In this bulletin:

• 17 People Killed in Afghan Suicide Blast

• Shooting at Afghan army base kills 4: official
• Pakistani 'finds' militant son in Afghanistan
• More foreign fighters in Afghanistan insurgency: US commander
• Foreign helicopter makes hard landing in Afghan east
• Afghan bicycle bomb wounds 3 near Turkey consulate
• Next to violence, corruption biggest Afghan problem
• Afghanistan qualifies for interim debt relief: IMF
• Afghan returnees seek livelihood in life-giving projects
• Over six million Afghans face food insecurity?
• First meeting of Pakistan-Afghanistan joint working group
• Taliban shift tactics against Canadians
• Layton wants PM to demand air strikes' end
• Afghanistan: What's fit to print?
• Stop freeze on Afghan-prisoner information, opposition urges
• Building hope: An old Etonian in Afghanistan
• Editorial: Core issues in Afghanistan
• Is Musharraf Losing his Grip on Pakistan?

17 People Killed in Afghan Suicide Blast

By NOOR KHAN - The Associated Press Tuesday, July 10, 2007

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- A suicide bomber targeted a NATO patrol in a crowded marketplace filled with schoolchildren Tuesday, killing at least 17 people, including 12 students, officials said.

The attack _ one of the deadliest of the year _ injured more than 50 people, mostly students, but also seven Dutch soldiers patrolling on foot whom the bomber apparently had targeted.

The Interior Ministry put the death toll at 17. It was not immediately clear if that count also included six deaths reported by NATO's International Security Assistance Force, which was treating critical injuries at its medical facility in Tirin Kot, the provincial capital.

Most of 51 wounded were schoolchildren attending a nearby primary school, said Dr. Luma Khan, the chief of Uruzgan's health department.

"Some of the children were walking to school while other children were selling goods in the market," said Qassim Khan, the provincial police chief.

As the NATO patrol entered the market, a bomber blew himself up outside a pharmacy, destroying seven shops, he said. The market in Dihrawud was a central shopping area for people from nearby villages, he said.

The Dutch Defense Ministry said seven of its troops were injured, one critically.

Maj. John Thomas, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, said the bomber showed "no concern for the potential deaths and injuries of civilians."

"It's pretty shocking that with the recent calls by some insurgent leaders to protect civilians in this conflict that they would undertake a massacre of civilians in a marketplace," Thomas said.

The attack came at the southern tip of Uruzgan province, near the border with Helmand and Kandahar _ among the most violent areas in Afghanistan and the heart of the poppy-growing region.

The bombing appeared to be the third-deadliest of the year. On June 17, a suicide bomber exploded himself on a bus carrying police instructors in Kabul, killing 35 people. In February, a bomber carrying explosives detonated them outside the main U.S. base at Bagram Air Field, killing 23 people, during a visit by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney.

Violence has spiked in Afghanistan the last several weeks. More than 3,100 people _ mostly militants _ have died in insurgency-related violence this year, according to an Associated Press count based on figures from Western and Afghan officials.

Shooting at Afghan army base kills 4: official

Mon Jul 9, HERAT, Afghanistan (Reuters) - An exchange of small arms fire at an army base in Afghanistan's western city of Herat on Monday killed four Afghan soldiers, a spokeswoman for the provincial governor said.

Farzana Ahmadi said authorities had arrested one soldier and suspected he had links with guerrillas fighting the government and foreign troops stationed in Afghanistan.

"Four soldiers were killed in the shooting and authorities say probably the soldier who fired had links with government opponents," she said referring to insurgents led by the ousted Taliban.

Two provincial officials said the exchange was sparked due to a "personal dispute" between two Afghan soldiers. They said 10 Afghan soldiers and two U.S. soldiers were wounded.

An Afghan soldier shot dead two U.S. soldiers in the capital Kabul in May, but the results of an investigation into the incident have not been made public.

American soldiers form the bulk of the nearly 50,000 foreign troops in two NATO and U.S.-led forces. Apart from fighting Taliban insurgents, the troops also provide training to the Afghan army and police.

Pakistani 'finds' militant son in Afghanistan

Monday, July 9, 2007 - KABUL (AFP) - A Pakistani father was reunited Monday with his teenage son -- who said he had come to Afghanistan to carry out a Taliban suicide attack -- before media at the headquarters of the secret services here.

An emotional Mati-Ullah hugged his 14-year-old son, Rafiq-Ullah, and told reporters he did not know the boy had joined the Taliban until he was captured in the eastern Afghan province of Khost in May.

He said the teenager had gone missing from his religious school in Pakistan's troubled Waziristan area, on the border, and he had tracked him down to Khost.

The boy claimed he had been sent to the country to carry out a suicide attack against the provincial governor, whom he was told was an "infidel."

The intelligence agency said Rafiq-Ullah, along with a man who had allegedly been issuing suicide bombing vests, were arrested on May 7 in a house in Khost.

"Against all the values of human beings, terrorists are using such young boys to achieve their evil targets," intelligence agency spokesman Sayed Ansary told journalists.

The authenticity of the account could not be verified. The Afghan intelligence agency, which is keen to show a Pakistan link to the insurgency, often produces alleged militants who "confess" in front of the media.

More foreign fighters in Afghanistan insurgency: US commander

by Bronwen Roberts - Monday, July 9, 2007

KABUL (AFP) - Insurgents in Afghanistan are fighting harder and there are more foreign extremists in the battlefield, the top international commander in the country told AFP.

But there is no evidence to link the inflow of foreign "jihadists" to elements in Iran and in Iraq that may want to stir things up here, said US General Dan McNeill, head of NATO's International Security Assistance Force.

"For some number of weeks now I have watched with interest the increased number of foreign fighters that we have seen on the battlefield opposing us but I can't connect that to Iraq yet," he said in an interview Sunday.

There have been claims that battle-hardened fighters in Iraq are influencing the Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan where rebel tactics, such as suicide bombings, echo those used with more devastating effect in the Iraqi violence.

McNeill described these foreign fighters, whom he could not quantify, as "a lot more extreme than your typical Taliban extremist."

"These days we're seeing some improved tactics, they are fighting a little harder and maybe a little better," added the general who commands 35,500 soldiers from 37 nations.

"Some of them are foreigners, of Asian or Arabic descent. We have both captured and killed some of those. But I don't have anything clear that says the Iranians are doing this," he said.

The discovery of Iranian-made weapons in Afghanistan and destined for the Taliban has raised alarm about Tehran's possible involvement in the complex insurgency, which has intensified into the summer.

Weapons probably of Iranian origin had been found on the battlefield and in a convoy intercepted this year which contained munitions and a plastic explosive dressed up to look like a US-made version and used in Iraq, McNeill said.

There was no evidence to suggest the weapons were supplied by the government but, "We keep our systems tuned up to see any kind of change on the battlefield -- weapons, munitions, techniques, tactics, people."

In some cases the Taliban insurgents have appeared "compelled to fight by some of these foreign fighters" and to be more organised in their presence, he said.

But the character of the Taliban was difficult to pin down, the 61-year-old commander said at the ISAF compound in central Kabul.

Estimates of its size ranged from 5,000 to more than 20,000, he said. It was made up of tiers of men, from the hardcore and extreme who may be based outside the country to fierce nationalists and then opportunists just looking to earn some cash.

In this grouping were some who may be persuaded to join the internationally sponsored move towards democracy Afghanistan signed up to after the Taliban government was driven from power in 2001 for sheltering Al-Qaeda.

The Afghan government and "some significant international entities", but not ISAF, were in dialogue with the Taliban, said McNeill, who took charge of ISAF in February.

The numbers of Taliban involved could reach into the hundreds, he said. "Who knows, before the end of summer we may see a lot more come over," he said.

A reconciliation project launched in 2004 has already encouraged 2,000 Taliban and other Islamist militants to lay down their arms, according to the government.

The general said the international forces had achieved important successes in Afghanistan, mainly by pushing troops into new areas and following that up with reconstruction projects.

About 60 percent of the country was reasonably stable and secure, McNeill said, and needed only a well-trained and well-equipped Afghan police to keep order.

The other 40 percent required "something a notch or two above that," he said, referring to international support to Afghan forces fighting insurgents. The key to Afghanistan's future was the local security forces, which are being built up with international assistance, he said.

Once they were ready, ISAF could hand over security to the locals although work to rebuild a country devastated by decades of war would have to continue for sometime yet.

"I think NATO has to help out 2010, 2011 to where the Afghan national security forces have more institutions and more processes and the requisite numbers so they can do it themselves," he said.

"Beyond that I think there has to be non-military international help continuing."

Al-Qaida thrives in tribal regions of Pakistan near Afghan border

By JONATHAN S. LANDAY and KATHY GANNON - McClatchy Newspapers

Al-Qaida is back, rebuilding in the mountain sanctuary that sprawls across the Afghan-Pakistan border.

Arab recruits are moving in. Training camps are thought to be operating on both sides of the border. Suicide attacks in Afghanistan are almost triple the number of last year.

“Al-Qaida and the Taliban have to a troubling degree been able to re-create … the environment that existed in Afghanistan under the Taliban, to include recruiting and training foreign jihadists and financing and planning terrorist operations,” a U.S. intelligence official told McClatchy Newspapers.

The uncontrolled tribal areas of Pakistan have been a problem since coalition troops drove the Taliban and its ally, Osama bin Laden, out of Afghanistan.

Bin Laden has long been thought to have found sanctuary in the region along with Afghan insurgents and Pakistani radicals. All “have free rein there now,” said Marvin Weinbaum, a former U.S. State Department intelligence analyst who is with the Middle East Institute, a Washington policy organization.

While the Bush administration calls Iraq the “central front” of the war on terrorism, Pakistan’s tribal regions have been engulfed in an almost unnoticed struggle.

•A roadside blast struck a NATO convoy in southern Afghanistan and wounded four alliance soldiers Saturday, while fighting in three separate regions of the country left more than 100 militants dead.

•Afghan elders on Saturday said that 108 civilians were killed in a bombing campaign in western Afghanistan, and villagers in the northeast said that 25 Afghans died in air strikes, including some killed while burying dead relatives. U.S. and NATO leaders said they had no information to substantiate the claims, and a U.S. official said that Taliban fighters were forcing villagers to say that civilians died in fighting.

•On Wednesday, a suicide car bomber rammed a vehicle into a Pakistani army convoy near the Afghan border, killing five soldiers and five civilians. In northwest Pakistan, a rocket was fired at a police station, killing one officer and wounding four, and an explosive killed four people and injured two district officials.

•Pakistan’s Interior Ministry wrote a warning, reported by The New York Times June 30, to President Pervez Musharraf that the “Talibanization” of the regions was bleeding east and creating a threat to Pakistan

•Last month, what appears to have been a missile attack killed more than 20 people in North Waziristan, Pakistani security officials said.

But the scenario offered by Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad of the Pakistan military was that a bomb militants were making went off.

•In late December, Newsweek magazine reported that al-Qaida had trained a 12-member group of Westerners at a camp in North Waziristan to carry out attacks in their home countries. This month, ABC News obtained footage of an al-Qaida-Taliban training camp graduation ceremony, reportedly held June 9. The teams are reportedly being dispatched to Canada, Britain, the United States and Germany.

•Conflict broke out a few months ago between South Waziristan tribesmen and foreign fighters, particularly Uzbeks. More than 100 were killed, and Musharraf called on the tribesmen of North Waziristan to also turn against the foreigners.

Young militants feel that “Allah’s victory seems to be drawing near” and see parallels with the stalemating of the Soviet army in Afghanistan in the 1980s and its ultimate withdrawal, said Michael Scheuer, a former CIA official who until 2004 headed a team that searched for Osama bin Laden.

Al-Qaida leaders have written that “it would take three or four years to get the insurgency restarted. They seem to be pretty much on schedule and are bringing more fighters back into the theater,” he said.

In Pakistan’s Waziristan tribal area, terrorist training camps are being operated by Arabs in Shawal and Lawara, two districts tucked away in densely forested mountains. They are smaller in scale than the ones found in Afghanistan in 2001. Across the border in Afghanistan’s eastern Paktika province, camps are said to be around Burmal and Zirooki. Abu Yahia al-Libi, a Libyan who escaped U.S. custody in Bagram in 2005, trains suicide bombers there along with an estimated 150 Arab militants.

From Jan. 1 to May 31, 2006, 11 suicide attacks took 63 lives. In the same period this year, 42 attacks killed at least 171 people.

Afghan Army Gen. Ghulam Mustafa Ishaqzai, who has 350 troops patrolling near the Pakistan border, said the Arab influx has been going on for more than a year. Ishaqzai said suicide bombings were once rare in his command area, eastern Nangarhar province. Since the beginning of the year, there have been a half-dozen, he said.

At least 94 U.S.-led coalition troops in Afghanistan have died since Jan. 1, compared with 77 in the same period last year, according to iCasualties .org, an Internet organization that tracks coalition casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Last September, after Pakistan’s army suffered heavy casualties in the isolated region, the government signed a peace treaty with tribal elders that allowed militants to operate freely in the region in return for a pledge to halt attacks and infiltration into Afghanistan.

A senior State Department official, who requested anonymity, said the Pakistani army had removed some checkpoints on routes into Waziristan after the truce, allowing an influx of fresh Arab recruits into al-Qaida training camps from September to December.

Although some question how much effort Musharraf has put into rooting out the Taliban groups on his soil, officials noted that Pakistan had aided in the killings of two senior Taliban leaders this year in Afghanistan.

Others are pessimistic that Pakistan and the United States can root out the growing threat from Waziristan, a region of remote valleys and steep peaks.

Andrew Black, co-founder of Thistle Intelligence Group, an independent security studies group based in the U.S. and Britain, says the fight in Afghanistan has an alluring clarity for Arab militants compared with Iraq, where war against the West is mixed up with sectarian strife between Shiites and Sunni Arabs.

“With the Iraqi insurgency beginning to show signs of fissures … recruits will be more readily enticed to travel to Afghanistan, where the enemy is well-defined,” said Black.

Foreign helicopter makes hard landing in Afghan east

KABUL (Reuters) - A foreign military helicopter suffered a hard landing in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, but had not crashed, the provincial governor said.

Earlier police and provincial officials said a helicopter had crashed in the area, a bastion for Taliban insurgents.

"We heard about the crash," Laghman governor Gulab Mangal told Reuters. "(But) it seems it made a hard landing." A U.S. military spokesman denied there had been any crash. "All coalition aircraft are accounted for," the spokesman said.

A NATO spokesman said he was sure there had been no crash. In late May, Taliban guerrillas shot down a NATO Chinook helicopter in the southern province of Helmand, killing seven soldiers.

Afghan bicycle bomb wounds 3 near Turkey consulate

MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan, July 9 (Reuters) - A bomb attached to a bicycle detonated near the Turkish consulate in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif on Monday, wounding three civilians, including one child, an official and witnesses said.

They said explosives packed onto a bicycle went off in a crowded street some 200 metres (yards) from the consulate, wounding a man, a woman and a child, and shattering the windows of a nearby health clinic.

"Insurgents want to disturb security," senior provincial police officer Salahuddin Sultan told Reuters. "The Taliban are surely behind it."

"The street was crowded with lots of cars and people and suddenly I saw a big explosion and everyone was screaming and trying to get away and the wounded people were crying out for help," said witness Rahmatullah, who like many Afghans uses only one name.

The north of Afghanistan has been relatively free from violence, but Taliban insurgents vowed this year to spread their attacks the length and breadth of the country.

Turkey contributes some 1,150 personnel to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, and Turkish troops assumed the leadership of the regional ISAF command for the capital Kabul for eight months in April this year.

Turkish construction companies are also involved in a number of mainly road-building projects in Afghanistan.

Next to violence, corruption biggest Afghan problem

By Jon Hemming - Monday, July 9, 2007 - KABUL (Reuters) - Next to security, Afghanistan's biggest problem is corruption, the head of the central bank said, but even so, aid would be better channelled through the Afghan government than foreign non-governmental organisations.

Since the hardline Islamist Taliban government was overthrown by U.S.-led and Afghan forces in 2001, Afghanistan's economy has seen high levels of growth, albeit from a very low base.

Central Bank Governor Noorullah Delawari said cumulative growth for the last five years had reached around 100 percent.

He predicted GDP growth for this financial year, which runs to March 21, 2008, would reach around 12 percent, up from some 8 percent last year, with inflation around 6 percent, up from 4.8 percent.

"The main problem is security," Delawari told Reuters in an interview late on Sunday. "Foreign investors are concerned about the security of their manpower, otherwise I think Afghanistan offers a good potential for investment."

Some 6,000 people, 1,500 of them civilians, have been killed in the last 17 months, Human Rights Watch said last month, the deadliest period of Afghan fighting since 2001.

Fighting is heavier in the south and east of the country. While large parts of northern Afghanistan are comparatively peaceful, foreign investment there is still slow in coming.

"I would like to see the government be more aggressive in dealing with corruption," Delawari said. "President Karzai is very much concerned about this and is working very hard to stop corruption ... but it has become a way of life."

Delawari, a former commercial banker who spent 35 years in California, said the high level of GDP growth was boosted by foreign donor money and Afghanistan needed to secure its own industrial base for when donations subside.

But while Afghanistan was grateful for foreign aid, he said it was time more of it was channelled through the Afghan government, a route often shunned in the past for fear much of it would be lost to corrupt officials.

Delawari said that was still better than channelling funds through NGOs. He gave an example of a current $85 million project to help Afghanistan's fledgling financial sector. Highly paid foreign managers would pocket a large slice of the cash.

"Only 40 percent goes to the project, 60 percent goes to the managers. Out of that 60 percent, perhaps 80 percent goes into the pockets of foreigners. It is going out of Afghanistan," he said.

"If we have the same project done by Afghans, how much of that will be stolen? Maybe half of it. I hope nothing, but even if it is 50 percent, who gets it? It goes into the pockets of Afghans and stays in this country."

Afghanistan qualifies for interim debt relief: IMF

Monday, July 9, 2007 - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Afghanistan has qualified for interim debt relief under global debt relief programs for impoverished countries saddled with heavy debt, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank said on Monday.

In a joint statement, the sister institutions said Afghanistan had taken the necessary steps to enter the so-called Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative, or HIPC, and would receive provisional debt cancellation from certain creditors.

Under a two-stage HIPC process, a country must establish a track record of policy performance before it receives interim debt relief. Thereafter, it must fulfill additional reforms to receive full debt relief from creditors such as the World Bank and IMF.

"Despite a difficult security environment and persistent expenditure pressures, Afghanistan continued to make progress by maintaining macroeconomic stability and advancing its structural reform agenda," IMF Deputy Managing Director Murilo Portugal said.

"However, the external debt position will remain difficult, even after the provision of HIPC debt relief," he added.

The IMF said economic growth in Afghanistan was forecast to increase strongly in 2007/08 mainly due to a rebound in agriculture, but did not say by how much. Inflation was likely to remain contained at 6 percent, the fund said.

As of March 20, 2006, Afghanistan's external debt was estimated at $11.9 billion. The country is rebuilding after years of conflict and Taliban rule, which ended when U.S.-led forces toppled the Islamist government in 2001.

Since then, the Afghan economy has seen high levels of growth, albeit from a very low base. Growth reached about 8 percent last year and is set to reach 12 percent this financial year, which runs to March 21, 2008, according to government officials.

Portugal said efforts by Afghanistan to improve public financial management, external debt management, and public expenditure policy will be crucial to achieving debt sustainability over the medium to longer term.

He said Afghanistan's monetary policy was "appropriate," with growing confidence in the domestic currency.

Afghan returnees seek livelihood in life-giving projects

By Vivian Tan and Mohammed Nader Farhad - In Jalalabad, Afghanistan

BAGRAMI, Afghanistan, July 9 (UNHCR) – Whoever coined the proverb "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish, and you feed him for life" should revisit the concept in eastern Afghanistan, where the UN refugee agency has started a project to spawn fish in a returnee community.

Bagrami in Nangarhar province, near the Afghan border with Pakistan, is a densely populated village of 300 families, two-thirds of them former refugees who have repatriated from Pakistan. Located near the Kabul river, the area has long produced fish for local consumption. In 2005 and 2006, UNHCR helped to start some fish farms in the area to support the community's livelihood, but faced a shortage of freshly-hatched fish, known as fish fry.

"We've always imported fish fry from Pakistan, but it's expensive and the quality is not very good," said Sayed Ghufran, Director of the National Consultancy and Relief Association (NCRA), UNHCR's implementing partner on the project. "It's also hard to transport them all the way from Pakistan as they are often lost or damaged along the way."

To solve the problem and create jobs, UNHCR started a project late last year to produce fish fry in Bagrami. The agency built a two-storey building with seed-laying and nursery ponds, and is training 300 vulnerable men and women – among them returnees – to spawn fish. A female fish is placed in the same indoor pond as two male fish and all three are injected to stimulate reproduction in running water akin to a natural environment. And once the eggs are fertilised, they are moved to a separate tank for hatching. Within a week, the fry is moved to a nursery pond, where they spend several more weeks growing to the right size for sale to fish farms. The whole process takes one to two months.

"This is the first of its kind in Afghanistan," Ghufran said proudly. "The technology is very high-tech. When people heard about it, they started digging their own ponds, waiting for the fry."

Ten new fish farms have already been set up in the area, according to Mohammed Akram, who works at a fish farm nearby. He now has 6,000 fish in his ponds and plans to sell half his stock at 100 afghanis (US$2) per kilogram. "The community decides how to distribute the income, and we'll invest back into the farm," he said. "I don't think we can all earn a living from this but at least it helps us in some way."

Recognising the limited scope of the fish project, UNHCR has found other fish to fry in order to help returnees settle back in their homeland.

Elsewhere in Nangarhar, 20 vulnerable returnee families in Sheikh Mesri, a government-provided township for returnees, are taking part in a project to raise cows and produce animal feed. Each family was given a pregnant cow late last year, and taught to take care of it through and after its delivery. More than a year later, they are expected to give a calf to another family, thereby starting an ever-expanding cow bank.

Most of the targeted families are headed by widows or women with disabled husbands – people with no voice and few support mechanisms. As the women are approached to discuss the cow project, many run into the house. One crouches at the wall, covering herself from the scrutiny of male strangers.

Manu Gul is one of the few men benefiting from the cow raising project. Sipping contentedly on some home-made lassi [yoghurt drink], the old man said, "The cow produces about 10 kg of milk per day. Sometimes we sell it, sometimes we make yoghurt and give it to the neighbours. The children have grown stronger [from the milk]."

His family of 10 lives with two other families in the same compound. "All the children are busy with the cow," said Manu Gul. "They take it out, they feed it. It's not just a livelihood, it's also entertainment!"

To support the project, UNHCR has built a special facility to produce animal feed at Sheikh Mesri, a semi-arid area with limited grazing land. Five returnees have been trained to grind and mix the feed, which was provided free of charge to cow owners for the first month, and sold at a subsidised price afterwards.

However, Manu Gul is quick to acknowledge that the project is no cash cow. To supplement their income, three of his sons work as drivers and odd job workers in the city of Jalalabad about 18 km away.

A common complaint at Sheikh Mesri is its remote location and lack of access to jobs. Able-bodied men commute to Jalalabad city for daily wage labour, but often spend more than half of their wages on transport alone.

In late June, after extensive discussions between the Department for Refugees and Repatriation and UNHCR, the national bus company started a daily shuttle between the township and Jalalabad. Instead of the regular taxi fare of 50 afghanis one way, Sheikh Mesri's residents are paying a subsidised fare of 15-20 afghanis one way for the mini-bus service. More buses could be added to the route if there is a demand for them.

Nangarhar is one of the largest provinces of return in Afghanistan, accounting for 680,000 out of the 4 million Afghans who have been assisted home by UNHCR from the region since 2002. Most of them have come back from Pakistan, but more than 450,000 Afghans from Nangarhar still remain in Pakistan today, many of them citing security and lack of access to shelter, land and jobs as reasons for not repatriating.

Over six million Afghans face food insecurity?

Paktribune July 09, 2007

KABUL: Three out of 10 Afghans suffer from chronic food insecurity, which badly affects the health and well-being of the estimated 27-million nation, said the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

According to FAO, 6.5 million people face food insecurity in Afghanistan in 2007. "Food insecurity means that people do not have access at all times to the quality and quantity of food they require to lead a healthy life," said Charlotte Dufour, an adviser to FAO.

Fifty-seven percent of Afghan households have insufficient food diversity (indicating poor quality) and over 20 percent of households do not have access to enough food, according to a national rural vulnerability assessment conducted jointly by the Afghan government and the UN in 2003, reports Integrated Regional Information Networks.

FAO says some far-flung provinces such as Bamyan, Daykundi and Ghor face a "critical situation" and require long-term development projects to reduce household vulnerability to food crises. Some provinces are particularly food insecure because of factors such as high altitude and long winters, lack of water, or remoteness and difficulties of access. Heavy snowfalls and avalanches during winter months regularly block roads to and from rugged and mountainous provinces such as Ghor, Daykundi, Bamyan and Badakhshan.

However, experts say food aid should only be used as a last resort when local or regional food availability is limited. "Food aid can have negative impacts such as creating dependency on external assistance," warned Dufour. Afghanistan's Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL) has raised hopes that 2007 will mark at least a seven percent increase in the country's overall agricultural production, due to desirable rainfall in the drought- stricken country.

In 2007, Afghanistan is expected to produce 5,584 metric tonnes (mt) of cereals, including wheat, rice, maize and barley, but the country will still require 526mt to be imported, indicated a MAIL report released on 4 July. NO MASS STARVATION: In 2006 certain areas of Afghanistan faced a food crisis when demand for food surpassed supply inside the country, FAO reported. Floods and torrential rainfall, according to Afghan officials, have caused extensive damage to agriculture and livestock across Afghanistan. "The floods have caused destruction on a local basis which will not have big implications for the whole country," Dufour said. Afghans are unlikely to face mass starvation. While hundreds of thousands of Afghan children (or more than half of Afghan children under five) do not take adequate nutrition and other recommended edibles on a daily basis, acute malnutrition (severe weight loss) affects an estimated 5 to 10 percent of children under five, according to the government and UN.

Dufour, who also worked in Afghanistan during Taliban rule in 2000, said acute malnutrition affected mostly children under two, and was often caused by diarrhoea and other hygienic problems. "Early stopping of breastfeeding, or failure to give young children adequate food after six months, are also major causes of acute malnutrition," he said.

Afghan children will, however, experience the implications of inadequate food security and nutrition in terms of their mental and physical growth, warn experts. Food insecurity has been considered a chronic problem in Afghanistan affecting the lives of millions of Afghans for decades, government officials say.

First meeting of Pakistan-Afghanistan joint working group
Posted On MFA site: Jul 09, 2007

On July 6th,the first meeting of the "Joint Working Group" comprised of officials from Turkey, Pakistan and Afghanistan was held in the Turkish capital,to boost confidence-building between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Upon an invitation by Ertugrul Apakan, Undersecretary of the Turkish Foreign Ministry, Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister, H.E. Mohammad Kabir Farahi and Pakistani Foreign Secretary, H.E. Riaz Muhammad Khan attended the meeting. The following Joint Press Statement on the conclusion of the visit was released.

1.Participation of the mid-level Afghan and Pakistani experts in the courses organized at the Center of Excellence on Defense Against Terrorism (COE-DAT) in Ankara;

2.Participation of officials from relevant law-enforcement authorities of both countries in courses offered by the Turkish International Academy Against Drugs and Organized Crime (TADOC);

3.Conducting feasibility studies for joint projects identified by the two governments with the assistance of the Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency (TÄ°KA);

The Joint Working Group also agreed on:

1Enhance the security cooperation through established mechanisms, especially to deny sanctuary, training and financing to terrorists and to elements involved in subversive and anti-state activities in each other's country, and to initiate immediate action on specific intelligence exchanges in this regard;

2.Recommend to the ministerial level joint economic commission between the two countries to look into the matters related to transportation, transit and Customs;

3.Promote cooperation for exchange of programmes in the media with a view of strengthening the brotherly relations between the two countries;

4.Establish cooperation in providing early warning against natural disasters and to exchange relevant information including meteorological cooperation;

5.Promote people to people contact and exchange including among the parliamentarians, journalists and academicians between the two countries, especially through official channels;

Afghanistan and Pakistan delegations expressed thanks for the warm hospitality extended to them by the Turkish side.

Taliban shift tactics against Canadians
GRAEME SMITH - From Tuesday's Globe and Mail July 10, 2007

MASUM GHAR, AFGHANISTAN — Taliban attacks in a remote district of northern Kandahar have lured Afghan and Canadian forces into a series of bloody rescue missions in recent days as the insurgents increasingly seize upon the political value of far-flung administrative outposts.

The latest drama started Thursday morning in Ghorak district, when insurgents besieged a government centre roughly 85 kilometres northwest of Kandahar city, according to villagers, police and military officials.

Every day since then, convoys have rolled across the barren flatlands in an increasingly costly effort to prop up the detachment of Afghan police trapped in their mud-walled compound, drawing the Canadians and their allies far away from their main goal of protecting Kandahar city.

"On the map, this isn't an important place," said Lieutenant-Colonel Rob Walker, commander of the Canadian battle group.

"It's an isolated, sparsely populated district rimmed by mountains with a broad plain up the middle."

He continued: "But the district centres are important politically. If the Taliban take a district centre, they can claim they control part of Afghanistan."

Taliban fighters overran the Ghorak district centre last month, creating embarrassment for the government of President Hamid Karzai as officials were forced to admit that a district had fallen to the insurgents.

At the time, the Karzai administration was enraged by public statements from Asmatullah Alizai, then Kandahar's police chief, who declared that his officers had staged a tactical retreat from the district.

The new provincial police chief, Sayed Agha Saqib, has tried desperately to prevent similar public episodes, pressing his Canadian allies for help with maintaining the post.

"The police can't escape from the district centre," said a tribal elder, who declined to be named because he feared reprisals. "Only the Canadians can rescue them now. Many police died, disappeared and were injured."

Mr. Saqib dispatched three pickup trucks loaded with police to support the district on Friday, after getting calls for help the previous day.

They hit a roadside bomb before reaching Ghorak, however, leaving eight police injured and their beleaguered colleagues without relief.

Another police convoy made a second attempt on Saturday, with a larger force of perhaps 70 officers. Insurgents ambushed them about 20 kilometres away from their destination - near the village of Shina - in a desolate region made infamous in 2001, when the U.S. military identified an al-Qaeda training camp nearby.

The ensuing firefight lasted almost five hours, Mr. Saqib said. "They martyred five of my officers, but we also killed 12 Taliban," the police chief said. "One of those killed was a deputy of Mullah Dost Mohammed, an important Talib."

Taliban sources disagreed with the police version, saying dozens of police were killed. Both the insurgents and police regularly misreport their casualties. The Taliban also claimed they destroyed 10 police vehicles, stole two others, and captured machine guns, Kalashnikov rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. Some police remain hostages of the insurgents in the village of Nalgham, the Taliban sources said, though this could not be confirmed.

Canadian troops have since been called in to help the struggling Afghan forces by escorting trucks loaded with food, medicines, ammunition and fuel, Col. Walker said. On their two trips so far, the Canadians have also been helping the Afghans remove their dead officers from the embattled centre, the commander said.

By attacking remote outposts, the Taliban have also pulled the government forces into stretching themselves thin across the vast province. In a meeting yesterday with Col. Walker, the new police chief expressed frustration at his scarce resources.

"I have officers who are picking worms out of their wounds," Mr. Saqib said. "They're dying of their injuries because of a lack of supplies."

Layton wants PM to demand air strikes' end

July 10, 2007 - David Olive Columnist

Jack Layton, the federal NDP leader, will call on Stephen Harper today to demand that U.S. and NATO forces cease air strikes in Afghanistan.

Layton's action comes at a time of increased concern in European capitals about civilian casualties in Afghanistan, which could erode public support for NATO's mission.

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the NATO secretary-general, expressed a similar warning last month. Afghan president Hamid Karzai has repeatedly condemned civilian deaths by Western forces.

Afghan elders and villagers in two regions, in western and northeastern Afghanistan, claimed on Saturday that 133 civilians were killed in recent air strikes. "Canada should lead the way in demanding a halt to these air strikes," Layton told the Star.

U.S. and NATO officials, while acknowledging that air strikes were called in to support Afghan forces in the western province of Farah, say they have "no information" about civilian deaths. And the Afghan officials said they could not confirm casualty counts brought to them by villagers, because verification was impossible in the Taliban-controlled regions.

NATO spokesperson Maj. John Thomas said a "significant effort" was made to move civilians out of Farah before the air strikes.

Independent counts by the United Nations and the Associated Press have shown that U.S. and NATO operations have claimed more civilian lives than the Taliban insurgency.

By the UN's count, as of July 1, civilian deaths caused by international or Afghan forces this year number 314, while insurgents have killed 279 civilians. The AP reports lower numbers, but a similar ratio: 213 civilians killed by international forces, and 180 by the Taliban.

Layton plans to speak with Harper today, asking him to instruct Canada's representatives on NATO's North Atlantic Council, which manages NATO's day-to-day operations and meets two or three times a week at NATO headquarters in Brussels, to call for an end to NATO and U.S. aerial bombing.

"The increasing death toll of Afghan civilians is something Canadians don't accept," Layton said. "Across the country people have told me spontaneously that destruction of villages was not what they expected to be part of the Afghan mission in which we're participating.

"We've seen increased deaths of Canadian soldiers, increased civilian deaths, increased opium production, and increased insurgency attacks because of all of the above."

In recent days, the UN has released estimates showing that opium production in Afghanistan, which accounts for about 90 per cent of European heroin use, is projected to surpass last year's record output.

Last month, the International Committee of the Red Cross said Western forces were not doing enough to prevent civilian deaths in air strikes. NATO spokesperson James Appathurai told reporters at the time that NATO has improved its ability to strike selected targets without causing civilian deaths.

Appathurai added that civilian casualties caused by Western forces have declined in recent months. Statistics on casualties resulting from NATO operations are classified.

Officials in the Prime Minister's Office and the Department of National Defence were not available yesterday to comment on the issue of Afghan civilian casualties.

Afghanistan: What's fit to print?
ANTHONY WESTELL - Special to Globe and Mail Update July 10, 2007

Excuse me for asking rude questions, but aren't the news media, including this newspaper, making far too much of a few deaths in Afghanistan? Aren't they playing straight into the hands of the enemy with those big black headlines, sob-story writing and dramatic televised clips of coffins, with pipers lamenting — not once, but twice, as they leave Afghanistan and then arrive in Canada?

The Taliban know they cannot defeat us on the battlefield, but they are well on the way to defeating us on the home front as morale sags and demands rise to "bring the boys home." When we decided to go to war to root out the Taliban, which was hosting Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network, didn't we know that some of our soldiers would be killed?

Our soldiers volunteer to fight if necessary, and we spend billions training and equipping them to kill those who threaten us. So why do media outlets keep saying that those who die are heroes sacrificing their lives for Canada? A very few may choose to die in order to save others, and they are heroes. But you can bet your boots that few go into battle actually expecting to be killed.

Actually, it's the suicide bombers on the other side who sacrifice their lives, but their motives are suspect. Apparently, they are assured they will go straight to heaven and unlimited sex, with other amenities not always available in their puritanical society at home. That's hardly heroic. In fact, if we could use psychological warfare to spread doubt about the rewards of blowing one's self up, it would do more to defeat terrorism than the entire Canadian contingent in Afghanistan.

You may accuse me of underestimating the effect of the loss of life among our troops. After all, as I write, 67 have been killed. Every death is a tragedy for family and friends, but we must keep things in perspective: Fifty people are killed in Toronto alone every year, many by gunfire, and many more across the country. Three months ago, we celebrated the victory at Vimy Ridge. About 3,500 Canadians died there in the span of a few days, among 60,000 who perished during the First World War. Another 42,000 died in the Second World War — and several hundred in the Korean War.

I'm not suggesting the news media should not report it when Canadians are killed, only that the stories not be treated as big, shocking news. And that reporters who lay on the blood, sweat and tears with big brush strokes consider the impact.

Anthony Westell is a retired journalist who served without distinction in the Second World War.

Stop freeze on Afghan-prisoner information, opposition urges
ALAN FREEMAN - With a report from Jeff Esau, July 10, 2007

OTTAWA -- Opposition MPs called on Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor to reverse his department's decision to halt the disclosure of virtually all documents relating to detainees captured by the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan.

"This is unacceptable," Liberal defence critic Denis Coderre said. "Just because this information has now become embarrassing to the government is not a valid reason to withhold information from the Canadian public."

As reported yesterday by The Globe and Mail, the office of General Rick Hillier, Canada's top soldier, has been reviewing all Access to Information requests related to detainees since last March, when allegations of prisoner mistreatment first came to light. The result is an almost blanket ban on the release of any new detainee-related documents, including many made public earlier.

In withholding the documents, the department cites a section of the access law that allows the government to refuse disclosure of information that would harm "the defence of Canada or any state allied or associated with Canada," including information that, if disclosed, would impair the detection, prevention or suppression of hostile activities.

Among the information now off-limits is the number of detainees captured by Canadian troops; its disclosure is "an operational security issue," Gen. Hillier determined.

"It's a total stain on democracy," Mr. Coderre said. "What are they hiding?" he added, noting that National Defence had in the past released figures on the number of detainees.

Gen. Hillier's role in the Access to Information process is carried out by the Strategic Joint Staff, a recently formed strategy unit within his office.

According to an e-mail written yesterday to Jeff Esau, an access expert working on behalf of The Globe and Mail, by Sophie Doucet of the DND access office, the Strategic Joint Staff "reviews files that pertain to Canada's mission in Afghanistan."

She added that the department's directorate responsible for access to information and privacy retains authority over what information to release.

However, observers note that, within a military hierarchy, it would be hard for the largely civilian personnel staffing that directorate to contradict the wishes of Gen. Hillier on military and operational matters.

A spokesman for Mr. O'Connor had no immediate comment on the controversy. The Globe has launched an appeal challenging the defence department's decisions on the detainee files.

Building hope: An old Etonian in Afghanistan

Dressed in a Savile Row blazer, Rory Stewart cuts an unlikely figure in the streets of Kabul. But his efforts to restore part of a historical city devastated by war seem to be working

By Chris Sands -The Independent (UK) Published: 09 July 2007

In Kabul it is not unusual to see an elderly woman huddled on the floor begging for money from behind a burqa, or drug addicts too doped up to talk as they linger outside a mosque. Then there are the piles of rubbish rotting in the mid-morning sun and the white-bearded shopkeepers who look as if they have been sitting in the same spot for hundreds of years.

Rory Stewart cuts an unlikely figure in this setting. Eschewing the desert fatigues that seem standard issue for a Westerner in Afghanistan, he strides through the slum district of Murad Khane in a starched white shirt and heavy wool blazer.

The oddness is compounded by the Scot's upright gait and his habit of greeting locals like they are close friends. He is not trailed by the usual bodyguards and shows no obvious concern for his own security.

The Savile Row blazer is intended, he says, not as a display of aristocratic Britishness but a sign of respect to the Afghans he lives and works with. Mr Stewart's current mission to breathe life into a historic but ruined neighbourhood in the Afghan capital was arrived at by a highly circuitous route.

In the early 1990s the Eton and Oxford-educated Stewart was a summer tutor to Princes William and Harry, a job that led to a friendship with their father, the Prince of Wales. Then a visit by another friend of Prince Charles, Hamid Karzai, to the heir to the throne's School of Traditional Arts in London left a deep impression on the Afghan president. So much so that he decided to launch a similar venture in 2005 in Kabul and asked Stewart to run it.

The resulting foundation has set up its own traditional arts school and is attempting to turn this warren of ornate dilapidated adobe and wood buildings north of the river into a model of regeneration for the rest of Afghanistan.

"Initially there was a lot of suspicion. It took us probably six months to really get a toehold," Stewart explains.

That suspicion was prompted not only by his status as an outside but by his comparative youth, Stewart is only 34. By any measure he has not led a typical life and was awarded on OBE at the age of 31.

The son of a British consul general in Hanoi during the Vietnam war, Stewart was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Malaysia and Scotland before completing his education in England. From the spires of Oxford he joined the Foreign Office, serving stints in Indonesia before East Timor's independence and then Montenegro in the wake of the Kosovo war.

Just weeks after the Taliban regime was bombed from power he began an epic journey, walking across this beautiful and dangerous land with a dog he met along the way. His subsequent experiences formed the basis of a critically acclaimed book, The Places in Between, and ultimately helped lead him to taking on the challenge in Murad Khane.

"I'm just very impressed by Afghans. I think I first realised this when I was walking through Ghor [province] at end of 2001/ beginning of 2002, when people were saying this was the hunger belt and that 120,000 Afghans are going to die in the winter because they didn't have any food," he recalled.

"What I discovered is that actually rather than that being true they were incredibly resilient and able to find food and run schools and run villages despite the total absence of government."

With the hum of city life always in the air, Stewart showed a clear sense of pride and purpose as he strode around the slum, pointing out part of an old royal palace he hopes to turn into a community centre, and an old Turkish bath.

His mobile phone ringing constantly, polite exchanges in an upper-class English accent end with assertions, such as: "Ah, well I'm afraid the Canadian ambassador probably takes precedence over them". The tone is passionate and upbeat.

Almost half of the buildings in Murad Khane were destroyed by war in the Eighties and Nineties. Now it is slowly coming back to life. Two thousands trucks' worth of rubbish have been removed, much of the slum's historical architecture is being preserved and the entire project is providing direct employment to roughly 200 local people.

It is a very different to his last assignment, an 11-month stint as deputy governor for a southern Iraqi province that ended in 2004, a period that yielded another acclaimed book, Prince of the Marshes: And Other Occupational Hazards of a Year in Iraq.

"This is actually much more difficult," he insists. "But also, in the end, I find it much more challenging and much more rewarding because it forces me to understand how unbelievably difficult it is to actually make an impact even in six or seven acres of the old city."

Despite this narrow focus his experiences in Iraq, the Balkans and Indonesia lend weight to his broader thoughts on Afghanistan. He has come to the conclusion that it is impossible for the Nato-led mission to succeed in southern and eastern Afghanistan, believing the best way forward would be for the international community to concentrate on western, central and northern areas.

"Afghans are not saying 'bring us gender workshops', they're saying 'we'd like jobs, we'd like incomes, we'd like infrastructure', and we're not giving it to them.

"I think what's frustrating about policy work is that you get very excited at a very high and abstract level by talking about good governance and civil society, and going to great conferences and seminars, and plotting road maps and development strategies, and you can convince yourself that you're having a lot of impact when you're actually having no impact at all," he said.

"In the 1960s we believed that it was important to do infrastructure: roads, dams, those kinds of projects. Those are still the sorts of things that Afghans are demanding and expecting," Stewart says.

But in the meantime, the international community has changed its focus, he says, to less visible concepts such as capacity building and training for the government.

"That's very plausible, it's a good idea - the problem is it's not visible, it's not particularly welcome and I'm not certain how much effect we're having."

The former diplomat's prescription is a controversial one. "I think we need to recognise now that Afghanistan is increasingly two countries. The Pashtun belt in the south and east is very difficult to operate in, very difficult to get any kind of serious support and consent. A powerful effective minority is trying to kill us and in those areas it's almost impossible to do development.

"I think we need to focus on areas in the centre, and north and west of the country where we are welcome, where people want us to work with them."

Despite recent claims from Britain's senior army commanders that a presence could be required for the next 30 years, Stewart believes that the long view cannot be a military one.

"We don't have the resources, we don't have the will, we don't have the commitment, we don't have the power to pacify south and east Afghanistan. It's not an option. We have a few tens of thousands of troops, we are not in a position to fight a 25-year counter-insurgency campaign against the Taliban.

"Probably the best model that we could hope for is to follow the example of Pakistan where basically Punjab and the Sindh is prosperous and relatively stable, and Balochistan and [Northwest Frontier Province] is wild.

"The one card the Taliban have to play is presenting themselves as fighting for Islam in Afghanistan against a foreign military occupation.

"That is the one card we musn't give them and it's the one card we're giving them by trying to put all these troops into these areas," he says.

Even in his appointed patch in Kabul, huge problems remain. The residents have no running water in their homes, drug addicts hang around listlessly in the bazaar - but Stewart is adamant that his kind of scheme is the way forward for Afghanistan.

Most foreigners have let the deteriorating security situation throw them into the grip of a crazed paranoia, which usually involves hiding inside heavily fortified compounds and speeding through the streets in armed convoys.

Stewart seemed happy enough folding himself up and sitting in the boot of the packed Jeep his colleague drives. His main grievance appeared to be that he no longer gets to see much of the country he loves.

"I'm really annoyed about that. I want to move around, I hate being stuck in Kabul all the time," he said. "But unfortunately this project is getting too big."

His past travels are stamped all over the current project though. Its name, The Turquoise Mountain Foundation, comes from the capital of the 12th century capital of the Silk Road Empire, a place he encountered during his epic walk.

The location was marked only by an imposing minaret. The site has since been looted by locals desperate to turn their history into the money now needed to survive. The tragedy of the Turquoise Mountain was typical of the destruction of Afghanistan's heritage that has happened in the absence of international leadership.

Stewart's foundation is determined to see that Murad Khane does not suffer the same fate.

Editorial: Core issues in Afghanistan

Dawn 9 July 2007 - By Tanvir Ahmad Khan

AFGHANISTAN claims this valued space so often that one cannot but begin on an apologetic note. Amongst the several reasons for this preoccupation with the Afghan conflict is its spillover into Pakistan. A substantial part of the Pakistani armed forces are deployed along its border.

What is now conventionally known as the blowback of three decades of turmoil in Afghanistan flares up in one town or another of Pakistan every day; even its capital is no longer immune to it. A good reason for reverting to the subject is the accelerated degradation of the conflict over which the governments in Kabul and Islamabad do not seem to have much control but for which they pay a heavy price in public esteem.

This factor impinges on the sovereignty of Pakistan and demands a candid assessment of real — as distinct from the merely declaratory -- intentions of the states occupying Afghanistan. Some Pakistani commentators evade a discussion of the basic dynamic at work in the war torn country next door, i.e. the plan for an extended occupation to add military bases of exceptional value to an existing network of such bases in the Eurasian landmass and in the Gulf littoral.

They continue to perpetuate the myth that it a war against Islamic fanatics out to overturn the world order. They try hard to obfuscate the fact that the current ‘pacification’ of Afghanistan aims at rearranging power projection by a new global empire to the exclusion of emerging rivals. They help conceal the real reasons of the present brutality of the conflict and write pretentious essays without ever mentioning the foreign occupation that overshadows every other aspect of the Afghan situation.

The factor of the matter is that it is becoming a ruthless war with different military forces employing different tactics. The electronic age defeats snatching of cameras and destruction or deletion of images of terror by the occupying armies and provides enough material substantiating a deliberate disregard of the laws of war.

The rightwing western media attributes the revival of the Taliban to the fact that the British troops operating in Helmand were not ruthless enough and joyfully claim that the slack is being taken up by special operation groups and by the American airpower which show no mercy the suspected opponents and which do not wait for “positive identification” of human targets before obliterating them with precision weapons.

There is a steady stream of stories flowing out of Afghanistan of Apaches swinging in low and opening up with 30 mm cannons on civilians indiscriminately.

That the insurgency has spread to the west and even some areas of the north indicates that the killing of civilians is making the Taliban more acceptable. The Taliban propaganda machine has made good use of incidents where ordinary citizens were killed either from the air or by special operations units on the ground.

The director of Harvard University’s Human Rights Centre, Sarah Sewall, observed the other day that the numbing pattern of “collateral damage” incidents, most dramatically from air strikes, fuels local perception of a brutal ally and undermines Nato’s attempts to apply a softer approach to Afghan security.

Underlying such comments is the analysis that the West has two almost conflicting missions in Afghanistan: the UN-sponsored forces aim at nation building and the strengthening of the central regime of President Karzai while US forces seek to physically eliminate all opposition to their military presence. Recent statements from Nato sources that they are in for a long haul, however, cast doubt if the two missions have different goals.

Anyway, they enable the Taliban to present themselves as the vanguard of a classical national freedom struggle. Every atrocity committed to compensate for the squeamishness of the British soldier, who incidentally has the advantage of the collective memory of a nation that fought three Afghan wars during its imperial era, widens the opposition to the new empire which is reverting to the tactics of the Vietnam war.

Admittedly, the small clusters of trees that usually announce an Afghan settlement in a sprawling rugged land have not as yet been subjected to Agent Orange and the survivors of special operations do not have to fear that their generations to come will suffer from horrific genetic defects. But the nature of reprisals already connects Afghanistan to Vietnam.

Reprisals — often dubbed as pre-emptive action — do not respect the international border, and targets inside Pakistan are being attacked with impunity. Implications of civilian deaths in Afghanistan or Pakistan for the governments of the two states receive no serious attention. In fact, face -- saving statements made by both governments are quickly punctured with holes with triumphal details of operations and the new weapons being used.

Recently, in the course of a single week, the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan had to contend with the backlash of civilian casualties inflicted by special operations on either side of the border.

First President Karzai declared that military operations by foreign forces were causing unacceptable civilian casualties and warned that in future they would somehow be subject to his approval. This was a brave statement as the occupying army assigns him no place in its chain of command. Whatever faith the Afghans put in Karzai’s resolve was shattered when another indiscriminate attack in Helmand area killed even more civilians.

In Pakistan, the government had great difficulty in taking a credible position on lethal attacks by coalition forces inside its territory in Waziristan. It began by going into complete denial as in the past.

When that denial became unsustainable because of the graphic details of the operation in the American media, the Pakistan foreign office meekly re-stated the general principle that the incident underscored the need for better coordination and restraint by Nato forces.

The media in the United States went on to claim that the Pakistani government was complicit in the attack. No sensitivity was shown to a government that has sacrificed more than 700 soldiers and that is battling suicide bombers and assorted terrorists on its soil as a direct consequence of its commitment to the war on terror.

Every patriotic Pakistani is dismayed by the increasing number of terrorist attacks on Pakistani military personnel, outrages unprecedented in Pakistan’s history. The allegation that the government has failed to safeguard national sovereignty and the sanctity of its frontiers is particularly damaging at a time when a general election to the national and provincial assemblies is looming large on the horizon.

The reason why President Karzai is histrionics and the Pakistani government’s inane recitation of the need for better coordination across an inflamed border turn out to be equally futile is that the juggernaut unleashed by the invasion of Afghanistan rolls on regardless of the national interest of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

It is part of a global enterprise and the regimes in Kabul and Islamabad are valued only for facilitating its success.

The helplessness of the two governments which have no effective mechanism available to them to influence military actions of Nato and the US forces erodes the self-esteem and sense of honour of the two nations which in sheer frustration often end up accusing each other of bad faith.

Neither of them can call the abiding cause of instability in the area by its name — the foreign occupation of a Muslim land as part of a larger effort to eliminate opposition in the region to a US-ordained world order and western-dominated globalisation.

The joint declaration made by President Bush and President Karzai on May 23, 2005, stated that US military forces operating in Afghanistan would continue to have access to Bagram Air Base and its facilities, and facilities at other locations as might be mutually determined. Hundreds of aircraft are based at the Bagram airbase and 13 other bases in Afghanistan.

A defence analyst, G.Trowbridge, has said that “with installations in Iraq and Afghanistan, US troops would surround America’s biggest rival for influence in the region, Iran.”

This is another complicating factor. Iran had tacitly cooperated with the United States in overthrowing the Taliban regime only to face the prospect that after the successful occupation of Iraq, it might be the next preferred regime change mission of an American administration driven by the neo-conservatives.

The counter measures taken by Iran at the time have translated into its enhanced ability to impact on American fortunes in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Taliban have survived Nato’s spring offensive and are stretching the Nato forces in a larger area than ever before. Unless the United States abandons its hostility to Iran, Tehran may well see some advantage in the western forces getting bogged down in Afghanistan as well.

The Taliban are making the occupying powers desperate enough to disregard the laws of war; the resultant degradation is a new dimension of the Afghan conflict that may adversely shape events in the region for a long time to come. The Afghan conflict needs a radical new approach. It is pointless to perpetuate a discourse centred on the quantum of troops, efficiencies of the reconstruction teams and the capacity of the Pakistan government to “do more”.

A political solution has to be designed in consultation with regional states on the basis of giving up the objective of converting this land of fiercely independent people into just another slab from where to project imperial power. Afghanistan needs to be taken out from present and future great games in the region and helped generously and selflessly to become a successful neutral state at peace with itself and with the rest of the world.

It is a difficult task but it can be done if the hidden motives of occupation are given up in the larger interest of regional and international peace. It is time for another international conference to define Afghanistan’s place in the world with credible international guarantees to protect it.

The writer is a former foreign secretary.

Is Musharraf Losing his Grip on Pakistan?

By Rüdiger Falksohn - DER SPIEGEL 28/2007 - July 9, 2007

Koran students at the so-called Red Mosque in Islamabad had provoked the Pakistani government for months, but President Musharraf chose to delay intervention. His decision to bring in the army was intended as a show of force and as a reminder to the West that despite his dwindling authority, there is no alternative to his leadership.

A light-colored, airy and flowing Pakistani garment may be reasonably comfortable when the temperature climbs to 104 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade. But under black material, layered and wrapped to ensure that nothing but a slit remains for the eyes, the same temperatures become nearly unbearable. Someone wearing this sort of outfit, in this heat, topped with a rubber-coated gas mask, must have a pretty good reason -- a reason the Koran students at Islamabad's Red Mosque believe they have.

They have been involved in a heated dispute with the Pakistani authorities for more than a week now, a dispute that has led to the heaviest fighting in the history of the country's capital. The young people, armed with bamboo sticks, guns and Molotov cocktails, initiated the conflict by setting fire to the Environment Ministry on Tuesday and a large number of cars, sending clouds of dark, inky smoke into the monsoon sky. The government, surprisingly tolerant until then, finally decided to take action against the Koran students.

Police and paramilitary forces brought in heavy ammunition and tear gas. The religious students, most of them younger than 25, put on gas masks, barricaded themselves behind sandbags and returned fire, encouraged and spurred on by slogans booming from the loudspeakers of the nearby minaret. The rebellious students, not exactly models of devout placidness, are heavily armed with automatic pistols they took from a group of policemen in a recent attack -- Kalashnikovs, other guns and hand grenades. So far, 24 people have already been killed and 200 wounded after getting caught in the crossfire.

The unrest originated at the Red Mosque ("Lal Masjid") with its two Koran schools, located in a middle-class section of Islamabad. The neighborhood, known simply as G-6, is one of uninspired apartment buildings, but it also borders on an extensive system of parks, a place where the glitter of consumerism is a thorn in the eye of the mosque's Islamist students. The park-like district is also where the president has his office.

The students have been staging their opposition to the government of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, 63, practically on his doorstep. In his view of himself as a worldly statesman, Musharraf apparently was at first loath to take the students seriously. Despite the fact that he is no longer being courted as assiduously in Washington as he was shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, Musharraf is still compensated handsomely in return for his decidedly pro-Western stance. Relations with Beijing are extremely close, as the two countries jointly develop giant infrastructure projects. Pakistan's relationship with India, its archenemy and larger rival on the subcontinent, fluctuates between periods of rising and falling tensions.

The general has come under massive criticism for his lackluster efforts to pursue the Taliban in the border regions with Afghanistan, a reticence that stems partly from self-interest and a concern that the group could also turn against him. Musharraf has survived several assassination attempts, including the most recent, when his official aircraft came under fire after taking off from the airport in the northern city of Rawalpindi.

Though viewed as a modernizer, Musharraf is far from a democrat. When he came into power in 1999 after a military coup, he forced two former prime ministers, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, into exile. He is about as powerful as a president can be in Pakistan, which isn't necessarily saying much. The students barricaded in front of the Red Mosque called him an "American dog," an epithet that hadn't been used for the first time.

Musharraf opposes radical clerics and has largely withdrawn any previous protection for Muslim rebels penetrating into India from the Pakistani section of the disputed Kashmir region. This has made him unpopular among nationalists, who see him as a traitor to his country. His influence is also limited in provinces like Baluchistan, where powerful tribal leaders operate largely unfettered by government forces, fighting to maximize their profits from the region's rich natural resources.

But the resistance Musharraf is encountering in Islamabad is new and especially alarming. The conflict began four months ago when he ordered the dismissal of Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, causing nationwide unrest. Chaudhry had become a symbol of opposition to the president. Since then he has traveled from province to province, delivering his message to the masses. A brilliant speaker, Chaudhry manages to transform each of his appearances into a tribunal against the country's leader.

As chief justice of the country's supreme court, the portly, moustache-wearing Chaudhry posed a threat to the trim Musharraf's prospects to be elected for another term in this fall's elections. Chaudhry, as an independent chief justice, could have torpedoed the president's plans to have the old parliament rubber-stamp his reelection. To prevent this from happening, Musharraf accused Chaudhry of abusing his position and of nepotism, and dismissed him on March 9. Chaudhry's fellow justices took to the streets in protest, and tens of thousands of citizens across the country followed suit.

Violent Opposition to Musharraf - Chaudhry seems to relish fashioning himself as a star witness against the president. His appearances routinely turn into emotionally charged spectacles, and his message is always the same: Musharraf's time has run out. His sentiments are echoed in the lyrics to a popular song that is played at Chaudhry's appearances: "Hey man, take off your uniform, your job is done," to which the crowd routinely responds: "Go home, Musharraf!"

The opposition to Musharraf has also turned violent. In mid-May, 41 bodies were counted in the streets of Karachi alone in street fighting that erupted after it was announced that the suspended judge was about to make an appearance. The clashes reveal the growing magnitude of the opposition to the president who, cognizant of the threat, banned all live television broadcasts of Chaudhry's triumphant appearances.

Banished former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, sensing that change is in the air, announced from exile that she is considering a challenge to Musharraf in the autumn. Nawaz Sharif has also shown great interest in returning to Pakistan. The news is likely to have played a role in Musharraf's decision to dispatch security forces to stifle the Taliban rebellion in Islamabad.

Two bearded brothers named Ghazi run the Red Mosque: Abdul Rashid, 43, an acquaintance of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, and Abdul Aziz, 46. The Ghazi brothers are men who carry Blackberrys and, as they insist, have no plans to take Pakistan back "to the Stone Ages" or establish a theocracy. But they make little effort to deny claims that they sympathize with the Taliban or that the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is not Islamic enough for their taste. Their goal is to institute Sharia law in Pakistan. Intelligence officials, at least, are convinced that the Ghazi brothers are training suicide bombers.

Since the beginning of the year the Ghazis, supported by roughly 10,000 followers, have become increasingly audacious in voicing their opposition to the secular regime of President Musharraf. They have even claimed the authority to pass legal judgment and impose criminal sentences.

Conservatively dressed young people were dispatched to play the role of guardians of the public morals, their garb alone making it clear that the world, and Pakistani society, is too vulgar and obscene for their taste. Patrolling the areas around the parliament and supreme court buildings, the Ghazis' self-appointed moral police sought to impose their own moral code. They confiscated CDs they considered offensive. They "liberated" supposed prostitutes from their dens of iniquity. They kidnapped police officers and intimidated consumers in the city's shopping centers. And they forced barbers who dared to shave beards to close their shops.

Members of the Lal-Masjid Brigade, a group of excessively devout activists, occupied a children's library on Masjal Street in downtown Islamabad to protest the demolition of illegally built mosques. Establishing an ominous precedent, they removed video and audio equipment from the library and tossed it onto a bonfire.

The library's location next to the headquarters of the Pakistani intelligence agency, the ISI, was no coincidence. The ISI maintains close contacts with the religious leaders known as maulanas. Many senior agents pray at the Red Mosque, and it is widely believed that their patronage was what protected the Islamists from vigorous sanctions until early last week.

But in the end Musharraf who, in 1999, as commander-in-chief of the Pakistani military, brought the country to the brink of military conflict with India, chose to take harsh action against the fundamentalists. Armor-clad troop transporters and snipers were dispatched to the Red Mosque and its two Koran schools, or madrassas.

Police officers set up barbed wire roadblocks. Power and water were shut off to the buildings where students had barricaded themselves. Musharraf ordered that those who were willing to surrender be given amnesty and the equivalent of €60 to pay for their travel home.

When the military upped the ante and blew a hole into the wall of the mosque on Thursday, a move that was followed by a series of targeted explosions on Friday to prepare for a storming of the mosque complex, Abdul Aziz Ghazi issued a public call for the students to surrender -- albeit not entirely voluntarily. The proud maulana, dressed in women's clothing, was arrested while attempting to flee and then paraded on television before the public in full burka attire. By Monday afternoon, well over 100 Koran students were still barricaded on the grounds of the mosque. The scene was reminiscent of the occupation of a mosque in Mecca in 1979 by 1,500 rebels, which ended in a bloodbath when French special forces raided the mosque. To avert a similar disaster, Musharraf ordered his troops to hold their fire to allow the young Taliban fighters to withdraw peacefully. But as soon as Friday evening prayers had ended they were back to exchanging fire with security forces.

On Sunday, the government gave a "final warning" to surrender and security forces fired tear gas and exchanged gunfire with rebels on Monday. But there haven't been any signs of the expected siege of the mosque. With women and children also holed up in the building, many possibly being held against their will as human shields, the government has tried to give them the opportunity to flee through holes blown in the walls last week. On Sunday, unmanned drones were dispatched to take infrared images that Pakistani TV reported had led the government to further delay any plans for a siege.

Was General Musharraf's decision to hold back a question of military logistics? Or did he vacillate too long, possibly in fear of the so-called "ninjas," a group of female Koran students dressed in the robes of avenging angels and determined to commit suicide attacks, holed up in the mosque? "They don't want to go home, they want to be martyrs," said a breathless 15-year-old Maryam Qayyeum, who had fled from the Koran school known for preaching hatred of everything Western and worldly.

Musharraf's true objective was probably to demonstrate his ability to deal with conflicts of this nature both prudently and patiently. The mosque has long been under the patronage of the Pakistani elite. "It was a creation of the government and has almost been firmly under its control," says Kashif Imran, a 28-year-old pharmacist. Like most Pakistanis, Imran is convinced that the crisis plays into the hands of Musharraf by enabling him to demonstrate his abilities, all the while making it clear to his adversaries and supporters alike that there is no alternative to Musharraf.

Pakistan, as it happens, is less of a state with an army than a functioning army with a weak state. Musharraf is in charge of both, at least until the fall elections.

True to form, he has no intention of allowing potential challengers to oppose his bid. Bhutto and Sharif, the two former prime ministers who have made their noble intentions clear with their carefully worded statements, will remain in exile for the time being. For his own security, Musharraf continues his practice of sleeping in a well-guarded military barracks instead of a more luxurious presidential residence. It appears that even elected dictators live dangerous lives.

[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.]