In this bulletin:

• Karzai pardons 'suicide bomb' boy – BBC
• Canadian, Afghan Troops Kill At Least 15 Taliban
• Pakistani said arrested in Afghan capital with explosives
• Taliban leader vows more attacks against West
• Afghan restaurants catering to westerners may be targeted
• Pakistan militants end truce
• Mourners celebrate lives of three slain soldiers
• Bulgaria rotates its troops in Afghanistan
• Report says American pilot responsible for Canadian soldier's death
• Ukraine interested in Afghanistan reconstruction - minister
• Interview: US to help Afghanistan in getting WTO membership
• More Canadian assistance for Afghanistan
• Water supply, road projects inaugurated in Nangarhar
• NYT pans US for ignoring Afghan education sector
• New British minister optimistic of Afghan mission
• Leading article: Afghanistan must not be Britain's Vietnam
• Failure in Afghanistan risks rise in terror, say generals
• New presidential spokesman takes charge of office
• Defence Ministry bans digging of Chamtala mass graves
• Musharraf has failed to contain Al Qaeda: US
• Western media taunts Benazir for creating Taliban ghost
• No rush for the exit, yet
• Pashtuns keep Pakistan on edge
• Can Musharraf contain the militant threat?

Karzai pardons 'suicide bomb' boy – BBC

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has pardoned a 14-year-old boy caught wearing a suicide vest on his way to assassinate a provincial governor. Rafiqullah had crossed the border from Pakistan and intended to kill Arsala Jamal, governor of Khost province.

Mr Karzai said Rafiqullah had been deceived by the "enemy of Islam" while attending a religious school. Pardoning him at the presidential palace, Mr Karzai said: "I forgive him and I wish him the best of luck."

The president said: "Today we are faced with a fearful and terrifying truth, and that truth is the sending of a Muslim child to carry out a suicide attack.

"[His parents] sent him to study at a madrassa (religious school). The enemy of Islam deceived him."

Rafiqullah's father, Matiullah, said he had been unaware of his son's actions and agreed the boy had been deceived by teachers.

He said when he had asked about his son he was not given an answer. "I am very happy to have my son back," said Mr Matiullah, who is from South Waziristan.

Rafiqullah said: "I am very happy that I am pardoned and released." Rafiqullah said he was trained to drive a car and shown suicide attack videos at the madrassa in Pakistan.

He crossed the border and was met by a man who gave him a suicide vest. Rafiqullah said he did not want to carry out the attack but the man threatened to kill him. He was caught last month wearing the vest on a motorbike in the city of Khost.

Militants have launched a number of suicide attacks against Afghan, Nato and US-led forces over the past two years. A number of would-be attackers held in recent weeks have been teenagers.

Afghanistan has urged Pakistan to do more to prevent militants from crossing the border to carry out attacks. In a message to Pakistan, Mr Karzai called for "better relationships, not cheating the children and encouraging them into terrorism and suicide".

Canadian, Afghan Troops Kill At Least 15 Taliban

14 July 07 - SANGSAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Canadian troops drove Taliban insurgents into an Afghan army ambush on Saturday and then called in air strikes to hit the fleeing militants, killing at least 15, the Canadian army commander said.

The Canadian troops moved in under cover of darkness through grape, poppy and marijuana fields to a suspected Taliban compound in the village of Sangsar, near Kandahar, where fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Omar once lived and preached at the local mosque.

"It was another disruptive operation to limit Taliban influence on an Afghan army checkpoint on Highway One," said Major Dave Quick, in charge of the operation, referring to the main road that loops around southern Afghanistan.

The Canadian troops opened fire at first light, with Afghan army units waiting in ambush for the group of around 60 Taliban insurgents along their predicted line of retreat.

"We had multiple contacts and there was air support that dropped about eight 500-lb bombs on Taliban positions," he said. "We estimate that we got about 15 to 20 of them."

Troops captured an anti-tank weapon capable of piercing their armored vehicles. They also found assault rifles, grenades and armor-piercing shells in and around the compound.

A Taliban spokesman said 27 Afghan and NATO soldiers were killed in fighting in the same district, but a Reuters correspondent with Canadian troops on the operation said there were no casualties among the soldiers.

The spokesman said local Taliban commander Mullah Razaq was also killed in the fighting in southern Afghanistan.

NATO and U.S.-led forces are engaged in a cat-and-mouse hunt for Taliban insurgents who attack and occupy villages before slipping away into the mountains.

The struggle is particularly acute in the Pashtun heartlands of the south and east from where the Taliban purist Islamist movement emerged in the early 1990s to sweep away the mujahideen factions that defeated the Soviets, then fought each other.

As during the 1978-1988 Soviet occupation, guerrilla insurgents still suffer heavy casualties each time they engage the more heavily armed foreign forces.

But Taliban insurgents have copied or learned tactics from Iraq and increasingly use suicide bombers to strike fear into troops and civilians alike and show that the government is incapable of providing security to its citizens.

The practice of beheading enemies has also emerged. "In the last 10 days the Taliban beheaded seven Afghan civilians without any proof," said a senior Afghan intelligence official who declined to be named.

He said the killings had taken place across the country, but mostly around Kandahar, Ghazni and other areas of the south.

"The Taliban are putting pressure on civilians to gain support," he told Reuters. "When these people are caught they are tortured first and then beheaded."

He said Taliban insurgents became suspicious of everyone whenever U.S. or NATO-led forces launched air strikes, believing they must have been guided from someone on the ground.

Another Taliban spokesman said those executed had been captured with proof, such as laser equipment used for guiding air strikes, that showed they were working for foreign troops.

"We have captured many spies providing information about the Taliban to foreign troops. When we catch any spy, we behead him," Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told Reuters by satellite telephone from an undisclosed location.

Some 6,000 people have been killed in Afghanistan, around 1,500 of them civilians, in the last 18 months, the worst period of violence since U.S.-led forces overthrew the Taliban in 2001.

Pakistani said arrested in Afghan capital with explosives

Text of report by Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press news agency

Kabul, 14 July: A man thought to be Pakistani and wearing women's dress has been arrested in the Afghan capital.

Sources in the National Security Directorate in Kabul reported the arrest of a Pakistani national together with his three Afghan colleagues in the Butkhak area of Bagrami District and the seizure of 380 kg explosives from them.

The sources said that the Pakistani national was wearing women's dress and that the explosives were hidden in a car.

The sources in the National Security Directorate said that the name of the arrested Pakistani national was Abdollah, son of Abdol Satar, and that he was a resident of Kacha Gari area of Peshawar.

Taliban leader vows more attacks against West

Daily Times 15 July 07 - WASHINGTON: A Taliban commander warned Western nations in an interview broadcast on US television on Friday that they could expect more attacks.

Mansour Dadullah, in the interview shown on ABC News, said the July 2005 suicide attacks on London’s transport system, in which 52 people had died, were “not enough” and that bigger attacks were coming.

“You will, God willing, be witness to more attacks,” Dadullah told a Pakistani journalist in an interview ABC said was conducted four days earlier.

The commander of the Islamic group, which was ousted from power in Afghanistan by US troops after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, talks about his ability to operate inside neighbouring Pakistan.

“We have many friends,” he said. “It is very easy for us to go in and out of the tribal areas (at the Pak-Afghan border). It is no problem.”

Last month, ABC broadcast a video showing Dadullah presiding over a “graduation ceremony” of fighters trained by Al Qaeda and the Taliban somewhere in the Afghanistan-Pakistan tribal border region on June 9.

In that video, Dadullah had threatened members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation military alliance deployed in Afghanistan.

“These Americans, Canadians, British and Germans come here to Afghanistan from faraway places,” Dadullah said on the video. “Why shouldn’t we go after them?” afp

Afghan restaurants catering to westerners may be targeted

PakTribune 15 July 07 - OTTAWA: The international community in Kabul has been warned about a potential new wave of suicide attacks as insurgents try to take their fight into a more urban setting and inflict casualties on foreigners.

Intelligence sources told Can West News Service that insurgents are looking at targeting restaurants frequented by members of the international community as well as convoys operated by private security contractors around the capital.

Suicide bombers aiming to hit security convoys may be driving stolen Afghan army or police vehicles. Another cell of Taliban suicide bombers is aiming to target establishments serving alcohol to westerners, according to the intelligence information.

Kabul has seen a number of suicide bombings over the last few months but the situation is not akin to Iraq or the Kandahar area in southern Afghanistan where Canadian troops operate.

There are a number of discrete restaurants in Kabul that cater to western government officials, aid workers and journalists. They are behind non-descript walled compounds although their locations are known among Afghans. The establishments, protected by private guards, serve alcohol but Afghans are not allowed into the restaurants.

Ed McCormick, the country director of Senlis Afghanistan, a think-tank with operations in both Kabul and Kandahar, said at times large numbers of foreigners congregate at the restaurants.

"I just think it's a matter of time before something does happen," said McCormick, a former member of the Canadian Forces. "It's too obvious a target."

He said some of the establishments have good security and would be difficult to attack. For others it would be a matter of someone on the street throwing a grenade over the compound wall. Or gunmen could simply wait for foreigners to leave at closing time and open fire on them, he said.

McCormick said while in Kabul he heard international workers talking among themselves about the potential of an attack. Staff from some organizations, such as the United Nations, have a strict curfew which does not allow them to be in such establishments late at night.

"It's one of those things we've thought about and talked about but there's not much you can do about it," Mr. McCormick said. "Either you go or you don't go."

Suicide attacks and other bombings have become the main method lately for insurgents to inflict casualties on both international and Afghan troops as well as civilians.

On June 28, a suicide bomber driving a car rammed into a convoy in Kabul carrying private security contractors, killing two and wounding three others.

In mid-June 35 people were killed in Kabul and dozens more injured when a bomb destroyed a bus carrying Afghan police instructors. An investigation revealed the suicide bomber was equipped with a vest containing about nine kilograms of explosives and packed with ball-bearings.

The Taliban took responsibility for that attack at one of the city's main bus terminals. The attack is considered the deadliest yet since the Taliban were pushed from power by U.S. and Afghan forces in early 2002. The next closest incident in Kabul, in terms of fatalities, came in September 2002 when 30 people were killed and more than 160 wounded when a car bomb detonated.

According to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the Taliban are relying more on terror attacks because their insurgency is failing. He said the Afghan army and police in particular are being targeted because those forces are becoming more effective in the battle against insurgents.

In May, a roadside bomb detonated near an Afghan army bus in Kabul, killing one and wounding 29. Last year 16 people were killed and 50 wounded in a series of bombings in the city.

Pakistan militants end truce

Pro-Taliban militants in a Pakistan tribal border region with Afghanistan say they have scrapped a controversial peace accord, as three attacks killed at least 53 people in two days.

The Government signed a peace agreement with tribal leaders in North Waziristan in September, following assurances the tribesmen would hunt down foreign militants. Western allies and Afghanistan heavily criticised the deal.

But the Taliban Council says it is ending the agreement to protest against new troop movements, amid sharply heightened tensions after last week's Army attack on Islamabad's pro-Taliban Red Mosque, which killed 86 people, mostly militants.

After the raid, President Pervez Musharraf vowed to crack down on extremists and deployed extra troops to areas including the Swat district of North West Frontier Province and North Waziristan's Dera Ismail Khan area.

North Waziristan militant commander Abdullah Farhad had on Saturday threatened "guerrilla war" if Government troops did not abandon checkpoints by today in a dispute that has being brewing for weeks.

Meanwhile, police say a suicide bomber has killed at least 12 people and wounded 20 more at a police recruitment centre in north-west Pakistan.

The attack took place in the town of Dera Ismail Khan in Pakistan's troubled North West Frontier Province near the Afghan border.

Police say the bomber targeted a police recruiting centre, where recruits had gathered for an entrance test.

Earlier, in the same province, suicide bombers in two explosives-packed cars hit a Pakistan Army convoy, killing at least 17 people, including 12 security forces and five civilians.

The local Mayor says the civilians were a family of four buried when the blasts destroyed their house and a petrol station attendant hit by shrapnel.

On Saturday, a suicide car bomber killed 24 people in a paramilitary convoy in the tribal region of North Waziristan. Last week's Red Mosque raid led Al Qaeda's number two to call for jihad against the Pakistan Government. - AFP

Mourners celebrate lives of three slain soldiers

Updated Sat. Jul. 14 2007 - CTV.ca News Staff

Families, friends and supporters of three soldiers killed in Afghanistan gathered at funerals to share memories and praise.

Hundreds of mourners filed into a sports complex in Kingston, Ont. for a public service Saturday morning for Capt. Matthew Dawe, 27.

A six-piece military band played as relatives, uniformed military men and women, and members of the public entered.

"My brothers and I have one regret as far as our relationship with Matt is concerned," Philip Dawe, one of three older brothers and a military man himself, told the crowd.

"It is the testimonials that we have read and heard over the past 10 days, and the fact that they've provided us with a glimpse of the man who our kid brother had become. We wish so badly that we could have spent more time with this terrific guy."

Peter Dawe, Matt's father and a retired lieutenant-colonel, said his someone who would "laugh as conditions got harder." He recalled how his son suffered from severe asthma but became a top athlete in school.

"He is often cited as being very approachable to all, very fit, an excellent student displaying the strongest military skills, and perfectly bilingual," Peter said. "Matt was the real deal."

Dawe's mother Reine said there was a friendly competition among her sons as to who Mom loved the most.

"Well, today, my darling Matt, but only for today, I will allow you to be the favourite son. Je t'aime, Matt," she said.

She pleaded with the troops to not give up on the Afghanistan mission. Dawe's wife Tara told the crowd how lucky she was Matt chose to spend his life with her.

"At times the pain is so intense I have to be reminded to breathe. When Matt left he took a piece of me with him that I'll never get back. However, I have the greatest gift in the world," she added, pointing towards their son Lucas.

"This beautiful boy is mine and he is the key to my survival."

Cpl. Jordan Anderson, 25, originally of Iqaluit, Nunavut, was remembered by about 200 people at a private funeral in Ottawa on Saturday afternoon. The funeral for Cpl. Cole Bartsch, 23, took place in the small town of Whitecourt, Alta. about 200 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.

About 500 people attended the service. The Pentacostal church was filled to overflowing. Many watched on video in tents outside.

"He always gave his 100 per cent towards everything," said Cpl. Bernie Allan Aguilera. "He was about the best soldier out there."

In a statement, Dennis and Juanita Bartsch, the slain soldier's parents, urged Canadians to continue to support the mission as their son did.

All three men buried Saturday, along with Pte. Lane Watkins, were members of the 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry based in Edmonton.

The soldiers were among six killed on July 4 when their armoured vehicle struck a roadside bomb about 20 kilometres southwest of Kandahar City.

Funerals for Watkins, Capt. Jefferson Francis and Master Cpl. Colin Bason, the other two soldiers killed, are expected to take place next week.

The services come as public support for the mission dwindles. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has also been advised to tone down his language on topics such as "fighting terrorism" and the 9/11 attacks.

The advice is part of a public-opinion report prepared last month by The Strategic Counsel for Foreign Affairs, according to The Globe and Mail.

In order to counteract apparent fading support for the mission, the report recommends emphasizing peacekeeping, rebuilding and Canada's role in helping to improve the lives of women and children.

The report says only 40 per cent of those sampled across Canada actually support the mission in Afghanistan. In Quebec, support for the deployment was at close to zero.

The report blames "unbalances, mostly negative" media coverage and a lack of understanding about the purpose of the deployment, for the low support.

The report also found many Canadians believe Canada is part of a U.S.-led mission, or that Canada invaded Afghanistan. 

With files from The Canadian Press

Bulgaria rotates its troops in Afghanistan

Text of report in English by the Bulgarian news agency BTA

Kabul, 14 July: The 9th Mechanized Infantry Platoon took over from the 8th Platoon at a ceremony in the International Security Assistance Force's Camp Warehouse in eastern Kabul, attended by the Bulgarian ambassador to Afghanistan, Valeri Zahariev, the military attache, Col Mitko Troanski, and the second secretary at the embassy, Dragomir Petkov.

In a couple of days' time, the Italian contingent is expected to hand over to the Bulgarian company four six-wheel Puma armoured personnel carriers for their use until the end of their mission there. Some of the company's members are trained in handling the vehicles. This will standardize the conduct of joint patrols, escorts, guard duty etc.

After the relevant decisions of parliament and the government in both countries, an order by Bulgarian Defence Minister Vesselin Bliznakov on acceptance of the Italian combat vehicles arrived at the Bulgarian camp on Friday [13 July].

Report says American pilot responsible for Canadian soldier's death

Canadian Press - July 14, 2007 - KANDAHAR — A friendly-fire incident that killed one Canadian soldier and wounded 36 others in Afghanistan last fall could have been prevented, a Department of National Defence report into the incident has found.

Had the American pilot been using his equipment properly, Private Mark Anthony Graham would not have been killed when a garbage fire lit by Charlie Company was mistaken for the smoke and fire of an intended target and strafed by the U.S. air force.

"The incident pilot was responsible for the death and injuries of the Canadian soldiers in the incident," the report released late Friday said.n "He lost his situational awareness."

Pte. Graham was killed and the others were wounded Sept. 4, 2006, during Operation Medusa, the largest Canadian military offensive in a half-century.

Fighting had been fierce in the Panjwaii district, where soldiers were attempting to secure a section of Highway 1, a major thoroughfare across Kandahar province that had been under control of the Taliban. Troops are still fighting over different sections of the highway.

The report, by a board of inquiry called to look into the incident, found that the morning of the attack, Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, the Royal Canadian Regiment, had lit a fire to burn their refuse on the rocks of Ma'sum Ghar before heading back into the battle zone.

Pte. Graham, a former Olympic track-and-field athlete, had been standing at the fire, warming up.

Air strikes had been called into the fight zone the day before, after four Canadian soldiers — Sargeant Shane Stachnik, Warrant Officer Frank Robert Mellish, Private William Cushley and Warrant Officer Richard Francis Nolan — had been killed in the fighting.

U.S. aircraft were in the area keeping up the pressure, and the pilot of the A10-A was tasked with strafing a target that moments earlier had been hit by a guided bomb dropped by another American aircraft.

He was supposed to use the fire and smoke generated by the bomb to identify where he was to shoot. "He mistook a garbage fire at the Canadian location for his target without verifying the target through his targeting pod and heads-up display," the report said.

"The incident was preventable. If the incident pilot had verified the target using the targeting pod and heads-up display, he would have realized his error and discontinued the attack."

The report said the pilot was disoriented by changing light conditions as night transited into day in southern Afghanistan and had removed his night-vision goggles.

"The transition period between night and day is a difficult one for the pilots because their eyes must adjust to ambient light and the cockpit instrumentation lighting also needs to be adjusted," the report said.

"The pilot was relying on his own visual perception to identify the target." Neither the pilot nor the Forward Air Controller had been aware that Charlie company had lit the fire.

Ukraine interested in Afghanistan reconstruction - minister

Text of report by Interfax-Ukraine news agency

Kiev, 14 July: Ukrainian Foreign Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk has said that Ukraine is interested in the implementation of projects on Afghanistan reconstruction, notably mutually profitable reconstruction and building of bridges, roads and water supply systems, and the construction of a hydroelectric power station.

Yatsenyuk was speaking during talks with Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar-Spanta in Kabul today, the press service of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said.

The two sides also agreed to deepen cooperation in the humanitarian field. In this context, Yatsenyuk said that Ukraine is ready to increase a quota for Afghan students interested in studies in Ukraine as well as to expand the number of education courses available, in particular by organizing courses in civilian, diplomatic, military and educational sciences.

Yatsenyuk said that Ukraine is ready, if Afghanistan requests so, to dispatch special training missions consisting of military and civilian engineers.

The two sides also discussed cooperation in the energy field. Yatsenyuk and Dadfar-Spanta agreed to draft an action plan for the energy sector in order to implement bilateral projects and study the possibility of extraction of natural resources, notably oil and gas.

Yatsenyuk informed his Afghan colleague about an intention to open a department of the Ukrainian embassy in Kabul by the end of the current year. The two ministers also discussed preparations for a visit to Ukraine by the Afghan foreign minister.

Interview: US to help Afghanistan in getting WTO membership

NEW YORK, July 13 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The United States has assured Afghanistan of all possible support for its inclusion in the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

The pledge was made during the three-day visit of the Minister for Commerce and Industries Mir Muhammad Amin Farhang to Washington this week.

"During the meeting, the US officials assured us favourable consideration and their full support in enabling Afghanistan to meet the criteria and standards to become member of the WTO," Farhang told Pajhwok Afghan News in an interview .

Afghanistan's application for becoming member of WTO is pending before the world body for about a year now. Right now, the feasibility of Afghanistan's membership to the WTO is being accessed. "We hope to become WTO member in the next four-five years," the minister said. "We look forward towards integrating Afghanistan to the global economy through WTO."

During his three-day visit, Farhang, who led a nine-member high-power delegation, held consultations with US Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, besides leading the country in the second meeting of the US-Afghanistan Council on Trade and Investment. The minister also signed a joint statement on Commercial Co-operation .

"We had an opportunity to discuss additional areas of co-operation within the framework of TIFA," the minister said. One of the major issues discussed was the launch of the much awaited Reconstruction Opportunity Zone or ROZ in the tribal areas of the Afghan-Pak border, which would give manufacturers an option to export goods to the United States without any taxation.

The proposal had been in the pipeline for quite some time now, and Afghanistan was now eagerly looking towards it being implemented on the ground, he said . The minister also discussed with his US counterparts the issue of promotion and development of seven export promotion zones in Afghanistan.

Farhang said the US has assured extending full support for the export promotion zones and helping Afghanistan in creating the necessary infrastructure so as to export Afghan goods all over the world, particularly in the American markets.

He said a major advantage to the Afghan farm products - dry/fresh fruits and vegetables - was that they were organic and do not possessed any chemical content.

As people in the developed world are moving fast towards organic products, Afghan farm products have a great export potential. "With the help of the US, we are developing necessary infrastructure to tap this huge market available for us," he said .

Farhang said several US-based companies had shown interest in investing in this sector, as they see huge potential in export of organic farm-products from Afghanistan. "We are in talks with a lot of US companies," he said.

As export of products to the international market required stringent standards, he said the US was helping the country in establishing the Afghanistan National Standard Agency.

The minister also held meeting with officials of Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC). The OPIC officials agreed to send a delegation to Afghanistan by the end of the current month to assess the situation there.

During his say in the United States, Farhang also held meeting with Afghan businessmen, including officials of the Afghan American Chambers of Commerce

More Canadian assistance for Afghanistan

NEW YORK , July 13 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Within a fortnight of announcing $30 million aid to Afghanistan to promote the rule of law there, Canada Thursday promised an additional $8 million financial assistance for the same purpose .

The amount would be used to fund three different projects being implemented by the International Criminal Defense Attorney Association, Rights & Democracy and CANADEM, said the announcement made by Canadian Minister for International Cooperation.

"Canada's funding will help extend the scope of legal-judicial reform in Afghanistan to reach the most disadvantaged, including women and some of the most vulnerable elements of the society," he said.

The fresh Canadian aid has been welcomed by the Afghan Ambassador to Canada, Omar Samad .

"Each initiative will go a long way to build up institutions and capacities to defend the rights and improve the lives of Afghans, in particular those of the women of my country," Samad said .

Providing legal aid to poor Afghans since 2003, International Criminal Defense Attorney Association, in association with the International Legal Foundation-Afghanistan would get $2.9 million to create a nationalised, Afghan-run legal aid service provider that can operate independently .

Another $5 million aid to Rights & Democracy is to help implement a key project to promote legal and policy reforms to improve the status of women by mobilising opinion leaders, advocates and public authorities in both urban and rural areas on a range of women rights and family law issues.

The project will seek to build local capacity to conduct research, advocate for family law reform and help raise public awareness, said the minister .

Lalit K. Jha

Water supply, road projects inaugurated in Nangarhar

JALALABAD, July 12 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Water supply and road projects, costing 500,000 dollars, have been inaugurated in the eastern Nangarhar province.

An official informed Pajhwok Afghan News on Thursday the schemes - a 15-kilometre paved road and 30 wells - were completed in Sheikh Misri Dag town.

Provincial Refugee Affairs Director Abdur Rehman Shams said a hundred small bridges under construction in the town would be completed in four months.

Shams revealed the government had approved his departments proposal for the construction of a health clinic to provide 24-hour services to the people.

Work on the clinic and a mosque would get under way in the near future, he promised, saying they were trying to give the inhabitants maximum possible facilities.

One dweller Shah Wali, happy about the completion of the plans benefiting 1000 families, said wells alone were not enough to resolve the potable water problem. Water from the wells should be piped to houses, he suggested.

NYT pans US for ignoring Afghan education sector

WASHINGTON, July 12 (Pajhwok Afghan News): A leading American daily Thursday underlined the need for greater international assistance to improve the education sector in impoverished Afghanistan.

The newspaper also stressed stepped-up security for schools in the war-battered country and enhanced teaching standards to equip children with better education in an environment conducive to learning.

While editorially highlighting the challenges facing Afghan schools, The New York Times strongly condemned the shooting of six schoolgirls - two fatally - by armed militants seeking to discredit the Karzai government.

The shooting in the central Logar province was aimed at intimidating other

parents from sending their daughters to school, the Times said, adding beheadings, burnings and bombings had forced the closure of hundreds of schools.

Women again have legal rights in Afghanistan. But more than six years after American forces helped drive the Taliban from power, the women and girls of Afghanistan are still living with the threat of terror in their daily lives, the paper wrote.

It went on to opine schools and schoolgirls were being attacked because they were one of the Karzai administrations great achievements and a source of optimism for Afghans. More than six million children, about 50 percent of the total school-age population, were enrolled in classes, the leader reckoned.

According to the NYT, many of the classes have to be taught in the open because the cash-strapped Afghan government cannot ensure the requisite facilities and most of the US aid dollars is being expended on roads, power and security assistance.

For lack of sturdy buildings, the paper pointed out, classes were taught outdoors and the standards of teaching were poor for lack of trained teachers.

Since provision of armed guards to every school was unfeasible, the NYT wrote: Clearly, there is a lot more that Washington could and should be doing to improve both security and educational quality.

Next year, the editorial said, the Bush administration would likely give Afghanistan more than $1 billion in humanitarian and reconstruction aid. That figure still pales when compared with Afghanistans needs and the billions being spent each week to fight the disastrous Iraq war.

New British minister optimistic of Afghan mission

LONDON, July 13 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Prime Minister Gordon Browns newly-appointed armed forces minister believes British troops are playing a good role in bringing security to Afghanistan and paving the way for the war-battered Central Asian countrys reconstruction.

Bob Ainsworth made the observation during his visit to Afghanistan immediately after his appointment to meet around 7,000 British troops - currently serving out in the post-conflict country as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

At a meeting with the soldiers, he said the troops morale remained high despite huge challenges, and that they were making genuine progress towards their goal of a more secure Afghanistan, where much-needed reconstruction could take place.

Wasting no time in getting to grips with his new portfolio, Ainsworth flew into Afghanistan on Monday to meet British troops and find out more about their mission, the Defence Ministry here said in a statement on Thursday.

The minister travelled to the British-run Camp Bastion in lawless Helmand province, Afghanistans biggest poppy-producing province, to meet commanders and troops, including Commander of British Forces Brigadier John Lorimer.

Ainsworth was briefed by a number of units at Kandahar and Bastion, and the Operational Liaison and Mentoring Team (OMLT), charged with training the Afghan National Army based at Camp Shorabak in Helmand.

Taking over as the armed forces minister on June 29, he also visited Kabul, where he went into talks with representatives of the British embassy and units providing force protection in the capital.

"I have been genuinely struck by the dedication and enthusiasm of the servicemen and women I have met out here in the dust and heat of southern Afghanistan. Their professionalism and bravery is humbling, he remarked.

During his stay in Afghanistan, a British soldier was killed in the volatile south. "I am so very sorry to hear about the loss of one of our soldiers this morning in Helmand. My thoughts go out to his family at this time. We ask such

a lot of our forces on operations and he has made the ultimate sacrifice.

Leading article: Afghanistan must not be Britain's Vietnam

The Independent – UK - Published: 15 July 2007 - No war is like another, and the Iraq war is not like Vietnam. The mission in Afghanistan is even less so. But the US involvement in Indo-China casts a long shadow, and the lessons learned there should still guide us. Of course, the main military concern of Gordon Brown, as he recalibrates the British government's position on two war fronts, should be our obligations to the Iraqi and Afghan people, and to international security. But another issue for the long term is that of maintaining the bond of trust between the British people and the armed forces who risk their lives on our behalf. And the lesson from Vietnam is that American society has been damaged by the growth of a generation of embittered veterans.

Plainly, the numbers of British service people involved in Iraq and Afghanistan are smaller but the solemnity of our obligation to them and their families is just as deep.

Three months ago, The Independent on Sunday drew attention to the terms of the Military Covenant, the deal between the nation and its armed forces, The current version published by the Ministry of Defence sets out "the mutual obligation between the nation, the Army and each individual soldier". In return for what we ask of them, soldiers are entitled to the resources to do the job, to be cared for if injured, and to know that their families would be looked after if they die.

These entitlements are easy to take for granted, not least because no one in a position of responsibility would ever say that the troops should not be given the arms and equipment they need, or that they and their families should be neglected. Yet the implications are expensive, and they are long term. When Tony Blair made his promise to the people of Afghanistan in 2001 that we would see the job through, it was the right thing to say, but it was also – and remains – the right thing to do. We have criticised the former prime minister for his failure to follow through on those words – in particular for his decision to join the invasion of Iraq. That was an error of judgement in its own right, but it was also a disastrous distraction from the commitment in Afghanistan. The overstretch now suffered by our armed forces is testament to that.

If one of Mr Blair's mistakes was to try to do too much, the much more common and less visible mistake has been the eagerness of so many countries to do too little. When the Taliban were driven out six years ago, all members of the UN underwrote the implied promise to the people of Afghanistan that their country would be delivered from warlordism permanently.

In any event, Britain should fulfil its obligations. As we have argued, this means redeploying from Iraq as quickly as possible. It means adapting military strategy to the changing situation in Afghanistan, adjusting to the reality of the long haul, and resourcing the troops fully. But the real implications are even more long term than that.

As we report today, the survivability of modern warfare poses a new challenge for the long-term medical care of soldiers returning from the battlefield. One of the reasons for this is the excellence of medical treatment in the field, but that only makes the transition to civilian healthcare back home more marked. Although attitudes today are changing from the stiff upper lip approach to, for example, post-traumatic stress disorder, they need to change further and faster. It is not so long ago that the MoD was fighting a rearguard action against accepting the existence of Gulf War Syndrome, for fear of the open-ended financial consequences.

As Mr Brown says, defence spending has increased in recent years, but much of that has been devoted to big-ticket items such as fighter jets and ships, rather than to the new priorities of counter-insurgency warfare – or to the costs of long-term care for the injured.

Of course, this newspaper welcomes the change of tone of Mr Brown's new government. Douglas Alexander, the Secretary of State for International Development, spoke last week in Washington of a foreign policy based on multilateralism rather than unilateralism and "a rules-based international system". And Lord Malloch-Brown, the new junior Foreign Office minister, said: "There will be lots of exciting things to do with Sarkozy and Merkel and other European leaders as well as strengthening our transatlantic relations."

A little fresh air between the Bush administration and the Brown government will be healthy, but it is not a policy. Britain's commitment in Afghanistan is for the long term, and our pledge to our own soldiers, and to their families, is longer term still. They are commitments that must be honoured.

Failure in Afghanistan risks rise in terror, say generals

Military chiefs warn No.10 that defeat could lead to change of regime in Pakistan

Nicholas Watt and Ned Temko - Sunday July 15, 2007 The Observer

Britain's most senior generals have issued a blunt warning to Downing Street that the military campaign in Afghanistan is facing a catastrophic failure, a development that could lead to an Islamist government seizing power in neighbouring Pakistan.

Amid fears that London and Washington are taking their eye off Afghanistan as they grapple with Iraq, the generals have told Number 10 that the collapse of the government in Afghanistan, headed by Hamid Karzai, would present a grave threat to the security of Britain.

Lord Inge, the former chief of the defence staff, highlighted their fears in public last week when he warned of a 'strategic failure' in Afghanistan. The Observer understands that Inge was speaking with the direct authority of the general staff when he made an intervention in a House of Lords debate.

'The situation in Afghanistan is much worse than many people recognise,' Inge told peers. 'We need to face up to that issue, the consequence of strategic failure in Afghanistan and what that would mean for Nato... We need to recognise that the situation - in my view, and I have recently been in Afghanistan - is much, much more serious than people want to recognise.'

Inge's remarks reflect the fears of serving generals that the government is so overwhelmed by Iraq that it is in danger of losing sight of the threat of failure in Afghanistan. One source, who is familiar with the fears of the senior officers, told The Observer: 'If you talk privately to the generals they are very very worried. You heard it in Inge's speech. Inge said we are failing and remember Inge speaks for the generals.'

Inge made a point in the Lords of endorsing a speech by Lord Ashdown, the former Liberal Democrat leader, who painted a bleak picture during the debate. Ashdown told The Observer that Afghanistan presented a graver threat than Iraq.

'The consequences of failure in Afghanistan are far greater than in Iraq,' he said. 'If we fail in Afghanistan then Pakistan goes down. The security problems for Britain would be massively multiplied. I think you could not then stop a widening regional war that would start off in warlordism but it would become essentially a war in the end between Sunni and Shia right across the Middle East.'

'Mao Zedong used to refer to the First and Second World Wars as the European civil wars. You can have a regional civil war. That is what you might begin to see. It will be catastrophic for Nato. The damage done to Nato in Afghanistan would be as great as the damage done to the UN in Bosnia. That could have a severe impact on the Atlantic relationship and maybe even damage the American security guarantee for Europe.'

Ashdown said two mistakes were being made: a lack of a co-ordinated military command because of the multinational 'hearts and minds' Nato campaign and the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom offensive campaign against the Taliban. There was also insufficient civic support on, for example, providing clean water.

Ashdown warned: 'Unless we put this right, unless we have a unitary system of command, we are going to lose. The battle for this is the battle of public opinion. The polls are slipping. Once they go on the slide it is almost impossible to win it back. You can only do it with the support of the local population.

'There is a very short shelf life for an occupation force. Once that begins to shift against you it is very very difficult to turn it round.'

The warnings from Ashdown and the generals on Afghanistan will be echoed in a report this week by the all-party Commons defence select committee. MPs will say that the combination of civilian casualties, war damage and US-led efforts to eradicate lucrative poppy crops risk turning ordinary people towards the Taliban.

Stepped-up reconstruction efforts are essential, the MPs will suggest, in order to ensure local residents understand the longer-term aim of the British-led Nato mission - a point echoed, during the committee hearings on Afghanistan earlier this year, by returning British commander General David Richards.

The report is also expected to criticise some Nato members for failing to provide sufficient troops or other support for the Afghan mission.

Adam Holloway, a Tory member of the committee who is a former Grenadier Guards officer, said: 'We are getting to the point where it will be irretrievable. That's where we are now. We are in danger of a second strategic failure [after Iraq], which we cannot afford.'

New presidential spokesman takes charge of office

KABUL, July 12 (Pajhwok Afghan News): New presidential spokesman Humayun Hamidzada formally took charge of his office on Thursday.

Hamidzada, 32, was appointed as spokesman and in charge of the presidential press office by President Hamid Karzai the other day.

Siamak Haravi, deputy spokesman for the president, told Pajhwok Afghan News the new appointee was introduced to officials of the press office this afternoon.

A former UN official, Hamidzada has a master in journalism from Kabul University. He is well-versed in English, Pashto and Dari languages.

He replaces Karim Rahimi, who served as the presidential spokesman and head of the press office of the Presidential Palace for two years.

Zubair Babakarkhail

Defence Ministry bans digging of Chamtala mass graves

KABUL, July 12 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Days after the discovery of a Soviet-era mass grave believed to contain over 1,000 bodies, more collective sepulchres have been unearthed in Chamtala desert, north of this capital city.

A group of journalists Thursday accompanied Kabul Police Crimes Branch chief Gen. Alishah Paktiawal to the site, but Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers did not allow them to dig what used to be secret prisons during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

The Defence Ministry had directed the army personnel not to let anyone except members of an investigating commission burrow the scene, much like a warren with small rooms and passages, an ANA officer told newsmen on the condition of anonymity.

Earlier in the week, President Hamid Karzai appointed a commission to identify the killers of the innocent Afghans and ascertain the exact number of the victims. Presidential advisor on religious affairs Maulvi Fazl-i-Hadi, a former Supreme Court chief justice, heads the probe panel.

Muhammad Karim Amirzai, Shinwaris assistant, told Pajhwok Afghan News the commission would start functioning within two days and submit its report to the president on completion of the inquiry.

Each of the newly discovered three mass graves is said to have hundreds of skeletons, with some of the corpses blindfolded. Residents of the area, having a sprawling Soviet base at one point in time, say the mass graves date back the Russian occupation of Afghanistan.

Earlier, such graves were found near the notorious Pul-i-Charkhi Prison on the eastern outskirts of Kabul and in the Polygon area of the capital. Similar graves have also been found in the north and southeast and elsewhere in Afghanistan.

Musharraf has failed to contain Al Qaeda: US

Daily Times 15 July 07 - LAHORE: President Pervez Musharraf has failed to contain Al Qaeda and must regain control over areas bordering Afghanistan, said Stephen Hadley, President George Bush’s national security adviser.

Answering questions in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s ‘Political Capital with Al Hunt’, Hadley said Musharraf’s strategy of giving tribal leaders more autonomy “has not worked the way it should have”.

The US is working with the Pakistani government to thwart the latest threats, Hadley said, adding that the Musharraf government is “beginning to take some moves that will reassert control in those areas”.

Faced with growing unrest in Congress over the perception that terrorism risks are growing, the administration is stepping up pressure on Pakistan. US Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian affairs Richard Boucher has said Al Qaeda fighters have found more freedom to operate in Pakistan since Musharraf made the deal with tribesmen. Concerning Iraq, Hadley said the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki needed to end sectarian violence before it could achieve political stability. The Iraqi government had thus far failed to meet several political goals deemed necessary for enabling a US military withdrawal from the country, the Bush administration told Congress on Friday.

Hadley was, however, upbeat about prospects for the success of the US troop increase in Iraq and said military commanders, not Congress, should determine the next steps. “We will have another two months operating under this new strategy,” Hadley said. daily times monitor.

Western media taunts Benazir for creating Taliban ghost

The News International 15 July 07 By Rauf Klasra

LONDON: The media here questioned former prime minister and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairperson Benazir Bhutto for military and material support to Mullah Omar and other leaders of the Taliban movement in the mid-90s.

Benazir Bhutto was facing a barrage of hostile questions from the media and academics over the issue of her controversial decision to back the Taliban movement in mid-90s.

She has one-line reply to all these troubling questions: “we recognise now that it was a mistake”.

But, despite her regrets, the ghost of Taliban created in 1993-96 by former interior minister Nasirullah Babar continues to haunt Benazir Bhutto even after 11 years, as she was being asked repeatedly about her role in the creation of this force despite propagating her progressive and modern image in the west.

Almost all newspapers here, who interviewed her, do not forget to remind the former prime minister that actually she had played a major role in fanning Muslim militancy by officially supporting the Taliban movement in Afghanistan.

Benazir Bhutto in an interview with Daily Telegraph the other day had said it was her mistake to support Taliban although her interior minister Babar had always taken the pride in the fact that he was the architect of this movement.

About Lal Masjid operation Benazir told The Daily Telegraph: “It was an unfortunate incident but I am grateful there was no policy of appeasement. “It is the end of ambiguous policies towards terrorism, which have encouraged militants.”

Benazir called for a “post mortem” of the operation, meaning that further radical strongholds should be investigated. “How was this Madrassa able to develop in that way? There must have been some collusion (with the government),” she said.

No rush for the exit, yet

Economist, UK, 07/13/2007 - But an orderly queue is forming

BRINGING peace and development to Afghanistan was always going to be, as Britain's ambassador has put it, "a marathon not a sprint". The resurgent Taliban is betting that the countries sending troops to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) do not have the stamina for it. In some, the steady drip of depressing news of casualties among their own soldiers and Afghan civilians is wearing away whatever support the troop deployments ever had. Governments, even those whose ?caveats? ensure their troops are kept out of the most serious fighting in the south, are finding Afghanistan a political millstone. The coalition is not crumbling; but there are worries about whether it can stay the course.

America still provides nearly half the 37-country ISAF's 35,500 soldiers; Britain, the next biggest contributor (see table), will have sent around 7,500 by the end of the year. France's new president, Nicolas Sarkozy, said during the election campaign earlier this year that he does not want to keep French troops in Afghanistan indefinitely, but has since said that withdrawal is not "imminent".

In Canada, however, all three opposition parties are calling for the military part of the country's mission in Afghanistan to wind up in February 2009 at the latest. The army is deployed in Kandahar, a dangerous southern province. Next month French-speaking Québécois forces will take over, bringing a higher risk of casualties to the Canadian province in which opposition to the mission runs highest.

Stephen Harper, the prime minister, at the end of last month subtly shifted his own position. Whereas before he has hinted at extending the mission beyond February 2009, he now says that any extension will be put to a vote in parliament. As things stand, it would be defeated. Yet even NATO's most optimistic commanders think it will not be until 2010-11 at the earliest that Afghan security forces are ready to take over.

Six Canadian soldiers were killed on July 4th, bringing to 22 the number killed this year, and further eroding public support for the deployment, which has in any event been below 50% for the past year. The government has commissioned research on how to sell the mission to sceptical Canadians. It has to counter a powerful legend that, since the second world war, its army has been a peacekeeping operation not a fighting one, and that Afghanistan has sullied this noble ideal.

Similarly, in Germany, where even today there is squeamishness about seeing the country's soldiers going into action, Afghanistan is a huge political issue. The troops have been deployed in the north of the country, away from the fiercest fighting. But the army has lost 21 soldiers, bringing home to the public that in combat there are no halfway houses: assisting one side means becoming a target and needing, at times, to strike first.

There are in fact three German missions ("mandates") in the country: a commitment to America's "Operation Enduring Freedom" (OEF); the deployment of six Tornado fighters for reconnaissance (approved by the constitutional court, despite fears that it broke the constitutional commitment to non-aggression); and the contribution to ISAF. The role in ISAF is not in doubt; but more and more MPs from the Social Democrats (SPD) are against the renewal of the OEF mandate, which comes up for parliamentary debate in November.

Like Germany's, Italy's soldiers in Afghanistan are not in direct combat roles. Even so the deployment has been a source of continual discomfort to Romano Prodi, the prime minister, who offered to resign in February after his government lost a vote in parliament on foreign policy, and particularly the Afghan mission. (Mr Prodi kept his job after the president rejected his resignation.) The soldiers have recently been given some smart new kit: helicopters, tanks and armoured cars. But the defence minister has insisted that this is simply to defend them from insurgent attacks, not a sign that Italy is to bow to pressure from NATO allies to take on a combat role.

Dutch troops were until recently spared the worst of the violence. But last month two soldiers died in combat, and this week eight were wounded in a suicide attack in the central province of Uruzgan. This is awkward for a government that has to decide in the next few weeks whether to stay in Afghanistan beyond 2008. The defence minister has said it has a "political intention" of doing so. He then had to apologise for a "slip of the tongue"-it was bad form to announce such a plan before a parliamentary debate due after the summer.

If NATO's old guard has troubles with public opinion, its new recruits seem positively gung-ho. Poland has a reinforced battalion of around 1,000 in Paktika, a dangerous province that borders the Pakistani tribal areas. Hungary has sent several companies to Kandahar, where they will be joined by a Bulgarian contingent. Estonia has had a small force of around 100 fighting in Helmand with considerable credit for the past year.

That these various eastern European powers have been so willing to shoulder the burden seems to stem from their greater enthusiasm for NATO as an institution. The desire to see NATO succeed in the new role it is carving out for itself outside Europe probably stems from greater interest in its old role?providing a shield of mutual defence in Europe at a time when they feel an increasing pressure from Russia.

Some of them also seem more willing to accept that there is a war in Afghanistan. Some Western governments, portraying their Afghan missions as humanitarian reconstruction efforts, find it hard to justify the deaths of their soldiers.

Pashtuns keep Pakistan on edge

The Montreal Gazette, 07/13/2007 By Harry Sterling

Musharraf can't afford to clamp down on the border tribes

It's called Pashtunistan. But although its millions of inhabitants are fiercely nationalistic, Pashtunistan exists only in the minds of its people.

And those people have found themselves divided ever since the 19th century when Britain unilaterally decided to establish the Durand Line separating Afghanistan from what later became modern Pakistan in 1947.

However, despite the fact Pashtuns of southern Afghanistan and Pashtuns of Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas theoretically have different nationalities, they continue to regard themselves as one people. For them, the Durand Line is irrelevant.

This historical anomaly is becoming a major factor in NATO's attempts to defeat the predominantly Pashtun Taliban in Afghanistan. The increasing strength of Islamic radicals in the northwest could also be crucial in deciding the future of democracy in Pakistan.

Until recently, the major preoccupation of the Afghan government and the international coalition forces was to persuade President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan to be more active in preventing the Taliban from using his frontier region as a sanctuary and staging area for infiltration into Afghanistan.

President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan went so far as to accuse Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency of aiding the Taliban. Musharraf denounced such accusations, even implying in an interview that Karzai was a liar. Pakistan, he pointed out, had deployed more than 80,000 troops in its frontier region, purportedly losing more than 700 in clashes with militants.

Musharraf insists the cause of the escalation of fighting by the Taliban lies solely within Afghanistan, Karzai's own policies being at the root of the problem. But it's become clear Musharraf's own continued rule is now also at risk.

Not only does he have to contend with the fractious Pashtuns, he also has to now confront dangers posed by non-Pashtun Islamic fundamentalists whom he originally courted after overthrowing the democratically elected civilian government in 1999.

This week's bloody showdown between Pakistani troops and radical Islamists holed up in Islamabad's Lal Masjid mosque is symptomatic of the growing threat posed by Muslim extremists and the "Talibanization" of Pakistan.

Ironically, the Pakistan military itself created what is fast becoming a threat to Pakistan's stability. When General Mohammed Zia Ul-Haq overthrew Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1977, he wooed Pakistan's religious parties by introducing various Islamic practices, inevitably strengthening their overall position. This was particularly true in the conservative border region, an area where the Pakistani authorities historically had little control.

Even when civilian governments returned in the 1980s, Islamic fundamentalists remained influential. And when Musharraf seized power from Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in 1999, he, too, favoured a coalition of fundamentalist-minded parties.

However, Musharraf now finds the emboldened Islamists intent on pursuing their own militant goals regardless of their destabilizing effect. They demand greater obedience to Islamic laws, trashing stores selling music and threatening barbers for cutting men's beards.Extremists have even assassinated moderate village elders or those considered pro-government.

Musharraf also faces growing opposition from non-fundamentalist groups, including massive protests by Pakistan's middle class, over his attempts to oust the country's independent-minded chief justice who has become a rallying figure for opposition groups.

The growing opposition has limited Musharraf's freedom of action, especially in Baluchistan along the Afghan border, controlled by an Islamic coalition, and in North and South Waziristan where the local Pakistani Taliban are a powerful force and in no mood to abandon their Pashtun cousins across the border.

In such a perilous situation, few expect Musharraf to take on the Taliban along the border in any meaningful way. And were he to openly allow U.S. forces to carry out unlimited hot pursuit of Taliban insurgents or Al-Qa'ida forces within Pakistan or permit further bombings on Pakistani territory by U.S. drone aircraft, he risks endangering his own grip on power.

In effect, Musharraf's inability to deal forcefully with the dangers presented by cross-border Pashtun solidarity in Pakistan's frontier region has disturbing implications for other countries, including Canada, whose soldiers are fighting the Taliban and Al-Qa'ida in Afghanistan.

Harry Sterling, a former diplomat, is an Ottawa-based commentator

Can Musharraf contain the militant threat?

By Aamer Ahmed Khan - BBC Urdu Service, Islamabad

There were no signs of joy on the face of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf when he declared that Islamabad's Red Mosque and its affiliated religious school for women had been "liberated from terrorists".

Understandably so, as the battle for the radical institution in the heart of the Pakistani capital may have pushed the country's military leader into a war that he had been working hard to avoid since 11 September 2001.

The 102 people killed in the week-long siege included 11 soldiers and an as yet unknown number of extremists and their hostages.

It was the fiercest battle fought by security forces in mainland Pakistan since Gen Musharraf vowed to dismantle the militant jihadi network in the country in the aftermath of the attacks on the US.

But even with the battle won, the president's mind may not be on its ferocity or the resultant death toll.

Instead, he may be wondering what message the battle may have sent to other religious extremists camped in mosques, religious schools or secret hideouts across the country.

Among the many questions about the Red Mosque episode which remain unanswered are the critical issues of who the militants were and what exactly they wanted.

Did they really believe that they could defeat Pakistan's half-million-strong army? Security officials told the BBC during the siege that they had reasons to believe that most of the militants holed up inside the mosque belonged to the supposedly defunct Jaish-e-Mohammad (Army of Mohammed).

Jaish-e-Mohammad was formed by a radical cleric, Maulana Masood Azhar, in early 2000 to support the insurgency in Indian-administered Kashmir. But Maulana Azhar was arrested and jailed in India, and the group fell into disarray.

He was released by the Indian authorities in 1999, in exchange for passengers on a hijacked Indian Airlines jet. The aircraft was allegedly seized and flown to Kandahar in Afghanistan by his supporters.

He revived the Jaish-e-Mohammad soon after returning to Pakistan and, according to Pakistani security officials, the Red Mosque was used by its members to regroup. Despite this, Pakistani intelligence reportedly failed to monitor what the group was doing.

Security officials say they severed contact with the group after it was suspected of being involved in the December 2001 attack on the Indian parliament in Delhi.

"Whenever the state suddenly withdraws its support from such groups, they tend to splinter," said one senior security official.

"That is exactly what happened to Jaish, and because we had lost contact with the group, we had no idea where most of its activists spent their time before some of them resurfaced at the Red Mosque."

Midway through the week-long siege of the mosque, interior ministry officials said they had "a very good idea" of who the militants were and to which group they belonged.

Many of the militants inside the mosque had clearly worked with Pakistani security services before and knew how to deal with them.

The deputy leader of the mosque, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, who was killed in the final assault, had never been secretive about his contacts with the intelligence services.

Although it seems highly unlikely that he and his supporters believed they could defeat the Pakistani army and take over Islamabad, it was obvious before the final confrontation that they were itching to take on the security forces.

Despite this, President Musharraf said he tried every trick in the book to reach a negotiated settlement with the militants.

In the hours before the final assault, many leading religious and secular figures, including politicians from the ruling party, were involved in efforts to find a last-ditch peaceful settlement.

Ghazi himself said that many of the proposals floated by the negotiators were acceptable to him but not to his "friends".

"Our analysis of the failed negotiations only points to one direction - the militants were determined to trigger a full-fledged battle," a senior security official said.

If that indeed is the case, then the logic driving their determination could have been similar to the one that had led them to attack the Indian parliament.

Security officials say the militants probably wanted to demonstrate to others across the country that their worldview had no political space in Pakistan.

None of the political parties, including the religious ones, were likely to come to their support if the government turned on them. And very few people across the world were going to be concerned militants were killed on the pretext of eliminating extremism.

The obvious conclusion for an extremist mind was that the only way they could establish an Islamic state in Pakistan was through an armed and bloody uprising.

Security officials have said that if this was the message the militants wanted to send, then it may be the beginning of a new low-intensity conflict between religious fanatics and law enforcers across Pakistan.

The coming weeks and months may therefore see a series of clashes, probably starting in the conservative North West Frontier Province and then spreading elsewhere in the country. Hence the reports of widespread troop redeployments in recent days.

[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.]