In this bulletin:

• Blast in Afghanistan kills 2, injures 48
• Taliban official: Bin Laden is alive
• British foreign minister says no one doing enough against Taliban
• NATO says bombing cells operating near Cheney base
• Cheney Denies Aiming to ‘Beat Up On’ Musharraf
• Afghan Bombing Sends a Danger Signal to U.S.
• Pakistan and US back on diplomatic tightrope
• The Problem With Pakistan
• Afghan rights group to monitor Canadian detainee transfers
• Salesmen for Afghanistan
• The Poppy Debate
• Pakistan makes a deal with the Taliban
• Possible tip to Taliban probed in blast
• America’s Musharraf Dilemma
• NATO off course, report concludes

Blast in Afghanistan kills 2, injures 48

Associated Press - 1 March 2007 - By AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writer

A roadside bomb in western Afghanistan left three civilians dead and 48
wounded, including 10 children, officials said Thursday. The blast targeted a passing police vehicle in the city of Farah, said Mohammad Qasem Bayan, the chief of public health department for Farah province.

The attack happened in the city center near a school, Bayan said. The police vehicle was slightly damaged and two officers also were wounded, said Zemeri Bashary, a spokesman for the ministry of interior.

"It is the work of enemies of Afghanistan," Bashary said, suggesting the
resurgent Taliban militants were behind the attack.

Western Afghanistan has been spared much of the violence rocking the
country's south and east, but that area is on a major route for heroin
smuggling into Iran.

Last week, suspected Taliban militants briefly took over one of the
districts of Farah province after police fled the posts.

That followed a roadside attack last Sunday on the province's police chief
on his return from destroying poppy fields. The police chief was unharmed,
but four other officers in the vehicle were killed and two wounded.

Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium poppy. In 2006,
production in the country rose 49 percent to 6,700 tons -- enough to make
about 670 tons of heroin.

The government has stepped up its attempts to destroy poppy fields after
rejecting the U.S. idea of ground-based spraying of the illicit crop.

In southern Helmand province on Wednesday, residents discovered the body of
a doctor who was kidnapped and killed by suspected Taliban militants
earlier in the week, said Gen. Mohammad Eisah, the province's deputy police
chief.

Taliban official: Bin Laden is alive

Associated Press - 1 March 2007

A senior Taliban commander says Osama bin Laden is alive and in contact
with leaders of Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents, according to an interview
aired on British television.

Mullah Dadullah said he had not met bin Laden since the fall of the Taliban
regime after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, but said "we
know he's still alive."

"He's not yet martyred. Such information would be easy to get -- his
comrades stand shoulder to shoulder with us. They keep us informed,"
Dadullah said in an interview broadcast Wednesday by Channel 4 News.

The authenticity of the information could not be confirmed. Channel 4 did
not say how it had obtained the footage, and it was not known when or where
Dadullah made the comments, which were translated into English.

Dadullah, commander of Taliban operations in eastern and southeastern
Afghanistan and a trusted associate of Taliban leader Mullah Omar, said bin
Laden met outsiders rarely. Dadullah did not comment on bin Laden's
whereabouts.

"Only his comrades see him; we exchange messages with each other to share
plans," Dadullah said. "We also go to the battlefield together. We actually
meet very rarely, just for important consultations. It's hard for anyone to
meet Bin Laden himself now, but we know he's still alive."

Dadullah said the Taliban had "hundreds more" suicide bombers ready to
attack NATO forces in Afghanistan. NATO commanders have said they believe
the Taliban plans a spring offensive against alliance troops in the
country.

British foreign minister says no one doing enough against Taliban

Kabul (AFP) - British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said Wednesday that no one is doing enough to tackle a Taliban-led insurgency gripping Afghanistan.

Beckett arrived in Kabul Tuesday just hours after US Vice President Dick Cheney flew out following a visit marred by a suicide attack at Bagram Air Base outside the capital where he had spent the night. At least 20 people including three foreigners were killed in the blast, according to the Afghan government.

"I would say in all sincerity that no one is doing enough to tackle the security problems," said Beckett, referring to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Britain, when asked if Islamabad was doing enough against rebels on its soil.

Beckett, who also said during a visit to Pakistan that Al-Qaeda and other terror groups must be tackled jointly, was addressing reporters after meeting President Hamid Karzai and Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta. "If we were doing enough then we would have had a great deal more success than we have had so far," she told reporters.

"It is very important for us to do more together and to cooperate together to tackle these problems because they cause such harm whether it be in Pakistan itself or in Afghanistan," she said. Beckett and Karzai discussed the "war on terror" and British-backed counternarcotics efforts, a statement from Karzai's office said.

Karzai told the minister that drug money was "fueling terrorism" and said his government was committed to fighting the trade in opium. Afghanistan produces 90 percent of the world's opium.

Karzai Tuesday welcomed Britain's pledge to contribute 1,400 more troops to the international effort to defeat the Taliban and its Islamist allies as a sign of "commitment to the stability of Afghanistan."

The extra forces will take the number of British troops in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) from 6,300 to 7,700.

Asked if the increase meant Britain felt there was a stronger Taliban threat, Beckett said "there is a slightly different approach than we had necessarily assumed from the Taliban."

Britain is also the second-largest aid donor to Afghanistan and has spent two billion dollars here since 2001, when the hardline Taliban government was toppled.

NATO commanders have been calling for more troops and equipment for the 35,000-strong force, with warnings of hard fighting this year even though the Taliban suffered heavy losses in 2006.

The extremist movement claimed responsibility for the Bagram suicide blast at an outer security gate manned by US soldiers checking Afghan labourers wanting to enter the facility.

There were conflicting reports of the death toll. The interior ministry said Wednesday 20 were dead, 16 of them Afghan workers. But the US-led coalition based at Bagram said two US nationals and a South Korean were killed, along with six civilians.

ISAF said Wednesday it had prior intelligence that bombing cells were operating near the base but it was unclear if the Taliban had planned Tuesday's bombing to coincide with Cheney's trip.

"We know for a fact that there has been recent intelligence to suggest that there was a threat of a bombing in the Bagram area," ISAF spokesman Colonel Tom Collins said at a weekly media briefing. But he added: "It would be clearly wrong to say that we knew (in advance) about this attack."

NATO says bombing cells operating near Cheney base

Kabul (AFP) - The NATO force in Afghanistan said Wednesday it had prior intelligence that bombing cells were operating near a US base hit by a deadly suicide attack during a visit by US Vice President Dick Cheney.

But it was unclear if the Taliban had planned Tuesday's bombing to coincide with Cheney's trip to Bagram Air Base or whether it was a "coincidence," the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said.

"We know for a fact that there has been recent intelligence to suggest that there was a threat of a bombing in the Bagram area," ISAF spokesman Colonel Tom Collins said at a weekly media briefing. But he added: "It would be clearly wrong to say that we knew (in advance) about this attack."

The Afghan government said on Wednesday that the toll had risen to 20 dead from the blast at the outer gate of the sprawling base near Kabul. Collins said ISAF still had a figure of nine dead but did not explain the discrepancy.

The Taliban said it had targeted the base because Cheney was there. The incident came after bad weather forced him to stay overnight at Bagram during a surprise visit for talks on the fight against Islamist insurgents.

Asked if it was likely the Taliban had advance knowledge of Cheney's visit, Collins replied: "There was no publication of this visit, that he was on the ground, so to suggest the enemy had gone after the vice president -- we're not ready to say that.

"It might be coincidence, we just don't know at this point," he said. Collins said more suicide attacks by the Taliban were expected.

"The enemy knows that they can't defeat Afghan and ISAF forces in a conventional sense so we do expect them increasingly (to) go after soft targets, which means innocent civilians," he said.

The Taliban were ousted by US-led forces in late 2001 but last year was the deadliest yet in their insurgency, with more than 4,000 people killed, most of them rebels.

Cheney Denies Aiming to ‘Beat Up On’ Musharraf

By DAVID E. SANGER- The New York Times

WASHINGTON, Feb. 27 — Vice President Dick Cheney, thinly veiled as a “senior administration official,” told reporters on his plane on Tuesday that it was not correct that he “went in to beat up on” the Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, for failing to confront Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

“That’s not the way I work,” said Mr. Cheney, violating the first rule of conducting a background interview: never refer to yourself in the first person, when it makes it obvious who is talking. “The idea that I’d go in and threaten someone is an invalid misreading of the way I do business.”

As Mr. Cheney traveled to Pakistan, senior administration officials said his talking points for a meeting with Mr. Musharraf included a strong warning that the Democrats in Congress were threatening to reduce Pakistan’s foreign aid if it failed to combat terrorism. Pakistani officials later confirmed that was a key element of his message, and Mr. Musharraf’s office warned Congress about passing what it called “discriminatory” legislation.

Mr. Cheney, speaking on his military transport on the way back to Muscat, Oman, said President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan had been “more positive and optimistic than I’ve seen in my recent visits” about the chances of fighting off Taliban and Qaeda forces there.

He described Mr. Karzai in particular as eager for expressions of long-term support from the United States, saying, “If they see weakness on the part of the United States, or an unwillingness to carry through on our commitments, they automatically raise questions about how good our commitment to them is.”

On Iran, the administration’s highest-ranking and best-known hawk challenged a questioner who suggested that oil prices might drop 10 or 15 percent if the United States took off the table the option of a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. “I don’t buy it,” the senior administration official said, before retreating to his cabin.

Afghan Bombing Sends a Danger Signal to U.S.

By DAVID E. SANGER – New York Times - News Analysis

WASHINGTON, Feb. 27 — The audacity of a suicide-bomb attack on Tuesday at the gates of the main American base in Afghanistan during a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney underscores why President Bush sent him there — a deepening American concern that the Taliban and Al Qaeda are resurgent.

American officials insisted that the importance of the attack, by a single suicide bomber who blew himself up a mile away from where the vice president was staying, was primarily symbolic. It was more successful at grabbing headlines and filling television screens with a scene of carnage than at getting anywhere near Mr. Cheney.

But the strike nonetheless demonstrated that Al Qaeda and the Taliban appear stronger and more emboldened in the region than at any time since the American invasion of the country five years ago, and since the Bush administration claimed to have decimated much of their middle management. And it fed directly into the debate over who is to blame.

The leaders with whom Mr. Cheney met on his mission to Pakistan and Afghanistan have appeared increasingly incapable of controlling the chaos, and have pointed fingers at one another.

Mr. Cheney said the attack was a reminder that terrorists seek “to question the authority of the central government,” and argued that it underscored the need for a renewed American effort. His critics, on the other hand, said the strike was another reminder of how Iraq had diverted the Bush administration from finishing the job in Afghanistan.

The blast Mr. Cheney said he heard from his quarters deep inside Bagram Air Base took a terrible toll. At least 23 people were killed, including an American soldier and an American contractor, along with a South Korean soldier. About 20 Afghans died, including a 12-year-old boy. An additional two dozen or so were wounded.

By Tuesday evening, long after Mr. Cheney wrapped up his visit and headed home to the United States, it remained unclear whether the suicide bomber had known that Mr. Cheney was on the base at the time of the attack. One military official at United States Central Command, which oversees operations in Afghanistan, said he strongly believed that the bomber was unaware of Mr. Cheney’s presence.

In Washington, American officials said their intelligence had detected no specific threat against Mr. Cheney, whose entry into Afghanistan had been kept secret after an equally clandestine visit to Pakistan on Monday.

But word of his presence in Afghanistan leaked out on Monday after a snowstorm delayed his meeting with President Hamid Karzai, and Mr. Cheney decided to stay at Bagram Air Base overnight. That fact was widely reported on Internet sites and on radio programs that have significant audiences in Afghanistan. It was possible that the attack outside the gate at Bagram was arranged quickly, or redirected to the air base from another target.

The attack, which occurred between the perimeter of the base and the first American checkpoint, occurred at 10 a.m. Tuesday. An administration official said an initial American review had found that the attack “doesn’t look, at first pass, like something that was carefully planned out.”

The bomber appeared to have made his way past an Afghan-guarded gate. But American military officials in Afghanistan said the suicide bomber detonated his weapon before he got to the first United States checkpoint, at a point where fuel trucks and vehicles carrying other goods park outside the gates to await inspection before being sent in.

Master Sergeant Chris Fletcher, a spokesman for the military operation in Afghanistan, said in a telephone interview that the bomber “did not penetrate the outer ring of security.”

That account suggested that the security around the base had kept the bloodshed of an Afghanistan under attack by both Taliban and Qaeda forces outside the high walls of the base, the hub of American military activity in the country.

But it also suggested a widening spiral of insecurity in Afghanistan, which had nearly 140 suicide bombings last year, including in Kabul, making the conflict and tactics here increasingly reminiscent of the chaotic struggle in Iraq.

Critics have charged that the Iraq war has precluded the United States from sending sufficient forces to Afghanistan. Concerned about a spring Taliban offensive, the United States has increased its force in Afghanistan to about 26,000. More than 20,000 troops from other NATO nations are also deployed there.

The scenes that Mr. Cheney flew over on his way in and out of Bagram — the devastation outside the gate and the bombed-out landscape of Kabul — was a reminder of how far the reality of Afghanistan is from the goals that President Bush set just short of five years ago, in a speech at the Virginia Military Institute. At the time, Mr. Bush repeatedly invoked the memory of Gen. George C. Marshall, the man behind the reconstruction that followed World War II, in expressing confidence that a “stable government” and a “national army” would help to achieve peace in Afghanistan.

But in testimony on Tuesday in front of the Senate armed services committee, the new director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, painted a grim picture of what he called a “pivotal year for Afghanistan,” in which the country’s leaders would have to “confront pervasive drug cultivation and trafficking, and, with NATO and the United States, arrest the resurgence of the Taliban.”

Mr. Cheney’s mission was to figure out how to bolster the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, and the NATO force, and to try to ease an openly hostile relationship between Mr. Karzai and another American ally, Gen. Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan. Mr. Karzai has argued that many of the attacks in Afghanistan have been launched from Pakistan. Mr. Musharraf has said Mr. Karzai is looking for a scapegoat.

Pakistan and US back on diplomatic tightrope

by Stephen Collinson February 28, 2007 - WASHINGTON (AFP) - Signs Al-Qaeda is regrouping and the Taliban plotting a new onslaught in Afghanistan are menacing the always sensitive US-Pakistan anti-terror alliance with new strains and scrutiny.

Vice President Dick Cheney's surprise visit to Pakistan Monday, underscored the delicate maintenance needed in the crucial tie-up forged as the smoke cleared from the September 11 attacks in 2001.

Washington, frustrated that Pakistan has been unable to flush out Al-Qaeda, and gearing up for a new battle with the Taliban, must factor in President Pervez Musharraf's delicate political perch as it applies pressure.

But Cheney's visit to Islamabad, and a flurry of recent statements and warnings floated in the media by the US government are a sign of growing concern, even though they are ritually couched in praise for Pakistan's role so far.

"Many of our most crucial interests intersect in Pakistan, where the Taliban and Al-Qaeda maintain critical sanctuaries," new US intelligence czar Michael McConnell told a congressional hearing Tuesday.

"Pakistan is our partner in the war on terror and has captured several al-Qaeda leaders. However, it is also a major source of Islamic extremism."

White House spokesman Tony Snow said Monday "a lot more needs to be done" to combat terrorist elements in Pakistan, though added Pakistan was committed to doing everything possible.

But given the intricate US-Pakistan relationship, top US officials reject the idea Washington is taking a hard, new tone with Musharraf.

"Let me just make one editorial comment here: I have seen some press reporting that says 'Cheney went in to beat him up, that's wrong,'" said a senior Bush administration official traveling with the vice president.

The official declined to detail Cheney's conversations with Musharraf, other than to note the Pakistani leader had already said a deal with tribal factions in North Waziristan region last September supposed to cut the flow of militants into Afghanistan, had not worked out as he hoped.

Washington last year had last year said the deal could work, if properly applied, but now believes its time is up.

"The tribes have not abided by most of the terms of the agreement," Lieutenant General Michael Maples, US Army Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency told a congressional committee on Tuesday. "Al-Qaeda's network may exploit the agreement for increased freedom of movement and operation," he said.

Frederic Grare, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Institute for International Peace said Pakistan, which has paid a heavy price in blood for its operations in the region, may always have had a different view of the deal.

"It was never meant to be working anyway on the timeframe the US had in mind," he said. "The gap in expectations was there in the very beginning."

However, an alternative way to fight the Al-Qaeda buildup are not obvious, given political restrictions on US troops openly operating in Pakistan. The extent to which extremism is burrowed into Pakistani society is also likely to accentuate problems.

Reported threats from the United States to withhold crucial aid to Pakistan without more action against extremists may also be inoperable.

"Relations with Pakistan just can't be a blunt instrument, there is a long history there in which we turned our back on Pakistan and people have long memories and they remember that," said James Carafano, an analyst with the Heritage Foundation which has close ties to the administration.

"On the other hand, this is a serious problem, it is not just a serious problem for Afghanistan, it is a serious problem for Pakistan."

According to an official Pakistani statement, Cheney expressed "apprehensions" to Musharraf about Al-Qaeda regrouping in Pakistan's tribal areas, and serious concerns about the possible Taliban offensive.

A week ago, tensions were set simmering when Islamabad dismissed as "absurd" US claims Al-Qaeda had set up new training camps in the remote tribal area.

A US official had earlier said compounds training 10 or 20 people at a time for possible attacks on the West had been detected over the past year in a semi-autonomous tribal area along the mountainous border with Afghanistan.

The compounds are "small," the US official told AFP on condition of anonymity. "They are not like the big camps that they had seen in Afghanistan previously."

The Problem With Pakistan

William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security - The Washington Post - February 28, 2007

In the you-are-either-with-us-or-against-us paradigm, the Bush administration has always had a difficult time dealing with Pakistan, a country that just happens to be both with us and against us.

In testimony before the Senate yesterday, the new Director of National Intelligence retired Admiral John M. ("Mike") McConnell, was as careful as all U.S. officials, lauding Pakistan's "ongoing efforts," but also highlighting many of America's concerns and disappointments.

One can't help but read the annual "threat" assessment from the intelligence community and come to the conclusion that for all of the American honor involved in "victory" in Iraq, the real danger of terrorism, and the country with the greatest potential for a world-shattering implosion, is not Iraq or Afghanistan or even Iran: it is Pakistan.

Saying that 2007 will be a "pivotal year" for Afghanistan, as well as raising concerns that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda leadership are rebuilding and that the Taliban is in resurgence, retired Vice Adm. McConnell, Director of National Intelligence for just a week, had some special words about Pakistan.

Any new attack on the United States, McConnell said, is "most likely" to emerge from Pakistan, which hosts the al Qaeda leadership and other international terrorists in the ungoverned northwest region, and which serves as the breeding ground for broader Islamic radicalism.

"Many of our most important interests intersect in Pakistan, where the Taliban and al-Qa'ida maintain critical sanctuaries," McConnell said in his written report. The country, McConnell said "is our partner in the war on terror and has captured several al-Qa'ida leaders. However, it is also a major source of Islamic extremism."

The Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, agreed with McConnell. In his written testimony to the same committee, Maples said that the "Afghanistan Pakistan border area remains a haven for al-Qaida's leadership and other extremists."

Maples said that despite a September 2006 accord between Islamabad and North Waziristan tribes to curtail attacks into Afghanistan, "the tribes have not abided by most terms of the agreement," leading to increased "freedom of movement and operation" for al-Qaeda's network.

Pakistan's internal inaction against terrorists and other militants, Maples and McConnell both agreed, also threaten stability in Afghanistan and India. "Afghanistan's relations with Pakistan are strained due to continued Taliban reliance on safe-haven in Pakistan," Maples said. "Pakistan-based militants continued attacks against India undermine Pakistan's ability to make lasting peace with its neighbor," he continued. McConnell spoke of the need to eliminate the "safehaven" that the Taliban and others have found in Pakistan's tribal areas, but he also bent over backwards to explain the country's failure to bring the region under central government control:

"We recognize that aggressive military action, however, has been costly for Pakistani security forces and appreciate concerns over the potential for sparking tribal rebellion and a backlash by sympathetic Islamic political parties. There is widespread opposition among these parties to the US military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq. With elections expected later this year, the situation will become even more challenging--for President Musharraf and for the US."

Democracy in Pakistan, McConnell also said, "has not been fully restored since the Army took power in 1999." It has, he meant to say, not been restored. Upcoming elections are not expected to change Musharraf's status: He will continue to be President and commander-in-chief and head of the Army and hold all of the actual power.

So, here is the American contradiction: Al-Qaeda is the greatest threat to the United States, at least according to the U.S. intelligence community and conventional wisdom. The terrorist organization is headquartered and lodged in northwest Pakistan, where it has virtual impunity. It operates within a country that has nuclear weapons and is labeled "a major source of Islamic extremism."

And yet the United States excuses and explains away a military dictatorship for eschewing a "costly" battle that might weaken it? Isn't the very core argument of the Bush administration in Iraq that we need to accept the cost and sacrifice -- no matter what -- in the name of our future security? But Pakistan doesn't? No wonder the Bush administration's worldview is so questionable.

Afghan rights group to monitor Canadian detainee transfers

MURRAY BREWSTER Canadian Press

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN -- The Kandahar office of Afghanistan's human-rights commission has agreed to act as watchdog for detainees captured by Canadians to ensure that valid complaints of abuse are investigated.

The agreement comes after concerns have been raised by human-rights groups about Canada's practice of handing captured Taliban prisoners over to Afghan authorities who have a reputation for torture, and the emergence of a debate in Ottawa about allegations that Canadian troops abused detainees last spring.

"Canadians respect human rights very well," Abdul Quadar Noorzai, the Kandahar manager of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, said in an interview. He was eager to trumpet the agreement signed last Friday with Brigadier-General Tim Grant, commander of Canadian troops in Afghanistan. "It is one of the greatest acts taken by them, and I really appreciate it from the core of my heart," said a beaming Mr. Noorzai, who's been working for a year to carve out such an arrangement.

Marc Raider, a spokesman for the Defence Department in Ottawa, confirmed the existence of the agreement and said it builds on a December, 2005, technical arrangement signed between Afghanistan's Defence Minister and Canada's Chief of the Defence Staff, General Rick Hillier.

That initial deal, which has been criticized by rights groups, obliges Canadian troops to turn over captured militants to local authorities, but does not allow Canada any say in their treatment once handed over.

The agreement signed by Gen. Hillier recognized the Afghan human-rights commission but did not set out a specific role for the agency. Last Friday's agreement changed that. Not only does Canada have to notify the International Committee of the Red Cross when it transfers a prisoner to Afghan custody, it now must inform Mr. Noorzai's office.

"It's simply an added layer of protection," said Mr. Raider, who wouldn't comment on whether the agreement would satisfy critics. Mr. Noorzai said he is now free to investigate and document cases of suspected detainee abuse, whether the allegations involve Canadian troops or Afghan authorities.

He said that eventually he would like to see the agreement expanded to allow the commission to report on civilian shootings by foreign troops.

The Afghan National Police and the human-rights commission have recommended that military convoys be escorted by Afghan authorities through Kandahar's chaotic streets, a suggestion the Canadian army is considering.

Salesmen for Afghanistan

- Embassy Magazine, February 28th, 2007 - By Lee Berthiaume

Talking about an early Canadian withdrawal from Afghanistan encourages the insurgency and will only drag out the mission as Afghans wonder which side to support.

That was the message two Canadians, one working for the UN and the other NATO, brought to Ottawa as they testified on Parliament Hill and spoke before a who's-who of Canadian foreign and military policymakers yesterday.

"The major challenge for all of us today is to show resolve, to show will, and to demonstrate unity of effort," Christopher Alexander, deputy representative of UN secretary-general for Afghanistan, told members of the Standing Committee on National Defence.

"If we are rushing for the exit, if we are trying to cut things short, if we are flagging in our commitment to achieving the objectives...we will be giving comfort to the enemies of this transition and we will be undermining the achievements and the effort that is underway today to bring stability to Afghanistan."

Over the past year, Canada's role in Afghanistan has been the subject of heated debate across the country. Canada has committed $1.2 billion to reconstruction efforts within the Central Asian country through to 2011, including $200 million announced by the government on Monday. At the same time, about 2,500 Canadian soldiers are operating in Afghanistan, with the government committed to staying until at least 2009.

While the Conservative government has stood firm on Canada's commitments to Afghanistan, opposition parties have called for everything from a shift away from combat operations towards reconstruction to outright withdrawal.

With such divisions, there was a perception that Mr. Alexander and NATO spokesman James Appathurai, both of whom will be in Toronto today for more presentations, are in the country to sell the mission's progress.

"Afghanistan will not succeed unless countries like Canada remain committed," Mr. Alexander said when asked whether he was in Canada to shore up support for the mission.

"We hope to continue a debate and show people that the past five years...have yielded a result," he added. "And if we're prepared to make more investments, than we will make more progress."

During their presentation to the defence committee, the two men said the mission will take a long time, with Mr. Alexander citing one study that found insurgencies take on average 14 years to lose and 17 years to win.

"We are of the impression that Balkan-like timetables are probably appropriate in Afghanistan," Mr. Alexander said, referring to the ongoing UN missions in the former Yugoslavia.

"No one wants to name an end date or to be drawn on the question of how long this will take. We simply don't control the factors that are driving insecurity. We are trying desperately to understand them better to bring them under control."

Mr. Appathurai said with questions as to how long the international community will remain in Afghanistan, a large percentage of the population is unsure of whether to support the Western-backed Hamid Karzai government, or the Taliban.

"The message we give about withdrawal feeds those in Pakistan who believe they need to support the Taliban," Mr. Appathurai said. "It feeds the Taliban and it makes people in Afghanistan very nervous that one day we'll all be gone and the Taliban guys will walk into town."

Both men said significant progress has been made within the country over the past five years, but that the message is not reaching Canadians for a variety of reasons.

In addition, if Afghanistan is to be able to stand on its own, not only must the international community remain committed to the mission, but more must also be done to eliminate insurgent bases in neighbouring Pakistan.

On Monday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper sharply criticized Pakistan for not doing enough to address the problem of insurgents sheltering within its territory.

"We will concede that the Pakistan situation remains a long-term problem and we do need better efforts from Pakistan on that problem," he said, "not just for the security of Afghanistan, but also for the security of the region."

In his testimony to the defence committee, Mr. Alexander also singled out Pakistan's "lackluster performance" in eliminating support for the Taliban along the border with Afghanistan.

"For those of us interested in the defence of Afghanistan...this has to be a high priority," he said. "This is issue is not any longer open to debate."

Mr. Appathurai repeated earlier statements made by Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor and Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hiller that the number of soldiers present in the country is sufficient to accomplishing the mission, and progress is being made in loosening caveats some countries have made on how their troops are deployed and used.

And contrary to popular belief, Canada is not alone in the southern part of the country, the two men said. In fact, there are a total of 12,000 coalition soldiers operating in the region, and many countries have suffered losses as well.

"The idea that Canada is in the south by itself is simply wrong," Mr. Appathurai said. "I might add that Canada is not bearing the burden alone when it comes to casualties. These sacrifices are being made by everybody."

The Poppy Debate

Embassy Magazine, February 28th, 2007 By Brian Adeba

The room is still being furnished. Empty boxes stand in one corner and a new flat-screen television mounted above a desk broadcasts the news. There are still no files on any of the shelves in this office in Ottawa's ByWard market.

It may be a humble beginning, but the Senlis Council, an advocacy group with offices in London, Brussels, Paris and Kabul, is expanding to this side of the Atlantic.

The group set up its Ottawa office last month, headed by Almas Bawar Zakhilwal, a doctor educated in Afghanistan and Pakistan. "We are the only think-tank on the ground in Afghanistan," he says.

While the Senlis Council may be new on the ground in Ottawa, its work is familiar to the bureaucrats involved with Canada's role in Afghanistan. Mr. Zakhilwal says the Senlis Council needs an Ottawa office to offer information to the Canadian government and people to "make better decisions" regarding Afghanistan.

The advocacy group first came to the limelight a couple of years ago when it began issuing reports denouncing the Afghan government's efforts to eradicate poppy cultivation. In Canada, the group raised eyebrows last fall when it released another report saying that after five years of trying to secure Afghanistan, the security situation remained volatile because the Taliban still controlled two-thirds of the country. The grim report also denounced the International Security Assistance Force's focus on the military rather than on development in Afghanistan.

But perhaps what best describes the Senlis Council is its advocacy for the legalization of poppy in Afghanistan, a point Mr. Zakhilwal stresses is important because, too often, security and development in Afghanistan are closely related.

"If you don't solve the opium problem in Afghanistan, you can't have security," he says. "We realized this two years ago."

He argues that despite the millions of dollars spent in Afghanistan on eradicating the cultivation of poppy, the process is not yielding positive results. Proceeds from the opium trade continue to fund Taliban activities, and the country is not secure. Without an alternative cash crop, Afghan farmers will continue to plant poppy, he contends. Furthermore, the forceful destruction of poppy fields will alienate locals from Hamid Karzai's government and the international community, says Mr. Zakhilwal. The gap, he warns, is already increasing.

"The promise of development is not there, and their only source of income is destroyed, so what do you expect?" he asks.

The Senlis Council has a solution, albeit a short-term one. Based on research the group has conducted, the plan involves creating a pilot project where whole villages are granted poppy cultivation licences. Mr. Zakhilwal says these licences will enable law enforcement authorities to monitor farmers. Once that has been done, morphine-producing factories will be established. The farmers will sell the crop to the factories, where morphine is produced and sold for local consumption and for export.

"This way the farmers will benefit," says Mr. Zakhilwal. "Cash comes back to the farmer, it creates jobs and taxes for the government." To ensure that drug traffickers don't get access to the poppy, Mr. Zakhilwal says, the Afghan army and ISAF forces will take charge of security. Other systems of curbing illegal trading in poppy include traditional judicial systems like village shuras and jirgas.

Mr. Zakhilwal also argues that controlling the trade in illegal poppy isn't difficult, since the critical period during the crop's lifespan is the two-week harvesting period, normally around July and August. Planting occurs between December and January.

Security, he says, can be bolstered during those two weeks of harvesting to deter farmers from selling to drug traffickers.

Now the Senlis Council is trying to convince local governments in Afghanistan of the benefits of the poppy-for-medicine plan. Though Mr. Zakhilwal admits that the coalition countries with troops in Afghanistan are not keen on the idea, in the end "they will be."

"They have a choice, but if they refuse, the repercussion is what is going on now. They are losing the battle for hearts and minds."

Poppy cultivation is an important part of the local economy in Afghanistan. Last year, 80 per cent of Afghanistan's GDP was from illegal poppy cultivation, says Mr. Zakhilwal, adding that last year alone, 6,000 tonnes of opium was produced in Afghanistan.

Mr. Zakhilwal denies that the Senlis Council is a front for multinational drug companies. He says the group is financed by 11 Europe-based organizations, collectively called the Network of European Foundations, the headquarters of which is based in Brussels.

But the Senlis Council and its proposal to legalize and regulate poppy cultivation were heavily criticized yesterday.

Christopher Alexander, the UN deputy special representative of the secretary-general for Afghanistan, said community leaders are continuing to grow poppy in the countryside because different groups are telling them it will be made legal soon.

"The Senlis Council has been extremely effective in taking their message to the Afghan farmers," he told a luncheon gathering of diplomats, military personnel and other officials in Ottawa. "You start to wonder which side they're on.

"I'm not pleading for the Senlis Council to give up its role as a strong, independent voice of civil society, but we do need to get our act together to rally around a single policy of counter-narcotics."

NATO spokesman James Appathurai, who, along with Mr. Alexander, spoke before the Standing Committee on National Defence as well as the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation, said it is the Afghan government that has demanded an end to poppy growing within the country.

"President Karzai is very clear," Mr. Appathurai told the gathering. "He does not want to legalize the opium industry. He would like to see this scourge eradicated from his country.... He considers it to be unIslamic."

Omar Samad, Afghanistan's ambassador to Canada, says the legalization of poppy cultivation is illegal under the Afghan constitution. Mr. Samad says if the Senlis plan is adopted, it will lead to a "chaotic situation bordering on anarchy" because Afghanistan is still in the nascent stages of developing its institutions.

"If you have one village modeled for such a sophisticated idea, every village would want to do so and every drug lord and mafia would want to attract it. It's not a recipe that is practical under the current conditions in Afghanistan."

Mr. Samad says the government is aware of the complexity of the situation and that is why it encourages a gradual weaning from poppy cultivation by promoting alternative cash crops for Afghan farmers. –with files by Lee Berthiaume

Pakistan makes a deal with the Taliban

Asia Times 02/28/2007 By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - The Pakistani establishment has made a deal with the Taliban through a leading Taliban commander that will extend Islamabad's influence into southwestern Afghanistan and significantly strengthen the resistance in its push to capture Kabul.

One-legged Mullah Dadullah will be Pakistan's strongman in a corridor running from the Afghan provinces of Zabul, Urzgan, Kandahar and Helmand across the border into Pakistan's Balochistan province, according to both Taliban and al-Qaeda contacts Asia Times Online spoke to. Using Pakistani territory and with Islamabad's support, the Taliban will be able safely to move men, weapons and supplies into southwestern Afghanistan.

The deal with Mullah Dadullah will serve Pakistan's interests in re- establishing a strong foothold in Afghanistan (the government in Kabul leans much more toward India), and it has resulted in a cooling of the Taliban's relations with al-Qaeda.

Despite their most successful spring offensive last year since being ousted in 2001, the Taliban realize they need the assistance of a state actor if they are to achieve "total victory". Al-Qaeda will have nothing to do with the Islamabad government, though, so the Taliban had to go it alone.

The move also comes as the US is putting growing pressure on Pakistan to do more about the Taliban and al-Qaeda ahead of a much-anticipated spring offensive in Afghanistan. US Vice President Dick Cheney paid an unexpected visit to Pakistan on Monday to meet with President General Pervez Musharraf.

The White House refused to say what message Cheney gave Musharraf, but it did not deny reports that it included a tough warning that US aid to Pakistan could be in jeopardy. The Taliban saw that after five years working with al-Qaeda, the resistance appeared to have reached a stage where it could not go much further.

Certainly it has grown in strength, and last year's spring offensive was a classic example of guerrilla warfare with the help of indigenous support. The application of improvised explosive devices and techniques of urban warfare, which the Taliban learned from the Iraqi resistance, did make a difference and inflicted major casualties against coalition troops.

However, the Taliban were unable to achieve important goals, such as the fall of Kandahar and laying siege to Kabul from the southern Musayab Valley on the one side to the Tagab Valley on the northern side.

Taliban commanders planning this year's spring uprising acknowledged that as an independent organization or militia, they could not fight a sustained battle against state resources. They believed they could mobilize the masses, but this would likely bring a rain of death from the skies and the massacre of Taliban sympathizers. Their answer was to find their own state resources, and inevitably they looked toward their former patron, Pakistan.

Al-Qaeda does not fit into any plans involving Pakistan, but mutual respect between the al-Qaeda leadership and the Taliban still exists. All the same, there is tension over their ideological differences, and al-Qaeda sources believe it is just a matter of time before the sides part physically as well.

Ever since signing on for the US-led "war on terror" after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US, Pakistan has been coerced by Washington to distance itself from the Taliban. The Taliban were, after all, enemy No 1 for harboring Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda's training camps.

So when the opportunity arose, Islamabad was quick to tap up Mullah Dadullah. This was the perfect way in which Pakistan could revive its contacts in the Taliban and give the spring uprising some real muscle, so the argument went among the strategic planners in Rawalpindi - in fact, so much muscle that forces led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) would be forced into a position to talk peace - and who better than Pakistan to step in as peacemaker and bail out its Western allies?

The next logical step would be the establishment of a pro-Islamabad government in Kabul - delivering a kick in the strategic teeth of India at the same time. After all, Pakistan invested a lot in Afghanistan after the Soviet occupation in the 1980s yet it received little in return. Whether it was former Afghan premier Gulbuddin Hekmatyar or Taliban leader Mullah Omar, they refused to be totally Pakistan's men.

Mullah Dadullah, 41, comes from southwestern Afghanistan, so he is "original Taliban", and has a record of being a natural leader in times of crisis.

Mullah Dadullah made a name for himself during the Soviet occupation, during which he lost a leg. And with victories against the Northern Alliance after the Taliban took over Kabul in 1996, he pushed the alliance into the tail end of Afghanistan. This made him Pakistan's darling from Day 1.

He was Mullah Omar's emissary in the two Waziristan tribal areas before the spring offensive of last year. Here he brokered a major deal between the Pakistani armed forces and the Pakistani Taliban. Pakistan had lost more than 800 soldiers in operations against the Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaeda and it needed a face-saving way to extricate itself from the mess.

Mullah Dadullah's peace deal provided this, and the army made an "honorable" withdrawal from the volatile semi-independent region. Whenever the ceasefire was violated, Mullah Dadullah would settle things down.

The 2006 spring offensive was veteran mujahideen fighter Jalaluddin Haqqani's show. Nevertheless, the main areas of success were not Haqqani's traditional areas of influence, such as southeastern Afghanistan's Khost, Paktia and Paktika. The Taliban secured major victories in their heartland of the southwest, Helmand, Zabul, Urzgan and Kandahar. And their leader was Mullah Dadullah, whose men seized control of more than 12 districts - and held on to them.

Pakistani strategic circles are convinced that as a proven military commander, Mullah Dadullah will be able to work wonders this spring and finally give the Taliban the edge over the Kabul administration and its NATO allies.

This, ultimately, is Pakistan's objective - to revive its role in Kabul - and Islamabad is optimistic that Dadullah's considerable diplomatic skills will enable him to negotiate a power-sharing formula for pro-Pakistan Afghan warlords.

Even if Mullah Omar disagrees about any major compromise, Islamabad believes that Dadullah would by then have made such a name for himself in the battle against NATO that Omar would have little option but to accept whatever terms were agreed on.

A notable addition to what can only be described as a limited Taliban arsenal this year is surface-to-air missiles, notably the SAM-7, which was the first generation of Soviet man-portable SAMs.

The Taliban acquired these missiles in 2005, but they had little idea about how to use them effectively. Arab al-Qaeda members conducted extensive training programs and brought the Taliban up to speed. Nevertheless, the SAM-7s, while useful against helicopters, were no use against the fighter and bomber aircraft that were doing so much damage.

What the Taliban desperately needed were sensors for their missiles. These detect aircraft emissions designed to misdirect the missiles.

And it so happened that Pakistan had such devices, having acquired them from the Americans, though indirectly. The Pakistanis retrieved them from unexploded cruise missiles fired into Afghanistan in 1998, targeting bin Laden. They copied and adapted them to fit other missiles, including the SAMs.

Now that the Taliban and Pakistan have a deal, these missiles will be made available to the Taliban. Much like the Stingers that changed the dynamics of the Afghan resistance against the Soviets, the SAMs could help turn things Mullah Dadullah's, the Taliban's and Pakistan's way.

Possible tip to Taliban probed in blast

Los Angeles Times - 02/28/2007 - Questions raised on timing, intent in Cheney visit

WASHINGTON - US and Afghan officials are investigating whether Taliban fighters who claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at Bagram Air Force Base were tipped off that Vice President Dick Cheney was visiting the US military headquarters.

Cheney, who was staying a mile from where the bomb detonated, was not injured in the attack at the gate of the sprawling base. A US soldier and a South Korean soldier were among those killed. Reports of the overall death toll varied, with the US military saying there were nine dead and the Afghan government putting the number killed at 23 and reporting two dozen injured.

Cheney's visit to Afghanistan was unannounced. The attack occurred at a time of growing concern over the resurgent Taliban and the tenuous stability of the US-backed Afghan government. The possibility that insurgents knew details of a secret visit by a top US official and were able to launch an attack would cast the conflict in a troubling new light.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. "At this point, it simply isn't clear that it was known that Cheney was there," said a US intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. US intelligence officials suggested the Taliban would have attempted a more aggressive attack had leaders known in advance that Cheney would be at Bagram.

"If you were in the Taliban's sandals or shoes, wouldn't you have used rockets and mortars?" said a second US intelligence official. "If you knew that this thing was happening, that the vice president was going to be there at that time, couldn't you have just brought up 30 or 40 guys and a truck?"

Cheney told reporters traveling with him that he had heard a "loud boom." After the explosion, the vice president was briefly moved to a bomb shelter before returning to his quarters and then leaving the base. He said he was not aware of the Taliban's claim of responsibility but said such attacks were aimed at undermining the Afghan government.

"I think they clearly try to find ways to question the authority of the central government," Cheney said. "Striking at Bagram with a suicide bomber, I suppose, is one way to do that, but it shouldn't affect our behavior at all."

Cheney arrived at Bagram late Monday afternoon after talks in Islamabad, Pakistan, with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

Deputy CIA Director Stephen Kappes accompanied Cheney on the trip to Pakistan to ensure that the vice president "had all the current information" as he pressed Musharraf for greater cooperation in fighting Al Qaeda, Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell said in Senate testimony yesterday.

Cheney had planned to travel to Kabul for a meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Monday evening, but bad weather made flying to Kabul too dangerous, so he spent the night at the base and put off the meeting until the next day.

The stops in both Islamabad and Kabul were kept secret beforehand for security reasons, and Cheney made no public statement or appearance in either capital. The suicide bombing occurred as the vice president was preparing for his rescheduled meeting with Karzai.

The first US intelligence official stopped short of saying a formal investigation was underway of possible security breaches. But the officials said US and Afghan reviews were seeking to determine whether someone with access to information about the secret trip told others outside the government.

White House spokesman Tony Snow said there were too few facts to speculate. "People are still investigating what happened," Snow said. "So we don't have a firm answer for you."

Still, some specialists on Afghanistan cast doubt on the Taliban's intelligence collection ability and said they were unlikely to be capable of tracking the movements of someone on the level of Cheney, who was traveling with heavy security.

"I am inclined to think it was a coincidence," said one congressional staffer who has studied Afghanistan. "Dick Cheney didn't intend to stay over. And I don't think the Taliban has the level of human intelligence to know what goes on on an American base."

But even if the timing of the attack was a fluke, it was telling that Afghanistan insurgents were able to mount an attack on the base, said Derek Chollet, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"It's a symbol of a larger trend," Chollet said. "The insurgency is growing more significant. Most people expect, in at least the short term, it is going to get worse in Afghanistan before it gets better."

America’s Musharraf Dilemma

Najum Mushtaq | February 28, 2007 - Foreign Policy In Focus

Stung by a spree of suicide attacks, Pakistan’s military junta this week had to take in an unannounced guest bearing ill tidings. The United States wants General Musharraf to do more to crush al-Qaida, Vice President Dick Cheney told his host during a surprise secretive trip to Islamabad. After being defeated in Afghanistan, America’s bin Laden-led enemies are regrouping in Pakistan’s tribal region, said Cheney. He is reported to have warned Musharraf that if Pakistan does not produce more results, the Democrat-dominated Congress may review and revoke the American military assistance program resumed after September 11, 2001. The military’s status as a major non-Nato ally of the United States could also be in danger.

Pakistan, the fifth-largest recipient of American aid, is set to get $785 million in President Bush’s next budget. That includes $300 million in direct military aid, a sop to Musharraf’s domestic power base in the armed forces. More than just military aid is at stake. Worse could come to pass if the United States decided to take out al-Qaida targets in Pakistan with unilateral air strikes. Although White House Press Secretary Tony Snow tried to soften Cheney’s message, the Pakistani general is clearly looking down the barrel if not yet in the line of fire. A visit by Dick Cheney, who is not exactly a gun control advocate, serves as perhaps the last warning.

Flawed Assumptions - Washington’s Pakistan policy is based on two dubious and misplaced assumptions. One, that Pakistan’s military -- and therefore General Musharraf -- is the only viable option to govern the country. Musharraf and the military remain indispensable in the Bush administration’s war on terror. Two, American policymakers tend to put an excessive emphasis on al-Qaida and the Taliban: capture and kill so-called al-Qaida operatives and Taliban leaders, and the war on terrorism will have been half won. This simplistic approach ignores other strands of religious extremism in Pakistan that run parallel to, and often in concert with, the international network of terrorism.

The Bush administration says it does not doubt Musharraf’s intentions or his regime’s commitment to the anti-terror cause. Pakistan, after all, is itself hit hard by terrorists. No other country has shipped more al-Qaida suspects to the United States than Pakistan. More than 70,000 of its troops are stationed in the tribal region along the Afghan border. The military has absorbed significant human and material losses in its campaign against the militants.

Yet both at home and abroad Pakistan continues to be viewed with suspicion. The military regime suffers from a crisis of credibility. Islamic militants of all hues remain powerful in many parts of the country. They frequently show their destructive prowess within Pakistan as well as in Afghanistan. Doubters like Afghan leader Hamid Karzai and think tanks like the International Crisis Group believe that the Musharraf government is, at best, ambiguous and ambivalent in its approach and a reluctant partner in the war on Islamic extremism. At worst, they accuse the military government of allowing the Taliban, al-Qaida, and other militant groups to “regroup, reorganize, and rearm” themselves.

The gap between Musharraf’s policy pronouncements and his government’s failure to achieve those policy objectives is jarring but not inexplicable. There are three sets of limitations on the Musharraf government that impede and undermine its anti-terrorism effort: conceptual fallacies, domestic political expediencies, and operational miscalculations.

Musharraf’s Limitations - The basic flaw in the anti-extremism policies of General Musharraf is conceptual. His government officials regularly describe the Taliban as an “Afghan problem”; make spurious distinctions between Islamic freedom fighters, especially those active in Kashmir, and international al-Qaida-type terrorists; and yet, in the same breath, they berate domestic sectarian terrorists. These categorizations are facile.

Three strands of jihad converge and feed off one another in Pakistan’s radicalized Sunni mosques, madrasas and other religious institutions like the Jamaat-e-Islami. The three operate at different levels: domestic, regional, and global. The most active are domestic jihadis and anti-Shia sectarian militants (Sipahe Sahaba, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi). Jihadi groups for regional Muslim causes (Hizbul Mujahideen, Jamaat-ud-Dawa in Kashmir, Hezb-e-Islami of Afghanistan) not only share the same sectarian ideology but also have organizational links with the local Sunni political parties and militant groups. And terrorists with an international, anti-West agenda -- the al-Qaida genre -- have sought refuge in Pakistan’s tribal areas since the fall of the Taliban in 2001 and have been the focus of Pakistani military’s anti-terrorism drive.

This rather arbitrary division of jihadists into the good (regional), the bad (domestic), and the ugly (global) has led the Musharraf government to adopt incoherent, conflicting policies. It has also meant that the crackdown on militant groups is selective, reactive, and sporadic. Whereas the “ugly” -- al-Qaida and the Taliban -- are pitched against the 70,000 or so troops stationed in the tribal areas, their ancillary domestic outfits have only faced cosmetic bans and partial, on-off police action. The leaders of the “good” jihad meanwhile lead an active and highly visible public life, appearing in the electronic media, running radical madrasas, and regularly issuing calls for jihad from the pulpit. Their organizations, too, remain as active as ever.

Almost all the jihadi organizations banned by the government are plying the trade by other names. Many of them appear in the guise of charitable organizations and have earned praise from the highest functionaries of state for their relief work after the 2005 earthquake. Since normal political activity remains dormant under Musharraf’s rules of the game, militant organizations like Sipahe Sahaba and Taliban-like groups in the tribal areas are even trying to occupy the vacant political ground.

The Musharraf government’s dilemma of legitimacy is another stumbling block in its anti-terrorism policy. Much of the ambiguity found in the government’s anti-terrorism policy emanates from its reliance on the religious political parties to sustain the tenuous trappings of democracy. On paper the government and its principal opposition party – an alliance of religious parties known as Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) -- have unbridgeable ideological differences. In practice, they work together in pursuit of a common political agenda, such as keeping out moderate political leaders like former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif and opposing Baloch and Pashtun nationalists. In return, Musharraf has been unable to move forward on madrasa reforms, the cornerstone of his anti-extremism policy, and has extended a slew of other concessions to the religious lobby.

This untenable position compounds the military government’s credibility deficit. Little surprise then that the government’s international commitments of running off the Taliban and al-Qaida are falling short of the promised mark as it makes ungainly and often inexplicable retreats in the face of pressure from the MMA.

One of the MMA’s coalition partners, the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) is a traditional and longstanding ally of the military, but it is no less vocal in its opposition to the government’s anti-extremism policies. The JI regards Musharraf as a passing phenomenon and deems the core of the military to be sympathetic to its Islamic agenda. This view may not be much wide of the mark.

Military Miscalculations - Pakistan’s military operations in South and North Waziristan since 2004 – demanded by the United States to target al-Qaida and Taliban militants -- have been marred by a blatant misreading of the social and political climates in the tribal areas. These ill-conceived military operations have alienated the local population and, by default, strengthened the very forces the government had planned to defeat. It is not only the Taliban who have made gains in the ongoing operation. The Hezb-e-Islami of Hekmatyar, the Afghan ally of the Pakistani Jamaat-e-Islami, has also resurfaced with a vengeance.

The most telling but least publicized factor, however, has been the reluctant attitude of the Pakistani troops to wage war against those whom not many years ago they had supported, encouraged, and trained to fight against the communists on behalf of the U.S.-led Free World. Many retired and serving soldiers betray intense emotions and resentment about fighting a war they neither bargained for nor want. Indeed, stress levels and casualty rates among the troops remain high. Their morale has been one of the major reasons why the government has been making hasty peace pacts with the militants. Pakistani troops in the tribal areas have achieved the very opposite effect of what was intended. Rather than being defeated or marginalized, the Pakistani Taliban have gained unprecedented power. In some areas, they run a parallel administration. Islamic vigilante groups are even replacing the traditional Pashtun tribal structures with strict Sharia laws.

So, even if one were to give the Musharraf government the benefit of the doubt and take its pious policy declarations at face value, it cannot be absolved of gross incompetence and myopic politics. Power -- rather, the illusion of enjoying power -- is its prime objective. In order to maintain and expand this power, General Musharraf has made pacts with the devil in both camps of the war on terrorism. Support from the United States has facilitated his authoritarian rule and exposed the reality of its much-hyped agenda of bringing democracy to the Muslim world. Support from religious parties like the MMA – to achieve domestic goals – comes at the expense of Musharraf’s anti-extremism campaign.

Caught between Cheney and jihad, Pervez Musharraf ought to rethink his -- and his military’s -- role in domestic and international politics. At this crucial juncture in its history, Pakistan needs an elected representative civilian government not a self-perpetuating dictator and his puppet politicians. The cause of defeating extremism will be best served by a Pakistan where the military is a professional institution, subservient to civilian rule, and not a preeminent political actor.

Washington would do well to help General Musharraf dismount from the tiger he’s been riding since staging a military coup in 1999. A timeline for the military’s withdrawal from the realm of power is long overdue. The disastrous result of propping up a seemingly moderate and liberal dictator is evident in the content as well as the context of Cheney’s Pakistan sojourn. Relying solely on military means to defeat an enemy whose ideological influence and operational reach go far beyond Pakistan’s narrow tribal belt is self-defeating. And relying solely on a military to find a sustainable solution to the complex political problem of religious extremism and militancy, as Pakistan’s case graphically illustrates, is more likely to exacerbate the turmoil. Like all wars, this war is too serious a business to be left to generals – or to one general in Pakistan.

NATO off course, report concludes

GLORIA GALLOWAY - From Wednesday's Globe and Mail

OTTAWA — A former Canadian ambassador to NATO says the war in Afghanistan cannot be won militarily and it will require negotiation with the Taliban to bring an end to the conflict.

Gordon Smith, who was Canada's NATO ambassador between 1985 and 1990, and a team of experts from across Canada will release a report tomorrow that says the current NATO policies are not on course to achieve the objectives of peace and stability in the country, "even within a period of 10 years."

Dr. Smith, who is also a former deputy minister of Foreign Affairs and is now director of the Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria, says recent announcements that will bring NATO's troop complement in Afghanistan to 37,000 will have little impact.

"One of the experts that we asked about how many troops would be needed for a military victory said, 'Oh, maybe half a million.' So adding a couple of thousand is wonderful but it doesn't do anything."

The real objective of the NATO force is to prevent a resurgence of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist organization -- a group that has moved to other areas of the world and is remobilizing in Pakistan, Dr. Smith said.

In his report, entitled Canada in Afghanistan: Is it Working?, he says that "the most essential goal is to isolate Al Qaeda from the mainstream Taliban and to find incentives to dissuade the Taliban from a commitment to international jihadi violence."

That may not be easy because of the close relationship between the two groups at the top levels, says the report, but it could be accomplished over time. And "while negotiations certainly cannot guarantee that the Taliban will be brought into the political process, failure to negotiate will almost surely cede the field to them."

Similar advice was offered yesterday at the defence committee of the House of Commons, where representatives of the United Nations and NATO tried to convince politicians of the value of a long-term commitment to the international mission.

One of the legacies of the Bonn agreement of 2001, in which high-ranking Afghans, working under the auspices of the UN, carved out a plan for governing their country, is that it was not a peace accord, said Christopher Alexander, the deputy special representative of the UN Secretary-General in Afghanistan.

Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban, and the leaders of jihadist parties were excluded from those talks.

Both Mr. Alexander and James Appathurai, a spokesman for NATO, stressed that progress was being made in Afghanistan, but the NATO commitment could not end any time soon without the country plunging into civil war and without serious damage being done to the credibility of both NATO and the UN.

Canada has said it will keep its troops in the country until at least 2009. But Mr. Alexander said it is more realistic to be talking about a time frame like that in the Balkans, where NATO sent troops in 1992 and still maintains a presence of 18,000 soldiers.

"What we are all saying in the United Nations, in NATO, in individual nation states, is that this is likely to be a long-term commitment, both on the military side and in other areas," he said.

Mr. Appathurai said it is important for Canadians to realize that they are not battling alone, nor is Canada the only country to have borne the burden of casualties. And those countries that had previously refused to send troops to the dangerous southern region where Canadian forces are stationed have removed those restrictions, he said.

[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.]