghan police officers in an effort to stop corruption and co-operation with the Taliban within the force.

"[P]roviding a national civilian police force with an adequate and regular salary is critical to helping restore security and the rule of law in Afghanistan," said MacKay in a news release.

"Our contribution will help further this objective, resulting in a more professional police force to better serve the people of Afghanistan."

A leaked U.S. government report in December said the U.S.-trained Afghan police force was riddled with corruption and incapable of carrying out routine law enforcement. Washington, which contributes $1 billion US to train the force, says the force has about 50,000 members, although the report said 70,000 were on its payroll.

MacKay also presented 1,500 new uniforms and 2,500 pairs of winter gloves as a show of support from Canada. Hundreds of new officers have graduated from police training since MacKay first visited Afghanistan in May.

MacKay visited Canada's provincial reconstruction team in Kandahar City to see how millions in Canadian aid dollars are being spent. By 2011, Canada will have contributed $1 billion to Afghanistan.

Comprised of military, civilian police, political and development experts, the team gives support and supplies to Afghan clinics, hospitals and schools. Following his Afghan visit, MacKay will travel to Pakistan to press President Pervez Musharraf to tighten border control.

Taliban insurgents and weapons regularly cross into Afghanistan from Pakistan. Pakistan recently said it may mine its border with Afghanistan, despite objections from that country.

On Sunday, MacKay visited a Canadian-funded vocational training centre in Kabul and spoke with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

MacKay targets Pakistan during Afghan sojourn
Monday, January 08, 2007- CanWest News Service; Windsor Star

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Pakistan must do more to help Afghanistan, and Canada could "maybe be of some assistance" in helping it shut its borders to Taliban insurgents, Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay said following talks Sunday in Kabul with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Despite repeated pledges to assist in Afghanistan's efforts at reconstruction after decades of strife, Pakistan needs "to do a better job ... (by) stopping the movement of the Taliban," MacKay said.

He told reporters in a teleconference from Kabul that there will be "blunt talk" at a meeting with Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf that follows a two-day trip to Afghanistan, including visits today with Canadian soldiers and the announcement of new reconstruction projects in Kandahar.

MacKay suggested using aerial surveillance, more border guards or fencing to curb the incursions, but added Canada "strongly" opposes suggestions made by some Pakistani sources for landmines along the shared border.

In his second visit to Afghanistan since last spring, MacKay was on the lookout for progress to report back home.

He toured a Canadian-funded vocational school in Kabul and met with senior Afghan authorities before flying into Kandahar aboard a Canadian Forces Hercules with his Afghan counterpart, Rangin Dadfar Spanta. Aside from the substantial military commitment centred in Kandahar in the country's volatile south, MacKay said Canadians need to hear more about the parallel reconstruction efforts, what he described as the "untold success of what is happening here."

He said the country is not "sliding into crisis" as argued in the latest edition of Foreign Affairs by Barnett Rubin, an eminent American scholar on Afghanistan. Poverty, corruption and "meddling by Pakistan" are all cited by Rubin in his bleak assessment of the Afghan situation.

While Mackay acknowledged the problems and described as "very frank" his talks with the Afghan leadership on the need for quicker progress in government "institution building," MacKay said progress is being made "relative to the realities of this country."

He cited the improved role of women in Afghan affairs and the continued development of national institutions such as the judiciary, army and police. He said Karzai has also set up a commission to investigate allegations of government corruption.

The minister shares breakfast this morning with some of the almost 2,500 Canadian soldiers stationed at Kandahar Airfield before being briefed by Canadian and other military brass with the International Security Assistance Force on the security situation. He is also visiting the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kandahar City, where he told reporters Sunday night he will announce "some projects," one of which is expected to be the creation of a new Canadian-supported auxiliary police training centre.

One of his jobs, MacKay said, is to highlight for the folks at home the importance of Canada's reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan.

But before there's development, according to the Canadian military stationed here, there must be security. Abandoning the Afghans, said MacKay, would create a situation "where the Taliban would return quickly."

Pakistan needs to do more on Taliban, U.N. says

By Robert Birsel January 08, 2007 - KABUL (Reuters) - Pakistan needs to take more action against leaders of Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents as required by a U.N. Security Council resolution, a U.N. official said on Monday.

Pakistan and Afghanistan should also end a war of words, which erupted a year ago over Afghan accusations of Pakistani sanctuaries for a resurgent Taliban, the official said.

Chris Alexander, a deputy U.N. representative in Afghanistan, said U.N. resolution 1267 required all states to freeze the assets of people on a list of terrorists established by the resolution.

States are also required to prevent the entry or transit of people on the list and prevent the transfer of arms to them. "Resolution 1267, as it relates to the Taliban leadership is not, so far, being implemented," Alexander told a news conference in the Afghan capital.

"Of the 142 Taliban leaders on the list, only a handful have been captured, or reconciled, or their whereabouts otherwise established," Alexander said.

Pakistan, the main backer of the Taliban before the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, denies that any Taliban leaders are on its territory.

It also denies helping the Taliban but says some militants are crossing the porous border into Afghanistan. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said last year some former security men might be helping the militants.

"The truth is that these networks are operating in both Afghanistan and in Pakistan, that the leaders spend time in both countries, and that law enforcement and even military action is required wherever they are located," Alexander said.

Pakistan had repeatedly assured Afghanistan it would take action against the militants, Alexander said. "We are all counting on them to be true to that statement of intent," he said.

"But in our view, there is more work to be done in and around Quetta and elsewhere," he said, referring to the southwestern Pakistani city where Afghanistan and some of its allies say Taliban leaders orchestrate the insurgency.

Last year was the bloodiest in Afghanistan since 2001. An increasingly frustrated Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, leveled his strongest-ever criticism at Pakistan last month, for the first time openly accusing state elements of supporting the insurgents.

Pakistan says the root of the Taliban problem is in Afghanistan where a weak government has failed to tackle corruption.

Pakistan also says Afghanistan risks a "people's war" among ethnic Pashtuns, the community from which the Taliban have traditionally drawn support, because Pashtuns feel alienated by other factions that helped U.S. forces oust the Taliban in 2001.

Alexander called for an end to the accusations. "This war of words, this rhetorical contest between two governments, two partners in this region, must end."

"Pointing fingers leads nowhere when what we really need, what Afghans most need, is constructive engagement and joint action to tackle a very serious security challenge."

Afghanistan also had to do more to tackle the insurgency, including strengthening its security forces and improving governance, he said.

Afghans protest on border against Pakistan mining plan

Mon Jan 8 - KHOST, Afghanistan (AFP) - Hundreds of protesters marched along the Pakistan border in Afghanistan at the weekend to condemn Islamabad's plan to mine and fence parts of the frontier, officials said.

Around 1,000 people protested in the southeastern province of Paktika on Sunday while another 500 marched in eastern Kunar, burning Pakistan flags and demanding the neighbouring government drop the plan.

President Hamid Karzai has spoken out strongly against the proposal, saying it is not the way to stop militants in Pakistan from crossing the border to carry out attacks as part of a Taliban-led insurgency plaguing Afghanistan.

At the rally in Paktika's Turwa district on the frontier, tribal elders said fencing or mining would only affect villagers who move across the porous frontier to visit relatives or others from their tribe.

More than 1,000 people were at the demonstration to "express their anger", Paktika governor Mohammad Akram Khepelwak told AFP on Monday. The elders warned they would organise widespread protests and demanded international pressure to stop Pakistan.

Mining the rugged 2,500-kilometre (1,500-mile) border, which was drawn up by the colonial British and is called the Durand Line, was not practical or logical, they said.

"This is a political trick, giving the impression to the world that they are fighting terrorism," said protestor Mohammad Akram Khan. "They indirectly want to raise the Durand Line issue, taking advantage of Afghanistan's weakness from war," he said.

Afghans dispute the border, saying it gives Pakistan land that should belong to Afghanistan. Meanwhile in eastern Kunar province's Marawara district, about 500 protestors set ablaze Pakistan flags on Sunday and shouted slogans against Pakistan, an AFP reporter said.

"If Pakistan wants to root out terrorism, they need to target Taliban training camps and facilities in Pakistani soil and mine and fence around them," one protestor said.

Afghanistan and Pakistan have long been bickering about the Taliban insurgency which is undermining Kabul's internationally backed attempts to establish democracy and rebuild.

Karzai last month directly accused the Pakistan government of supporting Taliban insurgents.

Pakistan, which helped the hardliners to power in 1996 but turned its back on the regime after the September 11, 2001 attacks blamed on the Al-Qaeda network being sheltered by the Taliban, denies the charges.

Pakistan to identify areas for mining along border with Afghanistan

January 08, 2007 - (Kyodo) _ The Pakistan Army has been given the task to identify problem areas along the Pakistan-Afghan border to be fenced and mined to check cross-border movement, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said Monday.

Tasneem Aslam told a weekly briefing that after the survey, the army would work out the means for the proposed mining and fencing and identify areas through which cross-border movement might be taking place.

"We have no intention of seeking support from anybody. We are considering doing it in our own territory, on our own," she said.

Aslam added, however, the proposed fencing had been discussed with various dignitaries who have been visiting Pakistan, mostly from countries involved in Afghanistan and "our partners in the coalition against terrorism."

Afghanistan opposes the proposed mining and fencing and President Hamid Karzai described it as a move that would divide those living on the two sides of the border between two countries.

When pointed out that several countries have banned mining, the Aslam said mining would not be done all along the border and the areas to be mined would be "publicized properly to make sure that lives and limbs are not lost."

She said the Pakistani government was also taking other steps to stop cross-border movement, including greater monitoring of refugee camps that are believed to be harboring those supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan.

"We also do hope that 2007 will see return of significant number of refugees who have stayed in Pakistan for over 25 years," she said.

Pakistan is host to more than two million Afghan refugees who shuttle between Pakistan and Afghanistan and are believed to be an important factor in the support for the Taliban.

AFGHAN BORDER DISPUTE TAKES TOLL ON SECURITY

By Amin Tarzi – RFE/RL - Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz paid a visit to Kabul on January 4 to discuss Islamabad's decision to fence and mine parts of their mutual border, among other issues. His host, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, restated his country's "very clear" opposition to such a move, saying it "will not prevent terrorist activities, but will divide peoples and tribes."

A Pakistani military spokesman announced more than three years ago that his country was installing border reinforcements at strategic points to prevent remnants of Al-Qaeda and Taliban forces from crossing into Afghanistan. Told of Afghan media reports suggesting the fence would go ahead without so much as informing Kabul, the spokesman responded bluntly that "Pakistan does not need the permission from any other country to take security measures on [its] border specifically aimed at countering the scourge of terror."

At a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice two years later, Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf divulged a plan to construct the border fence. Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri said at the time that Islamabad's plan was aimed at undermining claims that Pakistan was not doing enough to curb cross-border terrorism. An Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman responded to Musharraf's plan by saying that Kabul and Islamabad needed to demarcate the border under international law before there could be any discussion of a barrier.

When Islamabad recently announced its intention to implement the plan to partially fence and mine the border, Afghan reaction was negative based on three factors. The first was Afghanistan's legacy as one of the most mined countries on the globe: officials noted that new mines would inevitably kill and maim innocent people. The second was the assertion that fences and mines would separate Pashtun tribes living astride the border. The third was that the problem of terrorism is not limited to the border area, but originates with those who finance, equip, and train the terrorists -- and in Kabul's eyes, Pakistan has proved to be a primary source of support for those seeking to destabilize Afghanistan.

While the official Pakistani response to Kabul's objections has been diplomatic, Pakistani commentators have been less subtle. In an editorial on December 28, the Islamabad-based daily "The News" wrote that "if anything, Pakistan's plan to mine and fence the frontier is a response to the shrill propaganda from Kabul that Islamabad is 'not doing enough' to stop the entry of terrorists across the border into Afghanistan."

The daily argued that "if it doesn't like the plan, the Karzai government ought to come up with an effective solution." "At the same time," the paper said, "it should try harder to seal the cross-border routes of terrorists and saboteurs into Pakistan." That last point refers to longstanding charges by Islamabad that Afghanistan is allowing its territory to be used by Indian agents and New Delhi-supported subversive elements, especially in Baluchistan Province.

The initial point raised by the "The News" presents a tough challenge for Kabul, and it gets to the crux not only of the issue of Pakistan's alleged desire to destabilize the Karzai administration, but also of why Afghanistan has so adamantly opposed any formal demarcation of the boundary.

As the editorial suggests, Islamabad has raised the issue of fencing and mining the border largely as a political countermeasure to charges that it has failed to prevent cross-border movement by terrorists. If that were the case, one might expect Kabul to welcome such a measure; if terrorists are trained in Pakistan, then barriers to their entry should be viewed as a step in the right direction, even if such a move does not appear to have been made in good faith.

But for Kabul, neither the current cross-border activities nor the stability of Afghanistan would appear to take precedence over the issue of the status of the border -- referred to by the Afghan side as the "Durand Line" after the foreign secretary of British India who set it out.

The history of the Durand Line goes back to the Treaty of Gandumak, signed in May 1879 between British Major Louis Cavagnari and Afghan Amir Mohammad Yaqub Khan during the Second Anglo-Afghan War of 1879-80. According to provisions of the Gandumak agreement, the British were to maintain a military and diplomatic presence in Afghanistan and control its foreign policy. Also, Britain was granted jurisdictional control of the three strategically significant frontier districts of Kurram, Sibi, and Pishin.

When the Gandumak plan failed to achieve peace, however, the British opted to leave Afghanistan, while ensuring that it remained a buffer state between their own Indian empire and the Russian empire in Central Asia.

When Abd al-Rahman became amir in 1880, Afghanistan's boundaries were not demarcated. The British sought at the time to keep the Russians out of -- and the amir inside -- a geographically defined Afghanistan.

Article 4 of the Durand Agreement states that the "frontier line will hereafter be laid down in detail and demarcated, wherever this may be practicable and desirable, by joint British and Afghan commissioners, whose object will be to arrive by mutual understanding at a boundary which shall adhere with the greatest possible exactness" to the agreed map, and "have due regard to the existing local rights of villages adjoining the frontier." So while the agreement set the limits of the territories of Afghanistan and British India on paper, the entire border was not actually demarcated at that time.

The issue of the Durand Line became thornier after 1947, when British India was split into two independent states: India and Pakistan. Afghanistan -- deep into its own search for identity and the formation of a nationalistic agenda -- called for the right of self-determination for ethnic Pashtuns inhabiting the region between the Durand Line and the Indus River.


This became known, at least in Kabul, as the "Pashtunistan" policy, and it effectively alienated Afghanistan from its new neighbor, Pakistan. On official Afghan maps at the time, the country's boundary with Pakistan was marked as disputed.

The issue of "Pashtunistan" has brought Afghanistan and Pakistan to the brink of war on more than one occasion, and it has drained Afghanistan's economy and cost it political capital.

For Pakistan, the existence of two hostile neighbors, Afghanistan and India, became a source of great concern. Although Kabul eventually opted to stay out of all the Indo-Pakistani wars, the possibility of having to fight simultaneously on two fronts has prompted Pakistan to try to intimidate Afghanistan continuously over the years.

Arguably, Islamabad's golden chance to reduce the real or perceived Afghan threat came when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Although Pakistan was initially viewed as the next step in the Soviet march toward the "warm waters" of the Indian Ocean, the Soviets got bogged down in Afghanistan, thanks mainly to Pakistan-based resistance groups.

Finally, Islamabad could envisage a friendly post-Soviet Afghanistan, if not its own satellite state. The quest for an Islamabad-friendly government in Kabul manifested itself in the person of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and other resistance leaders, all the way to the formation of the Taliban in 1994.

The state-run Kabul daily "Anis," reflecting a long-held view of Afghan governments, commented recently that "the Durand border has been one of Pakistan's most basic concerns since its establishment." The paper went on to argue that "the British Empire imposed the border [on] Abd al-Rahman Khan 114 years ago and [said that] in doing so, it cut off part of the Afghan territory and added it to British India." "Anis" accused Pakistan of knowingly "acting against an absolute right of the Afghans" and vowed that "one day when Afghans are mighty, they will surely reclaim that part of their territory."


Both Afghanistan and Pakistan have suffered from mutual miscalculations over the past five decades. Kabul and Islamabad are playing an old hand that has already been overplayed, and the result threatens to encourage terrorists and their allies on both sides of the border. Unfortunately, international terrorism will reap the benefits until Pakistan accepts Afghanistan as a sovereign state -- one not subservient to Islamabad's demands -- and Kabul begins to concentrate on events inside its own borders.

Suicide attack wounds three Afghan soldiers

Posted: 08 January 2007 - KHOST, Afghanistan : A suicide attacker detonated a car bomb near a military convoy in Afghanistan Monday, wounding three Afghan soldiers, while two Taliban were killed in a shootout with troops, officials said.

The suicide attack was in the Barmal district of Paktika province, the governor of the province, Mohammad Akram Khepelwak, told AFP. The area has in recent weeks seen a series of attacks blamed on Taliban insurgents.

"The suicide attacker was killed, his vehicle was totally destroyed. Only three ANA (Afghan National Army) soldiers were slightly wounded," Khepelwak said. "There has been no more damage or casualties to the Afghan army or NATO," he said. The explosion occurred some way from the convoy."

A similar explosion in Barmal on Saturday wounded four soldiers with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). In another incident, ISAF and Afghan forces came under Taliban attack in the southern province of Zabul late Sunday, a district governor said.

The troops surrounded the attackers and after an exchange of fire two of the rebels were killed and three arrested, said Mohammad Younis Akhunzada, governor of the Mizan district where the attack occurred.

There were no casualties among the soldiers. Many of the attacks in the insurgency, launched after the Taliban were toppled from government in late 2001, occur in areas along the border with Pakistan.

Afghan officials allege the roots of the insurgency are in the lawless tribal border areas, where militants have training and financial support.

Pakistan has said it would fence or mine parts of the border to stop militants crossing over to attack. Afghanistan has rejected the plan, saying it would split families and tribes and did not tackle the real problem. - AFP/ms

RFE/RL News digest 01.08.07

AFGHAN PROVINCE GOVERNOR SAYS PAKISTAN HAS STARTED FENCING BORDER - Paktika Province Governor Akram Khpalwak claimed on January 7 that Pakistan has begun to fence and mine its disputed southeastern border with Afghanistan, Pajhwak Afghan News reported. Khpalwak said officials have been told by residents that some 2,000 Pakistani regular and militia forces began the project in the Azam Warsak and Qamardin Karez areas along the border. Khpalwak claimed that Pakistanis "are fencing and mining areas pointed out by Taliban and Al-Qaeda and leaving those passages used by militants for sneaking into Afghanistan and crossing back into Pakistan." He demanded that the UN and the international community stop Pakistan from fencing the border. Pakistan recently announced it would implement its plan -- which has been discussed since 2003 -- to partially fence and mine its border with Afghanistan as a measure to stop militants from going back and forth between Afghanistan from Pakistan (see End Note and "RFE/RL Newsline," December 29, 2006 and January 5, 2007). Afghanistan has consistently objected to such plans. AT

FORMER TALIBAN AIR-FORCE CHIEF BURIED IN PAKISTAN - Mullah Mohammad Kakar, the former air-force chief of the Taliban government, was buried in the Gardy Jungle area of the Chaghi district in Baluchistan Province on January 5, the Rawalpindi daily "Jang" reported on January 5. Large numbers of Afghan refugees reportedly attended the funeral. According to the report, Kakar and two others were killed in an air strike by coalition forces in Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan on January 2. AT

JAILED AFGHAN POLICE CHIEF GOES ON HUNGER STRIKE - Mohammad Azim Jalal Hashemi, the former police chief of Baghlan Province, began a hunger strike in jail on January 6 to protest his incarceration, Pajhwak Afghan News reported. Hashemi has been jailed for allegedly abducting a young girl. He said he will continue his hunger strike until he is released. He said he married the girl with her consent and claims he was falsely arrested. Hashemi also alleged that Baghlan Governor Sayyed Ekramuddin Masumi has conspired against him. According to the report, Hashemi was arrested after the family of the girl, who was not identified, pressed charges against the former police chief for abduction. Interior Ministry spokesman Zmaray Bashari indicated on January 6 that the case has been referred to the prosecutor-general. Masumi has denied any involvement in Hashemi's case. AT

INDIAN DIRECTOR OF 'KABUL EXPRESS' APOLOGIZES TO AFGHAN'S HAZARAS - Kabir Khan, the director of the Indian-made film "Kabul Express," has apologized to the Hazaras in Afghanistan for comments in his movie that he claims are not part of his original production, Kabul-based Tolu Television reported on January 6. Afghanistan's Ministry of Information and Culture on January 3 criticized "humiliating scenes" in the film "Kabul Express" and decided to ban it in Afghanistan for offensive language toward one of Afghanistan's tribes (see "RFE/RL Newsline," January 5, 2007). Khan said the pirate copies of the film on sale in Kabul are not authentic, charging that they were imported from Pakistan. "I have heard that the film 'Kabul Express' hurt my Afghan brothers...I will soon send real copies of this film to Afghanistan and you will not see the names of any tribes in it. If you still feel uncomfortable watching it, I apologize to the Hazara tribe," Khan said. The Pakistani Embassy in Kabul has rejected charges that the pirate copies of "Kabul Express" in Afghanistan came from Pakistan. AT

British struggle to hold Taliban

Michael Smith The Sunday Times January 07, 2007 - NEW film footage from Afghanistan has suggested the British Army controls little but isolated pockets in Helmand, the province in the south of the country where the troops are trying to establish stability.

The film, taken by the reporter Sean Langan for Channel 4, shows the extent of the difficulties British troops have faced, with severe shortages of helicopters preventing resupplies and men forced to live off corn cobs foraged from nearby fields.

With its pictures of Afghan troops wounded and dying, it is among the most graphic footage from Afghanistan since British paratroopers arrived last summer.

In Dispatches on Channel 4 tomorrow, British and Afghan troops are shown struggling to regain control of the key town of Garmsir. Langan spent a week with the soldiers in September last year.

When the battle for Garmsir, originally supposed to last 24 hours, stretches on for six days, the British are promised reinforcements. But shortages of troops and helicopters mean they never arrive.

An officer admits the whole area south of Garmsir, in central Helmand, more than 100 miles north of the Pakistan border, is controlled by the Taliban who have no problem resupplying and reinforcing their men.

“The Taliban pretty much control everything south of us all the way down to the Pakistani border,” says Captain Doug Beattie. “That’s their main supply route and they have pretty much free access of movement.”

In the second programme later this week, Langan spends time with Mullah Ibrahimi, a Taliban commander, who claims to have a “shadow administration” in Helmand: “We have our own judges, our own local politicians and our own administrators. Nothing gets done in these villages without our consent.”

The Ministry of Defence described the film as “out of date”, adding: “Since then British troops have moved into the area”.

Taliban leader's powerful vanishing act

Mullah Mohammed Omar may be hiding in Pakistan, where his elusiveness has created a cult-like devotion. By Laura King The Los Angeles Times January 5, 2007

KUCHLAK, PAKISTAN — Where's Mullah Omar? It has been more than five years since the Taliban's supreme leader, a onetime village cleric, vanished into the trackless terrain outside his fallen Afghan stronghold, Kandahar. And his likeliest source of sanctuary is thought to be the belt of rugged tribal territory straddling the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, where the law of no nation prevails.

In Kuchlak, a dusty desert crossroads in the southwestern Pakistani province of Baluchistan, Mullah Mohammed Omar still is referred to by the title he assumed in 1996, when he and his puritanical Islamist movement seized power in Afghanistan: Amir al-Muminin, or Commander of the Faithful.

Omar's feat of eluding a long manhunt by the Americans and their allies, even with a $10-million bounty on his head, is celebrated here as proof of his mystical powers.

"With all their sophisticated satellites that can see a single needle from high in the sky, they cannot find him," said Fazil Mohammad Baraich, a district amir, or chieftain. "It is no surprise that God almighty protects him, and this increases our faith."

Rumors of Omar sightings abound, and are repeated by locals with an air of satisfied certainty.

"I, myself, have heard on good authority that he is living in a camp" in the military enclave outside Quetta, said Mohammed Ashiq, head of a merchants association in that provincial capital.

"And," Ashiq said, leaning forward conspiratorially, "I hear that he has gotten fat. Very fat."

During the Taliban's rule, it was Omar who ordered such stringent measures as the banishment of women from schools and public life, and the destruction of one of Afghanistan's greatest cultural treasures, the giant Buddha statues at Bamian.

He outlawed simple pleasures such as music and kite flying, even as he decreed, disastrously for his country, that the Taliban would provide aid and shelter to Osama bin Laden, who likewise has remained at large.

In tribal communities such as Kuchlak, sympathy for the toppled militia is defiantly undiminished. Many townspeople are of the same Pashtun clan as Omar, who by most accounts has never flown in an airplane and has rarely strayed from his homeland.

The cult-like devotion to Omar in the mosques and makeshift classrooms of the tribal territories helps ensure a steady supply of Taliban fighters. The militia's white flags flutter over Kuchlak's small, desolate graveyard, where the names of slain fighters are scratched into bare rock.

Little boys trudge through the town's rutted streets, bearing bags of bread donated to the town's many madrasas, or Islamic religious schools. On Kuchlak's edge, single tracks, equally suitable for wandering goats or militants on motorbikes, fade into a horizon the color of khaki, the Pashto word for dusty.

Across the border in Afghanistan, allied military commanders say they are putting increasing pressure on the Taliban leadership, most notably with a precision airstrike on Dec. 19 on a lonely road in Helmand province that killed Mullah Akhtar Mohammed Osmani, a senior deputy to Omar.

Tracking Omar "is certainly a priority, and this kind of success shows we have the potential to reach those at his level," said Maj. Dominic Whyte, a spokesman for North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces.

But if Omar has taken shelter in Pakistan, he may be out of the reach of coalition guns. An airstrike in October on a madrasa in the Pakistani tribal region of Bajur, which left dozens dead, triggered a heavy anti-American and anti-government backlash.

For that reason, a strike on a madrasa or village thought to be harboring Omar would be politically explosive unless American forces were absolutely certain that he, or a similarly high-profile target, was present.

Kuchlak, 10 miles north of Quetta, is a convenient way station for anyone looking to move surreptitiously in and out of the tribal belt.

One road out of town leads north to the Afghan border and continues to Kandahar. Another, with only a single police checkpoint in more than 100 miles, leads northeast to the tribal area of Waziristan, where Pakistani authorities have struck controversial truces with tribal elders that prevent troops from pursuing militants.

Because of Omar's longtime aversion to being photographed — a pollicy he was said to have adopted on religious grounds — few in the border hinterrlands would be in a position to positively identify him. His missing right eye was his most recognizable characteristic, but allied military reports say he may have been fitted with a glass eye.

In any event, many observers believe that betrayal from within Omar's tribal milieu would be unthinkable. For one thing, it would violate the rigid Pashtun code of behavior, which places a premium on clan honor and the unquestioning protection of guests. For another, any traitor probably would pay with his life, and with the lives of his family.

Omar's role in the Taliban leadership, whether as figurehead or active military commander, is widely debated among analysts.

Last week, before the beginning of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, Western news agencies received a statement from a purported spokesman for Omar, in which the Taliban leader boasted that his fighters would drive foreign troops out of Afghanistan.

The possibility that Omar has been sheltered in Pakistan raises thorny political questions for President Pervez Musharraf. Pakistan became a crucial U.S. ally after the Sept. 11 attacks, but the motives and loyalties of its government are under increasing Western scrutiny.

The Taliban movement, in its early days, was nurtured by Pakistan's intelligence service, and some observers doubt that Omar could have survived this long without its continued help. But others say no hard-and-fast proof has emerged that Omar is hiding on the Pakistani side of the border.

"He could be in Afghanistan, or he could be in Pakistan," said Rahimullah Yusufzai, a longtime Taliban watcher based in the Pakistani frontier city of Peshawar.

To admirers, the near-completeness of Omar's vanishing act after fleeing his gaudily appointed compound outside Kandahar in late 2001 is a triumphant rebuttal of the allies' characterizations of him as a simpleton. "If that is the case," said Baraich, the amir, "then why has he been able to hide so well, and for so long?"

Pakistan editorial sees "limitations" of Afghan president

Text of editorial entitled: "Karzai has after all his limitations", published by Pakistani newspaper Pakistan Observer website on 6 January

The visit of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to Afghanistan was a major initiative by Pakistan to remove misgivings in the minds of the Afghan leadership that Islamabad was not doing enough against border crossings by elements opposed to the Kabul government. Despite Kabul's accusations, it was good of the prime minister to enhance the aid package from 250m dollars to 300m dollars for the reconstruction of Afghanistan.

It is unfortunate that in response to Shaukat Aziz's friendly overture, Karzai's body language was offending whereas courtesy demanded that a visiting dignitary should be extended due courtesy. The information minister, Muhammad Ali Durrani, reached Kabul a day ahead of the prime minister's visit and proposed greater coordination among the media of the two countries to promote better understanding. The issue of selective border fencing and mining to check the illegal border crossing came under lengthy discussion but the Afghan president repeated his objections, saying it cannot prevent terrorism and will only divide the two nations.

One wonders why Karzai does not realize that it is not a few thousand Taleban but whole of Afghanistan that is against the presence of foreign forces in their country. Hamed Karzai is shifting his failures on to Pakistan as his hold is limited to Kabul and that too on the basis of the strength of foreign forces. People of Afghanistan were committed huge funds under the Bonn and Tokyo Agreements for reconstruction of the war-torn country. But the reconstruction activity remained restricted to Kabul and there have been consistent reports of massive corruption in the funds. Thus people have become disenchanted with the Karzai government as they have not jobs and no shelter to feed themselves and their families. Also increased poppy cultivation and crimes have further eroded the credibility of his government.

The prime minister has categorically reiterated that a strong and stable Afghanistan is not only in the interest of its people but also for Pakistan. However, with former warlords heading different provinces, foreign forces dictating terms to these former Mojahedin commanders and pressures from his so-called friendly country opposed to Pakistan, Mr Hamed Karzai is in difficult situation because after all he has his limitations to perform his job.

Terrorism dogs Pakistan in ’06: Over 900 killed in 657 attacks

Dawn - By Amir Wasim - ISLAMABAD, Jan 6: Terror attacks killed almost two people a day in 2006, with Balochistan and the country’s tribal areas becoming the worst trouble spots. These are the findings of a research study conducted by an independent think-tank, Pak Institute for Peace Studies, which found that the overall security situation remained extremely precarious in the outgoing year.

The government blamed the terror attacks on insurgents in Balochistan, operatives of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and sectarian militants.

According to the research study, 657 terrorist attacks, including 41 of a sectarian nature, took place in the outgoing year, leaving 907 people dead and 1,543 others injured. The attacks are said to have caused a loss of billions of rupees.

The research study puts the number of people arrested by law-enforcement agencies at 1,552, including 1,094 Taliban and Afghans, 47 Al Qaeda operatives, 198 other militants and 213 nationalist insurgents.

Giving a province-wise break-up, it says that the Balochistan Liberation Army, the Balochistan Liberation Front and the Bugti Militia were blamed by the government for carrying out 403 terror attacks in Balochistan during 2006 that killed 277 people and injured 676 others.

Gas pipelines, security checkpoints and camps, government offices, rail tracks and bridges were targeted by the insurgents, it adds.

According to the research study, the killing of veteran tribal chief Nawab Akbar Bugti in a clash between security forces and his men-at-arms was the main violent event of the year 2006 which caused “a ripple effect on the political horizon in the country”.

"The Federally Administered Tribal Areas proved a big trouble for the government and security agencies as tribal Taliban started re-organising their ranks in those areas…Tribal Taliban and militants kept on hitting security agencies and other anti-Taliban elements and killed 39 locals on suspicion of spying for the US forces."

The research study says that the airstrike -- blamed by locals on US aircraft -- that left over 80 inmates of a religious seminary in Bajaur was “the biggest event of the year in the tribal areas that invited further trouble for security agencies and marred efforts for peace agreement".

A total of 144 attacks occurred in the tribal areas, killing 379 people and injuring 307 others. Sectarian clashes between two rival groups in Khyber Agency also caused a breakdown in law and order in the agency.

According to the report, the NWFP remained the in the grip of strife and violence in 2006 and saw 60 terror attacks and sectarian clashes that left 139 people dead and 303 injured.

A suicide bomb blast at the Punjab Regiment Centre in Dargai that resulted in the deaths of 42 trainee soldiers and injuries to 39 others was the most gruesome incident of the year in the already volatile province. The attack was described as a reaction to the Bajaur airstrike.

Experiencing no major terror attack in the year 2006, Punjab remained relatively peaceful, says the study, adding that the terrorists did carry out bomb blasts in different cities of the province and struck Lahore thrice, but casualties remained low. As many as 28 people were killed and 126 others injured in a total of 28 attacks in the province.

Even though fewer terror attacks took place in Sindh than in the other three provinces, two incidents of terrorism jolted the whole country, says the study.

‘Human pipeline’ of terror linked to Pakistan: report

By Khalid Hasan - Daily Times 7 January 2007

WASHINGTON: There is a “human pipeline” that arranges for alienated British Muslim youths – many of them born in the UK of Pakistani heritage – to travel to Pakistan for indoctrination and training at temporary terrorist “camps”, believed to be operated by Al Qaeda leaders, according to a report in the current issue of Newsweek.

The report quoted US authorities as saying that the UK-Pakistan pipeline had played a role in several planned terrorist plots.

A US intelligence official said that agencies on both sides of the Atlantic had information linking a 26-year-old London man, Muhammed Al-Ghabra, as a major organiser for Al Qaeda and other terror groups to some of the well-known plots.

The information that the US Treasury Department made public in its announcement freezing Ghabra’s assets appears to affirm his role as a “terrorist fixer”. The Treasury statement said some of the would-be terrorists that Ghabra allegedly helped travel to Pakistan returned to the UK to “engage in covert activity on Al Qaeda’s behalf”. It said that during a visit to Pakistan in 2002, Ghabra allegedly met and stayed at the home of Abu Faraj Al-Libi, who at the time was believed to have succeeded the 9/11 mastermind as the Al Qaeda operations chief. Ghabra was also accused of training at a terror camp in Kashmir. The US government is the only party involved in designating Ghabra as a terror organiser that has released such detailed information on him.

With Us or Against Us

NY Times - By FOUAD AJAMI Published: January 7, 2007

It is an old, and persistent, American affliction, an odd one for a democratic people: a weakness for dictators with charm and guile and a “modernist” veneer who rule exotic, dangerous lands. We may not know Bahrain but we can be friends with its king; we may not have known Persian ways, nothing, for instance, of the seminarian culture of Qum, but we knew Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, and our travelers and diplomats and journalists felt at home in his court. Jordan may be a realm apart, a place of poverty and a breeding ground of angry warriors of the faith, but young King Abdullah II and his queen, Rania, are fixtures on the international circuit. And now that we have extravaganzas like Davos, no land is truly foreign, the exotic rulers can rub shoulders with Oliver Stone and Angelina Jolie. They can all serve on panels together. Why bother learning Arabic, Farsi or Urdu, when the rulers of distant lands offer a shortcut for the voyeurs and the travelers.

Grant Pakistan’s ruler, Pervez Musharraf, his due: he may be a professional soldier, a commando at that, but his feel for the world of celebrity is unerring. Musharraf turned out to be a booker’s dream as he hawked his memoirs on American talk shows. He knew his audience — “In the Line of Fire” is a book written for American readers, a tale of how the Bush administration recruited him into the new war after 9/11. “You are either with us or against us,” a fellow soldier, Secretary of State Colin Powell, told him. But the book’s best break — the author’s luck — was provided by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. The choice was clear, Armitage told the director general of Pakistan’s intelligence — America or the terrorists. And if Pakistan chose the terrorists, it should be “prepared to be bombed back to the Stone Age.”

Musharraf lives with a nightmare: that the attention that came Pakistan’s way after 9/11 would dissipate, and his country would return to what it was before those attacks: a forgotten, abandoned land. It is essential for Musharraf that Pakistan be a “dangerous” place: he and his country (more precisely, the intelligence services and the army commanders arrayed around him) feed off the menace. He might even give a nod to Bernard-Henri Lévy’s assertion that Pakistan is the “most delinquent of delinquent nations.”

Musharraf knows the fickle ways of Western nations. There had been that earlier run, in the 1980s, when the global jihad against the Soviet conquest of Afghanistan turned Pakistan into a “frontline state.” American intelligence operatives and Saudi financiers swarmed in, and the place became awash with money and guns as the final battle of the cold war played out in Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan. It was a time of great tumult — and possibilities. There was Islamization for the warriors of the faith; for the officer corps and the intelligence services of Pakistan there was the chance to play the modern game of nations.

Ever since its birth as a nation-state in 1947, Pakistan had lived in India’s shadow. The jihad had given its political-military elites a place in the world. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, a stern soldier who had seized power in 1977 — and who sent his flamboyant Western- educated predecessor, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, to the gallows — offered his country the incendiary mix of despotism and Islamization. But as in the best of Oriental tales of revenge and redemption, Zia perished in a mysterious air crash in 1988, and Bhutto’s daughter Benazir claimed her father’s fallen standard. The country would then know four national elections in nine years, and a decade of drift before Pervez Musharraf seized power with the familiar promise of rescue and order. By then the foreign powers had long drifted away.

When Musharraf came to power in 1999, Pakistan was a virtual pariah in the world of nations, sanctioned for its adventurism in Kashmir, and for crossing the nuclear threshold in 1998 when it detonated six nuclear devices . The terror of 9/11 came to Musharraf’s — and Pakistan’s — rescue. It is Musharraf’s pride — a pride that runs through his book — that he positioned Pakistan skillfully in this new war on terror.

“My love of dogs began in Turkey,” Musharraf writes. “We had a beautiful brown dog named Whiskey. I loved him. He was killed in a road accident but left with me a lifelong love of dogs.” No zealous Muslim believer would write this way of dogs, for to the faithful dogs are unclean. And then there is the dog’s name, another transgression. It was of no small consequence to Musharraf that he had gone to Turkey as a boy of 6 in 1949, when his father was assigned to his country’s embassy in Ankara as superintendent of the accounts department. The Musharrafs were to spend seven years in Turkey, and it was there that the young Pervez picked up his passion for dogs, along with a measure of admiration for Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Turkey was (and remains?) the most modern of Muslim nations. Ataturk had been a soldier, a modernizer from above and a savior of his country. He was to bequeath his inheritance — the creed of Kemalism — to army officers in Turkey, and in Islamic lands beyond. There is a measure of Kemalism — its style, its irreverence in the face of the nation’s culture — in Musharraf. Pakistan today is not the Turkey of Ataturk, it is a more lethal place, and Musharraf stops well short of Ataturk’s unyielding secularism. But in his swagger, his eagerness to pull Pakistan into the Western orbit of power, he is reminiscent of the legendary Turkish leader.

In all fairness, the trajectory of Musharraf’s life is a fair reflection of his country’s. The relation of Pakistan to Islam had been complicated to begin with. The pious among the Muslims of the subcontinent had not created Pakistan. It was the assimilated, the rejected political men who had been firm believers in Indian nationalism, who took their people out of India and into a state for Muslims. The creation of Pakistan issued from a tale of hurt, and of great insecurity.

In the course of the 18th and 19th centuries, the Muslims of India had fallen behind the Hindu majority, who took an easier leap into the modern world. A despondency overtook Indian Islam. Thus it was that a barrister by the name of M. A. Jinnah, later Mohammed Ali Jinnah (1876-1948), a firm believer in British law and Indian nationalism, a man who married outside the faith and tried in the 1930s to get himself elected to the British Parliament while forgetting all about Hindus and Muslims, led his people to the promised land of Pakistan. Along the way the Saville Row suits would be traded for Punjabi attire, and the Anglicized name changed to his old Muslim name. By the time Jinnah settled in his new home in Karachi in 1947, he was an old man ravaged by tuberculosis and cancer of the lungs; he would die soon after the creation of what he dismissed as “moth-eaten ” Pakistan. Jinnah had always aspired to something grander: Bombay was his beloved city; he had merely settled for Pakistan. Musharraf recalls sitting on a wall along the road of Jinnah’s funeral cortege, a young boy weeping over the death of the great man.

Musharraf’s family — like Jinnah himself — came to Karachi during the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan, in the tidal migration that was the mother of all ethnic cleansings. His family belonged to the mohajir class, the migrants who gave up their world in India for the new state, and its promise. But a surprise lay in wait for them. The land of the faith that they entered was not empty. Karachi lay in the province of Sindh, and to the Sindhis it was home. A sense of unease was to trail the mohajirs as they jostled with the principal nationalities of Pakistan — the Punjabis, the Baluchis, the Pathans and the Sindhis.

Fouad Ajami teaches at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. His most recent book is “The Foreigner’s Gift: The Americans, The Arabs, and the Iraqis.”

Drug mafia, CIA blamed for sacking of Afghan governor

by Devlin Buckley - Global Research.ca, January 6, 2007

In a country flooded with narcotics traffickers and corrupt government officials, one of Afghanistan’s few remaining ‘clean’ governors, Mohammed Daud, has been removed from his position, and many are blaming the drug mafia and the CIA for his abrupt dismissal.

Daud was appointed at the request of the British government in order to oversee Helmand province, the country’s largest opium producing region. The former governor of Helmand, Sher Muhammad Akhunzada, whom Daud replaced earlier this year, has been widely implicated in the drug trade.

Contrary to Akhunzada, “British officials regarded Mr Daud as the cleanest governor in Afghanistan and hoped that his extensive experience in development would help to win over Helmand’s population,” The Times reported.

Last month, however, the British government expressed frustration with the effort, pointing to the fact that Afghan President Hamid Karzai continued to meet with the former governor, Akhunzada. Adding further strain on the situation, Karzai appointed Akhunzada as a senator and made his brother, Amir Muhammad Akhundzada, Daud's deputy.

"The president is undermining his own governor," one British official toldThe Times. "It doesn’t help what we’re trying to do."

It would appear U.S. officials, particularly from the Central Intelligence Agency, were influencing Karzai’s actions, undercutting the efforts of their British counterparts. Moreover, as The Independent reported, “British sources have blamed pressure from the CIA for President Hamid Karzai's decision to dismiss Mohammed Daud as governor".

“The Americans knew Daud was a main British ally,” one official explained to The Independent, “yet they deliberately undermined him and told Karzai to sack him.”

The U.S. apparently favors the brother of Daud's predecessor and purported drug lord, Akhunzada.

As The Times reports, “British officials fear that Mr Daud will be replaced by his deputy, Amir Muhammad Akhunzada, the brother of Sher Muhammad Akhunzada. He is thought to have links to the drug trade and has been banned from running in elections because he refuses to disband his personal militia.”

“For the moment,” as one official toldThe Times, “before a new governor is named, the governor of Helmand is a drug-dealing warlord who was banned from the elections by the UN for keeping a militia and his connection to narcotics, and with whom the British have said they cannot work. Nice.”

Opium from Afghanistan provides more than 90 percent of the world’s total supply, funding international drug syndicates with billions of dollars in profits every year.

According to a recent report issued by the United Nations and the World Bank, the U.S.-installed government has established a “complex pyramid of protection and patronage, effectively providing state protection to criminal trafficking activities.”

“Around 25 to 30 key traffickers, the majority of them based in southern Afghanistan, control major transactions and transfers, working closely with sponsors in top government and political positions,” the report states.

“This year's record harvest of 6,100 tons of opium will generate more than $3 billion in illicit revenue - equivalent to almost half of Afghanistan's GDP,” writes Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. “Profits for drug traffickers downstream,” he notes, “will be almost 20 times that amount.”

According to Costa, “High-level collusion enables thousands of tons of chemical precursors, needed to produce heroin, to be trucked into the country. Armed convoys transport raw opium around the country unhindered. Sometimes even army and police vehicles are involved. Guns and bribes ensure that the trucks are waved through checkpoints. Opiates flow freely across borders into Iran, Pakistan, and other Central Asian countries."

"There are many cases where honest prosecutors or police chiefs try to do something about corruption, and they say they receive phone calls from very high officials in Kabul saying to leave the people alone," said Barnett Rubin, an expert on Afghanistan and director of studies and senior fellow at New York University's Center on International Cooperation.

As The Washington Post has plainly summarized, “corruption and alliances formed by Washington and the Afghan government with anti-Taliban tribal chieftains, some of whom are believed to be deeply involved in the trade, [have] undercut the [counter-narcotics] effort.”

Devlin Buckley is a freelance writer and journalist residing in Troy, New York. His web site, the American Monitor, may be viewed here and you may contact him via e-mail at PDevlinBuckley@yahoo.com.

Afghan security forces destroy poppy fields

Text of report by Afghan independent Radio Sahar on 6 January - [Presenter] Security forces have destroyed 600 jeribs [approximately 120 ha] of poppy cultivated land in some areas in Ghowr Province. Farmers claim the government has failed to provide them with alternative crops. My colleague Hami Azad has a report on this:

[Correspondent] The security commander of Ghowr Province, Shah Jahan Nuri, says they have destroyed 600 jeribs of land where poppy had been grown. According to the commander, farmers had begun growing poppies in Tulak District in the autumn, but security forces wiped out their farms.

[Security commander] We have achieved success and recently managed to destroy 600 jeribs of poppy-cultivated land in Tulak District.

[Correspondent] Farmers in this central, mountainous province have called on the government to provide them with alternative crops. They stress that the lack of alternative crops makes them resort to growing poppies. In the meantime, the security commander asked the government and other relief organizations to help farmers in this province.

Afghan officials are trying to prevent an increase in drug products by destroying poppy fields. Currently, Afghanistan is on the top of the list as the biggest drug producing and drug trafficking country in the world.

Afghan minister opens power project in western province

Excerpt from report by Afghan independent Radio Sahar on 6 January - [Presenter] Afghan officials say the Salma [hydroelectric] dam will become operational in the spring of 1388 [2009]. Energy and Water Minister Mohammad Esmail Khan, who was speaking at the inaugural ceremony of an electricity-generating project, stated that the construction of this dam is 50 per cent complete.

Herat is one of the few provinces which enjoys round-the-clock electricity thanks to the power cables from Iran and Turkmenistan with 130 and 110 kW electricity. My colleague, Hami Azad, has further details on other aspects of this issue.

[Correspondent] The energy and water minister says he has signed another agreement with Iran, according to which power cables will be extended to Farah Province in the coming year. He stated that Iranian officials will extend a power cable from Zabol in Iran to Farah Province via Nimroz.

[Esmail Khan] We have signed two contracts with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Iranian engineers have already carried out a survey in Farah Province. We hope we can spend our annual budget this year and the Iranian officials will also extend 180km of power cables from Zabol in Iran to Farah Province via Nimroz.

[Correspondent] In addition, Energy and Water Minister Mohammad Esmail Khan opened a 1.25m-dollar power-generating project in the south of Herat. It is said that 20,000 families in southern villages of the province will benefit from round-the-clock electricity.

According to Mr Mohammad Esmail Khan, five districts of Herat Province have electricity and his ministry will extend power cables to other districts, too.

Furthermore, the minister asserted that the Salma hydroelectric dam, which is one of the biggest dams in the country, will become operational in the year 1388 [2009]. [Passage omitted: repetition]

Italy to help revamp public parks in Afghan capital

Text of report by Afghan independent Pajhwok news agency website - Kabul, 6 January: Italy has announced that it is ready to work on the rebuilding of public parks in Kabul to create green spaces in the city. It has also been arranged for the mayor of Kabul to meet his Italian counterpart.

Mehdi Naqeb, the deputy head of the Kabul Municipality press office, told Pajhwok that the Italian ambassador promised this today during his meeting with the mayor of Kabul.

He added that as the first step, documents related to the public park in Khoshhal Khan Mena, located in ward 5 in Kabul, were handed over to the Italian ambassador.

He added that the Italian embassy was to study the documents in connection with details such as budget, launch date and type of the project and later inform Kabul Municipality on its decisions.

According to the information available to Naqeb, the Kabul mayor has recently ordered the heads of Kabul's wards to establish the type and number of public parks. The mayor's plan is to either rebuild the parks or hand them over to the private sector so they can be used for construction projects.

Naqeb also added that during the meeting, the Italian envoy promised that preparations would be made for a meeting between the mayors of Rome and Kabul to exchange information and experience.

Starving Afghans sell girls of eight as brides

Villagers whose crops have failed after a second devastating drought are giving their young daughters in marriage to raise money for food

Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor Sunday January 7, 2007 The Observer

Azizgul is 10 years old, from the village of Houscha in western Afghanistan. This year the wheat crop failed again following a devastating drought. Her family was hungry. So, a little before Christmas, Azizgul's mother 'sold' her to be married to a 13-year-old boy.

'I need to sell my daughters because of the drought,' said her mother Sahatgul, 30. 'We don't have enough food and the bride price will enable us to buy food. Three months ago my 15-year-old daughter married.

'We were not so desperate before. Now I have to marry them younger. And all five of them will have to get married if the drought becomes worse. The bride price is 200,000 afghanis [£2,000]. His father came to our house to arrange it. The boy pays in instalments. First he paid us 5,000 afghanis, which I used to buy food.'

Azizgul is not unique. Hers is one of a number of interviews and case studies collected by the charity Christian Aid - all of them young girls sold by their families to cope with the second ruinous drought to hit Afghanistan within three years.

While the world has focused on the war against the Taliban, the suffering of the drought-stricken villagers, almost 2.5 million of them, has largely gone unnoticed. And where once droughts would afflict Afganistan once every couple of decades, this drought has come hard on the heels of the last one, from which the villagers were barely able to recover.

While prohibited by both Afghan civil and Islamic law, arranged marriages have long been a feature of Afghan life, particularly in rural areas. What is unusual is the age of some of the girls. And the reason: to buy food to survive.

'Many families are doing this because of the drought,' Sahatgul said. 'Our daughters are our only economic asset. We will have the marriage ceremony at puberty. The groom, Rahim, has gone to Iran with his brothers to earn the money. He is working on a building site. He will come back with the rest of the money that he has earned or borrowed. He calls us every month to make sure that Azizgul is still his.'

Najibullah, 39, is a farmer. He sold his eight-year-old daughter Somaya for $3,000 (£1,560). She is engaged to a 22-year-old man from the village, Mohammed, who has also gone to Iran to earn the money to pay the bride price.

'He has already paid a deposit of $600, which we used to buy warm clothes and food,' said Najibullah. For her part, Somaya knows she is getting married but does not know what that means.

The consequences of the first drought last year - which saw the wheat crop, on which more than 80 per cent of Afghans depend, cut by half - have gone beyond child brides. In some areas, according to the charity's survey, farmers lost between 80 and 100 per cent of their crops. According to Christian Aid, the children of the affected areas have been hit in other ways: by malnutrition, increased infant mortality, and by being sent on three-hour journeys to collect water and firewood to survive.

Now many of those villagers worst affected are caught in a double bind. Without their own food to survive, aid supplies have been hampered by the winter snows, which have cut off many of the villages, while the World Food Programme's aid pipeline to areas like the Herat province (where Houscha lies) has been hampered by attacks on food convoys coming from Quetta in Pakistan by the Taliban.

'We have advisers in Afghanistan monitoring the situation,' said a spokesman for Britain's Department for International Development, 'and we have already given £1m in aid. Our view is that it is not quite a humanitarian crisis yet, but it is very, very difficult. The biggest problem facing the aid effort is not security in the country but the fact that large areas have been cut off by snow and that food aid can only be delivered to regional centres.'

The grim picture is echoed by the UN and other international organisations working in Afghanistan. According to the World Food Programme's most recent food security monitoring bulletin, food consumption in the worst affected areas has markedly deteriorated as wheat prices, where wheat is available, have increased by up to 37 per cent. But the picture is most graphically painted by the suffering of the people on the ground, in particular the children.

Zarigul is 40 and also from Houscha. 'Our children are very weak from lack of food and we are worried that they will die. We feed them boiled water and sugar. We have no vegetables for them, just potatoes. Last year we had vegetables. We need help - food for ourselves and our animals.'

Children are already dying. In a graveyard on a hill overlooking the village of Sya Kamarak in western Afghanistan, villagers gathered for the funerals of three young children who died on the same day, from malnutrition caused by the drought in western, northern and southern Afghanistan. There were no doctors' reports to confirm the cause of death - the parents were too poor to take them to the clinic, one day's walk away.

Jan Bibi, 40, said she had been feeding her three-month-old daughter Nazia with just boiled water and sugar because she had nothing else. 'My baby died because of inadequate food. I wanted to breastfeed her, but I was not producing enough milk.'

[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.]