In this bulletin:

• Recruiting Taleban 'child soldiers'
• ICRC warns of growing civilian toll in Afghanistan
• Two Badghis districts fall to Taliban: MP
• 24 Taliban killed in clashes, air strikes in Afghanistan
• U.S.: NATO has intercepted Iranian arms
• Iran: Poker-Faced Amid Allegations Of Interference In Afghanistan
• Cheney's Iran-Arms-to-Taliban Gambit Rebuffed
• Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan agree on drug fight plan
• AFGHANISTAN: Police casualties high due to lack of training, equipment
• Rome to host conference on Afghanistan security
• Pakistan presses tribesmen to expel Al-Qaeda
• For southern Afghan women, learning is for the brave
• Afghanistan: Workers Still Await Security Clearance To Repair Kajaki Dam
• As Kandahar rebuilds, the clock is ticking
• Taliban surrender and a mass attack

Recruiting Taleban 'child soldiers'

By Syed Shoaib Hasan - BBC News, Tank Tuesday, 12 June 2007

Children in Tank, a remote town at the centre of Taleban activity in north-west Pakistan, are going missing. It is a disturbing phenomenon that Tank shares with other towns on the edge of Pakistan's tribal belt.

Reports says the children - some as young as 11 - are being kidnapped by pro-Taleban militants. Most people in Tank are unwilling to admit it is happening and few will talk about it.

Pro-Taleban militants in the region deny they are recruiting children, blaming the region's troubles on government policy.

When people in Tank can be persuaded to talk about the missing children, most appear to guard every word. "They don't really kidnap the children," says a local teacher.

But he is hesitant and thinks his words through. "The Taleban convince them it is their duty to carry out jihad [holy struggle]."

But then he admits what he's left unsaid. "How much convincing does a child need? ... Especially when promised adventure."

The trouble is that in most cases, the "adventure" the Taleban offer usually results in no possibility of return. "They are being trained as fidayeen," the teacher half whispers. "Fidayeen" literally means "those who sacrifice their lives".

In Afghanistan today, the term has a new meaning - suicide bomber. The tale of a local school administrator in the town is typical of what is happening.

"The purpose of their visit [in January] was clear from the start," he said. "The militants came to town with a mission, and wanted to convert us to their cause.

"They said that jihad was obligatory and those who heed the call are rewarded," the principal said. "As many as 30 students from each of the four government schools in Tank 'enlisted'.

A similar number have also joined from private schools. The ages of those taken are between 11 to 15 years.

Asked why the school administration has not simply refused, the staff appear flabbergasted. "Do you want me to lose my neck?" one asks bluntly. "The Taleban don't ask for permission - they just tell us." Even so, not everyone has given way to the militants.

At the private English medium school, Oxford High, an extraordinary battle for influence over the pupils was recently fought. "They came on 23 March but the children had left," said a school teacher.

"The Taleban said they would be back later." They did indeed return three days later, while an exam was taking place. The militants agreed for the exam to finish before they tried to take them away.

"They went outside to wait at 1000," the teacher said, "and an hour later all hell broke loose." Local police and security forces had been monitoring the militants' activities.

"The first sound we heard was of a helicopter flying in low and then a loud explosion," a local explained. This was at 1100. Over the next two hours the militants and security forces fought pitched battles.

The militants suffered greater losses in the earlier exchanges. But they were soon back in greater numbers, and rolled through the town attacking anything or anyone connected with the government. Some of the fighters were children as young as 12, eyewitnesses told the BBC.

The security forces were also attacked, and now keep a low profile. Since then, the militants have had a free hand in the town.

But the authorities are not willing to admit anything is amiss. "I have been here just two months," says Muhammad Idrees Khan, the town's deputy chief of police.

He argues that the parents should come forward if there is a problem. But locals says that parents are extremely scared. "They harbour hopes of their children returning if they keep quiet," explains one. "But if they open their mouths, the whole family would suffer the Taleban's wrath."

On the streets of Tank, students coming out of the local college have ambivalent feelings about the situation. "We are not extremists... we are liberal people," says a student who has just appeared for his physics paper.

"But our identity is Islamic." Others are highly critical of the government. "They are the ones who should be protecting us," said one, "and yet there is not much sign that they are even half-prepared to do so."

ICRC warns of growing civilian toll in Afghanistan

Tue Jun 12, 6:41 AM ET - GENEVA (AFP) - The international Red Cross warned Tuesday that Afghan civilians were paying the price as increasingly bitter fighting between international forces and Taliban insurgents spreads across Afghanistan.

"The humanitarian situation in Afghanistan is worse now than it was a year ago," said Pierre Kraehenbuehl, director of operations for the International Committee of the Red Cross.

"Civilians suffer horribly from mounting threats to their security, such as increasing numbers of roadside bombs and suicide attacks, and regular aerial bombing raids," he added.

The ICRC said in a statement that the conflict pitting Afghan government and US and NATO forces against the armed opposition had "significantly intensified" in the south and east of the country since 2006.

It has also spread to the north and west, resulting in "a growing number of civilian casualties," it added.

The increasingly polarised situation is hampering humanitarian and development work outside major cities, leaving many civilians "in dire need of emergency assistance," the ICRC said.

"They also lack access to basic services. It is incredibly difficult for ordinary Afghans to lead a normal life," Kraehenbuehl added.

Nearly 13 billion dollars of international aid has been spent in Afghanistan in a US-led reconstruction and security effort following the 2001 toppling of the Taliban regime.

But the development effort has been sharply criticised for failing to produce much progress in war-shattered Afghanistan. Scores of civilians have been killed this year in attacks by Taliban forces or in military operations against the militants.

Late Monday, rockets fired from Pakistan at a US and Afghan military base in southeastern Afghanistan landed on civilian houses and wounded a family of five, the local governor said.

Civilians are caught up in suicide and roadside bombings by insurgents, but the rising number of civilian casualties from the US and NATO military effort has also caused alarm.

Southern Afghanistan is the birthplace of the extremist Taliban movement and the area has seen most of the attacks from the movement's insurgency.

More than 50,000 foreign soldiers, most of them Americans, are in Afghanistan to help Afghan security forces.

Two Badghis districts fall to Taliban: MP

KABUL (PAN): A female member of parliament from the western Badghis said two districts of the province were under the Taliban control for the previous two days. Talking to journalists, Azeeta Rafat said the districts of Qormach and Bala Murghab, captured by the militants two days back, were still in their possession. Voicing concern over the capture of the districts by rebels, the female MP demanded of the government to deploy more troops to ensure security in that area. “The plan for capturing the two districts was made 45 days back but security officials did not take any action to thwart it,” she disclosed.

In case of Bala Murghab, security forces presented resistance at only two points and there were some casualties, but the district of Qormach was captured without any fight, she continued.

Rafat said the militants set headquarters of the Bala Murghab district on fire after its capture. Both sides suffered casualties during exchange of fire, she added. Taliban self-proclaimed spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, on the other hand, claimed Bala Murghab district was still under their control. However, security officials in the western zone rejected the Taliban claim as baseless. Maj. Gen. Ikramuddin Yawar, regional police chief, said the government forces launched an operation immediately after the Taliban attack which was repulsed soon. He said

both the districts were under government control.

24 Taliban killed in clashes, air strikes in Afghanistan

Kabul—US led coalition and Afghan troops killed more than 24 suspected Taliban

fighters during an eight-hour battle in southern Afghanistan, the coalition said Tuesday.

The troops were initially ambushed by militants in Shah Wali Kotin Kandahar province Monday, but retreated after several of their fighters were killed.

A force of some 30 Taliban later attacked the same coalition convoy, and

Western forces called in air strikes on a compound and a vehicle. “During the

eight-hour battle, over two dozen enemy fighters were killed,” the coalition

said.

Seven Afghan policemen were killed in a gunfight that erupted between police and US soldiers in unclear circumstances in eastern Afghanistan, government officials said Tuesday.

Afghan police said the soldiers had attacked a police checkpost in the

eastern province of Nangarhar around midnight but the US-led coalition said its

soldiers had come under attack and returned fire.

“Last night at 12, as the result of a misunderstanding, the coalition

forces attacked a police post in Nangarhar province in which seven police were

martyred and another five were wounded,” interior ministry spokesman Zemarai

Bashary said.

A brigade commander for the province, Nasir Ahmad Safi, accused the US

forces of attacking the post in the Khogyani district about 30 kilometres

southwest of the provincial capital, Jalalabad.

“Last night the Americans attacked our police post in the district and

then they asked for air support. They attacked us from ground and air,” he said.

“They killed seven police brutally.”

The district governor, Haji Zalmai, also confirmed that seven police

were dead and said three were wounded in the attack. The US-led coalition force said the troops had come under attack while trying to “conduct an operation on a suspected Taliban safe house.”

U.S.: NATO has intercepted Iranian arms

Paris 06.13.07 (AP) - NATO has intercepted Iranian weapons shipments to Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents, providing evidence Iran is violating international law to aid a group it once considered a bitter enemy, a senior U.S. diplomat said Wednesday.

"There's irrefutable evidence the Iranians are now doing this," Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said on CNN. "It's certainly coming from the government of Iran. It's coming from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard corps command, which is a basic unit of the Iranian government."

Speaking separately to The Associated Press, Burns said NATO must act to stop the shipments. The Iran-Afghanistan frontier is "a very long border. But the Iranians need to know that we are there and that we're going to oppose this."

"It's a very serious question," he said, adding that Iran is in "outright violation" of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

The State Department later appeared to step back from Burns' assertion the Iranian government was directly involved in the transfers but stressed Washington has proof that weapons from Iran were being sent to Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

"We absolutely are certain that there are Iranian-origin weapons flowing into Afghanistan to the Taliban," spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.

"We do not know the extent of any Iranian government involvement at this point, but given the nature of the regime and also some of its past behaviors elsehwhere — whether in the Palestinian areas or in Iraq — it certainly raises very serious questions and we are quite concerned about it," he said.

Tehran, which is also in a dispute with the West over its nuclear program, denies it is aiding the Taliban, calling the accusation part of a broad anti-Iranian campaign. Iran says it makes no sense that a Shiite-led government like itself would help the fundamentalist Sunni movement of the Taliban.

Burns acknowledged that it was "curious" that Iran would aid the Taliban.

"It's quite surprising," he told CNN. "The Iranians had said that they were the mortal enemies of the Taliban in 2001 and '02."

Burns did not give details on the scope of the alleged Iranian shipments, although he appeared to indicate that they were limited. "I don't think it's made a substantial difference in the greater theater of the war," he said.

"It is not going to turn the tide against us, but it is very troublesome, it is illegal under international law ... and the Iranians need to stop it," Burns told the AP.

Burns, who was holding talks in Paris, first accused Iran on Tuesday of transferring weapons to the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan — the most direct comments yet on the issue by a ranking American official.

In Afghanistan last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Iranian weapons were falling into the hands of anti-government Taliban fighters, but he stopped short of blaming Tehran.

Iran's possible role in aiding insurgents in Iraq has been hotly debated, and last month some Western and Persian Gulf governments alleged that the Islamic government in Tehran is also secretly bolstering Taliban fighters.

In an AP interview Monday, U.S. Army Gen. Dan McNeill said Taliban fighters are showing signs of better training, using combat techniques comparable to "an advanced Western military" in ambushes of U.S. Special Forces soldiers.

"In Afghanistan it is clear that the Taliban is receiving support, including arms from ... elements of the Iranian regime," British Prime Minister Tony Blair wrote in the May 31 edition of the Economist.

On the Iranian nuclear issue, Burns claimed that sanctions already leveled against Tehran were being felt and reiterated the threat of more if the country refuses to suspend uranium enrichment — which the West fears could be meant for the production of nuclear weapons.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday dismissed the possibility that a third set of Security Council sanctions would harm Iran.

Burns disagreed. "I think most people would say that the Iranians are experiencing considerable economic difficulties because of the financial sanctions that have been taken outside the Council and because of Security Council sanctions," he told CNN.

While diplomatic solutions are preferable, "they will get sanctions if they choose confrontation," Burns said. "All of us want to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons power. That's the policy of the entire world."

Iran: Poker-Faced Amid Allegations Of Interference In Afghanistan

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty - June 12, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- As Iran and the United States return -- after a break of nearly three decades -- to direct and formal diplomatic discussion through dialogue over Iraq, it is Tehran that appears to be raising the stakes by demanding an exclusive agenda and blindly pursuing its own advantage.

Tehran has not been shy about the fact that it can make life difficult for the United States in Iraq, and elsewhere, when the occasion arises. Iran seems to be playing a familiar game of creating quagmires and then offering its adversary a way out as a bargaining chip.

The forced expulsion of tens of thousands of Afghan refugees from Iran sent shock waves through western Afghanistan. Without breaking international law, Iran demonstrated its influence over Kabul's ability to govern and the inadequacy of Western reconstruction efforts.

Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said recently that "Iran does not intend to provide circumstances whereby the occupiers can end their occupation gracefully, nor do we approve of what the Americans did in Iraq."

Tehran sounds as though it is trying to strengthen its hand -- and conversely weaken Washington's -- in the context of its discussions with the United States.

The Islamic republic has sought advantage in its dealings with the United States by demonstrating that it can destabilize Afghanistan with ease and on multiple fronts.

Until very recently, most Afghan government officials and the Afghan public would have pointed to Pakistan as the neighbor meddling in their country's affairs and supporting the insurgency. But early this year, reports began to surface of alleged Iranian intrusions into western Afghan airspace and of suspected camps inside Iran where opponents of Afghanistan's central government were allegedly being trained. Kabul, its hands full with Pakistan, initially tried to downplay suggestions of Iranian interference. The signs became harder to ignore when U.S. and NATO military sources claimed to have discovered weapons of Iranian origin inside Afghanistan. Questions about Iran's motives began circulating. Why would Tehran support Afghan clients with weapons that are traceable back to Iran? If it could easily send anonymous weapons, why wouldn't Iran do so?

The forced expulsion of tens of thousands of Afghan refugees from Iran also sent shock waves through western Afghanistan, and sparked a humanitarian crisis. Some 85,000 Afghans were forced to return to a land that could hardly absorb them. The expulsions also sent a message to Kabul. Without breaking international law, Iran flexed its muscles and demonstrated its influence over Kabul's ability to govern and the inadequacy of Western reconstruction efforts.

Iran arguably holds a stronger hand in Afghanistan than in Iraq. In the 1980s, even as the Iran-Iraq War raged, Iran was playing host to more than 1 million Afghan refugees and cultivating strong political and military alliances with several fronts inside Afghanistan. Some of Iran's closest allies in the Afghan power structure are now in positions of considerable authority in Kabul. Unlike in Iraq, the Iranians also can infiltrate Afghanistan with relative ease, since inhabitants of eastern Iran share many common traits -- not limited to language -- with their western Afghan neighbors.

If Iran's past behavior is any indication, the actions in Afghanistan are not coincidental. Traceable weapons and airspace violations might serve as reminders that Iran is watching -- ready, able, and willing to engage if necessary. Should Washington and its NATO allies maintain their pressure on Iran -- on its nuclear program, for instance, support for terrorism, or human rights -- Iran might prompt some difficult moments for them. Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta described Iran's refugee expulsions as part of Tehran's pressure on Kabul to resist attempts by NATO to formalize its military presence in Afghanistan, to align with Tehran over "Iran's nuclear issue," and to ensure Iran's access to water.

The refugee crisis has become a legal pressure point, and the political ramifications have been severe for President Hamid Karzai's administration. The impeachment of Foreign Minister Spanta, one of Karzai's principal supporters, has sparked a constitutional crisis. Iranian supporters within the Afghan parliament led the impeachment call on the grounds of Spanta's failure to prevent Iran from its intended course. While Spanta remains at his post pending a Constitutional Court decision, the legal and political battle between the Karzai administration and the Afghan parliament is far from over.

Iran clearly has no intention of holding back when it sits across the table from the United States in Baghdad. Instead, it appears to want to up the ante.

Afghanistan is an easy bet on Iran's part, but it is keeping its cards hidden. Tehran can point to its cooperation with Washington since the Taliban were ousted. But it has also shown that it can contribute to Afghanistan's difficulties. Which card will it play?

Cheney's Iran-Arms-to-Taliban Gambit Rebuffed

antiwar.com / June 12, 2007 - by Gareth Porter

A media campaign portraying Iran as supplying arms to the Taliban guerrillas fighting U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, orchestrated by advocates of a more confrontational stance toward Iran in the George W. Bush administration, appears to have backfired last week when Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Dan McNeill, issued unusually strong denials.

The allegation that Iran has reversed a decade-long policy and is now supporting the Taliban, conveyed in a series of press articles quoting "senior officials" in recent weeks, is related to a broader effort by officials aligned with Vice President Dick Cheney to portray Iran as supporting Sunni insurgents, including al-Qaeda, to defeat the United States in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

An article in the Guardian published May 22 quoted an anonymous U.S. official as predicting an "Iranian-orchestrated summer offensive in Iraq, linking al-Qaeda and Sunni insurgents to Tehran's Shia militia allies" and as referring to the alleged "Iran-al-Qaeda linkup" as "very sinister."

That article and subsequent reports on CNN May 30, in the Washington Post June 3 and on ABC news June 6 all included an assertion by an unnamed U.S. official or a "senior coalition official" that Iran is following a deliberate policy of supplying the Taliban's campaign against U.S., British, and other NATO forces.

In the most dramatic version of the story, ABC reported "NATO officials" as saying they had "caught Iran red-handed, shipping heavy arms, C4 explosives, and advanced roadside bombs to the Taliban for use against NATO forces."

Far from showing that Iran had been "caught red-handed," however, the report quoted from an analysis that cited only the interception in Afghanistan of a total of four vehicles coming from Iran with arms and munitions of Iranian origin. The report failed to refer to any evidence of Iranian government involvement.

Both Gates and McNeill denied flatly last week that there is any evidence linking Iranian authorities to those arms. Gates told a press conference on June 4, "We do not have any information about whether the government of Iran is supporting this, is behind it, or whether it's smuggling, or exactly what is behind it." Gates said that "some" of the arms in question might be going to Afghan drug smugglers.

The commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. McNeill, implied that the arms trafficking from Iran is being carried out by private interests. "[W]hen you say weapons being provided by Iran, that would suggest there is some more formal entity involved in getting these weapons here," he told Jim Loney of Reuters June 5. "That's not my view at all."

Gates and McNeill are obviously aware of the link between arms entering Afghanistan from Iran and the flow of heroin from Afghanistan into Iran. It is well known that Afghan drug lords who command huge amounts of money have been able to penetrate the long and porous border with ease. They have undoubtedly been involved in buying arms in Iran with their drug proceeds for both themselves and the Taliban, which protects their drug routes. Smuggling is relatively easy because of the money available for bribery of border guards.

Another factor helping to explain the influx of arms from Iran, as noted by former Pakistani ambassador to Afghanistan Rustam Shah Momand in an interview on Pakistan's GEO television April 19, is that the Taliban now controls areas on the Iranian border for the first time. Momand said the Taliban, which is awash in money from the heroin exports to Iran, buys small quantities of weapons in Iran and smuggles them back into Afghanistan. But the Iranian government itself is not involved in the trade in arms, Momand insisted.

The combination of anonymous statements by administration officials and the dismissal of the charge by the commander in the field contrasts sharply with the Bush administration's claims that Iran was sending armor-piercing IEDs to Shi'ite militias in Iraq last January and February. Those accusations, which were never backed up with specific evidence, were made publicly by Bush himself, the State Department, and the U.S. military command in Baghdad.

The fact that the officials making the accusation about Iran and Afghanistan are unwilling to go on the record and the refusal of Gates and McNeill to go along with it suggests an effort by Cheney and his allies in the administration to do an "end run" around the official policy by conjuring up a region-wide Iranian offensive against U.S. forces.

Steve Clemons reported on his blog The Washington Note May 24 that an aide to Cheney has told gatherings at right-wing think tanks that Cheney is afraid Bush will not make the "right decision" on Iran and believes he must constrain the president's choices.

Iran has long regarded the Taliban regime as its primary enemy and was the first external power to support Afghan forces in an effort to overthrow it. It is not merely a sectarian Sunni-Shi'ite divide but the Pakistani government's patronage of the Taliban that has made it an irreconcilable enemy of Iran.

The line being pushed by the Cheney group in the administration that Iran is supplying the Taliban with arms appears to be based on a highly imaginative reading of some recent intelligence reporting on Iranian contacts with the Taliban. A source with access to that reporting, who insists on anonymity because he is not authorized to comment on the matter, told IPS that it indicates Iranian intelligence has had contacts with the top commanders of the Taliban's inner Shura – the leadership council located in Kandahar.

However, the source also says these intelligence reports do not provide any specific evidence of an Iranian intention to give weapons to the Taliban.

The Cheney group is evidently arguing within the administration that the mere existence of contacts between Iranian intelligence and Taliban commanders, combined with the presence of arms or Iranian origin, is sufficient reason to conclude that Iran has changed its policy toward the Taliban.

That argument parallels a key assertion made by Cheney and other neoconservative officials in constructing the case for war against Iraq in 2002. They insisted that any contact between an official of the Iraqi government at any level and anyone in al-Qaeda was sufficient proof of its support for al-Qaeda terrorism.

Afghanistan specialist Seth Jones of the RAND Corporation, who visited Afghanistan most recently in early 2007, says some elements of the Iranian government may be involved in arms trafficking but that it is "very small-scale support" and that Iran does not want to strengthen the Taliban.

NATO commanders in Pakistan have long been aware that the Taliban has been dependent on Pakistan for its arms and ammunition. The Telegraph reported Sunday that a NATO report on a recent battle shows the Taliban fired an estimated 400,000 rounds of ammunition, 2,000 rocket-propelled grenades, and 1,000 mortar shells and had stocked over 1 million rounds of ammunition, all of which came from Quetta, Pakistan, during the spring months. (Inter Press Service)

Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan agree on drug fight plan

Daily Times, Wednesday, June 13, 2007

VIENNA: Senior Afghan, Iranian and Pakistani officials agreed on Tuesday a joint crackdown on drug trafficking along their borders, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime which hosted their talks.

In a joint statement conveyed by the Vienna-based UNODC, security ministers from the three countries voiced determination to reduce the threat posed by Afghan opium, calling it a “transnational threat that requires a cooperative solution”.

UNODC director Antonio Maria Costa hailed the deal as a turning point in combating Afghanistan’s opium scourge. The three nations agreed to construct more physical barriers along their borders, boost law enforcement capacity, launch joint counter-narcotic sweeps and increase intelligence-sharing

about trafficking routes, traffickers and suspicious shipments.

They also agreed to stem the diversion and smuggling of precursor chemicals used to make drugs, locate and destroy drug labs, do more to tackle corruption fuelling the drug business and halt laundering of drug money. reuters

AFGHANISTAN: Police casualties high due to lack of training, equipment

KABUL, 12 June 2007 (IRIN) - Under-equipped and poorly trained Afghan police are paying a high price in their fight against an intensifying armed insurgency.

In the last three months alone, over 210 police officers have been killed and 330 wounded, according to Afghanistan's Ministry of Interior (MoI). In such circumstances it is difficult for humanitarian aid workers to feel secure as they go about their jobs.

Afghanistan has one of the highest police casualty rates in the world, Zemarai Bashari, a spokesman for MoI, told IRIN in Kabul, on 12 June.

A large number of attacks on police occur in the volatile south and southeast of the country where Taliban insurgents have been hindering rebuilding and development efforts and have indiscriminately used force against whomever they perceive as an enemy.

"They [the police] are increasingly coming under attack," Bashari said. In the latest attack on 9 June, the head of a police-training centre in Kandahar Province was shot dead by gunmen associated with the Taliban, according to a government press release.

In another incident, 16 police officers were killed by Taliban fighters in Kandahar's neighbouring province of Zabul in late May, government officials said. Recently, Taliban insurgents reportedly started targeting the families of police officers.

On 1 June, gunmen attacked the house of a senior police official in eastern Ghazni Province killing all five members of his family, the media reported.

The 62,000-strong, but poorly-equipped, Afghan police force fights insurgents, tries to keep law and order throughout the country, and implements an extensive counter-narcotics strategy.

"We do not have a single helicopter to undertake emergency operations," Bashari said, adding: "We lost a post to the enemy in Helmand Province only because we could not supply our surrounded troops by air".

Abdul Sattar, a police officer in Lashkargah, capital of the insurgency-hit Helmand Province in the south, said his 1980 Russian made AK-47 had stopped working over a month ago. "It is only a symbol of a gun, but only we [police soldiers] know about this," said Sattar.

Government officials in Kabul have urged the US military and NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to provide the Afghan police with new light and heavy weapons.

"Our enemies attack with RPGs [rocket propelled grenades], missiles and other sophisticated weaponry, while our police defend themselves only with old Kalashnikovs," a MoI official who did not want to be identified said.

Afghan police receive an average monthly payment of US$70 through a Law and Order Trust Fund (LOTFA) funded by international donors.

"It is very difficult to find a professional police officer who will risk his or her life for only 70 dollars a month - the Taliban pay their fighters at least $200," Gen Sideequllah Rahmani, a senior police official said.

Afghan officials say they have asked many donors to increase police pay to at least $100 a month, but donors have shown little interest.

Afghanistan has prioritised the establishment of a police force with a planned strength of 80,000. Over 80 percent of its targeted numbers have now been achieved but most police have only had one to two weeks training, MoI said.

According to Bashari, inadequate professional knowledge is one of the reasons why Afghan police have a high causality rate. In the last four years German, American and some other countries have contributed to the training of the new Afghan National Police (ANP).

The European Union has agreed to a police-training project for Afghanistan which will bring more than 160 international trainers to "train, mentor, monitor and advise" Afghan police for a period of three years starting from 17 June.

Rome to host conference on Afghanistan security

KABUL (PAN): Tom Koenigs, Special Representative of the UN Secretary General to

Afghanistan said conference on law and order in this Central Asian country would be held in Rome, Italy, on July 2nd and 3rd. Addressing a news conference here, Koenigs said UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon would put law and order on top of the agenda of the international peace conference.

“The era of lawlessness, corruption and non-professional policing and an unreliable judicial system must end,” said the top UN official. “I’m not satisfied with the progress made so far in the last three or five years,” he added. He also called on the world community to focus more on judicial reforms in Afghanistan.

He said lack of a proper judicial system was creating gap between people and the government. The United Nations, he said, wanted broad-based and coordinated efforts by the Afghanistan government, international community and lawmakers to reform the judicial and security systems in the country, he added. The Afghan people as well as the international community wanted prosecution of criminals, formation of a professional police force and strong judicial institutions.

To a question, the UN representative confirmed existence of covert arms markets but would not say where the arms were imported from. “Anti-government elements are supported and partially financed by criminals, sometimes linked with mafias and sometimes smugglers,” said Koenigs.

Pointing out the recent incident of violence in Jawzjan and attack on Attorney General by men of a former commander, he called for calm. He also condemned the killing of two women journalists in Kabul and Parwan.

Afghan FM to stay despite vote

KABUL: Afghanistan's cabinet has decided Rangeen Dadfar Spanta will stay on as foreign minister, an official said Tuesday, despite parliament's insistence that its vote to fire him be respected. The cabinet took the decision on Monday after "clarification" from the Supreme Court about parliament's mid-May no-confidence vote linked to Iran's deportation of refugees, a spokesman for President Hamid Karzai said. "The cabinet members and the president agreed that Dr Spanta will continue as the minister of foreign affairs of Afghanistan," spokesman Karim Rahimi told reporters.

Pakistan presses tribesmen to expel Al-Qaeda

Tue Jun 12, 8:24 AM ET - MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (AFP) - Pakistani authorities on Tuesday issued a fresh appeal to tribesmen in a rugged region bordering Afghanistan to expel Taliban and Al-Qaeda rebels and their supporters.

The call came as President Pervez Musharraf faces continued pressure from his US and Western allies about militancy in the impoverished tribal belt and peace deals between the government and the rebels.

Local administrator Pirzada Khan told 500 tribesmen and Islamic clerics in North Waziristan that he was bringing a message direct from Musharraf and the governor of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province.

"Pakistan is under tremendous pressure from foreign countries over militant activity," Khan told the jirga, or tribal assembly, in Miranshah, the main town in the district.

Amid allegations that there were foreign militants and training camps in Waziristan, Khan said that "to find a solution we shall have to expel those who are not with the nation."

Pakistani troops carried out several bloody offensives against militants in North Waziristan before signing a controversial peace pact there in September 2006.

Khan praised tribesmen for their "commendable role" since but said that "some people are siding with the enemy for little money and they want to create misunderstandings between tribes and government."

One senior tribesman at the meeting said they would do all to keep the peace deal intact, but accused the United States of wanting to "end Pakistan and the tribes." "We will not let it happen," Maulvi Abdul Rehman said.

US officials have said that the leadership of Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network has rebuilt itself in Waziristan since the Saudi fled Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban in late 2001.

Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai meanwhile has alleged that Pakistan's intelligence services have been backing Taliban fighters based in the tribal areas.

Musharraf, who has escaped at least two Al-Qaeda assassination attempts, denies the claims and says that Pakistan has 90,000 troops along the border and is doing all it can to stop militancy.

For southern Afghan women, learning is for the brave

By Peter Graff - LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan, June 12 (Reuters) - Yesterday she received ten threatening phone calls. From ten different numbers.

"Some say, 'Where are you going? Why are you going to that English class?' Some say, 'We will kill you,'" said Noorzia Mahboob, 50, a former school teacher, now herself a pupil at English clashes in a women's centre in Lashkar Gah, capital of Afghanistan's southern province of Helmand.

"I don't really think it's the Taliban. If they wanted to kill me or kidnap me, they probably would have done it by now. I think it's the people from the town," she adds.

Mahboob, who has run unsuccessfully in a provincial election, said she comes to the classes not just to improve her English, but to act as a role model. "It is a way of persuading other women to take steps toward learning," she says.

Under the Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan until 2001 and still control some parts of the south, teaching girls was forbidden.

Mahboob ran a school with about 150 pupils, both boys and girls. The Taliban kicked her out of a government building, but she secretly continued teaching in a private house.

Today, with pro-government authorities safely installed in the provincial capital, the Lashkar Gah women's centre operates inside a heavily guarded compound of government buildings.

About 70 women, ranging from pre-teen girls to grandmothers, study English. Last year, a driver who brought women to the centre was murdered, said Mahboob.

"There was a rumour he was bringing women into the PRT," she said, referring to a foreign military base. "People did not understand, and they killed him."

Far from the town centre, in Mukhtar, a camp of mud and straw huts on the riverbanks, 18-year-old refugee Maha Buba teaches Pashto and Dari languages, English and mathematics to boys and girls packed into a tiny mud-walled classroom.

The children and teachers are from mainly ethnic Hazara families who fled four years ago from Taliban-held territory in the high mountains in the north of the province.

"Under the Taliban we were not allowed to have schools, but we studied in our homes," she said, covering her face while talking to a male reporter and appearing little larger than the children who milled about at her feet outside the school.

"The Taliban were fighting and killing people. They were saying: 'you must give us men as fighters, or money'," she said. Today the mud-walled school remains under constant threat, said its director, Said Ahmed Shah.

"Once people came and said: 'Why are you teaching in this place?'," he said. "They call me. People are trying to take this land from us. They want to grow things and build houses on this land."

At the women's centre back in the town centre, Malalai, 24, a pupil, has begun teaching computer classes on a few machines donated by the United States.

Recently the computers were hooked up to the Internet, and she started learning how to e-mail and send photographs.

"The world is developing very quickly, especially Internet technology," she said. "After learning a bit of English, we are not allowed to go to college or university, but this is a chance to keep learning."

Mahboob listens and nods. "If circumstances allowed us, Afghan women could reach the sky," she says. "Let them try to stop us. We are not afraid of death."

Afghanistan: Workers Still Await Security Clearance To Repair Kajaki Dam

By Ron Synovitz - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty - June 12, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- British and U.S. forces in southern Afghanistan have not yet been able to claim success on their key stated objective despite a major NATO offensive against the Taliban.

The international troops are trying to keep the area around the Kajaki Dam safe enough for workers to complete repairs so the hydroelectric facility can provide electricity to some 2 million people.

British and U.S. forces are promising millions of dollars in aid for the volatile Sangin district of Afghanistan's southern province of Helmand. But they say the aid will only be delivered if tribal elders help prevent Taliban fighters from returning to the area after NATO's spring offensive there.

About 100 district elders were told by U.S. and British military officers on June 7 that construction workers will not come to Sangin to build hospitals and roads -- or to repair the nearby Kajaki Dam -- as long as locals continue to support Taliban fighters.

In December, Britain's top commander in Afghanistan announced that the Taliban had been "cleared" from the Kajaki area so that construction workers could return in the spring. But that claim proved premature when Taliban fighters in February seized nearby towns and continued to launch mortar and rocket attacks on the dam.

Since then, the mountain valley to the north of Sangin has been seen as a key -- both tactically and symbolically -- to controlling southern Afghanistan. In March, NATO launched a major offensive to force the Taliban away from the dam.

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer explained that the reconstruction of Kajaki's main turbine would show millions of people in Helmand and Kandahar provinces that foreign forces are in Afghanistan to help improve their security and living conditions.

"When the turbine in that dam is [installed], it will give power to 2 million people and their businesses," de Hoop Scheffer said. "It will provide irrigation for hundreds of farmers. And it will create jobs for 2,000 people. The Taliban, the spoilers, are attacking this project every day to [try to] stop it from going forward."

Sangin has been largely quiet since the start of June when NATO cleared the Kajaki valley with a combined U.S.-British assault -- Operation Axe Handle.

The operation's British commander, Lieutenant Colonel Stewart Carver, told the elders at Sangin last week that forcing the Taliban back was the easy part. He said the more difficult part is to make sure the Taliban do not return.

Amid those concerns, NATO has not yet given clearance for civilian workers to move in and start repairs at the Kajaki Dam.

Carl Abdou Rahmaan is the acting mission director in Afghanistan at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) -- the organization that is funding Kajaki's reconstruction.

Rahmaan told RFE/RL today that although fighting has prevented workers from setting up their base camp, some aspects of the project are moving forward.

"In light of the military activities there, we have adjusted our schedules and we have moved forward with the project," Abdou Rahmaan said. "We have identified those aspects of the project where we could begin and continue work, and we are moving forward with them. The schedule that we are working with now does not impact negatively on the overall schedule because we will be moving forward with putting in place routine capabilities to deliver materials and supplies to the campsite. We will be moving forward with the road construction. And the plan is to move forward with the transmission line."

When completed, the transmission line would stretch some 190 kilometers from the dam to the city of Kandahar. But Rahmaan said workers must first complete the roads needed by construction workers and security forces to link the dam to the country's main highway -- the so-called ring road that links Kabul with Kandahar and Herat.

"The plan now is to build a construction access road from the ring road up to Sangin to enable us to move materials up toward the dam," Abdou Rahmaan said. "We have a major program, our provincial-roads program, that is planned to link the ring road to the provincial capitals. And then we have a secondary roads program that will be moving down to the district level. This [construction] road is primarily linked to the Kajaki dam project. It is being financed with the resources that would normally be associated with the provincial roads project."

USAID officials hope that residents of Kandahar will start receiving electricity from Kajaki's repaired turbine by early 2008. But to reach that goal, work on the turbines would have to start during the next two months.

As Kandahar rebuilds, the clock is ticking

A coalition struggling for order is racing against Taliban who are determined to throw it off track – and the 2009 finish line is nearing - MURRAY CAMPBELL - From Monday's Globe and Mail, June 11, 2007

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — The road is mostly used by donkey carts, and so it is no surprise when the Canadian military vehicle clips a wall at a particularly narrow point.

The mud walls that Afghans have been throwing up for millennia are incredibly strong, but this one couldn't withstand the impact from the 17,000-kilogram LAV-3 armoured vehicle. There are shards of dried mud everywhere.

Captain Bob Wheeler, an ebullient Newfoundlander in charge of the convoy, takes note of the damage and, later in the day, on the return journey from a remote village on the edge of the Registan desert, he tracks down the landowner.

He apologizes. The Afghan says not to worry, that U.S. soldiers had knocked down the same portion of the wall twice in recent years.

But then Capt. Wheeler does something extraordinary. He reaches into a zippered wallet and pulls out a few Afghan bank notes - the equivalent of about $3 - and offers them as reparation.

The landowner signs a receipt and shakes Capt. Wheeler's hand. He is still smiling as the Canadians clamber back into their LAV. One heart, one mind is won.

If it were that easy in the rest of this desperately poor land, the troops from Canada and the other 36 countries involved in the International Security Assistance Force could be out of here in a flash. But it isn't that easy, of course, and the signs are everywhere at the Kandahar Air Field that things are becoming, if not permanent, then a little less impermanent.

Just off the runways and adjacent to the building that everybody calls Taliban's Last Stand, crews are building a steel-girdered building. A few hundred metres farther on, cement is being poured for new kitchen facilities.

Not far away, the Canada House gathering spot has got new widescreen televisions and a whole bunch of new lounge chairs from Ikea in Dubai. Across the gravel road, the gymnasium is stocked with treadmills and LifeCycle machines. And there are plans to get hundreds of Canadian soldiers and civilians out of their tents and into prefabricated housing units by next summer.

Some of this activity is understandable, since it's likely that the air field will continue to be a strategic U.S. base for a long time. But NATO's commitment in Afghanistan expires in May, 2009, and Canada has committed its troops only until February, 2009. Does it mean that the 30,000 ISAF - and 2,300 Canadian - troops will be staying put past those deadlines?

Certainly, Afghanistan would like that. The country's Minister of Rural Rehabilitation and Development, Mohammad Ehsan Zia, told Canadian reporters last week that it takes time to rebuild a country destroyed by two decades of war, and that the international community would be leaving when the job is only half-done.

But time is short and, as history shows, the odds of prevailing in a war of counterinsurgency are long. ISAF's goals are clear. It has to provide Afghanistan with the security it needs to reconstruct its shattered infrastructure and to build some democratic institutions. If this is accomplished, the theory goes, ordinary Afghans will be won over and the new government will gain a legitimacy that will inevitably choke off the Taliban.

The goal of the Taliban is much simpler. They don't have to defeat the ISAF forces. They simply have to inflict enough casualties so that political support for the mission among ISAF nations erodes. The Taliban think in terms of decades. The coalition countries think in terms of months. And the clock is ticking.

Right now, it's a race - between the coalition's ability to build the capacity for Afghanistan to stand on its own two feet and the ability of the Taliban to influence Canadian public and political opinion with attacks designed to inflict casualties among Canadians. The finish line is 2009.

"It's a test of will," said Sean Maloney, a military historian at the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ont.

He has visited Afghanistan for the past five summers and is encouraged by the progress the country has made in security and economic development. But he acknowledged that it's an open question how things will unfold by 2009 when the government of the day has to make the call.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper signalled which way he was leaning with his comments last month when he visited KAF. "We can't set arbitrary deadlines and hope for the best," he told soldiers. "We can't just put down our weapons and hope for peace."

The brains behind Canada's mission are optimistic. Its commander, Brigadier-General Tim Grant, says Taliban activities have been disrupted in the districts of Panjwaii and Zhari in which Canadian soldiers have been operating. "Wherever they go, and we're tracking them in numbers, we will move to disrupt them in those locations," he said.

The so-called hearts and minds part of the mission, aimed at promoting democratic governance and rebuilding the Afghan economy, was set back by the death in early 2006 of Canadian diplomat Glyn Berry.

But there's been a torrent of announcements of aid projects recently, and there's enough calm in Panjwaii that some 30,000 people who fled last fall's fighting have moved back. There are even signs that the trouble-plagued national police force is being fixed.

There is a concerted effort by Canadian officials to emphasize the positive. Briefings on skirmishes with the Taliban used to be common, but reporters now get official reports only if there are Canadian casualties. Indeed, it's hard to find any dissenting voices. Ordinary soldiers are reluctant to talk of anything beyond their "arc" - their immediate task - and officers toe the party line.

Corporal Randy Dalgir recalls that the local residents were withdrawn when his Royal Canadian Dragoons reconnaissance squadron first came to Spin Boldak on the Pakistani border in early May. He contrasts that with a recent experience where a man tried to show the Canadians a new back route. The soldiers feared a trap - perhaps the road was laced with land mines - but the man eased their worries by running ahead of their vehicle.

"We see a difference, not over a day, but over weeks," concurred Cpl. Julie Isabelle.

One of the most powerful men in Kandahar provincial politics, Haji Agha Lallai, agrees that the security situation is better and that economic prospects are improving. "This year is much better than last year," he said in an interview.

Rick Corsino, country director of the World Food Program, defends the aid effort against criticism by some non-government agencies that it's been a failure. He said, for example, that food supplies in Kandahar province have doubled, but he acknowledged that there are more attacks on WFP vehicles.

"In balance, things are getting worse in some ways, getting better in other ways," Mr. Corsino said. "I can't say what the balance nets out to be."

From Capt. Wheeler's vantage point, however, things are looking good. He's at another village near the desert looking at a well being dug for Afghan refugees returning from Pakistan. Suddenly a young boy darts toward him and kisses his hand. "Pretty near fuckin' broke my heart," he said.

A Taliban surrender and a mass attack

By Syed Saleem Shahzad - Asia Times Online / June 12, 2007

HERAT, Afghanistan - With the focus of the Taliban's spring offensive turning increasingly toward the northwestern provinces adjoining Iran, rather than on the southwest, the next few months could prove pivotal in the ongoing insurgency against North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led forces.

"The Taliban's new focus is the northwestern region, and there will be many surprises in the coming days," Taliban spokesman Qari

Yousuf Ahmedi told Asia Times Online by telephone.

Indeed, within the space of a few hours the surprises included the surrender of 40 Taliban and a mass Taliban attack on district police outposts.

On Saturday morning in Herat, this correspondent witnessed the surrender of 40 Taliban under the government's Takhim-e-Solh - Program for Strengthening Peace and Reconciliation (PTS) - which is aimed primarily at the Taliban and members of the Hizb-i-Islami of warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

All of those handing themselves over hailed from Badghis province, Herat province's immediate northerly neighbor. Under tight security, the Taliban were accommodated in a guesthouse, after which they handed over their weapons. These included mortars, light machine-guns, AK-47 rifles, shells and rockets.

The PTS now has 11 regional offices, and more than 2,500 former Taliban fighters and other insurgents have left the battlefield and joined the program.

The Herat provincial head of the PTS, Mohammed Sharif Mojadidi, told Asia Times Online that in the past year and a half, about 800 Taliban and fighters loyal to Hekmatyar had surrendered their weapons to his office.

Those who are qualified enough are given government jobs and others are simply given an amnesty and allowed to return to their towns and villages in peace.

The Taliban surrendering on Saturday were reluctant to speak, let alone give their names or details, so it is difficult to say what motivated them. Certainly many of them looked positively terrified, presumably thinking of what might happen to them should the Taliban find out about them.

Even the PTS staff wanted to stay in background and they let Mojadidi do all the talking; clearly they, too, don't want to be targeted by the Taliban.

"Well, here we have 40 people who have come to surrender their weapons, but I know the Taliban have gathered a force of 4,000 people," one official whispered as I was leaving the PTS office. He was right.

By evening, news filtered in that at about 4pm, masses of Taliban had flooded into the Ghurmach and Balamurgh districts of Badghis province and fierce fighting had broken out with the Afghan National Police. The Taliban often choose late afternoon and evening for their activities to minimize the effects of NATO air power. Some sources told Asia Times Online that the Taliban had seized control of both districts.

Fighting reportedly went on for hours and NATO forces and contingents of the Afghan National Army were rushed in to help. According to official figures, 30 Taliban were killed, as well as three policemen.

In such incidents the Taliban never expect to hold on to an area for long. In this case they were giving a clear signal that after instigating violence in Farah province (immediately to the south of Herat province) they were spreading their wings to other northwestern provinces.

Farah has been restive for about a year, but Taliban activity in Badghis only began this year with attacks on government convoys and on district police such as the one on Saturday.

NATO had expected to meet the brunt of the Taliban's spring offensive in the southwestern provinces of Kandahar, Helmand, Zabul and Urzgan and had concentrated its forces there.

However, to the surprise of all, many of the Taliban simply slipped away into the northwest, where they have quickly regrouped with the local Taliban in the Persian-speaking region of western Afghanistan.

The press information officer of the Italian forces in Herat province refused to comment when contacted by Asia Times Online.

The Taliban's maneuver to preserve their strength in the southwest and open up a new front in the northwest is well timed as Iran is apparently content to see a low-level insurgency in Afghanistan keep NATO busy. However, Iran does not favor Sunni hardliners such as the Taliban. Instead, there have been unconfirmed reports that it is arming independent Shi'ite groups in the northwest to take on some warlords.

Even this, though, will help the Taliban as they can exploit any unrest that the Shi'ite groups might stir up to garner support for their fight against foreign forces.

Assisted by such Iranian intrigues, including Tehran sending back thousands of Afghan refugees, the Taliban's new insurgency in the northwest is gathering pace.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief.

[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.]