In this bulletin:

• Former king of Afghanistan dies
• Former king of Afghanistan dies – BBC
• Taliban again extend S Korean hostage deadline
• Taliban threatens to kill 23 Koreans
• Two NATO troops, 60 Taliban killed in Afghanistan
• Pakistan rejects 'Bin Laden raid'
• Pakistani security forces, militants clash in volatile northwest region
• Bush Defends Pakistan Fight Vs. al-Qaida
• Pakistan aid plan facing resistance - $300m requested for paramilitaries
• Turning point in Afghanistan: Is Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf really going to take on al-Qaeda?
• Playing with firebrands in Pakistan
• Battle against corruption second front in Afghanistan
• Canadian military quiet on Taliban casualty figures
• MR. MIKE'S LEGACY

Former king of Afghanistan dies

Date : Jul 23, 2007 Sources : BAKHTAR

The former King of Afghanistan, Zahir Shah, has died at the age of 92 following a long illness. Zahir Shah was deposed in 1973 and went into exile, but returned to Afghanistan after the fall of the Taleban in 2002. Many Afghans had a deep love and respect for Zahir Shah, whose lengthy reign was associated with peace, security and modest political reform. His 40-year reign saw women receiving education and voting in elections, and a free press. Mr Shah died at his Kabul residence in the presidential palace compound. He had returned to Kabul in 2002 after 29 years in exile, mostly spent in Italy. Zahir Shah reigned as monarch from 1933 to 1973 - a time when Afghanistan underwent some democratisation but remained underdeveloped economically.

During his long exile, the former king witnessed his country laid low by war, and the rise of the harsh Islamic regime of the Taleban. Born in Kabul in 1914, Zahir Shah was educated in France and was only 19 when he ascended the throne in 1933 after his father was assassinated. After World War II, in which he succeeded in maintaining both Afghanistan's neutrality and its borders, the king recognised the need for modernisation. Zahir Shah brought in foreign advisers, founded the first modern university, and fostered cultural and commercial relations with Europe. But amid the modernisation, dark undercurrents of wrangling between the country's tribal factions remained.

In July 1973, while he was in Italy receiving medical treatment for an eye condition, Zahir Shah was ousted in a coup orchestrated by his cousin, Mohammad Daoud. Daoud opposed his efforts to open up the country and Develop contacts with the West. In the years following the coup, the last monarch of a 200-year old Pashtun dynasty lived in a villa outside Rome. During this time Afghanistan descended into factional violence and war. In 2002, Zahir Shah returned to his country to attend a meeting, known as a loya jirga, to decide Afghanistan's future. He also moved back to into his former palace in the capital, Kabul.

Zahir Shah's return to the palace was part of an agreement reached at the loya jirga, or grand assembly. He had agreed not to stand against Hamid Karzai for the post of Afghan head of state. "It gives me great pleasure to come back, great pleasure," the monarch said on returning to his country. Despite being viewed by some Afghans as a potential threat, Mr Shah was seen as the one figure who could bridge the country's divisions, says the BBC's Catherine Davis. He was given the symbolic title, Father of the Nation - though he was an ethnic Pashtun, he was keen to distance himself from politics and tribal loyalties.

The former king has eight children. One of them, Shah Mahmoud Zahir, died in Rome in 2002 at the age of 56.

Former king of Afghanistan dies – BBC

The former King of Afghanistan, Zahir Shah, has died at the age of 92 following a long illness. President Hamid Karzai announced three days of mourning. He said Zahir Shah had been a symbol of national unity.

Zahir Shah was deposed in 1973 and went into exile. He returned to Afghanistan in 2002 after the fall of the Taleban but was given no official role. He was popular among Afghans and his reign is remembered as a time of peace before Soviet invasion and war.

Zahir Shah died at his Kabul residence in the presidential palace compound. His body is lying in state at a Kabul mosque and all television and radio stations are reciting Koranic verses.

The funeral will be held on Tuesday when prayer ceremonies will take place across Afghanistan. "With paramount grief, I would like to inform my countrymen that... Mohammad Zahir Shah has bid farewell to this mortal world," President Karzai said.

"We announce three days of national mourning over the death of the father of the nation, and the Afghan flag will be at half mast for three days."

Zahir Shah's 40-year reign saw modest political reform with women receiving education and voting in elections, and a free press. He had returned to Kabul in 2002 after 29 years abroad, mostly spent in Italy.

During his long exile, the former king witnessed his country laid low by war, and the rise of the harsh Islamic regime of the Taleban. Born in Kabul in 1914, Zahir Shah was educated in France and was only 19 when he ascended the throne in 1933 after his father was assassinated.

After World War II, in which he succeeded in maintaining both Afghanistan's neutrality and its borders, the king recognised the need for modernisation. Zahir Shah brought in foreign advisers, founded the first modern university, and fostered cultural and commercial relations with Europe.

But amid the modernisation, dark undercurrents of wrangling between the country's tribal factions remained. In July 1973, while he was in Italy receiving medical treatment for an eye condition, Zahir Shah was ousted in a coup orchestrated by his cousin, Mohammad Daoud.

Daoud opposed his efforts to open up the country and develop contacts with the West. In the years following the coup, the last monarch of a 200-year-old Pashtun dynasty lived in a villa outside Rome. During this time Afghanistan descended into factional violence and war.

In 2002, Zahir Shah returned to his country to attend a meeting, known as a loya jirga, to decide Afghanistan's future. He moved back into his former palace in the capital, Kabul, as part of an agreement reached at the meeting.

He had agreed not to stand against Hamid Karzai for the post of Afghan head of state. "It gives me great pleasure to come back, great pleasure," the monarch said on returning to his country.

Despite being viewed by some Afghans as a potential threat, Zahir Shah was seen as the one figure who could bridge the country's divisions, says the BBC's Catherine Davis.

He was given the symbolic title, Father of the Nation - though he was an ethnic Pashtun, he was keen to distance himself from politics and tribal loyalties.

The former king and his wife had five sons and two daughters. One son, Shah Mahmoud Zahir, died in Rome in 2002 at the age of 56. Zahir Shah's wife, Homaira, died as preparations were being made for her to join him in Kabul in 2002.

Taliban again extend S Korean hostage deadline

Kandahar (AFP) - Taliban militants on Monday extended the deadline for their South Korean hostages by another 24 hours, but told the government to put them in direct contact with Korean negotiators.

"We've extended the deadline by another 24 hours" until 1430 GMT Tuesday, Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location, minutes after the previous limit expired.

The rebels have threatened to kill the South Koreans unless 23 Taliban prisoners held by Afghan authorities are released and Seoul withdraws its 200 soldiers from war-battered Afghanistan.

South Korea has dispatched a crisis team, led by Vice Foreign Minister Cho Jung-pyo, to Kabul and has repeatedly stressed that it will pull out its troops who are serving with a US-led coalition by year's end as planned.

"We tell the Kabul administration to put us in direct contact with the South Korean delegation," Ahmadi added.

"The Kabul administration is not honest in the talks. The talks which have taken place so far have not had any result," the rebel spokesman said.

The new deadline came shortly after the Taliban said that a German hostage and four Afghan colleagues, whom they had earlier said were executed, were still alive.

The militant group demanded the release of 10 Taliban prisoners in return for freeing the German and Afghan captives.

Taliban threatens to kill 23 Koreans

By NOOR KHAN - Associated Press Monday, July 23, 2007

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - The Taliban threatened to begin killing 23 South Korean hostages Monday evening if the government doesn't free insurgents held in prison. The demands came as the U.S.-led coalition reported killing some 50 militants in southern Afghanistan's poppy-growing heartland.

Khail Mohammad Husseini, a lawmaker from Ghazni province, where the Koreans are being held, said provincial leaders tried to meet with the kidnappers Monday but that they didn't show. He said the Taliban increased their demands by telephone, saying all militant prisoners in Ghazni now had to be released.

Qari Yousef Ahmadi, who claims to speak for the militia, disputed that report, saying the Taliban were still demanding the release of 23 prisoners.

"If the government won't accept these conditions, then it's difficult for the Taliban to provide security for these hostages, to provide health facilities and food," Ahmadi told The Associated Press by satellite phone. "The Taliban won't have any option but to kill the hostages."

Ahmadi said Sunday that the militants were giving the Afghan and South Korean governments until 7 p.m. (10:30 a.m. EDT) Monday to respond to their demands.

Deputy Interior Minister Abdul Khaliq said Afghanistan was not prepared to make a deal "against our national interest and our constitution," although he did not explicitly rule out freeing any prisoners.

President Hamid Karzai in March authorized the release of five Taliban prisoners in exchange for a kidnapped Italian reporter, but called the trade a one-time deal. Karzai was heavily criticized for the move by the United States and European nations, who felt it would encourage more kidnappings.

In the two-day battle in the Sangin district in Helmand province, the insurgents tried to shoot down a coalition aircraft and attack soldiers with a suicide car bomb, the coalition said. Coalition aircraft dropped four bombs and Afghan forces counted "more than four dozen" insurgents killed, it said.

The Sangin district chief, Eizatullah Khan, said a large group of Taliban had attacked a convoy Sunday, and the resulting battle left more than 30 militants dead and many wounded.

Coalition and Afghan forces "only engaged legitimate military and enemy targets to minimize the potential of Afghan casualties," said U.S. Maj. Chris Belcher, a coalition spokesman. "We did this even as the insurgents tried to create some propaganda value by placing innocent civilians in harms way."

Civilian casualties have been a major problem for U.S. and NATO forces this year. Taliban militants often fight in populated areas or seek cover in civilian homes, leading to the deaths of ordinary Afghans. There were no immediate reports of civilian casualties during the battle, but those reports sometimes take a day or two to surface.

In Zabul province, Afghan police forces reported killing 14 "enemies" during a 12-hour battle Sunday, including a Taliban commander identified as Mohammad Hassan.

Afghan elders leading the hostage negotiations met with the kidnappers Sunday and reported that the Koreans were healthy, said Khwaja Mohammad Sidiqi, a local police chief in Ghazni district. The Koreans were kidnapped there Thursday while riding on a bus from Kabul to Kandahar on Afghanistan's major highway.

The Afghan military has the region surrounded in case the government decides the military should move in.

South Korea, meanwhile, banned its citizens from traveling to Afghanistan in the wake of the kidnappings, said Han Hye-jin, a Foreign Ministry official. A delegation of Korean officials met with Karzai on Sunday to discuss the crisis.

The South Korean hostages' church said it will suspend some of its volunteer work in Afghanistan. It also stressed that the kidnapped Koreans, which include 18 women, were not involved in any Christian missionary work, but only provided medical and other volunteer aid.

South Korea has about 200 troops serving with the 8,000-member coalition in Afghanistan, largely working on humanitarian projects. They are scheduled to leave Afghanistan at the end of 2007.

Two NATO troops, 60 Taliban killed in Afghanistan

Kabul (AFP) - Afghan and US-led troops killed more than 60 Taliban rebels in two days of fierce fighting, while two NATO soldiers died in separate clashes, officials said Monday.

The fighting came amid a renewed wave of violence blamed on the Islamist rebels, who have also threatened to kill 23 South Koreans and a German man held hostage in the south of the country since last week.

In a two-day battle in the opium-growing heartland of Helmand province, which ended Monday, around 50 Taliban were killed by Afghan and US-led coalition troops backed by warplanes, the coalition said in a statement.

Fighting erupted on Sunday when would-be Taliban suicide bombers drove an explosives-filled car towards the troops near the village of Shaban, while rebels also opened fire from two nearby compounds.

The insurgents' vehicle was destroyed and two rebels inside were killed, the statement said.

Coalition aircraft then dropped a total of four bombs to destroy the enemy compounds and hit other Taliban militants who later moved in to reinforce their comrades, it said.

Late Sunday, the insurgents tried but failed to shoot down a coalition aircraft with surface-to-air fire, it added.

"As the battle continued into early morning, more than four dozen insurgents had been confirmed killed by ANA (Afghan National Army) at the scene," said the statement.

The statement said there were no civilian casualties from the two-day clash, but accused the Taliban of "deliberately" hiding and firing from within civilian houses.

There were also no casualties among international troops or the Afghan army, it said.

Meanwhile, Afghan police aided by coalition forces killed another 14 "enemies of peace and stability" in neighbouring Zabul province in a 10-hour-long clash on Sunday, the interior ministry said in a statement.

The victims included what the statement described as a known Taliban commander and six Pakistani nationals. Kabul accuses Pakistan of sponsoring the Taliban insurgency.

In another incident, a suicide bomber blew himself up prematurely in western Nimroz province on Monday, killing another militant and injuring a third, provincial governor Ghulam Dastgir Azad told AFP.

"They were planning suicide bombings and we've found suicide vests in the compound where they lived," he said.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said two of its soldiers were killed Monday in separate incidents, one in southern Afghanistan and one in the east of the country. There were no further details.

The statement did not give their nationalities, but the Norwegian army in Oslo said one of its special forces troops was killed when militants opened fire on a patrol on Monday in Logar province, near the capital Kabul.

The latest casualties brought the number of international troops serving under ISAF and a separate US-led coalition killed this year to 114. The bulk of the casualties are Americans.

ISAF has a 37-nation force of more than 37,000 soldiers while the separate US-led anti-terrorism coalition has around 14,000 members.

Pakistan rejects 'Bin Laden raid'

BBC News / Monday, 23 July 2007 - Pakistan has responded angrily to suggestions from the United States that American forces might be sent into Pakistan to strike at Osama Bin Laden.

A senior US official has said he believed the architect of the 2001 suicide attacks on New York and Washington was in northern Pakistan. Pakistani FM Khurshid Kasuri said Bin Laden was not in the country.

A recent US intelligence report says al-Qaeda is intensifying efforts to put operatives into the US. The report says the nation is at a heightened risk of attack.

Analysts warn that al-Qaeda's leaders have found a "safe haven" in Pakistani tribal areas which has allowed them to regroup. US director of national intelligence Mike McConnell said recently he believed Bin Laden was in northern Pakistan, near the Afghan border.

President Bush's homeland security adviser Frances Townsend said that in the pursuit of Bin Laden, no options were off the table.

Pakistani foreign minister Khurshid Kasuri said he did not believe that the al-Qaeda leader was in Pakistan - and in any case, if the US shared its intelligence, Pakistan's army could do a better job.

Pakistan Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao said: "Our stance is that Osama Bin Laden is not present in Pakistan. "If anyone has the information he should give it to us, so that we can apprehend him," he was quoted as saying by the AFP news agency. President Pervez Musharraf last week vowed to root out extremists "from every corner of the country".

Pakistani security forces, militants clash in volatile northwest region

The Associated Press - Sunday, July 22, 2007 - M IRAN SHAH, Pakistan: Army gunship helicopters and troops on the ground strafed militant positions Sunday in a volatile region in northwestern Pakistan where overnight fighting left 13 fighters dead amid a recent spike in violence, officials said.

The fighting erupted after assailants detonated a bomb near a military convoy and then attacked it with gunfire in North Waziristan tribal region, wounding seven soldiers, the intelligence official said on condition of anonymity because of the secretive nature of his job.

Overnight clashes between security forces and suspected militants elsewhere in the region, which borders Afghanistan, left 13 militants dead, said Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad, the army's top spokesman.

Two gunship helicopters backed ground forces in the fighting Sunday, which began after a convoy of seven military pickup trucks was hit by a bomb. The assailants then shot at it from nearby hills on the outskirts of Miran Shah, the main town of North Waziristan, the intelligence official said.

There was no information on any casualties from the fighting, but seven troops were wounded in the bombing and the earlier ambush, he said.

Arshad could not be reached immediately to comment on Sunday's reported fighting but he earlier said that 13 militants were killed late Saturday in separate clashes between security forces and militants around Ghulam Khan, another North Waziristan town close to the Afghan border.

Seven militants along with their weapons surrendered during the fighting overnight, he said. Violence has intensified in North Waziristan after militants scrapped a peace deal with the government last week. The accord, which was aimed at stopping militants from crossing into neighboring Afghanistan, was signed in September last year and led to a period of relative calm.

In recent days, however, the region has been hit by a spate of suicide attacks targeting security forces. The latest attack occurred on Friday, when a bomber rammed his explosive-laden car into a small checkpoint on the outskirts of North Waziristan's main town of Miran Shah, killing one soldier and two passers-by, security officials said.

Pakistani security officials have said that Arab, Afghan and Central Asian militants — allegedly linked with al-Qaida and the Taliban — operate in North Waziristan supported by militant pro-Taliban tribesmen.

Afghan and U.S. officials had criticized the peace deal in North Waziristan, saying it allowed militants to get safe havens in the region bordering Afghanistan. A recent U.S. intelligence report indicated militants were regrouping in the area.

A 45-member delegation of tribal elders was in North Waziristan on Sunday on a government-backed mission to try to salvage the peace accord, the intelligence official said.

Militants had accused the government of violating the accord by redeploying troops to checkpoints. They insist the soldiers withdraw to their barracks, as under the terms of the agreement.

The tribal elders were expected to report to government officials in Miran Shah on Sunday on their talks with the militants, the intelligence official said.

Bush Defends Pakistan Fight Vs. al-Qaida

By DEB RIECHMANN - The Associated Press Saturday, July 21, 2007

WASHINGTON -- President Bush said Saturday that the United States must continue fighting in Iraq and support Pakistan's battle against al-Qaida and other extremists entrenched along its rugged frontier.

In his weekly radio address, taped before he had a colonoscopy at Camp David, Md., Bush cited the latest National Intelligence Estimate. It said al-Qaida had managed to establish a "safe haven" in the tribal areas of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan.

Bush said Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf reached an agreement last fall that gave leaders in his nation's tribal areas more responsibility for policing their own territories. But the U.S. intelligence report said that agreement had backfired and had actually given al-Qaida new opportunities to set up terror training camps, improve international communications and bolster operations.

"Unfortunately, tribal leaders were unwilling and unable to go after al-Qaida or the Taliban," Bush said. "President Musharraf recognizes the agreement has not been successful or well-enforced and is taking active steps to correct it. ... Pakistani forces are in the fight and many have given their lives. The United States supports them in these efforts."

Violence has spread from Pakistan's tribal areas to the nation's capital in Islamabad and elsewhere since last week, when militants abandoned the 2006 peace deal they signed with the government to stop attacks on troops and officials. Suicide attacks, shootings and a siege and army raid on a mosque in Islamabad have killed about 289 people in Pakistan so far this month, raising concern about the threat posed by Islamic extremists and the country's political instability.

Bush also used his radio address to argue that keeping U.S. troops in Iraq is central to the security of the nation.

"The men who run al-Qaida are determined, capable and ruthless," Bush said. "They would be in a far stronger position to attack our people if America's military, law enforcement, intelligence services and other elements of our government were not engaged in a worldwide effort to stop them."

Pressure is building on the Bush administration to change course in the war, now in its fifth year and with a death toll of at least 3,628 members of the U.S. military.

On Friday, White House press secretary Tony Snow said that despite widespread skepticism in Congress, there have been significant results one month after the U.S. completed a buildup of 21,500 additional combat troops.

So far, GOP lawmakers have been mostly united in rejecting Democratic demands to set a deadline for troop withdrawals. On Wednesday, they helped scuttle a bill by Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Jack Reed, D-R.I., that would have ordered troops to start leaving this fall and end major combat by April 30. The legislation would allow some troops to remain behind to conduct counterterrorism, protect U.S. assets and train the Iraqis.

"This week, the Senate had the opportunity to do what most Americans want us to do: change course in Iraq," Levin said Saturday in the Democrats' weekly address. "Although a bipartisan majority of the senators supported an amendment to do just that, we were blocked by the Republican leadership from voting on it."

Levin added, "President Bush claims that we must keep paying this terrible price to protect America from terrorism, but even the administration's own intelligence experts are saying that during the war in Iraq there has been an increase in the threat of terrorism and that al-Qaida has regained its strength."

Pakistan aid plan facing resistance - $300m requested for paramilitaries

By Farah Stockman, Boston Globe Staff  |  July 22, 2007

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is struggling to get congressional approval for millions of dollars in aid to a tribal paramilitary group in the semiautonomous region of Pakistan where Al Qaeda and the Taliban have gained such a foothold that they have been able to launch destabilizing attacks on both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The $300 million plan to transform Pakistan's colonial-era Frontier Corps into a modern fighting force is a crucial piece of a new, $2 billion US-Pakistani counterinsurgency effort designed to wrest the region from extremist militants.

But this new funding request has run into resistance, in part because of congressional restrictions on aid to nontraditional military groups, and also because questions have been raised about whether the tribesmen who make up the Corps are friends or foes of the United States, according to congressional sources and US officials.

State Department officials say the Corps, an 80,000-member law enforcement force traditionally used for border patrol and antismuggling activities, needs a massive training program, communication equipment, vehicles, and night-vision goggles to fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Until now, the US government has given the Corps only modest assistance for counternarcotic efforts.

Hundreds of Frontier Corps members have been killed or wounded in battles with militants in recent years, but there also are disturbing signs of conflicting loyalties inside the Corps. The group is led by experienced officers from the Pakistani Army, but its rank and file come from the very Pashtun tribes that have given the militants safe haven.

US soldiers in Afghanistan have reported observing some Corps members allowing Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters to cross the border at will and even welcoming them to rest at Corps guard posts. The Corps has also fired occasionally on the US-assisted Afghan Army. In May, a lone Corps member abruptly opened fire at a meeting with US and Afghan soldiers, killing an American and a Pakistani, and wounding eight others. He was killed in the shoot-out that ensued.

Daniel Markey, a Pakistan specialist who was a member of the State Department's policy planning staff on Pakistan from 2003 until January 2007, said the shooting was an "indication of the challenge that Pakistan will face in training the Frontier Corps."

"Sometimes their loyalties are uncertain," he said. But State Department officials say bolstering the Corps, in tandem with a plan to distribute nearly $2 billion in development aid over the next decade, is the best strategy to rid the impoverished region of extremists and win the support of the tribes.

"We think this has the greatest chance for success," said a State Department official who asked that his name not be disclosed because he is not a spokesman. "There are some real advantages with working with the Frontier Corps. They are local, [so] they can identify who else is local and who is an outsider. They have extensive networks that would take us decades to develop."

The debate over funding the Corps comes amid a wider debate about all aid to Pakistan. The Bush administration has pledged strong support for Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, but Musharraf's popularity has plummeted in recent months because of his dismissal of the country's chief justice and other actions that critics say are designed to keep him in power.

Musharraf, a general who came to power in a military coup, became a key US ally in the war on terror in 2001 after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Before the attacks, Pakistan's government cultivated an alliance with the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan, who had ancestral ties to the Pashtun tribes in Pakistan's border region. But after the attacks, Musharraf took sides with the United States, directing his intelligence agencies to help arrest key Al Qaeda suspects inside Pakistan and ordering his army into the tribal areas for the first time in Pakistan's history to search out Al Qaeda fighters.

The military incursion angered the fiercely independent local population. Last fall, after hundreds of Pakistani military casualties in that region, Musharraf announced a series of "peace agreements" with the tribes, withdrawing his forces to their barracks in exchange for a pledge by tribal leaders not to allow cross-border attacks on Afghanistan and not to shelter foreign fighters.

Markey said Pakistan used the peace deals to send operatives into the tribal areas to try to co-opt the Taliban militants and the tribal leaders, but that the strategy has been only "marginally effective." The latest National Intelligence Estimate concludes that Al Qaeda has regained its full strength in Pakistan's tribal areas.

Marvin Weinbaum , a former State Department intelligence analyst now at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, said the Pakistani attempts to reach out to militants in the tribal areas raised eyebrows in Washington, sparking a continuing debate about whether elements of Pakistan's intelligence services were renewing their old alliance with the Taliban.

In recent weeks, Musharraf ordered the military to return to abandoned checkpoints in the region, and militants declared the peace deals dead. Some Pentagon officials also are frustrated with Pakistan, seeing an increasing number of attacks on US and Afghan soldiers by militants who use Pakistan's tribal areas as a base.

Last September, President Bush questioned Musharraf about the situation in the tribal areas during a White House meeting. Musharraf responded that he needed time to develop a comprehensive plan to win popular support through development aid.

Since then, the Bush administration has embraced Musharraf's new plan, pledging $750 million in development aid over next five years to the tribal region, in addition to Pakistan's pledge of $1 billion over the next decade.

Richard Boucher , the assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, told reporters last week that Washington has also promised to help Pakistan fund its $300 million plan to reform the Frontier Corps, requesting $71.5 million from Congress this year for equipment such as communications devices, vehicles, and night vision goggles.

Congress has declined to fund the request because of insufficient details about how the money would be spent and worries about the Corps' loyalties, congressional aides said.

"There were concerns about who is the Frontier Corps -- what is this organization?' " said one adviser to Congress on South Asia who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak.

Administration officials have worked hard to allay these fears, arguing that while some Corps members might sympathize with militants among their fellow tribesmen, the main problem was that the Corps lacks the equipment and training to take them on, he said.

But a July 12 hearing before the House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs showed that some members of Congress remain skeptical about the billions in military aid that is already going to Pakistan.

"How do we in Congress justify to the American people writing checks for billions of dollars to a regime that may not be the partner against terrorism that the United States needs it to be?" Representative Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican, asked at that hearing.

Another problem with the funding request for the Frontier Corps is that Congress limits the kind of assistance that the Defense Department can give to a force that is not a part of a foreign military. The Frontier Corps is organized under Pakistan's Ministry of the Interior. But administration officials said they were optimistic that an exception would be granted.

Even if funding is approved, modernizing the Corps will be a challenge. Founded under British colonial rule, the Corps' history is scattered with stories of divided loyalties.

Chris Mason, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for Advanced Defense Studies, said the plan was an important attempt to counter the rise of extremists who have driven moderate tribal leaders out of the region. But he warned that it might not be enough.

"The radicals may have become so strong and so numerous . . . it may be beyond the ability of the Pakistani military to suppress them," he said. 

Turning point in Afghanistan: Is Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf really going to take on al-Qaeda?

Last Updated July 23, 2007 - By Robert Sheppard, CBC News – Analysis

It was not an auspicious beginning. At least 16 Pakistani soldiers were killed and more than a score wounded in two separate ambushes last week as Pakistan's military government finally moved to take on the Taliban, al-Qaeda and the unruly warlords sheltering in the virtually lawless territories bordering Afghanistan.

The attacks and the sporadic suicide bombings that reached even into the capital, Islamabad, were a vivid reminder of the many past failures when Pervez Musharraf's government attempted to eradicate the country's heavily armed warlords and their fundamentalist followers.

But they were also stark punctuation to the fact that Musharraf's 10-month-long "peace accord" with the frontier bosses of North and South Waziristan — a policy he had appeared to be staking his government's survival on — had fully unravelled.

However reluctantly (though with Washington's clear approval), Pakistan has now embarked on a kind of pincer movement against the Taliban and al-Qaeda remnants sheltering along the border areas with Afghanistan.

As it moves in from the south and east, the U.S. and NATO forces are expected to advance from the north and west, probably mostly through air strikes, in a giant squeeze play, or at least a battle on two distinct fronts.

How this will work out, of course, is anyone's guess. This is region that has been in an almost constant state of war for at least 30 years (many will say an eternity) and pretty much defeated all outsiders.

But Musharraf's move is nonetheless an important U-turn in the fight against extremism in that part of the world, not to mention a battle he has been trying desperately to avoid.

What's more, it coincides with two other related developments — the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate last week that raises the spectre of a resurgent al-Qaeda in these same border territories, and a British all-party report that seems designed to lay the groundwork for a longer, more involved NATO focus on Afghanistan. Taken together these may reflect a turning point in how the war in Afghanistan is to be waged.

Until just last week, Musharraf had been defending his ceasefire with the tribal chiefs and even talked about attempting to revive it after they called it off. The September 2006 pact was the deal by which Pakistan would pull its military out of the tribal regions in return for local leaders policing their own militants and reining in outsiders.

The deal had kept at least a partial lid on extremist violence in mainland Pakistan but it has also been blamed for a huge resurgence in al-Qaeda's fortunes in the territories. No less an authority than New York University's Barnett Rubin has stated that "The main centre of global terrorism is in Pakistan," by which he was referring to the tribal territories bordering Afghanistan. This was the theme amplified by last week's National Intelligence Estimate as well.

Within Pakistan, the trigger for the change of heart over the tribal areas pact was the government siege and eventual attack on Islamabad's controversial Red Mosque earlier this month, to rid it of several hundred armed extremists.

Many, if not most, of the young students who had been holed up in the mosque, exchanging fire with security forces, had come from the fundamentalist religious schools and mosques in the tribal regions, local observers said. The attack on the mosque, which eventually left more than 100 dead, unleashed a wave of anti-Musharraf violence and demonstrations in these remote areas and, so far at least, one spectacular suicide bombing in Islamabad itself.

The reaction in turn underscored the pincer movement Musharraf is facing on his own home front: journalists, judicial activists and pro-democracy groups had been demonstrating actively for some time now trying to ensure a peaceful transition from Musharraf's eight-year military rule, and limits on his power. Backing him had been many of the smaller, religious parties who he had been counting on to help extend the constitutional basis for his regime and who had direct links to the fundamentalists who are now turning against him.

Musharraf's reluctance to take on the fundamentalists directly is understandable from his point of view. He has survived at least three assassination attempts by extremists, he has not wanted to turn his army on his own people, and his senior intelligence and military staffs are, by many accounts, riddled with officers who are sympathetic to at least some of the aims of the Islamic fundamentalists.

What's more, though he has a nuclear-tipped military that is over half a million strong and, some say, is one of Pakistan's few truly national institutions, he may not have the right military tools — the helicopter gunships and air strike capabilities — to take on the Taliban and al-Qaeda in their tribal stronghold, senior U.S. intelligence officials have said.

Developing or borrowing those tools would likely mean a closer alliance with American, British or NATO forces to help take the fight inside Pakistan's territories, which is politically very problematic for a proudly Islamic country like Pakistan.

The NIE report

Another harbinger of change last week was the release of the National Intelligence Estimates, an annual event, by U.S. security officials.

This highly abbreviated summary of what the combined U.S. intelligence community feels is the biggest threat facing America these days received widespread news coverage because it raised the spectre of a resurgent al-Qaeda, and even Osama bin Laden, preparing for another strike.

In the U.S. press, the NIE summary was largely played as a critique of the White House priorities to focus on Iraq and Iran as the big threats when Afghanistan and the adjacent Pakistan tribal territories were turning out jihadists by the tens of thousands annually.

And while this is true, it's also usually the case that these announcements are often highly orchestrated and filtered through upper reaches of the bureaucracy, either to buttress the administration's policies or prepare for a change in direction.

In this case, the backdrop seems pretty obvious: the war in Iraq is lost, neither the American military or the public have much stomach to tough it out there any longer and a deciding point is coming, possibly as soon as the fall.

But Washington can't just walk away from the global fight against terror — that would send the worst message to its enemies and allies around the world — so it needs a new target: Afghanistan and the al-Qaeda hideouts in Pakistan's tribal frontier.

Musharraf's (forced) about-face was clearly welcomed by Washington, which obviously didn't think much of his now aborted appeasement pact, even though the White House supported it publicly all these months. Frances Fragos Townsend, who head the Homeland Security Council at the White House, was quoted in the New York Times on the pact, saying bluntly: "It hasn't worked for Pakistan. It hasn't worked for the United States."

By some accounts there are as many as 100,000 al-Qaeda-related jihadists in Pakistan and Afghanistan at the moment, which is many times the estimate for Iraq, where local sectarian rivalries seems to be at the root of much of the violence.

And as Britain's most senior generals reportedly told the new Labour prime minister last week, the consequences of failure in Afghanistan are far greater than Iraq because it could lead to an Islamist government taking power in Pakistan and controlling its nuclear arsenal.

Britain's take

The warnings by Britain's generals, made public by Lord Inge, the retired chief of the defence staff, echo the sombre and detailed assessment by an all-party committee of British MPs.

Britain has upwards of 7,000 military personnel in Afghanistan, more than double the number it has in Iraq, and the defence committee report envisions a long and involved commitment to the region, which should be of interest to Canadians, in that our own military commitment there is supposed to conclude in 2009.

(Incidentally, the full committee report quotes British Gen. David Richards as noting that the Canadian-led Operation Medusa, a big military foray against the Taliban, "was a reasonably close run last year" and that if Kandahar had fallen, the neighbouring provinces where the British and Dutch are based would likely have fallen as well because of the symbolic importance of Kandahar to the local Pashtun people.)

The British defence committee report concludes that while the fight for Afghanistan is not failing, there have been setbacks — among them, too many Afghan civilians being killed and still too much corruption in the Afghan security forces. But the most important factor is that there are too few troops on the ground to win and that "some of our NATO allies" — though specifically not Canada, it points out — "are leaving us in the lurch."

The all-party report follows on the heels of the British government's decision to significantly upgrade its diplomatic and aid presence in Afghanistan, along with its military one, and seems designed to send a clear message to its NATO partners, one that will surely be heard in Canada's Parliament: It is: We Brits are in this for the long haul. Who is with us?

Playing with firebrands in Pakistan

The Chronicle Herald (Canada) 07.22.07

PERVEZ MUSHARRAF may be the dictator of Pakistan, but ever since the jihad genie got out of the bottle on Sept. 11, he has become a prisoner of circumstance.

In the old days, Pakistani secret services were more or less in control of the "fanatic factor." Islamist extremists were useful instruments of Pakistani foreign policy. Support for the Taliban, when they were in power, gave Pakistan influence over Afghanistan and served as an outlet for Pakistani and foreign militants who wanted to establish an Islamic utopia. (It’s always preferable to conduct such dangerous experiments next door instead of in your own backyard.)

Meanwhile, other fundamentalist groups were permitted to use Pakistani territory and logistics to wage a proxy war against India over the disputed land of Kashmir without getting into a full-fledged military confrontation, which Pakistan would be sure to lose and which it barely managed to avoid more than once.

However, when the Taliban teamed up with al-Qaida to attack American cities, the lid was blown off the terror jar. The extremists could no longer be contained – they had become free radicals by setting their own agenda and declaring open warfare against the United States, an ally of Pakistan.

(It is true that the U.S. had financed, with Pakistan’s acquiescence, Islamist warriors in their quest to boot the Soviet army out of Afghanistan. But those who call 9/11 "blowback" miss an important distinction: The U.S. never trained the mujahedeen, the 1980s precursors to the Taliban, to direct their attacks against hapless Russian civilians in the streets of Moscow. Perhaps the winding path leading from local resistance to global terror should have been foreseen, but it certainly was not blazed by the CIA.)

In the wake of 9/11, Gen. Musharraf was forced, under intense U.S. pressure, to abandon the Taliban and to rein in other extremists. He made his choice, but it was never as clear-cut as it sounded. Mostly, he pursued a policy of containment, trying to manage the sympathies of millions of Pakistanis for the Taliban with the exigencies of the war on terror.

Recently, he had even brokered a ceasefire in the lawless northern tribal areas, used by the resurgent Taliban as a safe haven from which to attack NATO troops in Afghanistan and where al-Qaida is believed to have recovered much of its pre-9/11 coherence.

That deal greatly benefited the outlaws while buying breathing space for Gen. Musharraf. But extremists can’t help themselves; sooner or later, they take extreme action. Last week, suicide bombers attacked Pakistani military and civilian targets in the north, as well as a crowd in the capital. Pro-Taliban spokesmen called off the 10-month-old truce and declared holy war in response to the storming of the Red Mosque in Islamabad earlier this month. Here again, the religious radicals, who had links both to the Taliban-friendly north and to a group responsible for terrorist attacks on Indian soil, forced Gen. Musharraf’s hand.

Not only were they calling outright for his assassination, but they had become a law unto themselves. The chief cleric had decreed the capital should follow religious law and students from the affiliated seminaries followed up with acts of vigilantism, like kidnapping prostitutes and intimidating the owners of film and music outlets. Not only that, the mosque complex had been turned into an armed camp, and when finally besieged by the Pakistani commandos, its leaders had refused repeated entreaties to surrender.

They were bent on a bloody showdown, perhaps hoping the bloodbath would spark a pro-Taliban revolution. Gen. Musharraf has nothing left to gain, except time, by playing with these firebrands. He himself has expressed alarm at the creeping "Talibanization" of the 13,000 or so religious seminaries in Pakistan. Talibanization doesn’t end there – sympathizers also exist in parliament, in the ranks of the army and of the secret service.

Gen. Musharraf still seems inclined to try appeasement. Yet if he hesitates to use force now, he is lost. A crackdown is in order for those schools that have become jihad factories. As well, Pakistan’s powerful military needs to impose a semblance of order in the remote northern tribal areas.

This is not just Gen. Musharraf’s problem. Defanging the Taliban inside Pakistan enhances the prospects for Canadian and other NATO troops in the restless south of Afghanistan. Even more important, however, is preventing Taliban types from seizing power in nuclear-armed Pakistan.

Battle against corruption second front in Afghanistan

For Canada's reconstruction team, it's a daily challenge

Ottawa Citizen; CanWest News Service, Saturday, July 21, 2007

KANDAHAR - In the remote badlands of this dusty, sun-baked province, Lt.-Col. Bob Chamberlain and his soldiers are fighting another side of Afghanistan's unconventional war. Instead of bullets and mortars, they rely on legal pads, inky thumbprints and time-coded digital photos.

Their enemy is not Taliban or al-Qaida insurgents, but something as old as democracy itself: blatant, self-serving corruption. "It's a work in progress," says Chamberlain, commander of Canada's provincial reconstruction team, "an asymmetric approach, village to village."

Whether it is digging a well or repairing a school or hospital, Canada's mainly military PRT faces the same obstacle as its 36 partner countries here in Afghanistan: how to deliver aid to a battered country plagued by chronic corruption infecting all levels of government, from national bodies down to provincial and local councils.

Chamberlain realizes his soldiers must improvise if they are to prevent the pool of aid money they control from simply being stolen.

"When we deliver any Canadian capacity, we have a process on the ground," Chamberlain explains. This, he says, "could mean someone with a message pad writing things down, taking a thumbprint of the individual, taking a photo of them.

"So that at the end of the day I know: that's the contractor, he's the son of --, here's his fingerprint, here's the time/location, here's the photo of the project, and here's the contract that goes with it."

While the military fight against the reconstituted Taliban and al-Qaida insurgency often takes place in maze-like mud-walled villages and farmers' fields, Afghanistan's battle against corruption is unfolding literally everywhere else, from newly created government ministries in Kabul to village councils.

"If we cannot successfully tackle this problem, I think the ultimate success of the exercise -- especially of the governance-building exercise in Afghanistan -- is certainly in jeopardy,"

Hansjoerg Kretschmer, the European Commission ambassador to Afghanistan, said from his office in Kabul.

Corruption is the No. 1 obstacle to peace and economic prosperity in Afghanistan, says Chris Alexander, a special United Nations representative in Kabul and a former Canadian ambassador.

"It is tragic to see Canadian men and women in uniform, to see UN colleagues, to see Afghan leaders relying on persons to represent them and to be their partners in extremely important ventures ... who are in fact much more interested in trafficking narcotics, much more interested in serving their tribe ... who are much more interested in gathering police salaries unto themselves than in paying police," Alexander said during a visit to Ottawa earlier this year.

Alexander's view is bolstered by numerous international reports, including assessments by the U.S. State Department, a leading American think-tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and as recently as the past week, Britain's parliamentary defence committee.

Such reports paint a bleak portrait of endemic corruption in Afghanistan, which includes criminal gangs and local mafias that are represented at virtually every level of government as well as the judicial system.

Taken together, they document widespread examples of embezzlement; corrupt government, police and health officials; numerous instances of theft; and mismanagement of major aid projects.

Alexander says corrupt officials are not causing the insurgency, but they are aggravating and prolonging it. "Governance of this kind, of this quality, must be rooted out, branch and root, if the effort of Canadians and others in southern Afghanistan is to be meaningful."

GOOD GOVERNANCE VITAL - And yet, he says, the West is underestimating the "vital importance" of bringing good governance to Afghanistan.

Corruption is endemic across Afghanistan but especially so in the south, including Kandahar, where Canada's 2,500 troops are based, and in neighbouring Helmand province, a centre of the country's flourishing opium trade.

"Poor governance tends to arise in conditions of insecurity because government officials acquire bad habits under pressure and when they're forced to take desperate measures to stand against a very dangerous enemy," Alexander explains in an interview.

The quality of good governance is weakest at the lower district-council level of government, he says. "It's good that the councils exist. They're elected. Some of them are performing very well. But some of them, now that they've been elected, are playing a narrow game, and again trying to capture resources and pursuing a self-serving agenda."

Kretschmer, of the European Commission, says the traditional tribal power structures need to be replaced with a new mentality in which the acquisition of power through merit -- not merely connections -- is the overriding factor. "Afghanistan is very much a country which is operating on the basis of personal relationships."

The World Bank and other international bodies, in conjunction with the Afghan government, are, in fact, working on anti-corruption strategies, Kretschmer say. A key battleground is the poppy fields, which have re-established Afghanistan as the leading supplier of opium for the world's illegal heroin trade.

Kim Howells, who until recently was Britain's Foreign Office minister, says Karzai understands the importance of fighting corruption. Toward that end, he must change deeply ingrained habits and promote democracy, not to mention root out senior people in his government who are known to be profiting from Afghanistan's illicit narcotics trade.

"Wherever I've gone in Afghanistan, that's been the major source of complaint amongst the ordinary Afghanis that I've spoken to," Howells said in a recent interview. "Why should they give up opium-poppy farming, for example, when they know there are some very senior members of the administration involved in trafficking? Why should they not be part of that culture of bribery and corruption when they know the local police chief is taking money?"

As Canada's death toll mounts, many Canadians hunger for proof that some credible form of rebuilding is occurring here, that the sacrifice is worth it. But on those amorphous front lines in the war on corruption, the overriding concern is all about convincing Afghans to trust their central government as the sole provider of a better way of life.

"For the governor, his accountability is for the funds he's been given, says Chamberlain, Canada's PRT commander. "It nowhere meets Canadian probity requirements and never will in the Canadian way. What we want the Afghans to do is discover their approach. It's early days," he adds. "I'm very optimistic we have the right approach. Given time, we'll get to that point."

Canadian military quiet on Taliban casualty figures
National Post , Friday, July 20, 2007

GHORAK, Afghanistan -- One of the creaking, groaning, museum-ready Leopards the Canadians use as tanks over here was having another fried engine replaced in the middle of nowhere this week when an approaching car got a bit too close to the idling convoy.

The driver ignored soldiers waving it a safe distance away and a warning shot was fired at a spot 100 metres in front of the overcrowded vehicle, a message received to the sound of car brakes screeching to a halt in a cloud of dust.  

This was the only time a Canadian soldier in the huge convoy had fired off a round in the almost two weeks we were on the road -- and even then the soldier got a tongue-lashing from the commanding officer for shooting without sufficient cause.

But soldiers told me they could empathize with the itchy trigger finger. Most have spent almost six months in Afghanistan without taking a single shot in anger. They can't believe how little combat they've seen.

This might be a good thing for their families, but the delicate question needs to be asked. This six-month rotation has lost 22 of its finest to the insurgency. How many Taliban has it killed?

The short answer from the Canadian military is odd: no comment. They won't disclose precise numbers, approximate numbers, reveal whether the Taliban toll is single digits, double digits or in the hundreds. Just tell me we've killed more of them than they've killed of our soldiers, I plead. Sorry, battle group spokesman Capt. Martell Thompson says, we don't discuss enemy numbers.

Military officials suggested the Afghan army may have a guesstimate, but cautioned it would be outrageously inflated for propaganda value. The justification for the secrecy-shrouded death toll is that Canada doesn't want to get into a body count competition with the Taliban, the theory being they'd seek to avenge our tally by going after more Canadian soldiers.

That only works if the Taliban can kill at will -- stamp their feet in anger after reading the claim in a Canadian newspaper, wave their rocket-propelled grenade launchers in the air and unleash an overnight massacre to even the score. Sorry, no way. If they could wipe out a platoon tomorrow, they'd do it, whether we'd killed 10 or 10,000 of their extremist brethren.

My theory, after two weeks of monitoring the Canadian deployment's activities via radio, is there simply isn't a whack of Taliban-hunting going on anywhere in Kandahar right now -- subject to change without notice.

This partly reflects Canada's changing role from that of military force attacking on its own initiative to that of assisting Afghan soldiers enforce their combat priorities.

Even so, Canadians have just two confirmed and photographed Taliban kills to their credit in the past month, a sobering contrast to nine fallen soldiers at the hands of insurgents during the same time frame.

Just this week, 17 Afghan police officers were killed in various hot spots throughout the country, compared to only four dead Taliban.

There have got to be more enemy casualties, of course. Informed observers note Taliban fighters turned into a pink mist by aircraft bombing runs are not counted, although a bombed corpse is just as legitimately dead as a bullet-ridden one, in my view.

And, as someone now sleeping perhaps a hundred metres from the main Kandahar military runway, I can confirm there are a helluva lot of fighter jets with bombs taking off that no amount of earplug stuffing can muffle.

Still, it seems bizarre that Canada acknowledges Afghan police and army casualties promptly and moves as quickly as possible to name its military dead, yet success in enemy extermination is a tightly held secret.

If Canada only highlights its own victims and keeps the enemy casualty count under wraps, one might argue the Taliban are at least winning the propaganda war, if not the military conflict.

MR. MIKE'S LEGACY

National Post , Saturday, July 21, 2007

NAHRIN, Afghanistan -The school that Mike Frastacky built has seven sturdy buildings with galvanized steel roofs and precise orange framing, surrounded by the barren mountains of northern Afghanistan's Baghlan province.

The children laughing in the playground walk here each morning from 10 villages. Enrolment is almost 700, depending on whether the rivers are swollen or the wheat and rice needs harvesting. More than half of the students are girls.

"Please stand up," a young male teacher says as he enters a classroom where 20 Grade 7 girls sit cross-legged on pale blue Afghan carpets, awaiting English class, their pens and UNICEF notebooks ready. The girls stand in unison. "How are you?" the teacher asks. "Very good," the girls respond before sitting to begin lessons.

Anyone who thinks Canadians are not making a difference in Afghanistan, that all they are doing is fighting Taliban while trying to dodge roadside bombs, has probably never heard of the Maktab Hazrat Osman School.

It was built by Mr. Frastacky, a Vancouver carpenter who constructed it from scratch using the skills of his trade and money he contributed himself and collected from friends. He spent US$80,000 on the project. It also cost him his life.

A year ago, on July 23, two gunmen awoke the 56-year-old humanitarian in the night and shot him three times in the chest. Police have concluded it was a political killing, ordered by the insurgent group Hezb-e Islami. Schools mean a return to normalcy, and insurgents thrive on chaos.

Afghanistan is now Canada's biggest development program. The school at Nahrin is only one small project, but it is a symbol of both the successes achieved by Canadians and the challenges they face in a country that needs everything but where resistance to change and to outsiders is rooted in deeply conservative traditions and foreign-backed Islamist groups.

While critics say Canada is not doing enough development work in Afghanistan, Mr. Frastacky's murder points to a more subtle reality: that Canada is improving the daily lives of Afghans, but there are consequences to pushing too hard, too fast for change--and they can be fatal.

"I was shocked, horrified when I heard that Mike was killed," said Gary Moorehead of Shelter for Life, a charity that rebuilt homes in the area following a 2002 earthquake that killed more than 1,000 and left thousands homeless. "Lots of people were ashamed that Mike Frastacky was killed. But you know, maybe he expected too much from the Afghan people."

A plaque mounted inside the school reads: "This school was built to improve the future of the children and the families of the surrounding communities so that together they can build a country where Afghans feel safe and look toward their tomorrows with hope and confidence."

It is a fitting--if unexpected--epitaph to the man whose legacy this became.

The Frastacky family immigrated to Canada following the Second World War. Rudolph Frastacky was an anti-communist politician in Bratislava, and when the communists began to take control of Slovakia, he fled to Switzerland. He procured fake French passports so his wife, daughter Luba, son Fedor and aunt could get to the American-controlled zone in Austria. They went to Switzerland, Italy, France and, finally, Canada. Mike Frastacky was born a year later.

The Frastackys had career ambitions for their youngest son, but he had his own ideas. He wanted to work with wood. In the early 1970s, he left Toronto and moved to Vancouver to apprentice with a marine carpenter.

He loved to travel and visited 50 countries, often choosing remote locations such as the Western Sahara, Yemen and Madagascar. He was particularly taken by the mountains that hug the borders of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Tajikistan. He felt at peace there, he would tell friends at the slide shows he gave when he returned home. "Mike fell in love with the Afghan people and wanted to do something for them," his sister Luba said.

Rather than joining an aid organization, he decided to go it alone. Together with a California businessman of Afghani origin named Hamayoun Kator, Mr. Frastacky put together blueprints for a school.

"Mike wanted 20% of the money for the school to come from the local people. But the local people did not have this much money," said Mr. Kator. "I promised to him, I will collect this money from my family and I give to him to build the school."

The school grounds are off a remote dirt road outside the village of Turk Sayad. Mr. Frastacky lived nearby at Mr. Kator's Western-style bungalow. It had a rose garden and peach and apricot trees, surrounded by a high fence. One of Mr. Kator's nephews, Liaqat Hayat, worked as his interpreter.

Mr. Hayat and Mr. Frastacky first worked together in 2002, when Mr. Frastacky was looking into renovating an orphanage in Faizabad, in the northern province of Badakshan. They became close friends, travelling together while the Canadian searched for a project.

He found it in the village of Turk Sayad. "There are ruined mud brick villages everywhere and most people have been living in military-type tents for the last year," he wrote in an e-mail.

The locals welcomed his plans to build a permanent school. Many schools in Afghanistan are simple white UNICEF tents with nothing to keep out the cold in winter or the sand during the scorching summers.

He hired local tradesmen to help with construction. Rather than using traditional Afghan building methods, he insisted on a more sturdy design in line with his high standards. He built classrooms, a well and a library stocked with books. He organized teachers' seminars, and an adult women's education class.

Mr. Frastacky sometimes butted heads with the Afghans. He did not get along with Nahrin's top education official; he considered him corrupt, describing him in e-mails as a "cretin" and opium kingpin. He fumed at the village that would only allow its children to attend the school up to Grade 4, and called it "barbaric" when a father threatened a family with a Kalashnikov when it declined to marry off their 15-year old daughter to his son.

His frustrations always met the same response: That's just the way things are done here. "You have to remember, we are foreigners in their country," said Klaus Bar, a German aid worker with Op Mercy Afghanistan. "You can't take your European or North American yardstick or way of thinking and expect Afghans to think the same way. You just can't do that."

Between trips to Nahrin, Mr. Frastacky worked in Vancouver as a self-employed cabinetmaker and high-end finishing carpenter. He drove a van to his contract jobs and also owned a Miata that he loaned to friends when he was away. He sold his duplex in a leafy residential district of Vancouver's west side and had just bought a dream house he hoped to spend months renovating. He returned to Afghanistan every year for months at a time.

"Why do it?" he once wrote. "What are the positives? ?It has come down to wanting to create an opportunity for a group of kids to seek their potential and be supported in their aspirations.

"It has not been an easy job," he wrote another time. "I have had to deal with corruption, lies, arrogance and laziness. I was hoping that after this visit, I could step back from the school and leave the daily operation of it to the headmaster and teachers and to you, the parents of the students."

Instead, he complained of laziness among many staff at the school, the custodian not cleaning, sports equipment being stolen and a problematic headmaster he had to fire.

A new headmaster is in charge and the 20 male teachers cover subjects ranging from math, science, English, history, and geography to Pashto, Dari, Arabic, the Koran, poetry and physical education. Last year, the school offered grades 1 to 6. This year Grade 7 was added. Mr. Frastacky intended to add another grade every year up to Grade 9.

In one classroom, the teacher writes on the blackboard: A B C D E F G and asks the girls to repeat the letters. One of the girls says she wants to become a doctor. Another wants to be teacher. One says she wants to be president of Afghanistan.

"All of Nahrin knew and loved Mr. Mike," said Abdul Qadir, who runs the local pharmacy. "I asked him, 'Do you have any children?' He said, 'Yes, I have 600 children going to my school.' I thought to myself, 'What a good man and God bless him."

Friends say Mr. Frastacky felt safe in Afghanistan because of the goodwill he had earned with his school. "He felt protected," said his friend Shelley Hall. "However, towards the end, Mike was feeling more and more worried about the situation in Nahrin."

Baghlan province was descending into lawlessness when Mr. Frastacky returned last year. Programs to disarm militant groups had been poorly implemented and the province remained awash with weapons. Warlords were growing illegal poppy crops and committing crimes with impunity. Police were unprofessional, untrained and maintained close ties to the warlords, gangs and insurgent groups.

Mr. Kator and Mr. Hayat advised Mr. Frastacky against returning to the school. "I met him at his hotel in Kabul and I told him that the criminal and political situation in Nahrin was very bad," Mr. Kator recalled. "I begged him not to go. But Mike was so headstrong, I could not stop him."

Mr. Frastacky was aware of the risks. The e-mails he sent shortly before his death hinted at his concern over the disintegrating security: "I have still not armed myself, though if the opportunity presented itself I would not hesitate. I am looking into 'renting' a Kalashnikov while I am here but no one seems to want to part with theirs for some reason ? I am fairly convinced that my connection with the school offers me--and I use this word loosely -- some protection."

One day, he drove past the scene of a suicide bombing that had occurred an hour earlier. "The government just can't seem to get anything better than a tenuous hold on the security situation and it seems frightened to assert itself for fear of upsetting the populace," he wrote. But he was reassured that NATO troops seemed to be moving into the region. He wrote to his sister saying he would return to Canada by August.

"Mike would never want to be remembered as a martyr," said his friend Ms. Hall. "He loved that part of the world and wanted to help the Afghan people. Mike was a complex man who lived life to the fullest."

The night of the murder, it was hot and muggy in Nahrin. Mr. Hayat was sleeping on a mattress in the front garden under a canopy. "At around 1 a.m.," he recalls, "two tall and thin men wearing black turbans and white shalwar kameez [cotton tunic and pants] woke me up by savagely beating me with the back of their Kalashnikovs."

They tied his hands and forced their way into the house, dragging him with them to the room where Mr. Frastacky was sleeping. The guard, Muhammad Nawab, was asleep outside his room. He tried to shoot the gunmen but his gun jammed. He ran outside to get help.

"The two killers pulled Mike into the bathroom, then shut the door, but they left me right outside," Mr. Hayat said. "I heard one shot, then the second shot, followed by the third. I started to cry as I knew they had killed him."

The neighbours arrived and opened fire at the men but they got away. Locals reported seeing 10 other men. Police arrived an hour later. Mr. Hayat told them he was unable to see the killers' faces since they wore scarves. "But with their black headscarves they could have been Taliban men or some other group."

He thinks their original plan was to kidnap Mr. Frastacky, but they shot him dead when they met resistance. An investigation by the Afghan Ministry of Interior concluded anti-government groups planned the murder, most likely Hezb-e Islami.

Police took Mr. Hayat, the bodyguard and two neighbours into custody and held them for almost two months. Four other men who Afghan intelligence sources claim belonged to "a gang of killers and looters" were later arrested, but locals said they have since been released as well.

"I don't know who it was who killed Mike," Mr. Kator said. "It might be robbers, might be government, might be police. There are a lot of people here who are uneducated people. And they don't like the education."

The Canadian Ambassador to Afghanistan, Arif Lalani, said he had seen the police reports and the file on the case but could not comment further.

"His story is a tragic one and a very unfortunate one," he said. "There are security precautions that I think aid workers and other Canadians who are working here take and that's part of doing business here."

Metal posts encircle the school, the foundations of the wall that Mr. Frastacky was building to keep the donkeys, goats and sheep out of the playground and the classrooms. Mr. Kator has vowed to finish the wall. Mr. Frastacky's dog still wanders around, well fed by the locals. His name is Lucky.

The villagers all remember "Mr. Mike" and what he did for their children, but few Canadians know this place or realize that Canada's official death count in Afghanistan is 66 soldiers, one diplomat and a carpenter.

[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.]