In this bulletin:

• Two Afghan districts retaken from Taliban, attack on mosque kills 3
• Bombs kill three Canadian soldiers, five Afghans
• Roadside bomb kills 3 Canadians
• Families, mourners, Karzai attend mosque service for 21 police killed in bomb blast
• 30 killed in Pakistan-Afghan border attack
• Roadside bomb kills 3 NATO soldiers
• Germany Should Resist Calls to Leave Afghanistan, Jung Says
• Afghan mission will take decades: British envoy
• Rescue plan for an Afghanistan perilously close to its tipping point
• Al Qaeda video fuels fear, caution - Recruits allegedly slated to hit Canada, U.S., U.K.
• Taliban threat to Canada just a stunt, officials say
• Afghan debate to hit Quebec streets
• Afghan policy rejected
• Better times, new problems for model Afghan city
• Axed Afghan MP pleads with US to cut aid
• LOOKING AT AFGHANISTAN - India is blind to the opportunities at its doorstep
• Pak-Afghan Jirga

Two Afghan districts retaken from Taliban, attack on mosque kills 3

By DPA - Jun 20, 2007, Kabul - Afghan officials said on Wednesday that their forces retook two districts, which had been captured by insurgents in the southern region, while three people were killed and four wounded when militants attacked a mosque in eastern Afghanistan.

The police forces entered Miyanishin district of southern Kandahar province without any resistance or any casualties on Tuesday evening, some 24 hours after it was overrun by Taliban fighters, Esmatuallh Alizai, provincial police chief of Kandahar told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Alizai said that the police forces made a 'tactical withdrawal' from another district, Ghorak, in the same Kandahar province on Tuesday afternoon. But Chief of Staff for Afghan army in Operations General Shir Mohammad Karimi said Afghan army and police recaptured the district two hours after they had vacated the town.

Karimi told a press conference on Wednesday that police left both district headquarters for 'a few hours' but moved into the districts after reinforcements were deployed.

Taliban insurgents earlier on Wednesday claimed that their forces captured Ghorak district on Tuesday late in the afternoon, killing five police officers.

In another incident, unknown gunmen opened fire on prayers in Ismailkhail district of eastern Khost province on Tuesday afternoon, killing three and wounding four others, said Wazir Badshah, spokesman for the provincial police chief.

Badshah said the motive behind the attack was unclear and police had started a search operation to track down the culprits.

In a separate incident, two Afghan guards working with an American private security firm were killed and another wounded when militants opened fire at their vehicle in Barekzai area of southern Zabul province on Wednesday morning, said Jailani Khan, police commander for Kabul-Kandahar highway.

He said the militants fled the area after they fired at the vehicle, which was on its way from Ghazni province to Kandahar.

Violence is on the rise in Afghanistan after more than five years since the fall of the Taliban in a US-led campaign in late 2001. The violence so far this year has left more than 2,300 people dead.

Bombs kill three Canadian soldiers, five Afghans

A series of roadside bombings in Afghanistan Wednesday killed eight people, including three Canadian NATO soldiers, in new attacks linked to a growing Taliban insurgency.

A district chief in southern Kandahar province said meanwhile police had killed 21 Taliban who attacked late Tuesday. The governor of Zhari district, Khairuddin, had no proof and said the rebels had taken their dead with them.

The three NATO-led International Security Assistance Force soldiers were killed in the volatile south of the country when a bomb tore through their vehicle, ISAF announced in a statement.

Brigadier General Tim Grant later announced that they were Canadian. "At the time, they were travelling in a small all-terrain vehicle," he said.

A spokesman for the Taliban, Yousuf Ahmadi, said insurgents had blown up a foreign forces' vehicle in the province of Helmand. Several of the troops were dead, he claimed.

Canada has some 2,500 troops in Afghanistan, fighting Taliban and Al-Qaeda insurgents.

Ninety-one foreign soldiers have now died in Afghanistan this year, most of them in combat and about half of them from the United States which has the most soldiers in the international operation in Afghanistan.

Another bomb blew up a police vehicle in the eastern province of Khost, killing Qalandar district police chief Ali Mohammad and one of his men, a spokesman for the provincial governor told AFP.

In the southern province of Zabul, a bomb ripped into the vehicle of US-based private security company USPI, killing two guards and wounding a third, deputy provincial police chief Ghulam Jalani said.

Another bomb exploded on a road in Ghazni province and killed a man who was cycling home after buying groceries, a district governor said.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the blast but said it had struck a police vehicle.

The hardliners rely on bombs, including suicide blasts, in their fight against the government and its allies. The military says this is a sign of the rebels' weakness and inability to fight conventional warfare.

Taliban overran a district in Kandahar province late Monday, forcing the small police force there to flee, but they were removed less than 24 hours later.

They took another Kandahar district Tuesday and police said Wednesday they were planning an operation to remove them with ISAF's help.

In another incident of violence, a man opened fire on worshippers in a mosque in Khost during evening prayers Tuesday, killing three people and wounding four others, police said Wednesday.

Provincial police spokesman Wazir Badshah said the reason for the attack was not clear but the gunman, who escaped, did not seem to have links with militants and was known as a local ruffian.

The governor of eastern Nangarhar province told reporters meanwhile that authorities were holding two men who had confessed to being would-be suicide bombers who had been trained in Pakistan.

"They have confessed that I was their target," governor Gul Agha Shirzay said.

Roadside bomb kills 3 Canadians

Globe and Mail Update June 20, 2007 - KABUL — Three more Canadian soldiers have been killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan. Military officials say the powerful blast hit the vehicle carrying the soldiers.

"At the time, they were travelling in a small all-terrain vehicle," Brigadier General Tim Grant said in a news conference broadcast from Kandahr.

He said they were conducting a re-supply operation between two checkpoints in a farming district. He said the non-armoured open vehicle was appropriate for the terrain and the conditions.

Gen. Grant said the soldiers' immediate families have been notified but they have asked for additional time to tell other family members. The death toll for Canadian troops in Afghanistan has now reached 60.

The latest deaths come on the day of the military funeral for 25-year-old Trooper Darryle Caswell in Bowmanville, Ontario.He was also killed by a roadside bomb on June 11, a day when the Canadian military came across a large number of these improvised explosive devices.

IEDs, as they are called, have been responsible for about a third of the Canadian deaths in Afghanistan.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the blast which a spokesman for the insurgents said was in Helmand province. They had earlier claimed 10 NATO soldiers had died in a roadside blast, but frequently inflate their successes.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan, gunmen opened fire on people praying in a mosque in eastern Afghanistan, killing three and wounding four others, officials said.

Assailants also ambushed a convoy belonging to UN's Office for Project Services on the main Kabul-Kandahar highway, killing two Afghan guards, wounding another and damaging two vehicles, said Jailani Khan, highway police chief for Zabul province.

In a separate report, Canadian military officials say Canadian and Afghan soldiers have killed 15 Taliban in a four-hour running battle in southern Kandahar province. Two Canadians and three Afghan soldiers suffered minor injuries in the clash.

Maj. Dave Quick, officer commanding of India Company, says troops raced over compounds and farmers houses during the battle in the province's Zhari district. Eventually three kinds of aircraft were called in for support.

Maj. Quick says the goal of the assault was to disrupt the Taliban presence and thwart insurgent efforts to ambush Afghan police along the main highway in the region.

Also in the south, police clashed with insurgents and retook control of Miya Nishin district in Kandahar late Tuesday, a day after militants had overrun it, said Esmatullah Alizai, provincial police chief.

However, hours later, Mr. Alizai said his forces lost Ghorak district in the same province to the militants.

Kandahar borders mountainous Uruzgan province, where fierce fighting since Saturday between Taliban militants and Afghan and NATO forces have reportedly left more than 100 people dead, including dozens of civilians.

The mosque attack occurred in Ismail Kheil, a village in neighbouring Khost province on Tuesday evening. Two unidentified men entered the building and fatally shot three people while wounding four others, said Wazir Pacha, a provincial police spokesman.

The unidentified assailants fled, and the motive for the shooting remained unknown, Mr. Pacha said.

NATO said it faced a seasonal surge in militant operations, but dismissed recent suicide and bomb attacks as “militarily insignificant.”

A bomb killed 35 people, most of them police trainers, in a bus in the capital, Kabul, on Sunday. In the eastern city of Jalalabad, Nangarhar Gov. Gul Agha Sherzoi said Wednesday that a Pakistani and two Afghans were arrested for allegedly planning suicide attacks against him.

“We find ourselves in the midst of the so-called fighting season, when what we had predicted is taking place: an increase in suicide bombings and more desperate attempts by the enemies of peace and stability to present the illusion that they are stronger than they are,” said Lt. Col. Maria Carl, spokeswoman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force.

Violence has claimed about 2,400 lives, including civilians, militants and troops, so far this year, according to an Associated Press tally of figures from Western military and Afghan officials.

Aid agencies warned Tuesday that goodwill toward foreign forces has faded since the fall of the Taliban five years ago because of air strikes and botched raids by U.S. and NATO troops.

The ACBAR umbrella group of 94 foreign and Afghan aid agencies said foreign forces had killed at least 230 Afghan civilians this year, including 60 women and children.

AP's tally puts the figure through June 17 at 152, while another 169 were killed by insurgents. It was not clear how the umbrella group — which includes Oxfam, Save the Children and CARE International — arrived at its higher total.

Mr. Karzai has pleaded repeatedly for international forces to co-ordinate more closely with Afghan authorities in order to protect civilians near military front lines.

The aid agencies laid much of the blame on U.S. actions, alleging that indiscriminate use of force had resulted in the death of innocent civilians.

Families, mourners, Karzai attend mosque service for 21 police killed in bomb blast

The Associated Press - Wednesday, June 20, 2007 - KABUL, Afghanistan: Wearing a black shalwar kameez tunic, Amanullah cried at the mass funeral service Wednesday as he mourned his father's death — one of the 21 police trainers killed in a deadly suicide bomb attack this week in Kabul.

"Where is my father?" he wailed, kissing the epaulettes and police caps of the officers around him as they offered condolences and tried to calm him.

"God bless your father, Habibullah. He was not only your father — he was father of all the police of Afghanistan," one police academy student said to him.

Dozens of mourners, including President Hamid Karzai, filed into the mosque in central Kabul to pay respects to the families of police killed in a bomb attack Sunday that killed as many as 35 people, the deadliest insurgent attack since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001.

Sunday's bomb ripped through a bus carrying dozens of police trainers. A number of civilians were also caught in the blast.

Mourners at the mosque walked past portraits of the dead policemen hanging in front of the walls and windows. They walked up to family members, placed their hands on their hearts and bowed solemnly in a quiet procession. "God bless them," they said, one by one.

"Twenty-one of our teachers were killed in the blast that day. It was a black day for police. I pray that God punish these terrorists, and that terrorism will fail," said Abdul Aziz, one of the dozens of police officers in navy blue uniforms at the wake.

Afghan police are often criticized as poorly trained and corrupt, but international donors are putting increasing emphasis on building a professional force — replicating some of the relative success in building the Afghan army that often fights alongside NATO and US forces against Taliban militants.

There are currently more than 70,000 police. It is hoped to increase that to more than 82,000 by end 2008, said Maj. Gen. Bob Durbin, commander of the Combined Security Transition Command Afghanistan responsible for building Afghan security forces.

Lt. Col. Maria Carl, spokeswoman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, said the international community is working every day to train "groups of brave men to become soldiers and police."

She said a recent surge in suicide and bomb attacks was tragic but "militarily insignificant."

30 killed in Pakistan-Afghan border attack
BASHIRULLAH KHAN - Associated Press June 20, 2007

MIRAN SHAH, PAKISTAN — Uzbeks, Chechens and Arabs were among about 30 militants killed in a missile attack on a suspected al-Qaeda hideout in northwest Pakistan near the Afghan border, officials said Wednesday.

Several more militants were wounded Tuesday when three missiles allegedly fired from Afghanistan destroyed an Islamic seminary in the border village of Mami Rogha, 40 kilometres west of Miran Shah, the main town in North Waziristan, two intelligence officials told The Associated Press.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Pakistan army spokesman Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad said Tuesday the explosions were caused when bombs the militants were making at an isolated compound exploded accidentally. He said between 20 and 25 militants died in the blasts.

But Wali Khan, a cleric who lives near Mami Rogha, told the AP that 34 people died in the attack.

He claimed that he had seen “mutilated bodies and body parts” hours after the blast. He gave no details about the slain men, saying only that “we don't agree with the government that they were terrorists.”

The two intelligence officials put the toll at about 30, saying the slain men included Chechens, Uzbeks, Turkmen, Arabs, local militants and some Afghans. They said the seminary was used as a training facility by al-Qaeda and local militants.

“Their bodies were retrieved by their supporters and buried in some unknown place,” one of the officials said. He said he had obtained his information from local residents and other sources close to the militants.

The compound that came under attack is located about three kilometres inside Pakistan and is surrounded by forests, the official said.

He said nearly three dozen militants were sitting in an open area of the seminary when the attack happened, but could not confirm exactly who fired the missiles, although both officials claimed the missiles came from Afghanistan.

Lt. Col. David Accetta, spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan, said Tuesday he was “not aware of any reports” of missiles being fired from Afghanistan into Pakistan. “Pakistan is a sovereign nation, and we respect sovereignty,” he said.

Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters are believed to shelter in North Waziristan, where last September Pakistan, a key ally in the U.S.-led war on terrorism, signed a peace deal with Taliban sympathizers as part of its bid to bring the lawless region under control.

Critics, however, say the agreement may have allowed militants a freer hand to stage attacks on U.S. and NATO forces across the border in Afghanistan.

Insecurity and obstruction by officials make the area off-limits to all but the most intrepid outsider, and opposition lawmakers on Wednesday protested the lack of information about the incident, staging a brief walkout from the national parliament in Islamabad.

Human Rights Watch said the government should allow an independent investigation or face growing speculation that it “has something to hide,” such as civilian casualties.

“In the absence of a credible account of what happened, legitimate anti-terrorist efforts will only be undermined,” Ali Dayan Hasan, the New York-based rights group's Asia researcher, said.

Several raids on suspected terror targets in Pakistan have apparently been launched from Afghanistan.

In January, 2006, a CIA Predator drone hit houses in a Pakistani border village in Bajur, a tribal region north of Waziristan, where al-Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri was expected to visit, Pakistani intelligence officials said. Mr. al-Zawahri escaped injury but 13 other people were killed.

The U.S. government never confirmed its involvement in that strike. In December, 2005, a Hellfire missile allegedly fired by an unmanned American warplane killed an Egyptian al-Qaeda figure, Hamza Rabia, in North Waziristan. Pakistan's army, however, maintained that Mr. Rabia had died in a bomb-making accident.

Pakistani forces have also raided suspected militant hide-outs using U.S.-supplied helicopters.

Roadside bomb kills 3 NATO soldiers

Associated Press and Canadian Press - June 20, 2007

KABUL — Three NATO troops died Wednesday when their vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb, while gunmen opened fire on people praying in a mosque in eastern Afghanistan, killing three and wounding four others, officials said.

Assailants also ambushed a convoy belonging to UN's Office for Project Services on the main Kabul-Kandahar highway, killing two Afghan guards, wounding another and damaging two vehicles, said Jailani Khan, highway police chief for Zabul province.

The three NATO troops died when their vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device in the country's volatile south, a NATO statement said. Their nationalities were not released.

In a separate report, Canadian military officials say Canadian and Afghan soldiers have killed 15 Taliban in a four-hour running battle in southern Kandahar province. Two Canadians and three Afghan soldiers suffered minor injuries in the clash.

Maj. Dave Quick, officer commanding of India Company, says troops raced over compounds and farmers houses during the battle in the province's Zhari district. Eventually three kinds of aircraft were called in for support.

Maj. Quick says the goal of the assault was to disrupt the Taliban presence and thwart insurgent efforts to ambush Afghan police along the main highway in the region.

Also in the south, police clashed with insurgents and retook control of Miya Nishin district in Kandahar late Tuesday, a day after militants had overrun it, said Esmatullah Alizai, provincial police chief.

However, hours later, Mr. Alizai said his forces lost Ghorak district in the same province to the militants.

Kandahar borders mountainous Uruzgan province, where fierce fighting since Saturday between Taliban militants and Afghan and NATO forces have reportedly left more than 100 people dead, including dozens of civilians.

The mosque attack occurred in Ismail Kheil, a village in neighbouring Khost province on Tuesday evening. Two unidentified men entered the building and fatally shot three people while wounding four others, said Wazir Pacha, a provincial police spokesman.

The unidentified assailants fled, and the motive for the shooting remained unknown, Mr. Pacha said. NATO said it faced a seasonal surge in militant operations, but dismissed recent suicide and bomb attacks as “militarily insignificant.”

A bomb killed 35 people, most of them police trainers, in a bus in the capital, Kabul, on Sunday. In the eastern city of Jalalabad, Nangarhar Gov. Gul Agha Sherzoi said Wednesday that a Pakistani and two Afghans were arrested for allegedly planning suicide attacks against him.

“We find ourselves in the midst of the so-called fighting season, when what we had predicted is taking place: an increase in suicide bombings and more desperate attempts by the enemies of peace and stability to present the illusion that they are stronger than they are,” said Lt. Col. Maria Carl, spokeswoman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force.

Violence has claimed about 2,400 lives, including civilians, militants and troops, so far this year, according to an Associated Press tally of figures from Western military and Afghan officials.

Aid agencies warned Tuesday that goodwill toward foreign forces has faded since the fall of the Taliban five years ago because of air strikes and botched raids by U.S. and NATO troops.

The ACBAR umbrella group of 94 foreign and Afghan aid agencies said foreign forces had killed at least 230 Afghan civilians this year, including 60 women and children.

AP's tally puts the figure through June 17 at 152, while another 169 were killed by insurgents. It was not clear how the umbrella group — which includes Oxfam, Save the Children and CARE International — arrived at its higher total.

Mr. Karzai has pleaded repeatedly for international forces to co-ordinate more closely with Afghan authorities in order to protect civilians near military front lines.

The aid agencies laid much of the blame on U.S. actions, alleging that indiscriminate use of force had resulted in the death of innocent civilians.

Germany Should Resist Calls to Leave Afghanistan, Jung Says

By Patrick Donahue - June 19 (Bloomberg) -- German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung said the government should ``decisively resist'' calls by a majority of Germans to pull its forces out of Afghanistan because the country may revert to a training camp for terrorists.

``Afghanistan can't go back to being a training center for terrorism from which the attacks on Sept. 11 were carried out,'' Jung said yesterday in a speech in Berlin on Germany's security needs.

German skepticism about the country's involvement in the mission to stabilize Afghanistan under President Hamid Karzai has risen after a suicide bomber killed three German soldiers in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz on May 19. A TNS Emnid poll for the N24 television channel released two days later showed the number of those opposing Germany's presence in Afghanistan rose to 68 percent from 44 percent.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Christian Democrats have promised to keep troops in Afghanistan following the attack. German personnel in the country form part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led force and reconstruction teams. The opposition Left Party, which has been eating into support for Merkel's co-ruling Social Democrats, has called for an end to Germany's deployment.

Germany's parliament voted after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S. to allow German special operations troops to support the U.S. in Afghanistan. Six Tornado jet fighters were dispatched April 2 to help identify targets for NATO forces. The parliament may vote on renewing the mission in October.

Afghan mission will take decades: British envoy

Reuters - June 20, 2007 - LONDON — Britain needs to maintain a significant presence in Afghanistan for several decades to help fight terrorism and pull the country out of poverty, London's ambassador to Kabul said on Wednesday.

Sherard Cowper-Coles, who took up his post as ambassador six weeks ago, said Britain needed to commit to a long-term presence in Afghanistan to help it recover from 30 years of war and quash a determined Taliban insurgency.

“The task of standing up a government of Afghanistan that is sustainable is going to take a very long time,” he told BBC radio. “It's a marathon, not a sprint. We should be thinking in terms of decades.”

Afghanistan has relied largely on Western troops for its security and on donor funds for its economy since U.S.-led forces overthrew the Taliban in 2001.

Britain has about 7,000 troops in Afghanistan, based mainly in the southern province of Helmand where they have encountered fierce resistance from Taliban fighters. The total deployed will rise to 7,700 this year.

However, Mr. Cowper-Coles said any decades-long British presence would not necessarily be military.

“But we are serious about a long-term development presence,” he said, adding Britain's foreign office had decided Afghanistan was now “one of our very highest foreign policy priorities”.

Mr. Cowper-Coles rejected suggestions that U.S.-led coalition forces were losing the fight with the Taliban, and losing the support of ordinary Afghans for their presence.

More than 120 civilians have been killed in recent months during foreign troop operations, according to Afghan officials and witnesses. The deaths have sparked protests, including demands for the withdrawal of U.S.-led coalition forces.

The British ambassador admitted “mistakes have been made” with regard to the killing of civilians, but pointed to human rights organizations' data which showed the Taliban killed five times as many civilians.

“The reality is that the great majority of Afghans want us here,” he said. “If there is one thing they are clear about it is that they do not want to return to the dark days of mediaeval Taliban rule.”

Prime Minister Tony Blair, due to step down next week and hand over the British premiership to Finance Minister Gordon Brown, has warned Afghanistan risks being overwhelmed by anti-western violence, similar to that in Iraq.

Mr. Cowper-Coles said he hoped Mr. Brown's new government would remain committed to Afghanistan for the long term.

Rescue plan for an Afghanistan perilously close to its tipping point

Europe's World - The past six years have seen a succession of political errors, neglect and missed opportunities, says Ashraf Ghani, Afghanistan's former Finance Minister.

He sets out his proposals for a 10 year recovery strategy to bring it back from the brink When it comes to gaining the world's attention, countries in conflict rarely get a second chance. Afghanistan has been defying the odds because it is the focus of renewed global attention thanks to the threat posed by the terrorist networks there that are dedicated to proliferating global disorder.

The international forces now helping the people of Afghanistan to confront the threat are a major resource, and the Afghans, too, have assets − ranging from a strong desire of the people to be part of the global economy, to significant mineral and water resources and to their country's location as the land bridge between south and central Asia and the Middle East.

But neither these international assets nor the Afghan ones will be of much use unless we define our goals very clearly and establish the right balance between our use of force and our deployment of resources.

And to do that means we have to achieve a paradigm shift from tactical improvisation to strategic coherence. Tailoring a strategy for resolving Afghanistan's difficulties means that first we have to understand the limits of force, and second that we have to draw a realistic scorecard of the last six years.

The use of force was essential to loosening Al-Qaeda's stranglehold on Afghanistan. Afghans welcomed the present military assistance as an act of liberation, with the children of Kabul rushing to greet the ISAF soldiers. The country was ready to entrust the legitimate monopoly of force to international forces until the Afghan state was itself able to take on that responsibility.

Unwilling to make the commitment to deployment of forces to guarantee stability nation-wide, the international community instead adopted a multi-pronged approach:

Operation Enduring Freedom focused on the elimination of terrorism and ISAF, whose command was taken on by NATO, dealt with 142 | Europe's World Summer 2007 the security of Kabul under a UN mandate.

The US, Germany, and Italy assisted with building up the Afghan army and police, and the reform of the judicial sector. Strongmen allied to the coalition were at first given a free hand to arm, and then asked to demobilize. Last year, the first two of these operations were largely unified under a single command, while the third component has advanced less satisfactorily, having received the least amount of resources.

A country's army derives its legitimate monopoly of the use of force from its status under the rule of law. In Afghanistan, however, the legal status of use of force has become increasingly problematic. Forced entry into houses, arrests and the bombardment of civilian targets have become legal enigmas that puzzle and deeply upset the Afghan population. With people being arrested by the international forces and then released without due process of law, the legal status of Afghanistan's government as guarantor of the country's sovereignty is increasingly open to question by its opponents. The whole problem is being compounded by the absence of serious investment in the police, the slow pace of expansion of the national army, the continued impunity of strongmen accused of violations of human rights, and the weakness and corruption of the judiciary. The willingness of Afghans to cede to the international forces the legitimate monopoly of force is now looking very close to its tipping point.

There are other pertinent factors. The paradigm of what British General Sir Rupert Smith has called "industrial warfare", is ill-suited to military operations against terrorist networks. And even if the paradigm were valid in Afghanistan's case, the international community would not be able to commit enough troops to conquer the country by force; the Red Army, despite its brutal pursuit of total war, signally failed to win by using those methods. Securing Afghanistan's future means placing the use of force within a much broader strategy of creating stability through prosperity.

There are six lessons from the last six years. First, the political process of creating a legitimate central authority succeeded because that goal was clearly articulated, the process well delineated, the rules of the game and the play carefully choreographed, the process properly refereed, and steady momentum toward meeting the goal of empowering the Afghan people maintained.

In three years, Afghanistan moved from being a pariah country to having the first democratically-elected president in its history.

Second, a series of national programmes were built, ranging from telecoms where significant amounts of foreign direct investment were attracted to rural development, where a programme of block grants to villages showed that institutions could be created through creation of stakeholders in the process of governance.

Afghanistan's partners included institutions like the World Bank and the European Commission and the Canadian, Dutch, British and Scandinavian governments.

Third, the business practices of the UN and some other partners imposed severe coordination costs on the Afghan Summer 2007 Europe's World | 143 government, resulting in the creation of parallel organisations to the government itself and provoking a loss of trust in the accountability and transparency of the aid system.

Fourth, supply-driven wasteful technical assistance became the norm. The result was that investment in higher education was neglected, leaving Afghanistan's youth with no credible mechanism of upward social mobility, and therefore no strong sense of ownership of the development process.

Fifth, there was a failure of imagination to help the Afghans design an effective economic approach for dealing with the narcotics threat.

The ill-advised eradication plan was probably an important factor in creating the alliance between the drugs and terror networks and therefore of making corruption in the legal and security organs a national disease.

Sixth and most important of all, the goal of building a state that would have legitimacy at home and abroad was subordinated to the fragmented national and international "organisational stovepipes" of Afghanistan's international partners. It seemed quickly forgotten that the Afghan people were keenly monitoring developments, and becoming increasingly disenchanted.

A vicious circle has been created of youth unemployment, weak governance, cynicism about the aid system, a distrust of UN agencies and the NGOs and a widening gap between Afghanistan's haves and have-nots. The early momentum and trust have now been lost, but at least the renewed international focus on this country is providing an opening for a new path to medium-term stability. Regaining trust and momentum requires a strategic coherence capable of producing visible results on the ground. International agreement on the goal of assisting Afghans to build a functioning state and a vibrant economy is the key to achieving that strategic coherence. In turn, that means that to win the battle for Afghanistan we need consensus that a minimum of 10 years will be needed to set innovative mechanisms in place.

The new mechanisms Afghanistan needs are as follows:

• To create predictability, reduce coordination costs, and establish clear accountability mechanisms, all assistance should be channelled through a single multi-donor trust fund. This should be endowed with specially crafted rules and its own on-the-spot management team.

• A series of carefully crafted national programmes can then be designed to generate wealth and deliver services to Afghan citizens. Each program would have agreed upon criteria of accountability, efficiency, and transparency and one of the programs would focus on implementation of a rigorous national system of accountability to promote the rule of law and good governance.

Securing Afghanistan's future means placing the use of force within a much broader strategy of creating stability through prosperity Summer 2007 Europe's World | 145

• Because feasibility studies have been a constraint blocking the start of major infrastructure projects, countries whose military have an infrastructure design capacity should be called on to assist in this vital area. Rules for the allocation of funds should be drafted in such a manner as to permit multi-year commitments for major infrastructure projects.

Winning hearts and minds in Afghanistan requires at least two years of focus. In the first place, that means an ambitious programme of investment in technical and higher education to provide Afghanistan's youth with the skills to compete in the market and the commitment to function as citizens of a democratic government displaying high values of tolerant Islamic civilisation. It will also require an innovative programme for empowering people in the border regions of the country, particularly in the conflict-riven south, to bind them through solidarity ties to the rest of the country.

Building a market economy requires substantial investment in market institutions as well as access to regional and global markets. Investing in Afghanistan's construction industry is an essential first step towards greater economic efficiency, a reduction of security costs and the creation and maintenance of crucially important infrastructure. More jobs will be critical to Afghanistan's future stability, and only corporations know how to create jobs.

But the proper assessment of risk and the development of risk guarantees, coupled with incentives to attract international partners for Afghan entrepreneurs and the government, are all much-needed building blocks. Afghanistan's geographical location can also be turned into a major asset if it can fashion a development strategy capable of yielding regional synergies with the rapidly growing economies of south Asia, China and the Gulf. Above all, predictable policies and rule of law are needed to foster development of the country's mineral resources.

Afghanistan today needs much the same sort of imagination that helped Europeans to create prosperity out of the ashes of World War II. Many Afghans stand ready to explore ground-breaking new approaches to partnerships with the international community so as to tackle the twin problems of violence and narcotics.

The lives of Afghans themselves and of the international soldiers now deployed around the country will depend on the willingness of world leaders to seize the initiative. NATO's own future also depends to a large degree on their political will to act as the essential catalysts in a compact with the people of Afghanistan.

Ashraf Ghani is the Chancellor of Kabul University and a former Finance Minister of Afghanistan.

Al Qaeda video fuels fear, caution - Recruits allegedly slated to hit Canada, U.S., U.K.

June 20, 2007 - Tamara Cherry, Toronto StarStaff Reporter

A video showing about 300 men and boys as young as 12 at an Al Qaeda training camp is creating fears, ABC News says, that suicide missions are being deployed to Canada and other countries.

But such fears were met with caution and skepticism yesterday by security officials and analysts.

"Of course it's a concern," Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day told reporters of the video aired Monday on ABC News. "We've always said that Canada is not immune to threats of terrorism."

The video showed a graduation ceremony for a training camp for Afghanistan's Taliban movement, ABC News said.

The recruits were organized in four "teams" to be deployed on supposed suicide missions in Canada, the United States, Germany and Great Britain.

"These Americans, Canadians, British and Germans come here to Afghanistan from faraway places," Taliban military commander Mansoor Dadullah said to the crowd. "Why shouldn't we go after them?"

The footage is said to have been shot by a Pakistani journalist invited to the event somewhere in the Afghan-Pakistan border region June 9.

Admitting no security system is 100 per cent fail-safe, Day said the ability for the alleged terrorists to cross our border is "limited."

"Canadians can sleep well at night knowing that we have very effective security capabilities," he said.

"This is really no news to us, because we always plan for the worst and hope for the best," OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino said. "We believe that terrorists are planning all the time to frustrate our security, to attack our infrastructure."

Interim RCMP Commissioner Bev Busson said she didn't "necessarily" see the news as an escalation of threat to Canada.

A senior intelligence analyst with the Search for International Terrorist Entities Institute in Washington dismissed the video as "straight-up propaganda."

"I don't put a lot of credibility into it," said Ned Moran. The only detail that sets this video apart from others put out by radical jihad groups "several times a day," he said, is that it was broadcast through an American network, rather than an Islamic medium.

David Harris, director of the international and terrorist intelligence program at Insignis Strategic Research in Ottawa, cautioned that the threats could be valid.

"Whether (the video is) highly factual or merely apocryphal, it's serving notice that we're on the menu."

The video will likely serve as a recruitment mechanism for like-minded individuals already among us, he added. "It's possible some of the folks pictured are not going to Canada, but returning to Canada."

Omar Samad, Afghanistan's ambassador to Canada, noted that the consequences of thousands of young men "graduated" from similar camps have been seen in terror attacks "from Bali to Casablanca, from New York to London."

"It leaves very little room for dismissing it offhand," he said.

Last summer, Dadullah's brother, Mullah Dadullah, who was killed in a U.S.-led operation last month, said Canada and other countries that have no history of conflict with Afghanistan should stay away. "Our advice to these countries," he told Al Jazeera network, "is to avoid the heat of battle because we will wreak vengeance upon them one by one."

Taliban threat to Canada just a stunt, officials say

Video a desperation tactic, Day says as he pledges to stop suicide bombers at the border - COLIN FREEZE From Wednesday's Globe and Mail

June 20, 2007 - A Taliban commander's pledge to send hundreds of suicide bombers to Canada and other Western countries is a disturbing but highly implausible publicity stunt, say top security officials who are struggling to deal with threats already present in Canada.

ABC News obtained footage this week of a reputed Taliban graduation ceremony. In it, a top commander lines up about 300 young training-camp graduates. Then he announces plans to send them on missions to the United States, Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom in retaliation for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's presence in Afghanistan.

Yesterday, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day called the video a desperation tactic. "The Taliban are aware that our troops cannot be intimidated ... so they are trying, through public-relations means, to worry the hearts of Canadians at home," he told reporters.

He added that while he takes threats seriously, he feels confident that intelligence and border officials could stop any suicide bombers. "Canadians can sleep well at night knowing that we have very effective security capabilities."

Security officials view the scheme as out of character for the Taliban, given that the militants drawn from Afghanistan and Pakistan focus their attacks in those regions. Refugee flows from these countries have been dropping for years - from more than 2,000 people annually six years ago to just over 800 in 2005, according to the federal refugee-protection agency.

Yet the video has prompted fears that some operatives could get through, or that Canada might become more of a target for jihadists. Top Canadian counterterrorism investigators say they have their hands full.

"Presently, we are very short of personnel. I am bringing in people from other sections all the time," RCMP assistant commissioner Mike McDonell testified at a Senate committee on Monday, before ABC broadcast the footage. The head of the RCMP's $40-million-a-year, national-security section went on to say he has been forced to borrow 100 Mounties from other investigative departments.

It was assistant commissioner McDonell who last year announced the arrests of 18 Canadian terrorism suspects. The conspiracy allegedly involved a scheme to detonate truck bombs in Toronto to get Canadian Forces soldiers to leave Afghanistan.

The problems in Canada's largest city haven't gone away since last year. "It is fair to say that the centre of gravity for us with respect to today's national-security threat is in the Toronto area," the assistant commissioner told the Senate national security committee.

Warnings to Canada from the Taliban are unusual, but not unprecedented. Last June, a top Taliban military commander urged Canada to pull its military out of Afghanistan. "Our main enemy is the United States. As for Canada and the other countries, we have no historical enmity," Mullah Dadullah said in a televised interview. "... But if they want to come here as fighting forces, we will view them just as we view the Americans."

Mullah Dadullah went on to direct suicide bombings in Afghanistan and release a series of gory beheading videos on the Internet. When he was killed by NATO forces last month, authorities made a point of ensuring that footage of his dead body was broadcast around the world.

The latest salvo in the propaganda war is now the Taliban graduation ceremony. In the video, the slain commander's younger brother, Dadullah Mansoor, looks over scores of young new recruits.

While he inherited his brother's networks, experts say his family's power is diminished. With reports from Graeme Smith in Kabul and Jeff Sallot in Ottawa

Afghan debate to hit Quebec streets

INGRID PERITZ - From Tuesday's Globe and Mail June 18, 2007

MONTREAL — Anti-war protesters will confront Afghanistan-bound troops on Friday in Quebec City as a sign of the tension in Canada's most anti-war province.

Organizers of the protest plan a counter-march to oppose what is intended to be a high-profile send-off parade by the Royal 22nd Regiment at Canadian Forces Base Valcartier.

More than 2,000 uniformed soldiers of the Vandoos and other regiments are scheduled to take part in a support-the-troops parade as part of a public-relations offensive by the Armed Forces to try to win the hearts of Quebeckers, who consistently show the lowest level of support for the Afghan mission in Canada.

But not everyone has been persuaded. Last week, anti-war protesters sent 3,000 letters to Valcartier military families, urging soldiers to reject their deployment and resist becoming “cannon fodder” for the war. On Friday, the demonstrators will protest along a parallel route to the soldiers.

“We are not aiming for confrontation, but you can't predict what every individual will do,” said Mathilde Forest-Rivière, a spokeswoman for the War on War Coalition.

For some, the conflict is personal. Francis Dupuis-Déri, a political science professor at the University of Quebec in Montreal, will be on the protesters' side of the barricades. His younger sister, Capt. Catherine Déri, will be marching with her regiment on the other side.

“I love my sister, so I'm very troubled and worried that she's being deployed to Afghanistan, even if it's her personal choice,” Prof. Dupuis-Déri said in an interview yesterday. “My sister will be on the other side of the police line on Friday.”

The professor calls the Afghan mission an “unjust war” and says he believes Canada is doing the bidding of the White House by sending troops. He wrote an open letter to his sister in Quebec newspapers last week, asking her – and other Canadian soldiers – how many would return home in coffins.

The Friday event “is to make the soldiers look like family men and sympathetic people, while they're going over to make the situation worse. Their presence will cause deaths and support a corrupt regime. We want to counter the army's marketing operation,” he said.

Capt. Déri, for her part, says she respects her brother's viewpoint but supports the Canadian mission's goals.

“I'm all for difference of opinion and my brother sharing his views. It's very democratic, and Canadians are flying around the world so that others have the same freedom,” Capt. Déri said in an interview.

Friday's march is part of a blitz by the Armed Forces to boost troop morale and bolster support for the mission on the eve of the Quebec regiments' departure.

On Thursday, 1,700 soldiers in their desert-coloured uniforms will attend a CFL pre-season game between the Montreal Alouettes and Toronto Argonauts at Montreal's Molson Stadium.

Soldiers are also heading to 18 cities and towns across Quebec to hand out flags representing the Afghan mission, as part of a “goodwill” gesture, said Lieutenant-Commander Hubert Genest.

“We often have to explain the work we're doing,” he said, calling the mission “noble” and saying it coincides with Quebeckers' priorities of peace and stability.

“We're trying to engage people so they understand there's a difference between the mission in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that Afghanistan is for a good cause,” he said.

The $125,000 send-off on Friday is the final public event for the troops before they deploy at the end of next month. It begins with a gathering for soldiers and their families at the Quebec City Convention Centre.

Original plans called for the parading troops, under the eye of politicians and dignitaries, to file down Quebec City's Grande Allée and past the Quebec National Assembly. But the Armed Forces are in talks with police about possibly changing the route, another army spokesman said.

Quebec-based soldiers are to land in Kandahar at a time when opposition to the mission in the province remains high. A poll published in the current issue of Policy Options, a Canadian public-policy magazine, found that only 38 per cent of Quebeckers thought the Afghan mission enhanced Canada's reputation, 10 points below the national average.

Afghan policy rejected

DND nixes formal compensation plan for civilians killed or hurt working with Canadian troops - By KATHLEEN HARRIS, The Sun, NATIONAL BUREAU

The Department of National Defence considered -- but rejected -- a program to compensate Afghan civilians killed or maimed while supporting Canadian troops.

Documents obtained by Sun Media under Access to Information show senior military officials presented options last summer to provide financial assistance to Afghans killed or hurt on the job, arguing there is a "moral obligation" and a "strategic effect" to win over locals.

"First, in the battle for hearts and minds, it is important that we are perceived as caring for the welfare of the local populace, including injured local employees," states a briefing note for the staff director, drafted by a team of high-ranking military officials in August 2006.

"Second, a lack of medical treatment and compensation program for injury or death of locally employed civilians can directly limit local work resource."

Current policy allows emergency treatment for injured civilians on a "cost recoverable basis," but in practice, the costs are waived with approval by the defence minister or his designate.

Injured Afghans are transferred to a local hospital when appropriate and Canadian Forces does not provide any rehabilitative care.

The report recommended formalizing the cost-free practice by enshrining it in policy, arguing that "it seems unreasonable that Taliban are treated at no cost, while locally employed civilians are not." The report also advised that ex-gratia payments were not appropriate and recommended writing a compensation clause into local contracts.

But after in-depth study through the fall and winter, the department opted not to make any changes. Lt.-Col. Kelly Farley, of the Strategic Joint Staff, said the "status quo" was deemed the best route given the complex local environment in Afghanistan. "We basically found that what we were doing is as good as it gets," he said.

Canadian Forces hires Afghans as guards, translators and for other jobs that often put their lives and limbs at risk. Farley would not say how many Afghans are working to support Canadian operations, or how many have been injured or killed on duty.

CF policy for ex-gratia payments are awarded on a case-by-case basis and do not provide a standard entitlement for injury or death.

Lt.-Col. Joe Holland, director of Law Operations, said that doesn't necessarily leave affected Afghans grovelling for help. He said the system works well because it excludes compensation for someone who breaks their leg on the weekend, but can assist when an employee is killed or injured on mission with Canadian soldiers.

Holland said the CF strives to treat Afghans fairly and that Treasury Board rules dictate only that an ex-gratia payment is in the "public interest." In-theatre authorities can approve up to $2,000; higher sums must be approved by the deputy minister.

Better times, new problems for model Afghan city

By Mark Bendeich – Reuters Tuesday, June 19, 2007

HERAT, Afghanistan (Reuters) - The man who runs the western Afghan province of Herat has many problems, but he says his biggest headache has nothing to do with the Taliban.

The Islamist guerrilla group launches suicide bombings against troops and civilians in the province, but these are not currently at the top of Governor Sayed Hossain Anwary's in-tray.

Nor are the tens of thousands of jobless Afghans streaming into the provincial capital from the nearby Iranian border, where they are being deported as illegal immigrants.

So what problem could be bigger in Herat than Afghanistan's entrenched evils of violence, lawlessness and grinding poverty?

"The biggest problem is the building of the university," Anwary told Reuters earnestly at his office in Herat city, an ancient capital close to the Iranian border.

"It is 45 percent complete. Our students don't have a dormitory or good classes," he complained, rubbing his forehead.

Herat is Afghanistan's second-largest city and one of its most successful. With less violence than many other provinces and far more development, the governor has problems that his counterparts in the rest of the country can only dream about.

Herat city, a conquest of Alexander the Great and a jewel of Islamic civilization, wants to regain some of its former glory. Home to 3 million people, it now has a steady power supply and thriving trade with Iran and another neighbor, Turkmenistan.

Trucks laden with fruits, spices, raisins, almonds and goats' wool rumble over a good, sealed road to the Iranian border about two hours' away. Coming the other way, Iranian trucks bring clothes, household goods and building materials.

Outside Herat city, an industrial park has attracted foreign firms to set up factories employing hundreds of people. In the city, there are wooded public gardens where families picnic beneath tall evergreens. Apartment blocks are also sprouting up.

The city's 14th-century fort has been restored and is surrounded by a teeming medieval bazaar of mud-brick shops where turbaned men with beards tend carts weighed down by ripe tomatoes, red onions, potatoes and cucumbers.

There is also a new five-star hotel, owned by a British woman of Iranian descent who has so far invested about $200,000 of her family savings in the hope that Herat will continue to thrive.

But a closer look at Herat reveals that Afghanistan's model city is struggling to write the next chapter of its success.

The $60 million university project is half finished and there is no sign of work. Three buildings have been completed, each clad in white and black marble and rising impressively from the dusty construction site, but there is no power or water.

The other buildings are still concrete shells. Desks and chairs are piled up inside one of the unfinished structures. The whole project should have opened this year and stands as one of the most visible symbols of Herat's waning fortunes.

The university and other projects were pushed ahead by the powerful previous governor, Mohammad Ismail Khan, who used taxes collected from the border trade to refurbish the city.

In the first four years after invading U.S-led forces removed the Taliban from power in 2001, Herat was a boom town.

But his successor, Anwary, complains that customs and income taxes now flow directly to the central government for Kabul and are redistributed among the lesser-developed provinces.

"There is no money," said Anwary, who wears a dark suit, no tie, a thick black beard and a permanently furrowed brow. As he spoke, the lights flickered and his office plunged into darkness for a few moments, as if to drive home his point.

"We have some money from the municipality, which we use for solving our problems but we don't have any budget coming from the central government," he said.

The University of Herat has about 6,000 students crammed in to its current campus, about a third of them young women who had been prevented from studying under the Taliban regime.

The dormitory is so crowded that up to 20 students sleep in one room, university president Mohammad Naim Assad said. Some of them recently went on hunger strike over the conditions.

"In the night, they are studying in the middle of the street," Assad said through an interpreter. Asked when the university will be finished, he just shrugs.

Tensions between the United States, which is largely underwriting Afghanistan's security, and Iran may also be taking some of the shine off Herat's success, according to the new five-star hotel's owner and manager, Lailla Salari-Mercier. "It's really difficult," she said.

But she said Herat was still one of the brightest prospects for business in Afghanistan and there was no turning back. "I am sure there's enough business for this hotel to be very successful," she said. "We have taken the lease for three years and invested a lot of money in the hotel ... We have burnt all the bridges and there's no going back, so it has to be successful."

Axed Afghan MP pleads with US to cut aid

New York - The US is making a mockery of democracy and the war on terrorism by supporting corrupt Afghan lawmakers who are criminals and warlords, said an outspoken female Afghan politician, who was removed from parliament.

Malalai Joya (29) was effectively expelled last month when the lower house of parliament voted to suspend her for the remaining three-and-a-half years of her term after she described the legislative body as "worse than a stable" during an interview.

Washington "supports the same enemies, who are mentally like the Taliban. They brought them back into power," soft-spoken Joya said in an interview during her first visit to the US. "This is the wrong policy. Do not support fundamentalist warlords," she said.

"Every day for the people of Afghanistan is September 11. Please pressure your government to change this policy, it is a mockery of democracy, it is a mockery of the war on terror."

The US invaded Afghanistan after September 11 2001 when it failed to surrender Osama bin Laden, leader of the Islamist al-Qaeda network.

Dressed in a grey pinstriped suit with her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail and sitting in the New York offices of Human Rights Watch, Joya said the parliament had kicked her out so she could no longer oppose and expose their actions.

"Many, many times they insulted me, even inside of the parliament they threw water at me and they threatened me with death, and one of them shouted, 'Take her and rape her,'" she said. "They turned off my microphone."

Joya said the Afghan people had been hopeful the US-led invasion "would bring democracy and security for them, but unfortunately we are looking at a worse situation than the Taliban period".

Despite death threats, Joya vowed to fight on for her people and to stand in the next election.

"I will continue more and more with my struggle because most of my people are with me," she said. - Reuters - Published on the web by Star on June 19, 2007

LOOKING AT AFGHANISTAN - India is blind to the opportunities at its doorstep

Commentarao S.L. Rao The author is former director- general, National Council for Applied Economic Research Indian network

Afghanistan has become bracketed with Iraq and its instabilities. In Afghanistan, the mujahedin ousted the Soviet occupiers and then lapsed into civil war. Afghans welcomed the taliban because they brought peace after protracted turmoil. They then suffered the oppressively fundamentalist and conservative rule by the illiterate and brutal taliban. The American invasion has led in the last five years to much reconstruction and economic growth. Iraq was an artificial country created by the British while Afghanistan is an old nation with no secessionist movements despite being a highly individualistic people, with strong tribal loyalties and a fairly rigid Islam. As the gateway to Asia, it has been fought over but never conquered until the Soviet occupation, with help from quislings within. The taliban evicted the Russians but left their imprint of illiteracy and fundamentalist Islam on a whole generation of young people. An economy and a country destroyed by 30 years of Russian and then taliban rule are visibly rebuilding itself — and fairly well.

Past rulers used central funds and a strong army and police to keep the tribes in line. The new constitution is centralist. The army is still untrained; the police are a rabble; there is no honest judiciary. There is little semblance of the rule of law. Warlords dominate many provinces. There is rampant red tapeism and widespread corruption. Ministers vary in quality. The president is universally acknowledged to be lacking in vision and to be very weak. This makes the imposition of central authority very difficult.

Afghanistan has no census, with no certainty about its population (said to be almost 30 million) and its composition. Yet, a recent study shows definite improvement (in relation to the last 20 years) in human development indicators like infant mortality. The economy is similarly believed to be growing. New industries have come up to supply the occupying International Security Assistance Force (mainly American) and the local population. But security continues to be a worry, outside (and also inside) Kabul. The south, on the Pakistan border, is the refuge of the taliban and is the worst for security, hampering development there.

At an international conference in Kabul sponsored by the Aga Khan on creating an enabling environment for private initiative, telecommunications was rated a major success. There are other smaller ones as well. In 2003, telecom was a national monopoly with 12,000 fixed line phones in the whole country, 50,000 mobile phones and 20,000 satellite phones. The cost per call was three to four dollars per minute. For long distance calls, Afghans had to trudge hundreds of miles to a neighbouring country.

Today, there are 2.5 million subscribers, with five operators, one of the four private companies, Roshan, having 50 per cent share. Call rates today vary around 10 cents per minute for a local call anywhere in the country and 45 cents for international calls. The market is growing at 50,000 new connections per month. Roshan is the leader and the other operators follow its lead. It employs over 1,000 people of average age 23, and indirectly (outsourcing and so on) another 20,000. Except corporate accounts, almost all subscribers are pre-paid ones. As in India now, each has to submit personal details, but apparently the police have no access to cell phone calls except through the ministry. Telecom contributes to 10 per cent of government tax revenues. Roshan provides all employees with transport to work and back, lunch, and has significant community involvement in health, education, children and rural social work. Women are 40 per cent of this work force.

High illiteracy, desire for communication, news and information explain the demand for cell phones. It will help to bind the country since the coverage is already over 45 per cent of Afghanistan. Roshan was promoted by the Aga Khan Development Network (as it did a five-star hotel and other investments) as part of its high-risk initiatives programme. The network is ready for its investments but it will take time in becoming self-sustaining. In Afghanistan, it is now doing very well. These investments have introduced new norms for behaviour and responsibility as well as skills in a workforce unaccustomed to such. There are said to be 16,000 local community councils. These constitute a tremendous resource for decentralized development, essential for a country as individualistic and tribal as this. Afghanistan must encourage private organizations to become active. Here, the existing network of local councils is ideal and must be more fully used.

However, the government is bent on expensive new central and large projects. In the power sector, Afghanistan is ideally placed with its harsh terrain, climate and the nature of the people to generate power locally in small quantities for local use. The fuel could be portable diesel or even gas, and biomass. As with telecom, terrorists might not hinder movement of such fuels since everyone otherwise becomes vulnerable. But the government is focussed mainly on long transmission lines from neighbouring countries and large hydroelectric projects.

The workforce in the twenties-to -thirties age group is uneducated, having been trained to use guns. Few are prepared for menial work, most are expensive, demanding higher wages than similar workers in China or India. Considerable help and effort are needed to give such people literacy, skills and training. India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have the experience and thus can induct them into the workforce. Adult literacy programmes are urgently required. Distance learning might help. The use of television as in India’s satellite instruction for television education could help and telecom operators can deliver it. Literacy, computer usage and the internet could help spread other specialized education and skills.

The taliban is growing in strength. Pakistan is a safe haven for them. The Afghan army is unable to suppress violence. But Afghanistan is not a basket case; nor is it beyond redemption as Iraq appears to have become. Strong leadership and policies more relevant for a nation composed of tribes led by warlords are necessary. But Afghanistan is saddled with a centralized constitution and large-project mentality. The few ministers who could be effective are more concerned with positioning themselves to succeed the present president than in demonstrating capability in their present assignments.

In these circumstances, much cannot be expected from the government. Private initiative through business and civil society and decentralization are the answer. Roshan and the telecom sector and other investments have demonstrated this. More is required. The bureaucracy must be made responsive and corruption reduced. Strong external pressure can achieve some results as it did in China where Deng Xiaoping created a China Council of high-level foreign businessmen and experts meeting annually with Deng (and his successors) along with every top minister. It identifies problems and bottlenecks, monitors implementation and suggests new directions. In Afghanistan, where many ministers were educated abroad and are not politicians, they give time (unlike in India) for such meetings and listen to advice. Such a council could therefore be a strong lobby to move Afghanistan forward.

Afghanistan is ill-served by the Western media, which focuses only on the disturbances and not on progress. The media in south Asia, particularly in India, have neglected Afghanistan. Despite Indian movies and film songs dominating the air, Indian products are invisible. No Indian private enterprise, politician, diplomat, government official, Chamber of Commerce or media attended the ‘Enabling Environment’ conference. Pakistan had a big presence, with the prime minister flying in for the closing session. Afghanistan offers great opportunities in future years with its minerals, gas, location and virgin markets. India must not let Afghanistan slip away from its orbit as it has done with Myanmar.

Pak-Afghan Jirga

Monday June 18, 2007 (1033 PST) Farzana Shah

The ensuing Pak-Afghan Jirga – a commission for peace - is being viewed with great expectations to usher in peace in the region particularly be able to deal with the violence in Afghanistan. However, before getting too optimistic over the formation, the role and the outcome of such a Jirga, Pakistan needs to have a realistic look at the intricacies involved and their repercussion on her own sovereignty. It was announced at the end of the recently held meeting of the commission in Pakistan that Taliban would not form part of the Peace Commission. Such exclusion of one of the main parties to the conflict, itself negates the very purpose of the formation of the commission. Analysts are already skeptical about the possibility of any durable peace through the joint Jirga commission sans Taliban.

We need to examine closely the possible motives behind formation of such a body wherein a key player-Taliban-is missing and instead stress is laid on the inclusion of tribesmen from Pakistan. By looking at the structure, mechanism and the main architect behind the proposed Jirga, one doesn’t have to be a Socrates to see through the motives behind it, and, for engaging Pakistan in an unnecessary exercise complicating matters further for her. The idea of the joint Jirga is the brain child of Mr. Karzai whose hostility towards Pakistan is no more a secret. In fact the antennae of the Foreign Office should have gone up instantly the moment Afghan president thought of engaging Pakistani tribesmen for a solution to a domestic conflict going on inside Afghanistan! Such a Machiavellian scheme needs analyzing in depth keeping the overall situation in view.

The practice of holding Jirgas to solve the problems in their respective tribal areas has been going on in both countries since ages. Due to the indigenous traditional sensitivities of the individual tribes and tribesmen, smaller Jirgas at the local level are held to decide the conflicting issues between them. Similarly Grand or Loay Jirgas are held at the national or country level. However it is for the first time that the two sovereign countries would hold a Joint Jirga which is not only unusual but tantamount to deciding the problems of one country by the other, which in the international diplomatic parlance is known as interfering in the internal affairs of another country. The proposed joint Jirga intends to engage about 700 tribal leaders and other influential elders from both sides. This seems to be a clever maneuver in line with the sometime back media reported intentions of Mr. Hamid Karzai to hold talks with the tribesmen on the Pakistan side of the Afghan border directly.

A Joint Jirga once formed would set the precedence and possibly continue working in future also for resolving the border issues through engaging the tribal leaders from both sides thus gradually undermining the role of the governments, specially the Pak government which is not as ethnic in Pushtoon character as the Afghan government is. Imperceptibly over the years it could result in passing on to the Afghans a direct access to our tribal areas and the tribesmen which will just suit Afghanistan’s designs on the Durand Line. Kabul’s efforts in charting Afghan ideological inroads into the Pak tribal territories with a view to inculcating the tribesmen there could make Karzai’s task of proving to the world the impracticality of the Durand Line far easier.

Strangely, Karzai wanted a third country to monitor the peace Jirga scheduled for August 2007, which was very wisely not agreed to by the Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. One wonders which third country except India had Karzai in mind and what kind of monitoring of the proceedings of the Jirga could Pakistan expect from her? It will, therefore, be not out of place to examine the India factor in a little detail.

India would have naturally jumped to the opportunity of playing the role of a mediator between the two countries which sounds rather amusing and open to question regarding the credibility of India for playing such a role. The most obvious of the obvious would be, “Would India want cordial relation between Pakistan and Afghanistan when she is already engaged in using Afghan soil for the terrorist activities inside Pakistan?” The Indian hand in creating problems in Balochistan is not new while the sabotage activities have also witnessed a sharp increase in NWFP with increasing Indian influence in Afghanistan, thanks to the seeds sown by Abdullah Abdullah and now being cleverly watered by President Karzai. The Indian consulates in Kandahar and Badakhshan and other provinces of Afghanistan are already busy like a bee and acting as the outpost for the outsourcing of intelligence of all kinds against Pakistan.

The Kandahar Governor Assadullah Khalid recently on May 24th 2007 openly admitted sheltering the so called Balochistan Liberation Army rebels in his area. He also offered to play a role between Pakistan and BLA rebels over stepping the Karzai government which lacks the required influence over the BLA and which the Indian backed Kandhar governor seems to have. The BLA is known to have been used by India as a double edged sword against Pakistan and Iran through Afghanistan. On one hand the BLA terrorists are facilitated by the hostile elements in Afghan government in entering Balochistan for sabotage activities. While on the other, they are used for similar ‘Larger Baluchistan’ activities in Iran, for which Pakistan is often accused by Iran. Who doesn’t know that by embittering the relations between Iran and Pakistan only India would stand to gain in the region?

India has been very active in creating anti-Pakistan feelings in Afghanistan and never let’s go of an opportunity to cash upon. During the recent border clashes in Tirimangal area of Parachinar Agency of Pakistan in May 2007 where 13 people were killed, India played up the event out of proportion. The protest led by three members of the Afghan parliament in Kabul was orchestrated by the Indian mission in Kabul and personally supervised and monitored as an operation by the Indian envoy Rakish Sood himself in Kabul.

Arranging of such protests against Pakistan by India in Kabul in the past also has been an on going feature. In it many a time the Pakistan embassy is mobbed, stoned, damaged and even burnt by the angry Afghans. The sole Indian objective being to create anti-Pakistan sentiments among the Afghans.

The matter did not rest here only, the suspended Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta – whose anti-Pakistan sentiments surpass that of his predecessor Abdullah Abdullah-- even sent a letter to the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon protesting against Pakistan over the issue.

Interestingly, no statement was issued by Hamid Karzai over the clashes or the Indian backed reaction of Afghans, though it is impossible to believe that he did not notice what all was happening under his very nose. In such a situation making our tribal areas directly accessible to a hostile Afghan government would be tantamount to paving way for the creation of more outposts for outsourcing intelligence for India against Pakistan and creating problems for our own sovereignty.

It is, therefore, highly imperative for Pakistan to take an in-depth stock of its future relationship with its Muslim and brotherly important neighbour - Afghanistan.

The very formation of the Jirga is flawed as the peace in Afghanistan is torn only by the Taliban who are fighting against the NATO forces, and they are being kept out of the Jirga! It is beyond understanding, when Karzai himself and the collision forces in Afghanistan are willing to hold talks with the anti-collision militia (Taliban), why Pakistan is being kept away from them. Or, is there some other nefarious design behind it than what meets the eye?

It is time Pakistan changed its policy towards the Taliban and instead of indulging in a futile exercise like the Joint Jirga, it offered to mediate between the warring factions - the Afghan government, the NATO coalition forces and the Taliban.

In 2001 Pakistan had to withdraw its support to Taliban, though half heartedly, and ever since has been causing damages to them by its pro-American policies. Pakistan is facing sever criticism internally as well as from certain external quarters for its most conspicuous U turn against the Taliban who were once considered to be the real asset for Pakistan. Never had Pakistan such cordial relations from any Afghan government than that of Taliban. We had no direct conflict with them nor had they done any sabotage activity inside Pakistan. Our borders with Afghanistan were much safer and securer under the Taliban regime there. No unrest of the sorts was witnessed in Waziristan or other tribal agencies of Pakistan. In hindsight, we made a big blunder by helping Karzai in getting elected.

Along with the U Turn it is unfortunate that we failed to formulate a clear policy towards Afghanistan since the fall of Taliban. Our Foreign Office should have foreseen the type of animosity towards Pakistan from the anti-Taliban elements – mostly from the North - who would occupy the corridors of power in Afghanistan. We destroyed all too suddenly all the bridges with the Pashtun Taliban putting our own interests and security at stake. If we had to get Karzai elected to the office of the President the prudence demanded that we had insisted as pre-condition upon chartering a clear course of action for the future relationship of the two countries and other parameters of trade and relations with the Afghans and the Afghan government which was anticipated to be dominated by the anti-Pakistan elements.

Pakistan has already done great damage to her security by supporting unequivocally and whole hoggedly the US on its War on Terror. Every possible mean was used to destroy our assets and good will in Afghanistan. What is most disappointing is that even then it did not win us the favour of the ungrateful Uncle Sam. We must, therefore, in the best interest of Pakistan and its posterity realize that we can no longer continue with this state of affairs at the cost and expense of our own national security. It is time that we adopted a more independent policy towards Afghan conflict and could play the role of a mediator between the Afghan government, the NATO forces and the Anti Coalition Militia fighting them. Pakistan should ask for the inclusion of the Pashtun Taliban in the Peace Commission without whom the peace Jirga would be just another toothless body. Even Russia, during its invasion of Afghanistan in the 80s, had to hold negotiations with the Mujahideen. Also, when the two sworn enemies US and Iran can come to the negotiating table after 50 years why can’t all the parties to the conflict sit on the same table in Afghanistan too?

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