In this bulletin:

• Musharraf Tells Pakistan Tribesmen to Expel Al-Qaeda Terrorists
• U.S. general says system for avoiding civilian casualties in Afghanistan is 'good' and 'working'
• Boy told bomb vest would spray out flowers
• Afghanistan’s young hero
• U.S. Ambassador Says Drug Trafficking is a Threat to Afghanistan
• 4500kg of hashish torched
• Afghanistan not cooperating in elimination of drugs:
• Death toll from floods in Afghanistan soars to 25
• ARTF OKs $80m grant assistance for Afghanistan
• ECHO to spend 24 million euros in Afghanistan
• Fast and furious with the Taliban
• AFGHANISTAN: Soviet-Era Weapons Handy for Taliban
• Afghan police battle seemingly insurmountable odds
• Harper's J-turn on Afghanistan
• Canada’s commitment in Afghanistan
• Hooked on drugs
• Italian Hospital Returns
• Dutch Court Acquits Afghan Of War Crimes During Soviet Occupation
• Kabul limos prove hit with locals

A soldier of the Afghan National Army poses for a photo with an Afghan boy Juma Gul, 6, a defused suicide bomber, left, and his brother Dad Gul at a joint US-Afghan military command center in Andar district of Ghazni province, west of Kabul, Afghanistan on Saturday. (AP Photo/Musadeq Sadeq)

Musharraf Tells Pakistan Tribesmen to Expel Al-Qaeda Terrorists

By Paul Tighe and Khaleeq Ahmed - June 27 (Bloomberg) -- President Pervez Musharraf told Pakistan's tribal leaders to expel al-Qaeda terrorists sheltering in the region bordering Afghanistan, saying their presence destroys peace and security.

``Foreign terrorists are the biggest threat to our country and therefore they have to be flushed out,'' the official Associated Press of Pakistan cited Musharraf as telling a meeting of tribal leaders, known as a jirga, in Peshawar, northwestern Pakistan, yesterday.

Tribal leaders must implement agreements reached in North and South Waziristan provinces since 2004 to expel non-Pakistani terrorists, Musharraf said. ``You do not go back on your words,'' he told the jirga.

Musharraf, who has deployed 80,000 soldiers in the northwestern tribal region for anti-terrorism operations, said in April that 300 gunmen were killed by tribesmen over a period of weeks. Pakistan last year rejected a report by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group that said the accords with tribal leaders curbed army operations and boosted the activities of al- Qaeda and the Taliban.

The president has faced opposition from Pakistan's Islamist groups over his support for the U.S.-led war on terrorism that began in 2001. His government has been criticized by neighboring Afghanistan for failing to stop al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters using camps in the tribal district to carry out cross-border attacks on Afghan territory.

Grand Jirga - A grand jirga of tribal leaders from Pakistan and Afghanistan will be held soon to develop a strategy for settling disputes and maintaining public order on the 2,430-kilometer (1,510-mile) border the countries share.

``We are the custodians of the frontiers of the country and soldiers without pay,'' APP cited Malik Waris Khan Afridi, a tribal elder, as saying in an address to the jirga.

The infiltration of gunmen across the Afghan border will have undesirable consequences in the region, Musharraf said, according to APP. A withdrawal of all international fighters from the region will be brought about only by achieving peace in Afghanistan, he added.

Pakistan's government is providing funds for the development of the region, known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, the president said. He appealed to the jirga to focus on development, saying tribal leaders have the option of ``progress and prosperity or backwardness.''

Anti-Terrorism - Pakistan's anti-terrorism operations have resulted in the arrest of about 700 suspects since 2001, including alleged al- Qaeda commanders Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi Mohamed Abdullah Binalshibh, both accused of helping plan the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington.

The government increased security in the capital, Islamabad, yesterday after intelligence agencies said there was information that suicide bombers entered the city to carry out attacks, Brigadier Javed Iqbal Cheema, the Interior Ministry spokesman, said at a briefing.

Security around the diplomatic enclave, which houses more than 40 embassies, has been heightened, Cheema said.

Musharraf has pledged to boost economic growth in the world's second largest Muslim nation of 165 million people in an effort to reduce the threat of terrorism.

Pakistan is the only country implementing an anti-terrorism strategy that uses military, political and economic development to try to eradicate extremism, Musharraf said last month in an interview with Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper.

``It has been realized that the wave of terrorism cannot be suppressed by force and we have to change the mindset of the militants to tackle the problem,'' Cheema said yesterday.

U.S. general says system for avoiding civilian casualties in Afghanistan is 'good' and 'working'

The Associated Press - Tuesday, June 26, 2007 - WASHINGTON: Despite rising civilian deaths in Afghanistan's counter-terror war — and rising criticism — a U.S. general suggested Tuesday that coalition commanders do not need to change the way they operate.

"We think the procedures that we have in place are good," Brig. Gen. Joseph Votel told a Defense Department news conference. "They work, they help us minimize the effects" on civilians, he said.

A count by the United Nations and an umbrella organization of Afghan and international aid groups shows that in the first five months of this year, the number of civilians killed by international forces was roughly equal to the number killed by insurgents. An Associated Press count for 2007 based on figures from Afghan and international officials found that while militants killed 178 civilians in attacks through June 23, Western forces killed 203.

Speaking by videoconference from Bagram, Votel said the assertion that coalition forces are killing more civilians is "absolutely not true," and that those deaths caused by insurgent forces are "significantly greater."

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly pleaded with foreign troops to exercise caution and work more closely with Afghan forces, who might be able to minimize civilian casualties because of their knowledge of the terrain. On Saturday, he denounced the Taliban for killing civilians but directed most of his anger at foreign forces for being careless and viewing Afghan lives as "cheap."

Karzai said Saturday that in the previous 10 days more than 90 civilians have been killed in U.S. or NATO operations. He did not say how many had been killed by the Taliban.

The U.S. and NATO say they do not have civilian casualty figures. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said it is difficult to know which side caused casualties in an engagement where civilians also are present.

Votel, commander for NATO troops operating in eastern Afghanistan, defended what he said are "extensive measures" taken to minimize harm to civilians.

He described them this way:

_ With every operation, commanders look closely at the area involved and identify areas where civilian population may be affected.

_ In areas where there will be some civilians, they use a "collateral damage estimate process" to see where collateral damage may occur, then try to figure out how to mitigate it.

_ Whenever possible, they work with local government leaders to let them know troops are in the areas so they can communicate that to the population.

Although troops use "an accepted U.S. and ... NATO process," there is "a very low tolerance" for collateral damage in Afghanistan, Votel said.

"And so, in most of those cases, we choose to use other methods — we will try to go work with local Afghan authorities to help us identify those persons that we're interested in" rather than going in and using force, he said.

"Increasingly...we are partnered with Afghan forces," Votel said.

Asked if any new procedures are being used in light of the most recent civilian deaths, Votel said: "No, there's no particularly new procedures that we are using right now."

He said "dozens and dozens and perhaps hundreds of other operations" are done across his command area that are in and around civilian populations "with no negative collateral effects on the people."

Boy told bomb vest would spray out flowers

June 27, 2007 - AFGHANISTAN: Taliban fighters tried to trick a six-year-old Afghan boy into wearing a suicide bomb vest and blowing up US soldiers by telling him the bomb would spray out flowers, the US military claimed yesterday.

Juma Gul, a dirt-caked child who collects scrap metal for money, told NATO and US troops that Taliban fighters cornered him in southern Afghanistan's Ghazni province last month and forced him to wear a vest they said would spray flowers when he touched a button.

He said they told him that when he saw American soldiers, "throw your body at them".

"When they first put the vest on my body I didn't know what to think, but then I felt the bomb," Juma said after being introduced to the elders at this joint US-Afghan base. "After I figured out it was a bomb, I went to the Afghan soldiers for help."

The boy and his brother were brought to a weekend meeting between Afghan elders and US Army Colonel Martin Schweitzer by the chief administrator of his village of Athul.

His story could not be independently verified, but local government leaders backed Juma's account and the US and NATO military missions said they believed his story.

NATO spokesman Major John Thomas said that while he was "a bit sceptical" about Juma's story at first, "everything I've heard makes me more and more comfortable".

The Taliban dismissed his claims as propaganda, at a time when US and NATO forces are under increasing criticism over civilian casualties. Both Afghan tribal elders and US military officers said they were convinced by his dramatic account.

A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, denied the militant group used child fighters, saying it has hundreds of adults ready for suicide missions.

"We don't need to use a child," Ahmadi said by satellite phone. "It's against Islamic law, it's against humanitarian law. This is just propaganda against the Taliban."

But a gory Taliban video that surfaced in April showed militants instructing a boy of about 12 as he beheaded an alleged traitor with a large knife. UN officials condemned the act as a war crime.

Juma's village lies in Ghazni province's Andar district, a Taliban stronghold targeted this month in a joint Afghan-US operation. The region remains dangerous and Afghan elders worry for Juma's safety.

Major Thomas said the case would force soldiers to think twice before assuming children are safe.

"This is one incident. We hope it doesn't repeat itself. But it gives us reason to pause, to be extra careful," he said. "We want to publicise this as much as we can to the Afghan people so that they can protect their children from these killers." AP

Afghanistan’s young hero

By Boston Herald editorial staff - Wednesday, June 27, 2007

A nyone who doubts for a moment the depths to which committed Islamist terrorists will go should hear the story of 6-year-old Juma Gui, who was strapped into a suicide vest by the Taliban and told to throw himself at American soldiers.

Juma told Afghan elders that the Taliban insisted the vest would spray flowers when he pressed the button. But he could feel the bomb and sought the help of Afghan soldiers. Juma is a hero by anyone’s definition of that word.

    Too often the war in Afghanistan is called “the forgotten war” as Iraq looms much larger in our consciousness. It shouldn’t be forgotten. Because in the end it isn’t just about our own safety. It’s about kids like Juma, too, who have a right to grow up free from Taliban thugs.

U.S. Ambassador Says Drug Trafficking is a Threat to Afghanistan

PRESS RELEASE -  Washington, D.C., June 26, 2007 - Ambassador William Wood, the new U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, told the Voice of America (VOA) in an exclusive interview today that "as long as the Taleban can continue to sustain itself from outside the country, and as long as it meets with some level of cooperation among the drug trafficking, criminal, and corrupt community inside Afghanistan, it will continue to be a threat."

During the interview, Ambassador Wood acknowledged that the Taleban has long been a threat to the stability of Afghanistan, but that it is "getting weaker every day." He added that, "if the Taleban were the only threat facing Afghanistan, I believe we could put Afghanistan in the win column right now."

When asked about the continuing concern over civilian casualties, Ambassador Wood told VOA that "we have been and continue to work closely with the government of Afghanistan to avoid civilian casualties." He added, however, that the Taleban often tries to divide the Afghan government from the Coalition by targeting civilians and including them in their operations.

The Ambassador is confident that the Coalition can accelerate the rate of improvement in the Afghan army and police and emphasized that Coalition forces are working closely with both the army and police.

VOA's Afghan Service broadcasts TV Ashna in Dari and Pashto to Afghanistan from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. daily on National Afghan TV and by satellite on Asiasat Channel 24 and for Europe on IOR Channel 409. VOA broadcasts 12 hours combined of Dari and Pashto programming daily on radio.

4500kg of hashish torched

GARDEZ (PAN): A large quantity of hashish seized by Paktia security personnel last month was torched in this provincial capital on Tuesday. Abdur Rehman Mangal, deputy governor of the province, informed Pajhwok Afghan News the 4500 kilograms of raw hashish burnt had been recovered in Gardez. Five men arrested with the contraband were currently in jail, said Mangal, who stressed stern action against drug smugglers and traders in accordance with the law. He also urged residents of the province to give up poppy cultivation, grow other cash crops and contribute to the reconstruction effort.

Afghanistan not cooperating in elimination of drugs:

The News, June 27, 2007 - RAWALPINDI: Minister for Narcotics Control Ghous Bux Khan Mahar on Tuesday admitted that Afghanistan was not cooperating with Pakistan in its bid to eliminate drugs.

Talking to journalists after a drug burning ceremony at the Jeddah Town Enclave, Mahar said Pakistan is committed to wiping out the menace of drugs and gigantic efforts are on the cards.

Narcotics Secretary Ismail Hussain Naqvi, ANF Director-General Maj-Gen Khalid, Senate Standing Committee on Narcotics Control Chairperson Begum Kulsoom Parveen, ANF directorate Force Commander Brig Muhammad Alvi and others were present on this occasion.

He said the Afghan government must cooperate with Pakistan in this regard by abolishing all heroin-making factories. He said Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz during his recent visit to Afghanistan also laid emphasis on this issue.

Death toll from floods in Afghanistan soars to 25

KABUL (PAN): Death toll from floods that hit different provinces of Afghanistan has soared to 25 people. The flooding caused losses amounting to millions of afghanis, officials said on Tuesday. Five people were killed and eight others injured in Surkh Parsa district of the northern Parwan province due to torrential rains and floods, said Abdul Rahman Ahmadi, member of provincial council.

He added the dead included three men and two women while four people were missing in the wake of the floods that washed away more than 50 houses, thousands of trees and crops over 5000 acres of land. Ahmadi pointed out a 30- kilometre road stretch and 20 bridges were also damaged. At least eight vehicles were trashed in flood-related incident, the public representative continued. Abdul Rahim Talwar, administrative head of Qarabagh district of Kabul, told Pajhwok the bodies of a woman and two children swept away by the flood had been found.

Eight residents of the district suffered injuries in flood-caused mishaps on Monday, Talwar said, adding irrigation watercourses, roads and orchards were damaged by the floods. MP Abdul Hadi Sapai said the floods killed a man and a woman besides sweeping away 40 sheep in the central Kapisa province, Police officer Col. Abdul Jalal said the floods and rains killed two people in Wata, as many in Shigal and four in Mano district of the eastern Kunar province.

Meanwhile, dozens of villages in Imam Sahib and Qala-i-Zal districts of the Kunduz province are under threat from the fast rising water level in Oxus River.

Residents said dozens of houses and thousands of acres of land had been inundated. Water and Energy Department Director Eng. Khalilullah said they planned to erect a 145-metre supportive wall along the river bank in Imam Sahib district in four months to deal with the flooding problem.

ARTF OKs $80m grant assistance for Afghanistan

KABUL, June 25 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF) Management Committee has approved $80 million grant assistance for the impoverished Central Asian country.

Of the package, $70 million will help the Karzai administration pay wages of non-uniformed civil servants and $10 million to improve the utilisation of government and donor resources.

The $70 million grant, which is out of the $270 million recurrent costs approved in the national budget for the current year, finances salaries and wages of over 200,000 non-uniformed civil servants and the governments operating and maintenance expenditures outside of the security sector.

In a statement mailed to Pajhwok Afghan News on Monday, the ARTF said, between May 2002 and March 20, 2007, it provided nearly $1.2 billion to the government for recurrent cost financing, of which $1.06 billion had been disbursed.

It acknowledged the government was gradually improving its revenue base through customs and taxation so that it could pay its recurrent costs fully in the future. In 2006, revenue collection was 40 percent above the previous year, the Fund pointed out.

Over the past five years, Afghanistans capacity to absorb donor assistance has improved much, said Alastair J. Mckechnie, World Banks Country Director for Afghanistan. However, many challenges remain to build government capacity, particularly at sub-national level where it was hard to find professional and experienced civil servants.

The $10 million grant for the Management Capacity Programme will help ministries temporarily improve their capacity in key managerial areas. It should enable the government to manage resources more effectively and deliver results faster on the ground.

The program will fund qualified Afghan staff, currently working in NGOs and international agencies, to work in critical positions in government in areas such as financial management, procurement, human resource management, policy and administration.

ECHO to spend 24 million euros in Afghanistan

KABUL, June 25 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The European Commission Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO) will spend 24 million euros on disaster management, health facilities and refugees' welfare this year in Afghanistan.

Laurent Saillard, ECHO representative for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, told reporters here on Monday the money would be spent by the World Food Programme (WFP), United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Red Cross to provide food and health services to the needy.

"Aid and support for returning refugees will be a priority, said Laurent, who revealed that ECHO granted 215million euros to Afghanistan through international NGOs since 2003.

Abdul Ghani Kazmi, secretary-general of the Afghan Red Crescent Society, announced the formation of two disaster management teams and training of 300 volunteers for dealing with emergency situations. ECHO had granted one million euros for the purpose, he added. Kazmi said the volunteers would be trained in Maidan Wardak, Kunar, Bamyan and Nangarhar provinces and two teams would be set up in Kabul and Balkh provinces.

Fast and furious with the Taliban

By Jason Motlagh - Asia Times Online / June 27, 2007 

GERESHK, Helmand province - British Captain Jeff Lee takes pride in his battalion's ability to "get in, get out" of sticky situations.

On patrol, khaki-colored vehicles bristling with firepower, roll bars and camouflage netting recall the desert pirate esthetic of Mad Max movies. And they travel equally fast and loose, sacrificing extra heavy armor plates for mobility to battle Taliban militants in this remote province, one of the hardest to tame in Afghanistan.

"We're a light, mobile, fast-reacting force," said the veteran of

counterinsurgency campaigns from Iraq to Northern Ireland, noting that only one of his men has been lost this year. "Get in, get out, and call in the air power to light the ground up if necessary."

But insurgents have adopted a similar approach to keep North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces on edge. After the bloody aftertaste of head-on confrontations across the southern provinces over the past year, they are increasingly shifting toward remote-detonated bombs, suicide attacks and other hit-and-run tactics in areas where they have regrouped. This reporter's first scheduled trip into Gereshk city was delayed by an early-morning suicide strike that killed two Afghan police officers at a bridge checkpoint.

Drugs are largely to blame. Gereshk sits next to the Helmand River, whose banks are straddled by two fertile strips of land where hardcore Taliban fighters, farmers and a troublesome combination of the two have dug in to protect their opium-poppy cash crop. The British have dubbed it the "Green Zone", but welcome they are not. World opium production in 2006 was 6,000 tonnes, 92% of which came from Afghanistan. In turn, most of Afghanistan's production comes from Helmand province.

"Just about every time we go into the area we engage [the Taliban]," said Lee. "Of course, the fighting tends to be most intense wherever opium cultivation is concentrated. You could say it's more like the 'Red Zone'."

Poring over a map at the British forward operating base 3 kilometers from the river, he said nearly every village on the banks of the river has a Taliban presence. With the opium-poppy harvest now over - and expected to exceed last year's record haul - hostilities have intensified from Gereshk up to the Sangin Valley, scene of fierce clashes in recent weeks.

NATO forces are trying to drive militants out of the valley to make improvements on the Kajaki Dam that could provide electricity for hundreds of thousands more Afghans, by far the biggest aid project the West has planned for the country. To do so, the road that runs parallel to the river must first be held to allow delivery of two massive transformers and a turbine for repairs.

"Clearing the valley has been one of our main objectives," said Lieutenant-Colonel Charlie Mayo, a spokesman for British forces in Helmand. "There are still sporadic attacks, and that's to be expected because [the Taliban] want this area as much as we do."

The British strategy in the south has been to push up the Green Zone and force militants to engage. Typically this plays out as a brief, heated gun battle with bands of four to eight militants who then recede into fields and adobe warrens, though officers say Taliban clusters appear to be swelling in some areas.

Lieutenant Aaron Browne, a platoon commander who regularly sweeps north, said that during one recent patrol his men were ambushed by more than two dozen foot-soldiers; a gun battle broke out and they quickly dispersed.

Like their compatriots fighting around the Kajaki Dam, he said, troops in the Gereshk region want to secure agricultural tracts to allow civil development teams to carry out projects such as irrigation ditches and wells. This has proved difficult even in areas where they have ousted the Taliban; faced with a skeptical population, holding the ground is another matter.

Lee insists British forces have a "powerful influence" over most of the upper Gereshk Valley, estimating that of 300 or so core Taliban fighters in his theater of operations, about 140 have been killed. However, he concedes that numbers are an "illusion", since insurgents have shown a deft capacity to "inflate and contract" when they are pressured.

An Afghan police guard at the sun-baked prison fort that commands a clear view of the Green Zone from the heart of Gereshk swore the Taliban are in control of the upper valley. What appear to be Taliban roam freely in plain view of Afghan and NATO security forces in the markets below, but for the time being a tense calm prevails.

Looking to hold the initiative, British officers held a shura (council) with community elders last month to determine what was needed most to win them over. A school was asked for, and soon built. Other projects, including a bus station and a city park, are in progress.

"They give us their grievances, and we remind them of what we've done," said Lee, also noting the refrigerated morgue his men have just installed in the local hospital. "The more they see they've got, the more likely they are to reject the Taliban. Gereshk is a success story."

But errant NATO air strikes continue to take their toll on Afghan civilians, undoing hard-earned public trust. Last Friday, another attack on suspected Taliban militants about 14km north of Gereshk killed nine women, three infants and a mullah, according to local authorities.

This week, an agitated President Hamid Karzai reprimanded foreign troops for unnecessary civilian deaths, writes Najiba Ayubi from Kabul in a report by Inter Press Service in association with the The Killid Group.

As civilian deaths spiral in the widening conflict in Afghanistan, there is anger on the streets against the government and foreign forces. Anti-US and NATO protests have rocked Kabul, and the eastern and southern provinces.

While militants have killed 178 civilians in attacks, Western forces have killed 203, according to an Associated Press count based on figures from Afghan and international officials.

Last week, public resentment erupted on the airwaves. An independent radio network stopped regular transmission to go live with a spontaneous, two-hour discussion after a suicide bomb in Kabul on June 17. At least 30 police instructors were killed when the bus taking them to work at the Kabul Police Academy exploded in front of the heavily fortified police headquarters.

Furious listeners who phoned Radio Killid, a station that broadcasts from Kabul and Herat, forced Karzai's spokesman to come on air to defend the government over the second attack on a police bus in Kabul this year.

"I blame the government of Karzai," said a caller who identified himself as Abdul Gulbahari. "I am a truck driver and have visited 31 provinces, including many of the districts. I see no positive changes in those provinces. The government has done nothing to solve the people's problems."

Afghan and foreign security forces have constantly claimed Kabul is safe from Taliban fighters seeking to topple the Karzai government. But successive suicide attacks have nailed the lie, according to political commentator, Dad Noorani.

"I think that security forces are unable to control the situation, including the US-led coalition and ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] forces. And when attacks happen, the government loses people's confidence," said Noorani, a well-known Radio Killid journalist. "We have troops from so many nations ... in order to secure our country but insecurity increases day by day," he lamented over the radio.

Security has sharply deteriorated in Afghanistan since late 2004 when many US troops were evacuated to Iraq. A resurgent Taliban have made deadly strikes on government facilities including schools, and on foreign troops. The nearly daily attacks, which began in the southern provinces along the country's border with Pakistan, have spread to the east.

Civilians, increasingly, are caught between the warring sides.

Zia Syamak Herawi, the president's spokesman, defended Karzai. "The Afghan National Army, Afghan National Police and the National Directorate of Security, under the leadership of the president, are all trying their best to prevent such activities, but suicide attacks are a little hard to control, and after three years the incidents are on the rise," he told Radio Killid.

Jason Motlagh is deputy foreign editor at United Press International in Washington, DC. He has reported freelance from Saharan Africa, Asia and the Caribbean for various US and European news media.

AFGHANISTAN: Soviet-Era Weapons Handy for Taliban

MAZAR-E-SHARIF, Jun 26 (IPS) - While United States officials accuse Iran of arming a resurgent Taliban, officials here say the weapons are actually part of vast caches left behind by the Soviet army that fought a nine-year war in Afghanistan before withdrawing in 1988.

Ustad Basir Arifi, secretary for the Disarmament of Illegal Armed Groups (DIAG) programme in northern Afghanistan, told IPS that weapons abandoned by the Soviet Union there are now being moved by professional smugglers to the southern provinces where the Taliban Islamist movement has its stronghold.

"Huge caches of weapons remained with the people from the Soviet Union period. These are now being smuggled to the south of Afghanistan. These weapons are bought in the north of Afghanistan and smuggled to the south to be used against government and foreign forces," Arifi said.

According to Arifi, security officials have on several occasions intercepted weapons being smuggled to the south. He said the DIAG has urged the government to take firm measures to avoid all this.

Abdul Aziz Ahmad Zai, the chief of DIAG, said his group was "very concerned over the issue. It shows that the Taliban are being fortified."

Zai did not rule out the possibility of weapons originating from outside Afghanistan. "Smugglers could be bringing weapons from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to the north. A good transit point could be Badakhshan province," he said without mentioning Iran.

Zai said powerful syndicates were carrying out the smuggling. "However, our security officials and the Interior Ministry are working very actively in this regard," he added.

According to Zai, the recent riots in northern Jowzjan province were an indicator of the fact that weapons were freely available to people. He also said that there still were armed groups in the north of Afghanistan. "It is a very great concern for us that there are lots of illegal armed groups in the north," he said.

Gen. Abdul Manan, representative of the defence ministry in the DIAG programme, said the government has been able to collect 70,000 heavy and light weapons from the whole country under the DDR and DIAG programmes. But he believes that at least a million more pieces were in the hands of armed groups in the north.

A gun smuggler operating from the Balkh province district told IPS that he has been in the business for the last two years. The Pashto-speaking, bearded man who spoke on condition of anonymity said he regularly comes to the north to buy different kinds of weapons. "I have employed people to collect weapons from people who have them and these are ferried to the south."

"I have my customers in Kandahar. When the weapons reach there, they come and receive it. I make good profit. I can buy an AK47 for 200 dollars in the north and sell it for 400 dollars in the south," he added. Occasionally he smuggles explosives as well.

Ahmad Shah, 45, a resident of Chemtal district in the Balkh province freely admitted to supplying the smugglers with guns. "I earn my living through running this business," he told IPS.

Atta Mohammad Nur, the governor of Balkh province, neither accepts nor rejects the fact that the weapons are being smuggled to the south. "It could be right. Insurgents are doing their utmost to disrupt life in the country. They could be smuggling weapons from north to the south," he said.

Rohullah Samun, spokesman for the Jowzjan governor, accepts that vast amount of weapons still exist in the province. "People do have weapons. There are lots of illegal armed militias in Jowzjan and its neighbouring provinces. Some of the warlords are regrouping," he said.

The reference was to Abdorrashid Dostum, one of Afghanistan's most formidable warlords. Dostum, who once supported the Soviets, has had a hand in the many regime changes that this war-torn country has seen over the last three decades and retains enormous influence in Jowzjan.

Dostum was among leaders who helped the U.S.-led forces to overthrow the Taliban government in 2001. Until recently he was regarded as the strongman of the north but his role has been reduced to that of being a military adviser to Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai.

On Jun. 13, U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns told CNN television in Paris that there was "irrefutable evidence" that Iran was supplying weapons to the Taliban.

Ironically, the Taliban owes its origins largely to Mujahideen (freedom) fighters that were once armed and backed by the U.S. against communist rule in Afghanistan and the Soviet occupation. (END/2007)

Afghan police battle seemingly insurmountable odds

Don Martin CanWest News Service Tuesday, June 26, 2007

CAMP NATHAN SMITH, Kandahar -- The Afghan police captain sat dabbing sweat off his forehead in his sauna-like office while negotiating with Canadian soldiers and police constables who were melting in full battle dress. It was hell -- and not just because the ripped curtain behind his desk failed to block out the blinding sunlight in Sunday's 48-degree heat.

This is enforcement Hades, a pathetic display of tool-less Afghan officers flailing and failing to enforce law in a lawless land.

Capt. Mohammed Magood Rhanani's office walls had numerous white boards devoid of writing. There was no telephone, Internet connection, fax machine or any device that would extend communications beyond shouting distance.

Outside his unsigned police "station" was parked the only marked "police" vehicle -- a filthy 400cc Honda motorcycle. Out back, facing the mountains where the Taliban roam, the only weapon was a rusting piece of Russian artillery.

A total of 16 heavily armed Canadian soldiers with two police constables and this columnist had driven armoured RG-31 vehicles for almost an hour through dangerous territory to see how they could help the district commander of this 64-member police force.

A key part of the military's provincial reconstruction team is to upgrade police efficiency and effectiveness, so the constables took out their notepads to see what the captain needed from Canada to do his job properly. The list seemed obvious -- and endless.

The police captain demanded more guns. His small cache of AK-47s just wasn't up to the task. No can do, Medicine Hat Const. Gerald Boucher shrugged. Against military policy and, besides, weapons issued to police "officers" have been known to mysteriously end up in Taliban hands.

Rhanani requested vehicles because, after all, one motorcycle is not enough. Sorry, that's up to Afghanistan National Police headquarters to sort out, our police responded.

A wired perimeter fence perhaps? Const. Charles Reddick, of Nova Scotia, nodded, took out his pad and made a notation. That would go into the report as a Canadian recommendation to Afghan authorities.

There are six checkpoints under Rhanani's command, but no way to communicate between any of them except an unreliable cell signal, no way to give chase if suspicious types make a run for it, no computer system to track what bad guy is where, doing what.

Policing is clearly the Achilles heel of this region's quest for peace, order and quasi-decent government -- and perhaps Canada's most pressing unfinished business if it leaves Afghanistan in 2009 when the mission mandate expires.

"Police are still looked at with much suspicion by our soldiers because they are a long way from being a professional police force," Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier told me last month.

One glimpse at their confused state of ineffectiveness is all you need to confirm Hillier's view.

While Afghanistan's national military is progressing from a band of misfits into something resembling an army, its police forces are still grossly under-equipped and underpaid -- and thus ineffective and corrupt.

A Kandahar police officer, who is a marked man for murder as far as the Taliban are concerned, makes about $70 U.S. a month -- if or when he gets paid. It costs about $140 a month to rent an apartment in Kandahar City. The only way to make ends meet is to demand bribes and collect graft -- which defeats the goal of creating legitimate law enforcement.

Boucher insists progress is being made on policing and that Canada's recommendations carry weight in the national headquarters.

"The Afghanistan police need some guidance as far as getting this done, but they need so much it's a bit like trying to drink out of a fire hose," he says. "We're making progress, but we're not here to do the job for them. In the end, it's up to them."

Whether Canada can offer significant lasting assistance is open to cynical speculation. Taking notes and dutifully filing reports that may or may not receive any attention inside the Afghanistan chain of command is a frustrating and seemingly hopeless way of adding muscle to law enforcement.

But getting away with breaking the law in southern Afghanistan today is as simple as outrunning a small motorcycle which, one station officer told me, probably wouldn't even start.

Harper's J-turn on Afghanistan

Andrew Coyne - National Post , Wednesday, June 27, 2007

What did it mean, that little offhand comment of the Prime Minister's the other day, to the effect that he would want "to see some degree of consensus" before renewing the Canadian Forces' current mission in Afghanistan?

Did it mean, as the defeatist chorus in certain sections of the media triumphantly proclaimed (triumphalist defeatists?), that Stephen Harper had buckled to his critics? Was the Toronto Star's Tom Walkom right to claim, on the strength of this one statement, that "Canada's Kandahar adventure is effectively finished," that "Canadian soldiers will continue to die in Afghanistan's south until the mission reaches its official end, 19 months from now," but after that it's back to the barracks? Should we trust The Globe and Mail's Lawrence Martin's judgment that "these were code words for the end of our war mission," that "in a year and a half, other North Atlantic Treaty Organization partners can take their turn at the combat role."

I don't believe it. That's not what the Prime Minister said, and it doesn't fit with anything else we know about him. I know he's reversed himself before, sometimes spectacularly. But this is something that goes to his very core. I do not believe that the same man who not a month ago, on his second visit to Afghanistan, declared that "our work is not complete," that "we cannot just put down our arms and hope for peace," that "we can't set arbitrary deadlines and simply wish for the best," would suddenly have decided to do just that.

What in fact did the Prime Minister say? He said "I would hope that the view of Canadians is not to simply abandon Afghanistan. I think there is some expectation that there would be a new role after February, 2009, but obviously those decisions have yet to be taken." He said "this mission will end in February, 2009. Should Canada be involved militarily after that date, we've been clear that would have to be approved by the Canadian Parliament." And he said this: "I would want to see some degree of consensus around that. I don't want to send people into a mission if the opposition is going to, at home, undercut the dangerous work that they are doing in the field."

Perhaps my decoder ring is not working as well as Lawrence's, but I don't see any U-turns in this. What I see, rather, is a J-turn. It's straight out of Jean Chretien's playbook. You run into too much resistance with a given policy thrust, you take a couple of steps back. Lacking a flashpoint, the issue subsides, your opponents relax their guard -- only to see it come crashing back months or even years later, when the time is right.

It's a much subtler strategy than simply attempting to run straight over the opposition, not least in a minority government. By declaring that he will seek consensus on any future deployment, the Prime Minister shifts the focus from his own intransigence to the opposition's. He implicates them in the decision, and in so doing puts the onus on them to explain their position.

And explain it they must. The NDP's at least has a kind of coherence. They are against fighting the Taliban, preferring to negotiate-- though what incentive the Taliban would have to negotiate after we had declared we would not fight them would be interesting to hear. The Liberals, on the other hand, would seem to believe that the Taliban should be fought, just not by us; that our troops should be there, but not use their weapons.

All right, I'll bite: who should fight them? Whom do the Liberals nominate to replace us, among the countries that have refused to fight thus far? The French? The Italians? How are they to be compelled to step forward, even as we retreat? The reality is that, should Canada pull out of the fighting, the gap will have to be filled by the countries that are doing it now -- the British, the Americans and the Dutch. Their mission won't end in February, 2009. Only ours will.

And for what purpose? To whose benefit? The Afghans? No, it is quite clear they want us there. The troops? No, they are equally adamant, in every interview I have ever seen: they want to be there. Our NATO partners? Obviously not. The only agenda served by the opposition's demands is ? the opposition's.

There's another sense in which it is a good thing to seek "consensus" from the opposition. Read the last part of the Prime Minister's remarks: "I don't want to send people into a mission if the opposition is going to, at home, undercut the dangerous work that they are doing in the field." Translated: that's exactly what's happening now.

The Taliban read the Western press. They are looking for the weak link in the NATO chain, and having found it, they will exploit it -- by killing as many soldiers from that country as they can. If critics of the war should not be accused of supporting the Taliban, neither should critics of the critics be accused of suppressing debate if they point out that there are consequences to their fecklessness. The Prime Minister has invited them to grow up. They should accept.

ac@andrewcoyne.com

Canada’s commitment in Afghanistan

Steve gets wobbly - By Arthur Weinreb Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Canada’s commitment in Afghanistan is currently due to expire in February, 2009. Political parties that are represented in the House of Commons all have differing views on both the deployment of troops and the exact nature of the mission. The NDP want all the troops out NOW. The Bloc Quebecois, for what it’s worth, think along the same lines as their socialist brethren in the rest of Canada. The Liberals, who were in power when the troops were first deployed, want them to stay in Afghanistan as long as they engage in reconstruction and rebuilding, but not necessarily to fight the Taliban who are engaged in destroying all the reconstruction and rebuilding.

Until recently, it was the position of the Conservative government that the troops should stay in Afghanistan until they complete their mission. Prime Minister Stephen Harper was quoted in the Globe and Mail as saying as recently as last month that we “can’t set arbitrary deadlines and hope for the best. We can’t just put down our weapons and hope for peace.” The Globe also quoted Harper saying last September that the only exit strategy would be success. “There will be no conditions under which this government leaves Afghanistan. We will succeed in our security mission and we will see that country moving in irreversible progress to being an economically prosperous and peaceful society. That is the only way this government will leave.”

Well, that was then and this is now. Last Thursday, when Harper lowered himself to speak to the national media after Parliament recessed for the summer, he changed his tune. The mission will not be extended past February 2009 unless the opposition parties agree to it. Unless there is “a consensus”. The PM doesn’t want to deploy troops on the mission if the opposition is going to undercut the mission, as if this is something new.

It’s really no surprise that Harper has changed his mind. He needs Quebec in his quest for a majority government and 2000 troops from Quebec’s Van Doos are about to be deployed. That regiment will undoubtedly suffer casualties and since the province of Quebec doesn’t have the stomach for any type of combat operations, Harper is prepared to give up on the mission in order to placate the voters that he needs in order to form a majority government.

With the Conservatives position on climate change and now Afghanistan, it’s becoming harder and harder to distinguish Canada’s “New Government” from the NDP and the Greens, let alone the “Old Government”. Governing on how the wind is blowing seems to be the order of the day.

There never will be a consensus that can be arrived at to extend the mission beyond early 2009. Of all the opposition parties, the NDP will never waiver in their position. They want all the troops out of Afghanistan and they want them out now. This position is not going to change even if the Taliban were to come to Canada, blow up all of Toronto’s bicycle lanes and behead the lovely Olivia.

Despite reconstruction and rebuilding and all the talk about winning hearts and minds, our soldiers are involved in a war. It’s not a hockey game where no matter what the score is, the players keep on going until the clock runs out. At least hockey players have ways of protecting themselves from injury when the score is 9 to 1 and there is a minute remaining in the game. Perhaps Steve should take a page out of his predecessor’s playbook and let Jack Layton run things. If the object of Afghanistan is get a consensus rather than complete the job then Harper should just bring the troops home now. It’s one thing to ask a soldier to risk his or her life in order to complete the mission, or as they used to say in the old days, to win the war. It’s quite another to see young men and women give up their lives because it’s not yet 2009 or because we’re waiting to reach a consensus with the NDP.

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. But the threat of losing power corrupts even more.

Arthur Weinreb is an author, columnist and Associate Editor of Canada Free Press.

Hooked on drugs

Taliban dependent on heroin trade: RCMP adviser

National Post Sunday, June 24, 2007

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- The increasingly bloody terror attacks plaguing Afghanistan are largely a product of the Taliban's "symbiotic" relationship with narcotics cartels, says an RCMP officer who has been quietly tracking those ties.

Breaking the highly profitable alliance between the fundamentalist Muslims and the world's most prolific heroin traffickers is key to defeating the insurgency, said Insp. Paul Richards.
Having just wrapped up a year in Kandahar as a counter-narcotics adviser to the Canadian Forces, the veteran intelligence officer was offering a rare public glimpse of his findings.

The Taliban is not, as some western officials maintain, a narco-terrorist group directly involved in producing heroin itself, said Richards. It does, however, receive an estimated $10-million a year for guarding drug labs and smugglers and for generally creating an atmosphere of permissiveness around the business, he told the National Post.

"They work very, very closely together and that's how the Taliban funds what they're doing ... whether it's paying a suicide bomber's family, whether it's buying bullets, whether it's buying food," said the officer.

"The Taliban have become very reliant on the narco-economy. They are completely dependent on it."

In turn, the instability sown by the insurgent attacks -- many of which have killed Canadian troops -- aids the drug lords by making it easier for them to carry out their illicit activities, he noted.

The trade is contributing to problems closer to home, too. The "vast majority" of heroin on Canadian streets likely originated here, said Richards.Still, he is hopeful change will come, noting that former heroin hotbeds such as Burma, Vietnam and Laos have cut back their poppy production significantly, though "it takes a long time."

A purported spokesman for the Taliban, meanwhile, denied the militants are working hand-in-hand with the smugglers.

The insurgents are paid alms by poppy farmers, but also by producers of wheat, corn and other crops, said Qari Yousuf Ahmadi.

"Neither are we against the smugglers, nor are we in favour of them," said Qari, arguing the Islamists are backed by the whole Muslim world. When the Taliban take power again, they will consider the traffickers' activities, he said.

There is little doubt that Islam frowns heavily on heroin use or dealing. The Taliban also do receive support from other sources, allegedly including the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence service.Local observers, however, agreed the Afghan Islamists are hooked on narcotics money.

"When you talk about poppies, security automatically goes with it," says Ayub Rafiqi, head of Landowners of Kandahar (LOOK), an NGO representing large landlords in the province.

"This is a vicious circle: the Taliban, the government, poppy cultivation, drug lords, warlords."

The government is involved because much of the poppy crop is grown on state-owned land, with officials charging rent to poppy farmers, he said.

Heroin traffickers, especially those belonging to the Baluch tribe along the Iran-Afghanistan border, are also playing a major role in smuggling weapons from Iran in to the insurgents, said a farmer in neighbouring Helmand province with ties to the drug barons.

"The Taliban movement relies on the smugglers' help, and the smugglers rely on the Taliban," said the farmer, who asked not to be named.

"These two parties are essential to each other."

Due in part to that co-operation, Afghanistan now accounts for 95% of the world's poppy production.

The poppies are processed into heroin at labs in Afghanistan and in border regions of neighbouring countries, then shipped out through Iran, Pakistan the central Asian republics to the north or even China, with much of it ending up in Europe and North America.

It is believed the Taliban receive about $2-million a year in a sort of levy they charge on the poppy harvest, and another $8-million for providing security to labs and smuggling runs, said Richards. Sometimes, the payment comes in the form of opium, he added.

The money is then distributed by the Taliban's senior commanders, financing weapons, operations and the fighters' salaries.

Some of the intelligence collected over the last year has resulted in raids by Afghanistan's Counter Narcotics Police on labs and other heroin targets, said Richards. He declined to provide more detail on the cases, saying they involve ongoing operations.

Italian Hospital Returns

(AKI) - Italian charity Emergency has reopened its hospital in the Afghan capital Kabul, the organisation said on Tuesday. Emergency closed its hospitals in Afghanistan in April to protest against the detention in a Kabul jail of one of its Afghan staff, Ramatullah Hanefi. He managed an Emergency hospital in Lashkar Gah in the volatile southern province of Helmand and successfully mediated for the release of Italian reporter Daniele Mastrogiacomo, who was abducted earlier this year by Taliban fighters. Hanefi was released from prison on 19 June after a Kabul court had acquitted him of ties to the Taliban.
The Emergency hospital in Kabul is currently only treating those who require surgery after being injured in battle in Afghanistan. On Tuesday morning, two people injured during fighting were operated on and are recovering in the hospital.

In the initial phase of reopening, the hospital will be under the direction of Emergency's, surgeon Gino Strada, who has convened a group of local personnel to work at the hospital. There are about 118 medical personnel, paramedics and other staff working at the hospital. The organisation said that soon international staff will also join the local team in Afghanistan.

Following the opening of the hospital in Kabul, Emergency said that they soon hope to restart the activities of the maternity and pediatric hospital in the village of Anabah in the Panshir valley, the surgical centre in Lashkar Gah in Helmand province and 29 clinics.

"We thank those that in these months have stayed close to us and we welcome the resumption of our fundraising activities in support of Emergency in Afghanistan, which we had interrupted during the suspension of our activities," the organisation said.

Dutch Court Acquits Afghan Of War Crimes During Soviet Occupation

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty - THE HAGUE, June 25, 2007 -- A Dutch court has acquitted a former high-ranking Afghan military intelligence officer of war crimes, citing insufficient evidence.

The suspect, identified by prosecutors as Abdullah F., age 57, was accused of torturing and overseeing the torture of suspects while he was acting chief of the agency Khad-e-Nezami during the Soviet occupation

of Afghanistan in 1979-1989. He fled his country in 1994 and was refused asylum in the Netherlands, but he remained illegally in the country. He was arrested in April 2006.

Kabul limos prove hit with locals

By Soutik Biswas BBC News, Kabul Wednesday, 27 June 2007

When Said Maqsud's gleaming white Lincoln limousines rattle down Kabul's pot-holed streets, people gape at them and talk about the long, strange-looking cars.

"Some say it looks like an egg with two yolks. Others say it is like an airplane without wings," says Mr Maqsud, a maverick Afghan businessman who has opened Kabul's first and only limousine service.

"Still others ask me, 'Why don't you cut this into two cars and make more money."

A limousine service looks like an audacious business venture in a country like Afghanistan, which is plagued by violence and double digit inflation. More than half of its people live in poverty, and at least 40% are without jobs.

But Shams Limousine, Mr Maqsud's company with a fleet of three second-hand Lincolns shipped in from Los Angeles, appears to be doing brisk business in the Afghan capital.

Locals usually hire the luxury cars for their wedding and office parties at $140 for 10 hours, which, according to its cheerful 40-year-old owner, is the lowest rate in the world - "the cheapest limo you can get in the US will set you back by $150 an hour," he says.

Afghans love big weddings. In the cities, families borrow money and spend up to $30,000 or more to have a "proper" wedding, and often spent the next 10 years repaying marriage debt.

"So there is nothing morally wrong in having a limo service here," says Mr Maqsud.

"A wedding is the biggest event in an Afghan's life, and the families want to have the best time. I am just providing a value-added attraction to a marriage."

No wonder his limo company posters say: "If you want to have a memorable wedding party, just call Shams Limousine." The limos come with DVD players, alcohol-free bars stacked with fancy decanters and stereos playing Iranian pop. In the present peak wedding season, the company's order books are full - all the three cars are busy.

The cars are decorated with flowers at the florists at Shar-e-Naw, the city's high street, and then driven through Kabul's pot-holed streets to weddings by the two liveried chauffeurs, Abdullah and Bismillah.

The company also hires out its limos for office parties, a short spin around the city and a $100 airport pick-up. Foreigners don't use the cars much, because according to Mr Maqsud, the "suicide bombings are a dampener".

The businessman launched his unusual business two years ago after realising that people were ready to make their weddings livelier.

He trawled the internet and flew to Los Angeles to pick up two second-hand limos. It cost him all of $70,000 and seven months to buy the cars and ship them into landlocked Afghanistan via Karachi.

Mr Maqsud soon realised that he had to tailor the cars to Afghan traditions - two of the limo were black, but he had to repaint them white, because the colour is seen as auspicious by most Afghans. The bar, of course, could have only soft drinks.

And though the cars can carry up to eight passengers, sometimes 14 people cram in to join the revelry.

"As long as people marry, business will be good. I have no worries about security or any such thing," he says.

The peripatetic businessman fled Afghanistan for Peshawar in 1985 during the Soviet invasion. He says he lived there for two years before paying $40,000 to a "human trafficker" to smuggle his 10-member family into Germany.

He lived in Germany until 1992, picking up local citizenship, and trading in cars, clothes and spices from Iran. For the next 10 years he lived in Moscow, Benin, Senegal and Togo, this time trading raisins, spaghetti and old German cars.

Mr Maqsud says he got bored by all of it again, and returned to Hamburg in 2001 to launch an Afghan eatery in the city. He ran the restaurant for three years, before "my mother pestered me to get married and drove me back to Afghanistan".

Returning to Kabul, he married his niece, and thought up the limo business while attending weddings in the city.

"I thought people would be happy with a limo wedding. And I was right. I gave a few free rides to friends and family, and people began pouring in with orders," says Mr Maqsud. Now he has no plans to return to Germany, because business is good. He now plans to add a jeep limo to his fleet, and reckons it will be a big hit.

[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.]