In this bulletin:

• Afghan, U.S. reports on firefight differ
• Two British soldiers killed in Afghanistan
• Afghan foreign minister says Pakistan uses terror as foreign policy
• Pakistan: No Entry for Coalition Troops
• Pakistanis arrest 5 suspects; "Taliban gloomy"
• Pakistan braces for backlash after Obaidullah’s arrest
• ‘Everyone in Afghanistan is a Taliban’
• Revealed: scheme to legalise Afghan opium
• NATO stepping up aid to Afghan drug war
• Taliban sending troops to Iraq
• Exchange of fire on Afghan border
• Afghan linked to Quetta suicide attack held
• US blaming Pakistan just to hide its failure in Afghanistan’
• Afghanistan is skating on thin ice
• Canadians say Afghan police reforms make headway despite illiteracy, violence
• 10 polio check posts set up along Pak-Afghan border
• Provincial council heads call for signing of amnesty draft
• Economic security committee to be formed
• Hair salons, music shop bombed in Pakistani tribal area

Afghan, U.S. reports on firefight differ

Jalalabad (AP 3.4.07) - A U.S. Marine convoy was attacked by a suicide bomber and militant ambush Sunday on a busy highway in eastern Afghanistan, and witnesses said that as the Americans sped away, they opened fire on civilian cars and pedestrians. As many as 10 people were killed and 35 were wounded.

The American military said it was unclear who was responsible for the casualties but more than a half dozen Afghans recuperating from bullet wounds told The Associated Press that the U.S. forces fired indiscriminately as they drove away along at least a six-mile stretch of one of eastern Afghanistan's busiest highways — a route often filled not only with cars and trucks but Afghans on foot and bicycles.

A suicide attacker detonated an explosives-filled minivan as the American convoy approached, then militant gunmen fired on the troops inside the vehicles, who returned fire, the U.S. military said. The Americans treated every car and person along the highway as a potential attacker, said Mohammad Khan Katawazi, the district chief of Shinwar.

"They were firing everywhere, and they even opened fire on 14 to 15 vehicles passing on the highway," said Tur Gul, 38, who was standing on the roadside by a gas station and was shot twice in his right hand. "They opened fire on everybody, the ones inside the vehicles and the ones on foot."

Lt. Col. David Accetta, a U.S. military spokesman, said officials were still sorting out the chain of events and could not yet say who caused the numerous deaths and injuries. The tolls varied widely. The Interior Ministry said 10 people were killed; the provincial health chief, Ajmel Pardus, said eight died.

The U.S. military said eight civilians were killed and 35 wounded, after earlier saying 16 were killed and 24 wounded. It did not explain the revised, lower death toll, saying only that the new figures were "the most accurate numbers to date." A U.S. soldier was also injured. The incident was under investigation, the military said.

"It's not entirely clear right now if the people killed or wounded by gunfire were killed or wounded by coalition forces gunfire or enemy attackers gunfire," Accetta said.

Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary said the chief of the Interior Ministry's criminal division would lead a delegation to Nangarhar province on Monday to investigate. Bashary said it appeared that gunfire from the U.S. soldiers caused most of the casualties.

The gunfire from Americans prompted angry demonstrations in the region — just 30 miles west of the Pakistan border. Hundreds of Afghans blocked the road and threw rocks at police, with some demonstrators shouting "Death to America! Death to Karzai," a reference to President Hamid Karzai.

At the Jalalabad hospital, several victims said the American convoy approached them on the highway and opened fire. As the convoy neared, many cars pulled over to the side of the road, but were still hit by gunfire.

"When we parked our vehicle, when they passed us, they opened fire on our vehicle," said 15-year-old Mohammad Ishaq, who was hit by two bullets, in his left arm and his right ear. "It was a convoy of three American Humvees. All three humvees were firing around."

Ahmed Najib, 23, lay in the next bed, hit by a bullet in his right shoulder. "One American was in the first vehicle, shouting to stop on the side of the road, and we stopped. The first vehicle did not fire on us, but the second opened fire on our car," Najib said, adding that his 2-year-old brother was grazed by a bullet on his cheek. "I saw them turning and firing in this direction, then turning and firing in that direction. I even saw a farmer shot by the Americans."

NATO and U.S. forces are often accused of firing at Afghan civilians they fear may be about to launch an attack. Though officials say the shootings are done in self defense, they often injure or kill innocent civilians. On Dec. 3, British troops speeding away from a suicide bomb attack in Kandahar city opened fire on cars, killing one civilian and wounding six others.

U.S. forces near Sunday's bombing later deleted photos taken by a freelance photographer working for The Associated Press and video taken by a freelancer working for AP Television News. Neither the photographer nor the cameraman witnessed the suicide attack or the subsequent gunfire. It was not immediately known why the soldiers deleted the photos and videos. The U.S. military did not immediately comment on the matter.

The freelance photographer, Rahmat Gul, said he took photos of a four-wheel drive vehicle where three Afghans had been shot to death inside.

An American soldier then took Gul's camera and deleted the photos. Gul said he later received permission to take photos from another soldier, but that the first soldier came back and angrily told him to delete the photos again. Gul said the soldier then raised his fist as if he was going to strike Gul.

The U.S. forces involved in the attack and ensuing gunfire were part of the U.S.-led coalition, not NATO's International Security Assistance Force. An official who asked not to be identified said the troops were Marine Special Forces.

A man claiming to speak for Hezb-e-Islami, a group he said is linked with the Taliban, claimed responsibility for the bombing and identified the attacker as an Afghan named Haji Ihsanullah in a telephone call to AP. The spokesman said that the attack was carried out by a breakaway faction of Hezb-e-Islami that was once led by Younis Khalis, a former mujahedeen commander who died last year. The group is now believed to be led by a son of Khalis.

The purported spokesman, who identified himself as Qari Sajjad, said the explosion "destroyed two vehicles, killing or injuring American soldiers." Sajjad said the attack was in revenge for "cruel acts" done to Afghans by U.S. forces.

Accetta, the U.S. spokesman, said the attack demonstrated the militants' "blatant disregard for human life" by attacking forces in a populated area. NATO officials repeatedly say that suicide bombs aimed at international and Afghan forces kill far more civilians than soldiers.

Two British soldiers were killed in a rocket attack in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province, the British defense ministry said Sunday. The latest deaths bring to 50 the number of British troops killed since a U.S.-led invasion overthrew Afghanistan's Taliban regime in November 2001.

Two British soldiers killed in Afghanistan

March 4, 2007 - LONDON (AFP) - The Ministry of Defence confirmed that two NATO soldiers killed in Afghanistan on Saturday were British, taking to 50 the number killed since the Taliban were ousted from power in 2001.

The troops, from a commando regiment in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), died in a rocket attack near the town of Sangin in the volatile southern Helmand province.

ISAF reported earlier that two of its soldiers were killed in combat in the south, which bears the brunt of violence linked to a Taliban insurgency.

"It with profound sadness that the MoD has to confirm that two UK soldiers, from the Task Force in Helmand province, Afghanistan, died during a rocket attack in the Sangin area," the ministry said on Sunday.

"Next of kin have been informed and they have requested a period of 24 hours before further details are released." Brigadier Jerry Thomas, the commander of the British task force in Afghanistan, called the deaths a "saddening blow."

Last week Britain announced it would deploy nearly 1,400 extra troops to southern Afghanistan, where ISAF is bracing for a Taliban spring offensive. The extra forces would take the total number of British troops in Afghanistan from 6,300 to 7,700.

Afghan foreign minister says Pakistan uses terror as foreign policy

The Associated Press - Saturday, March 3, 2007

KABUL, Afghanistan: Afghanistan's foreign minister told members of Parliament on Saturday that Pakistan uses terror as its foreign policy and that it once occupied almost 90 percent of Afghanistan, a reference to when the Taliban ruled the country.

Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta said the international community was rewarding Pakistan with aid packages even though it supports Taliban fighters.

"Pakistan shouldn't use terror as its foreign policy," he said. "I wish that the international community wouldn't give rewards to countries that are supporting the Taliban."

Afghan officials frequently accuse Pakistani leaders of harboring Taliban fighters and commanders, though Pakistan's government insists it does all it can to fight terrorism.

Pakistani intelligence officials say one of the Taliban's top leaders — Mullah Obaidullah Akhund — was arrested in Quetta on Monday, the highest-ranking Afghan militant to be captured since the fall of the hardline regime in 2001.

The arrest — yet to be formally announced by Pakistan's government — came on the same day U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney made a visit to Islamabad to express concern over al-Qaida regrouping along the border and a feared Taliban spring offensive in Afghanistan.

Spanta gave the frank assessment of Pakistan to members of the upper house's foreign relations committee. At one point Spanta said the conversation was "between you and me," an indication he may have thought he was speaking off the record. However, several Afghan media members were recording the conversation and later broadcast the comments.

Davood Muradian, a senior adviser to Spanta, said there was "nothing new" in Spanta's comments. He said there are some "circles in Pakistan" that don't want to see Afghanistan and Pakistan coexist peacefully.

"But we want a good relationship with all our neighbors, including Pakistan," Muradian said. "We want Pakistan to recognize Afghanistan as an independent country."

Spanta, who is an ethnic Tajik, said Pakistan once occupied "90 percent of our soil, but they were not satisfied" a reference to when Taliban fighters, who are mostly ethnic Pashtun, ruled most of Afghanistan from 1996-2001.

Pakistan: No Entry for Coalition Troops

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Mar. 3, 2007 - By MUNIR AHMAD Associated Press Writer - Pakistan vehemently denied Saturday the U.S. military's claim that coalition forces in Afghanistan have the authority to pursue Taliban fleeing across the border into Pakistani territory.

"There is no authorization for hot pursuit of terrorists into our territory," Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad, spokesman for the Pakistan Army, told The Associated Press on Saturday. "Whatever actions are needed to fight terrorism, we are taking them."

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry rejected an assertion by Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, chief operations officer for the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, that his forces routinely fire on and pursue Taliban into Pakistan.

"No foreign forces are allowed to cross into our territorial border," said Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam. "Pakistan and United States are partners in the war on terror _ not adversaries."

Aslam's and Arshad's comments came two days after Lute told the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington that "we have all the authorities we need to pursue, either with (artillery) fire or on the ground, across the border."

Lute provided a detailed description of when U.S. forces can fire on and pursue insurgents across the border into the Islamic nation of Pakistan, an important ally of the U.S. in its campaign against terrorism.

However, Lute did not elaborate on whether there were restrictions on how deep into Pakistan his soldiers could go. He said the decision is based not on distance, but on the immediacy of the threat involved.

Pakistan used to be a main supporter of Afghanistan's former Taliban regime, but it switched sides after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Its forces have since arrested at least 700 al-Qaida and Taliban.

But there is growing international pressure on Pakistan to crackdown further on Taliban militants on its side of the border, a message delivered on Monday by Vice President Dick Cheney during a visit to Islamabad.

In Kabul on Saturday, Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta told members of Parliament that Pakistan uses terror as its foreign policy and that the international community should not reward Pakistan with aid.

"Pakistan shouldn't use terror as its foreign policy," he said. "I wish that the international community wouldn't give rewards to countries that are supporting the Taliban."

Afghan officials frequently accuse Pakistani leaders of harboring Taliban fighters and commanders, though Pakistan insists it does all it can to fight terrorism. Pakistan has deployed about 80,000 troops near Afghanistan, where al-Qaida and Taliban remnants are believed to be hiding.

Nisar A. Memon, chairman of the Pakistani Senate's Standing Committee on Defense, said his country alone would take action against militants on its side of the border, but that Afghanistan should do more from its territory.

"Pakistan has contributed more than any other country to the successes in the fight against terrorism and extremism," he said. "On the Afghanistan side, there is equal responsibility of the coalition and Afghan forces to stop undesirable elements from crossing into our territory."

During his trip, Cheney had expressed concern to President Gen. Pervez Musharraf over al-Qaida regrouping inside Pakistan's tribal regions and an expected Taliban spring offensive in neighboring Afghanistan.

Shortly after Cheney's visit, Pakistani intelligence officials said that Pakistani agents _ during a raid in the southwestern city of Quetta _ captured the Taliban's former defense minister Mullah Obaidullah Akhund.

Pakistan so far has not officially confirmed Akhund's arrest, although individuals with knowledge of Pakistani intelligence workings say the man was being questioned near the capital, Islamabad. Akhund is said to be a key associate of fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Omar.

Pakistanis arrest 5 suspects; "Taliban gloomy"

By Gul Yousafzai - QUETTA, Pakistan, March 4 (Reuters) - Pakistani police arrested five suspected Afghan militants in a raid in the city of Quetta and a Pakistani newspaper said on Sunday the Taliban had conceded the arrest last week of one of their top leaders.

The five suspected militants were among 32 Afghans rounded up in the southwestern city where Pakistani security officials said senior Taliban leader Mullah Obaidullah Akhund was arrested last Monday.

"They are Afghans aged between 20 and 25 and they came from Waziristan," senior Quetta police officer Qazi Abdul Wahid said, referring to a volatile Pakistani region on the Afghan border where Taliban and al Qaeda operate.

Wahid did not say if the five were members of the Taliban but said they were seized with compromising Islamist documents. They were being interrogated, he said. He said 27 other Afghans had been picked up in raids in the city on Saturday night and also were being questioned.

The Afghan government and foreign officials in Kabul have long said the Taliban were organising their insurgency against the Afghan government from Quetta, capital of Baluchistan province, which borders Afghanistan.

The insurgents have threatened to unleash a spring offensive in Afghanistan in coming weeks after the bloodiest year since their ouster in 2001.

Pakistan has been coming under mounting pressure from the United States and other Western governments with troops in Afghanistan to take action against Taliban operating from sanctuaries on the Pakistani side of the border.

Akhund's arrest came hours after a visit to Pakistan by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney in which he asked Pakistan to do more against the Taliban.

The Pakistani government has not confirmed the arrest of the former Taliban defence minister, and a top member of the insurgents' leadership council.

Officials say the government is worried about a backlash from militants and Islamist political parties bitterly opposed to President Pervez Musharraf's alliance with the United States in its war on terrorism.

Taliban spokesman have denied Akhund was captured, but Pakistan's the News newspaper said a top Taliban commander and some Taliban officials reluctantly admitted reports of his arrest appeared to be true.

A Taliban official told the newspaper: "There is gloom in our ranks. It would take some time to overcome the shock of the arrest." In Quetta, extra security forces has been deployed at government buildings and in various public places.

Pakistan has been in the grip of a security scare as militant groups sympathetic to al Qaeda and the Taliban have carried out a series of suicide and bomb attacks in various cities following a mid-January air strike on militant compounds in Waziristan.

Separately, suspected pro-Taliban militants blew up a barber shop and a music shop in Pakistan's Bajaur tribal region on the Afghan border for violating orders to cease "un-Islamic" practices, officials and witnesses said. No one was hurt in the Saturday night explosions, they said.

Under the austere version of religion followed by the Taliban, shaving and music are counter to Islam. Militants have warned barbers and shops selling music and video tapes to close.

A border security official in Pakistan's far southwest said authorities had arrested five foreign militants on Saturday in the city of Tuftan near the Iranian border.

The five -- from Russia, Turkey and Kyrgyzstan -- were arrested after crossing from Iran, the border official said. (Additional reporting by Kamran Haider)

Pakistan braces for backlash after Obaidullah’s arrest

The News International (Pak) - arch 4, 2007 - ISLAMABAD: Pakistan was braced on Saturday for reprisals from militants after the capture of one of the Taliban’s three most senior leaders earlier this week.

The arrest of Mullah Obaidullah Akhund, a member of Taliban supremo Mullah Mohammad Omar’s inner circle, was disclosed to Reuters by several security officials, though it has not been confirmed by Pakistani authorities.

“It could lead to security problems, as Taliban present in the country could react,” said a security officer in Balochistan. The other reason for withholding the news by Pakistani press was to buy time for interrogators to extract information, officials said.

“Disclosing the arrest could jeopardise an ongoing investigation and allow other Taliban figures to escape,” the security officer said. The country has been in the grip of a security scare for the past few months, as Jihadi groups sympathetic to al-Qaeda and the Taliban have carried out a series of suicide and bomb attacks in cities around the country.

Akhund’s arrest came as the Bush administration faces a wave of scepticism over Pakistan’s role as an ally in the war on terrorism. Cheney during his visit last weekend asked Musharraf to do more to stop al-Qaeda from rebuilding its infrastructure in Pakistani tribal areas.

‘Everyone in Afghanistan is a Taliban’

Daily News & Analysis - (India) Sunday, March 04, 2007 Seema Guha

NEW DELHI: Are the rules of the game changing in Afghanistan? At a time when President Hamid Karzai unable to unite his people under his leadership and making a desperate bid to woo the Taliban, the Afghan government is making a distinction between the Taliban and the Al-Qaeda. Afghanistan’s Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ghulam Farooq Wardak , in India for a week-long visit clearly articulated the distinction.

After a lecture at the Indian Council of World Affairs recently in New Delhi, Wardak, was asked about the resurgence of the Taliban in his country. The minister replied. “Taliban, everyone in Afghanistan is a Taliban. Talib is a student.The mullahs, or teachers are everywhere in Afghanistan and is part of our society.” Was he merely quibbling with words or trying to tell India that now Taliban is no longer a dirty word or the symbol of terrorism worldwide. Or in their desperation to make peace with the Taliban, the ruling regime in the country is now willing to temper their past criticism.

“If you mean terrorists, that’s something else. We are a Muslim country and killing people is against Islam. The international terrorists who are now targeting us are not Muslims….You know that at one time these terrorists occupied a part of our territory and made this a haven for terrorists around the world,” Wardak said, without naming Al-Qaeda.

He blamed the “international terrorists” a euphesim for Al-Qaeda for the suicide bombings in the country. “Suicide bombers are alien to Islam and to Afghanistan. I was a holy figher, part of the Jihadi army which fought the Soviet occupation for 14 years, but we never resorted to suicide attacks.”

The suicide attack at the Bagram airbase at a time when US Vice-President Dick Cheney was there, is an indication of the Taliban’s resurgence. President Karzai realises how deep is the penetration of the Taliban and knows even with NATO and US forces, it will be quite impossible to counter this all pervasive force. This is why all the talk of reconciliation. In the early years of the Taliban’s rise, the US was willing to play ball with them, and negotiated with the Taliban government in Afghanistan for a seat in the UN. But before much progress could be made, the Taliban’s links with Bin Laden made it impossible to really come to an understanding.

The British in Helmund province also had an understanding with the Taliban. Though the international community were critical about Pervez Musharraf’s deal with tribal elders in Waziristan, nobody questioned the British forces for doing exactly the same thing. President Karzai would not be making overtures to the Taliban without the nod of the US.

Revealed: scheme to legalise Afghan opium

BRIAN BRADY WESTMINSTER EDITOR – The Scotsman - ( bdbrady@scotlandonsunday.com)

AFGHANISTAN'S opium crop will be used to create legitimate drugs under secret plans being considered by the government, Scotland on Sunday can reveal.

The controversial move is being assessed in a desperate bid to control the booming drugs industry - and stem the tide of heroin flooding Britain's streets.

UK ministers have ordered a series of studies into the use of Afghan opium to make legal drugs, including the painkiller morphine, over a six-year period beginning before the American-led coalition ousted the Taliban from the country in 2001.

The disclosures, in a clutch of Foreign Office documents obtained by this paper, come as Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf became the first coalition leader to support buying the entire Afghan poppy crop - for destruction or for legal use.

Musharraf said: "Buying the crop is an idea one could explore. We would need money from the US or the UN. But we could buy up the whole crop and destroy it. In that way the poor growers would not suffer."

The revelation lays bare growing concerns that efforts to destroy Afghanistan's drugs industry are floundering - with devastating implications for the war on narcotics in Britain.

The UK, which is in charge of the international campaign to stamp out the historic opium trade in Afghanistan, has ploughed more than £180m into the counter-narcotics operation in the last four years. The budget, which supports the creation of new justice institutions and alternative livelihoods for farmers - as well as crop-spraying - soared from £23m in 2002-3 to £92m last year.

But the country's opium harvest last year was 50% bigger than in 2005 and 30 times bigger than in 2001, when the Taliban were driven out. It is worth £1.6bn - half Afghanistan's gross domestic product.

While the boom in production is funding the Taliban's new offensive, international governments are in a continual battle with the enormous industry that produces some 92% of the heroin making it on to British streets.

Both the Americans and the new Afghan government insist that the entire heroin trade must be eradicated before a legitimate industry can be established in its place.

But in 2001, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office commissioned consultant David Mansfield to carry out an investigation into legal poppy production in India and Turkey and to "make recommendations about how this might be replicated".

Turkey's illicit opium trade was transformed into a legal industry from the 1960s, with the help of United Nations and US support.

Government experts have highlighted a number of obstacles to making the same historic change in Afghanistan, from local resistance to the cut-throat nature of the international legal drugs market. While Australia can produce 1kg of morphine equivalent at a cost of around £30, India can do it for £75 and Turkey for £125. The current cost of 1kg of morphine equivalent in Afghanistan would be approximately £170.

But the biggest obstacles remain the political opposition of the Americans and Afghan leader Hamid Kharzai.

NATO stepping up aid to Afghan drug war

By Thom Shanker (Reuters) - Friday, March 2, 2007

WASHINGTON: The new supreme commander of NATO forces said Friday that he had ordered alliance officers in Afghanistan to increase their assistance to the local counternarcotics authorities in the battle against a drug trade that threatens the entire international security mission there.

The commander, General John Craddock of the U.S. Army, said that while NATO was not authorized to play a direct role in the anti-narcotics effort, alliance forces were allowed under their rules to supply intelligence, as well as security and logistical assistance.

"We have some authorities to support the Afghan forces in their counternarcotics efforts," Craddock said.

And as part of his inspection of the NATO mission in Afghanistan last week, in which he discussed those authorities with his commanders, Craddock said he had told NATO officers "to optimize those right to the limit of the authority we have" and to "push it to the edge because it's important."

The growing narcotics trade in Afghanistan not only undermines the authority of the central government and creates an environment of endemic corruption, but profits from the trade also are a major source of income to insurgents.

"There is no easy answer," said Craddock, whose previous position was commander of American military forces in Central and South America, including Colombia, which is battling drug rings. "It will take an international effort over a long period of time," he said.

Craddock said the NATO mission in Afghanistan was still short one or two combat battalions; a battalion usually averages about 650 soldiers.

The military effort is also short what Craddock called enablers, a term that refers to cargo aircraft, troop-carrying helicopters and intelligence-gathering equipment.

Even so, Craddock said, Afghan and NATO forces are winning individual battles with insurgents, although Afghanistan is losing the drug war.

On Friday, NATO's troop strength in Afghanistan, including American forces committed to the international military effort, stood at 35,000 troops drawn from the 26 alliance partners and 11 other nations. American troop numbers in Afghanistan totaled 26,000, with approximately 15,000 committed to the NATO mission and another 11,000 carrying out a separate counterterrorism and training efforts.

After a NATO summit meeting in Riga, Latvia, and a defense ministers' meeting in Seville, Spain, alliance partners have increased commitments to the Afghanistan mission by 7,000 troops. That includes a brigade of about 3,500 American forces.

The British military has committed 1,400 additional troops; Poland has promised to add 1,000 troops; and Norway will contribute a special operations task group, Craddock said. "We are very grateful for that," he said. "We are getting close."

There has been a "slight increase" in attacks by suicide bombers and with improvised roadside explosives over the past few weeks, Craddock said, although he said it was too early to determine whether the anticipated spring offensive by Taliban and other insurgents had begun.

Craddock said many of the Taliban forces were "day fighters" who took up arms against the central government in Kabul and its foreign partners simply to earn wages to support their families. Creating economic stability — in particular, jobs — would be the best way to persuade those fighters to disarm, the general said.

Repeating a theme heard often in Washington in recent weeks, Craddock said the U.S. government's civilian agencies needed to fulfill their commitments to the Afghan effort.

He said that about one-third of the 25 provincial reconstruction teams in Afghanistan were short personnel from other government agencies, whether the State Department, the Agency for International Development or the Agriculture Department.

Taliban sending troops to Iraq

DUBAI (Reuters) 3/2/07 - A senior Taliban commander said in remarks broadcast on Friday that the Afghan Islamist group was sending fighters to Iraq to support anti-U.S. insurgents.

"Whenever there is a chance the (Afghanistan-based holy fighters) mujahideen travel to Iraq and the opposite is also true," Mullah Dadullah told Al Jazeera television in an interview.

"We have very strong relations with the mujahideen in Iraq. The mujahideen stay in Iraq for a month for example then they come here," he added in remarks dubbed in Arabic. "We also share intelligence."

"Travel from and to Iraq is at a peak currently ... if any mujahid wants to carry out an operation in Iraq he can travel." Several Sunni Muslim groups including a wing of al Qaeda, which is allied to the Taliban, have been fighting U.S.-led and Iraqi government forces in Iraq.

The interview appeared to have been recorded before news emerged on Friday that Pakistani security forces had arrested Mullah Obaidullah Akhund, the third most senior member of the Taliban's leadership council.

Asked if he was aware of the whereabouts of al Qaeda leaders including top chief Osama bin Laden, Dadullah said: "I do not know where they are ... (but) Osama bin Laden is alive, praise God, and he sends his orders to the mujahideen and sends us news of victory."

The Taliban were toppled in 2001 by a U.S.-led coalition for refusing to hand over leaders of al Qaeda after the group's September 11 attacks on U.S. cities.

Dadullah repeated that the Taliban plans to escalate operations against foreign soldiers in Afghanistan in the spring with at least 6,000 fighters which he said might rise to up to 20,000 once the fighting intensified.

Dadullah was speaking to a Jazeera correspondent outdoors interview with heavily armed bodyguards nearby. Dadullah said the Taliban has obtained weapons but did not say from where, adding that the group was making its own weapons when necessary. "The Taliban today is not the same as the Taliban of five years ago," he said.

NATO, the United States and the Taliban are promising spring offensives in what they and analysts regard a crunch year in a country still in crisis more than five years after the Taliban's fall.

Exchange of fire on Afghan border

GHALLANAI(DAWN), March 2: The Afghan National Army and Pakistani troops exchanged fire in the Kudakhel area of Mohmand Agency on Friday, sources said. The agency’s political administration confirmed the incident, but said there was no casualty.

The sources said the Afghan army fired several rockets on a border post of the Pakistan army in the Kudakhel area, about 20 kilometres from here. Army and paramilitary troops are jointly manning the post. The rocket attack triggered skirmishes and the two sides exchanged

Afghan linked to Quetta suicide attack held

By Amanullah Kasi (DAWN) -QUETTA, March 3: Police on Saturday announced the arrest of an Afghan involved in a suicide attack in a courtroom that killed 16 people, including a judge, on Feb. 17.

Qazi Abdul Wahid, the Superintendent of Quetta Police, told a press conference that the man had been arrested in Chaman and further investigation was under progress. “He told us that there are more suicide bombers in the city who can carry out attacks,” Mr Wahid said.

In reply to a question, the city police chief said that the samples of the body parts of the suicide bomber had been sent to a foreign country for a DNA test.

He said that 200 security staff in plainclothes were deputed in different parts of the city, especially after the suicide attack, to keep a strict vigilance on movements of potential terrorists and criminals.

He said police had arrested 22 members of a gang involved in snatching of cars, motorcycles and other vehicles and seized the stolen property during the past few days.

Giving details, he said the police had recovered six vehicles, seven motorbikes, 16 mobile telephones, 520 kilograms of hashish and 4230 litres of petrol brought here from Iran by smugglers.

‘US blaming Pakistan just to hide its failure in Afghanistan’

ISLAMABAD: The US launched an attack on Iraq before restoring normalcy in Afghanistan and was now blaming Pakistan just to hide its own failures, said Senate’s Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs Chairman Mushahid Hussain Syed on Saturday.

Addressing a reception for Youth Parliament members here, Syed said that foreign policy was made keeping in view a nation’s larger interests, and every country changed its foreign policy according to the changing situation and future challenges, as the US changed its policy towards China from hostility to friendship during the Nixon government and Pakistan changed its policy towards the Taliban government following the world trade centre incident. “We are not under America’s influence, nor do we agree with its every policy,” he said, adding that Pakistan had differences with the US on Iraq, Palestine and Iran issues, and underlined the need to solve the Iran nuclear issue through talks instead of force.

“US must hold talks with Iran like it held with North Korea,” he said, adding that some law and order problems in Pakistan were linked with the turmoil in Afghanistan where Pakistan wanted peace and stability in the entire region. “92 percent of the world’s poppy is produced in Afghanistan and the Afghan government should take effective steps to curb this production,” he said. Agencies

Afghanistan is skating on thin ice

Gulf News - 03/03/2007 By Neena Gopal - Despite the denials, the capital of Pakistan's Balochistan province did become the command and control centre

The arrest of a top Taliban commander by Pakistani authorities, within 24 hours of the departure from the Afghanistan-Pakistan theatre of war of the US Vice- President Dick Cheney, target of a failed assassination attempt, marks a key turning point in relations between Islamabad, Kabul and Washington. It demonstrates that the lame-duck US President George W. Bush has no intention of allowing the only strategy he has got even half-way right to be repudiated, and impact the larger agenda in Iraq and Iran before he demits office.

Indeed, a collision of Sunni-Shiite faultlines in both Middle East countries could shatter the delicate sectarian arrangement - in Afghanistan, where Muharram processions this year were far more overtly aggressive than at any time since the fall of the Taliban; in Pakistan, faced with its own intra-faith conflicts, accused by Shiite Iran of providing sanctuary to perpetrators of the recent Zahedan car bombings. If the road has been bumpy in the run-up to Mullah Obaidullah Akhund's dramatic detention, the one ahead can only get progressively more rocky.

The repercussions in this troubled region will be far-reaching as an impatient US steps up the pressure for results in the short-term, without fully examining the consequences of its actions on allies in Islamabad and Kabul that may or may not be able to withstand the internal dynamics of forces unleashed when Washington decides to keep its friends close and its enemies closer. In both South Asian capitals, an American embrace that reinforces the imagery of doing the US's bidding even if only at the point of withdrawing vital developmental aid to the tune of billions of dollars, could be stifling.

Discredited policy - While turning back the Taliban tide is all too necessary if Afghanistan is to be secured from those committed to retaining their own version of Pakistan's discredited policy of strategic depth, the Islamists ranged against the United States now have the perfect excuse to whip up an anti-establishment frenzy, making both governments - neither standard issue democracies - more vulnerable than ever to accusations of being puppet regimes. A vulnerability underlined when Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's envoy in Washington raised the bogey of an Islamist takeover if the "enlightened Islam" of the president fails to win currency at home.

Complicating matters further may be the fact that the Taliban, kept in abeyance until the moment is right, have run away with the story; the dramatis personae in a script being written on the run have new stars in the rungs of the reconstituted puritanical army. As Akhund's arrest shows, despite the denials, the capital of Pakistan's Balochistan province did become the command and control centre that US and Afghan officials said it was.

It's no longer the one-eyed preacher Mullah Omar, but Akhund who calls the shots in the Quetta Council along with Mullah Barader and the new star of the jihad, the one-legged Mullah Dadullah, who commands a 200-man army. His threat to unleash 2,000 more on the "infidels" in the coming spring single-handedly set off the frenzy in Washington faced with the prospect of seeing their Kabul policy unravel.

Akhund, a former defence minister in Omar's dispensation, survived the bloody trap set for raw recruits who poured across the Pakistan border during the militia's last stand in Kunduz against the US-Northern Alliance onslaught in November 2001. He escaped the death traps of articulated lorries into which Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum packed the benighted, bare-foot, bedraggled army, and melted away as did hundreds of thousands into the craggy, mountain fastness of lands that straddle the Afghan-Pakistan border.

This is when Washington, blinded by anger at 9/11, made its series of tactical errors. It demanded Pakistan hunt down remnants of the Arab-dominated Al Qaida, but turned a blind eye to the homegrown Taliban who with their Pashtun ancestry would always be vulnerable to calls to reclaim their lost emirate. It followed Pakistan's line on bringing in "moderate" Taliban to offset Pashtun anger at being sidelined in a Northern Alliance government in Kabul, a laughable nomenclature given that no talib would ever accept the tag. As Afghan President Hamid Karzai was lulled into a false sense of security by the presence of international troops, the Taliban made a comeback.

But the architects of the Quetta Council, certain to face a stepped up manhunt even in the face of the Akhund sop to the Americans, made their own errors of judgment. They mistook confusion in a Washington distracted by Iraq for weakness, misread talk of a drawdown of British troops for a withdrawal, a power vacuum they could fill. Primarily, they failed to see that war-weary Afghans were unwilling to take dictation from another set of foreigners. Indeed, tribal leaders in Kandahar urging the US to talk directly to their counterparts in Pakistan, could undercut Islamabad's already precarious writ in the tribal areas.

The biggest blunder may have been in taking the war right up to Nato forces who led by a tough talking US general unlike previous forces fed faulty intelligence and manoeuvred into flawed deals, are simply not prepared to walk away. The new generals in charge of Nato have said they will not hesitate to follow insurgents back into Pakistan territory. Hot pursuit. As the snow melts in the mountains, there's certain to be some skating on very thin ice.

Canadians say Afghan police reforms make headway despite illiteracy, violence

Canadian Press - Saturday, March 03, 2007

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — One of the first lessons that Afghan police recruits are taught is not to steal from the people they are supposed to protect.

The fact that there is a need to instil such a basic tenet in prospective law enforcement officers shows the challenge faced by Canadians who are working to reform a police system that has been ravaged by years of corruption and neglect.

“There are some parts of Afghanistan where the last thing people want to see is the police showing up,” said Brig.-Gen. Gary O’Brien, former deputy commanding general of police for the Combined Security Transition Command — Afghanistan.

“The police (in some areas) are corrupt. They are part of the problem. They don’t provide security for the people. They are the robbers of the people.”

Much of that corruption is by police who steal to feed their families, to survive. Why? Because in some cases their own senior officers steal part of their wages under an archaic payroll system, O’Brien said in an interview from southwest Ontario.

To deal with the problem the Afghan government has established a plan where police payroll is deposited in banks instead of doled out at the local police station.

Officers in some areas now draw their pay at a bank by showing their personal identification cards. Police reform in Afghanistan is as daunting as the country’s rugged landscape.

In the 1990s when Canada and other countries helped reform the 5,000-member police force of Kosovo, the autonomous province of Serbia, about 3,000 people were assigned to the project, O’Brien said.

In Afghanistan there are 62,000 police, but barely 500 people are assigned to forging them into a credible force.

The challenges include dealing with recruits and non-commissioned officers who can’t read, the lack of a basic management system, poor equipment, low pay and little or no formal training. And all of this within a struggling fledgling criminal justice system in a country battered by decades of war.

To make headway, O’Brien said the focus has been on the very basics. “We are not training a police officer for the streets of Woodstock, Ont., we are training a policeman for the wilds of Uruzgan. The training has to be right,” he said.

“The basics need to be the understanding of the rule of law — that a policeman is there to protect the people. Then it gets down to the simple basics of how to run a checkpoint, how do you stop a suspicious individual.”

There are signs the push to fight corruption and reform the police system is taking hold. The Afghanistan Interior Ministry has announced that police officers are due for salary increases. Senior police commanders are also to be chosen and promoted based on performance reviews and skill tests.

“We are now getting good leaders, they are now putting the processes in place to support the police and give them the training they need. But this is just beginning,” he said. Canadians are involved in police reform in Afghanistan at different levels.

O’Brien, whose tour with the Security Transition Command in Kabul ended late last year, has been replaced by another Canadian, Brig.-Gen. Greg Young.

A team of RCMP and municipal police officers working out of the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kandahar city has been advising Afghan police commanders.

RCMP Staff Sgt. Alan McCambridge said that while Afghan police are keen to learn, the vast majority have never been in a classroom before and can’t read or write.

He said there is a plan in the works to identify top Afghan police non-commissioned officers with good ethics and leadership skills for literacy training.

“Progress is slow because the literacy rate is so low, but when you see the pride they exhibit when they learn a new skill, that’s the reward,” McCambridge said Saturday.

“It is going to take years to really change the way the Afghan people look at the police as a respected profession.”

A training school for recruits of the new Afghan National Auxiliary Police force is run near Kandahar Airfield by Canadian military police. Despite the hurdles, O’Brien said the Afghan police can be reformed, but he warns change won’t come quickly.

“It is going to take time and it is going to take resources and it is going to take resolve from the international community,” O’Brien said.

10 polio check posts set up along Pak-Afghan border

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has set up 10 vaccination posts at the crossing points on its border with Afghanistan to ensure that all children under five years of age are immunised with polio drops as cross border transmission of the virus is a major challenge in eradicating the disease.

Federal Health Minister Muhammad Nasir Khan said this while addressing the Global Polio Stakeholders meeting in Geneva. He said that jirgas (council meetings) would be held on both sides of the Pak-Afghan border to discuss and evolve a joint strategy to save hundreds of children from this epidemic.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are considered as one epidemiological block and both countries are conducting joint risk analyses with the help of international donors.

The minister claimed that most areas of Pakistan were polio-free as 60 percent of all polio cases were being reported from only six districts. “The country has been able to bring down the number of polio cases from around 30,000 a year to just 40 cases in last year. But we will not rest till the last traces of the virus disappear from the country and all resources are being employed to achieve this end,” he said.

On the sidelines of the meeting, Khan also held a meeting with Paula Dobriansky, the US under secretary for democracy and global affairs, and briefed her on steps taken by the Pakistani government to provide access to quality healthcare in the country. Referring to child health as a key element of Pakistan’s health policy, the minister said immunisation was being strengthened to prevent children from deadly and debilitating diseases and there was a commitment in the country to allocate maximum resources to initiatives such as polio eradication. Dobriansky appreciated the initiatives being taken in Pakistan’s health sector.

Khan also held detailed discussions with Margaret Chang, the World Health Organisation (WHO) director general, and apprised her of the overall health scenario in Pakistan with particular emphasis on strategies to combat diseases such as polio. staff report

Provincial council heads call for signing of amnesty draft

KABUL, Mar 3 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Chairmen of a dozen of provincial councils asked President Hamid Karzai on Friday to sign into law the amnesty draft passed by the parliament.

The call to the President to support the immunity bill came in the face of widespread criticism by human rights agencies of the plan, urging him, on the contrary, to bring to justice those involved in past war crimes.

In a gathering in a mosque led by Maulvi Habibullah here today, heads of the 12 provincial councils said it was now time for forgiveness of past wrongdoings in order to strengthen national unity and cohesion. Habibullah, who is also chairman of the Kabul Provincial Council, said in his address: We support the amnesty plan because crimes happened during the past wars were committed by a mass of people, not by few individuals and we cannot try them all in court, said Habibullah.

He added that Afghanistan was now in a critical time and it was needed to focus in reconstruction of the war-ravaged country rather than taking revenges and raising controversial issues.

Yasin Akbari, chairman of the Provincial Council of Daikundi, said as sooner President Karzai approves the draft the better it will be. We call on the President to sign the draft into law without any delay, said Akbari.

The National Reconciliation Draft, approved a month ago by the lower house and adopted by the upper house later last month, is now pending for its final stage in order to come as a valid law. According to the draft, all those who were involved in war during the past three decades are immune from the state prosecution.

The idea was proposed mainly by former Mujahideen leaders and communist-era leaders and other warlords also joined them to ensure their immunity from prosecution in the face of increasing call by rights watchdogs to the Afghan government to bring war criminals to justice.

A massive rally called by the warlords ten days back in Kabul also voiced support to the draft and called on President Karzai to sign it into law.

Economic security committee to be formed

KABUL, March 3 (Pajhwok Afghan News): An economic security committee will soon be established in order to deal with security issues, which is the greatest problem faced by the business community in the country.

The decision was made during a conference held to facilitate cooperation between private sector investors, national traders and governmental security organs, which was attended by a number of national traders, security and business officials in Kabul on Saturday.

Attendants of the conference also discussed other issues including increasing the strength of the police corps, police salary and monitoring registration plates of vehicles, besides recruiting professional security personnel and guaranteeing security of vehicles carrying cash money as well as of residences of investors.

According to interior ministry officials, the economic security committee will be opened at the provincial level at first and would later be extended to the district level.

Posing a great threat to the work of investors, the insecurity has frequently been the major question investors have always had reservations about and for which have often sought government support.

Azarkhsh Hafizi, chief executive officer of the Afghanistan International Chamber of Commerce, in a brief speech in this conference described the increasing insecurity as a great problem for their businesses and said some investors have been killed, abducted and many others have even lost their investments due to the insecurity.

The insecurity has forced many investors to leave the country, he said.

He blamed the poor economic condition of the law enforcement agencies, lack of police personnel, corruption and the lack of law and order as reasons for insecurity. "All these problems lead the private sector to face breakdown and hopelessness" he said.

The speaker of the Upper House of the parliament present at the conference termed the lack of punishment for outlaws as a major factor behind insecurity and said that in order to address this issue, the government and legislature should take serious measures to implement law and order.

Deputy interior minister, Abdul Hadi Khalid, while highlighting the capability and preparedness of the police to maintain security, said the nterior ministry has been instructed to assess and address security problems of the private sector.

"The Police is getting stronger on a daily basis and we hope to create a more peaceful atmosphere for investors in Afghanistan," he concluded.

Hair salons, music shop bombed in Pakistani tribal area

Khar (AFP ) - Two hair salons and a music shop were targeted by blasts in tribal northwest Pakistan, where pro-Taliban militants have warned barbers not to shave off beards, officials said Sunday.

Six other shops were damaged but there were no casualties in the overnight attack at Inayat Kali market, Muwaz Khan, a local security official said.

After the militants' warning last month, some 20 barber shops at the bazaar in Khar, the main town in Bajaur tribal district bordering Afghanistan, had hung out signs saying: "We will not shave off beards."

Residents said the militants have also warned bank workers not to wear Western trousers and shirts and threatened them of "dire consequences" if they did not comply.

Pakistan's deeply conservative tribal zone has seen previous attacks on video and music shops blamed on militants emulating the ultra-orthodox Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.

Beards were mandatory under the harsh Taliban regime as part of a strict morality code that also made women wear the all-encompassing burqa and outlawed music and most other forms of entertainment.

[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.]