In this bulletin:

• Roadside bomb kills 9 Afghanistan police
• 2 suspected Taliban killed, 1 NATO soldier wounded in southern Afghanistan
• Islamist militants threaten attacks on Germany, Austria
• Afghan officials in Pakistan to discuss proposed tribal councils against militants
• U.S. to send another 3,500 troops to Afghanistan
• NATO Needs to Fill Afghan Gap as Offensive Gains, Boucher Says
• Hillier visits troops in Afghanistan
• Poland earmarks unfettered troops for Afghan mission
• Kiwi troops in Afghanistan for another year
• Germany Can't Let Itself be Blackmailed
• How Fervent Is Taliban Support?
• Afganistan toward a new age and the future of Trans-afghan Pipeline (I)
• Shining a light

Roadside bomb kills 9 Afghanistan police

Kabul (AP) - A roadside bomb targeting a police convoy killed nine officers, including a local commander, and left one critically wounded Monday in western Afghanistan, officials said.

The attack occurred in Farah province's Bakwa district, which was briefly taken over by Taliban militants last month. Western Afghanistan has been spared much of the violence rocking the south and east, but the area lies on a major heroin smuggling route into Iran.

The Bakwa district police commander was among the nine killed, said provincial police spokesman Baryalai Khan. One of the three vehicles in the convoy was destroyed, said Interior Ministry spokesman Zemerai Bashary.

Elsewhere in the same province, Taliban insurgents attacked a police post Sunday near the border with Iran, and the ensuing clash left two militants dead and one wounded, Bashary said.

The area around Bakwa also neighbors the volatile southern province of Helmand, where NATO last week launched its largest offensive yet, aimed at winning over a population long supportive of militant fighters.

In Helmand, U.S.-led coalition and Afghan troops targeting an alleged anti-aircraft weapons trafficker clashed with suspected Taliban insurgents Monday in Gereshk district, killing two militants and lightly wounding two Afghan troops and one coalition soldier, the coalition said.

A local leader in Gereshk, Adil Khan, said the assault killed five civilians and wounded four others, including three children. The coalition said there were "no reported civilian casualties."

In neighboring Kandahar province, Afghan troops arrested a "high-ranking suicide attack coordinator" in Panjwayi district, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said Monday.

Near-daily suicide bombings and insurgent attacks plague the lawless southern region, a former Taliban stronghold where the government wields little power.

Italy's government, meanwhile, said it has been in contact with the kidnappers of an Italian reporter in Afghanistan and had reason to believe he was alive.

Taliban insurgents claim they kidnapped Daniele Mastrogiacomo, a reporter with Italian daily La Repubblica, last week along with two Afghans who were traveling with him in Helmand.

Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema said Italian officials have made contact with the kidnappers mainly "through humanitarian channels." He stressed Rome was not negotiating but trying to "create conditions to agree on a release."

Afghan parliamentary speaker Yunus Qanooni said Monday that he had been told by Afghan diplomats that the Taliban had threatened to kill Mastrogiacomo unless the Italian government reviewed its policy toward Afghanistan.

Italy contributes some 1,800 troops to the NATO mission, and Premier Romano Prodi reiterated Sunday that the commitment would remain unchanged.

Qanooni, speaking at NATO headquarters in Brussels, also appealed for Pakistan to crack down on insurgents in the rugged border between the two countries.

"Afghans expect their neighbors, especially Pakistan to stop supporting terrorist activities and terrorist training camps and stop these people from infiltrating into the country," he said.

Although Pakistan has deployed 80,000 troops along the border, Afghan officials have frequently complained that their neighbor has not done enough to control Taliban insurgents.

2 suspected Taliban killed, 1 NATO soldier wounded in southern Afghanistan

The Associated Press - Monday, March 12, 2007 - KANDAHAR, Afghanistan: NATO and Afghan troops clashed with suspected Taliban insurgents Monday in southern Afghanistan, shortly before calling in an airstrike on a compound that left two militants dead, a spokesman said.

The clash started when militants opened fired and lobbed mortars toward NATO and Afghan troops in the Gereshk district of Helmand province, said Squadron Leader Dave Marsh, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force. Two Afghans and one NATO soldier were lightly wounded in the clash, Marsh said.

The violence comes a week after NATO-led troops launched their biggest offensive yet in Helmand, aimed at winning over a population long supportive of militant fighters.

Meanwhile, during a search operation in neighboring Kandahar province, Afghan troops arrested a "high-ranking suicide attack coordinator" in Panjwayi district, the ISAF said Monday. An ISAF statement said that Mullah Mohammad Wali organized suicide attacks in Kandahar and worked for the Taliban.

Near-daily suicide bombings and insurgent attacks plague the lawless southern region — a former Taliban stronghold where the government wields little power.

Islamist militants threaten attacks on Germany, Austria

Dubai (AFP) - Islamist militants threatened to attack Germany and Austria if they do not pull their troops out of Afghanistan, in a statement read out on Sunday by a masked man on an Al-Qaeda linked website.

"Germany's participation in the US war on Islam and Muslims will lead only to... endangering Germany itself," said the video statement whose authenticity could not be verified.

"We wonder where Germany's interest lies in throwing 2,750 troops (to Afghanistan)... to fight in defence of the lies of (President George W.) Bush and his gang," read the masked man seated in a makeshift studio on the so-called Voice of the Caliphate website.

"In standing by the United States... you have provoked those whom you call terrorists to target you," the man said in Arabic, with a German translation appearing on the screen as the flags of Germany and Austria appeared in front of a burning background.

The Voice of the Caliphate is an online television site launched in September 2005 by the Iraqi branch of the Al-Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden. Germany has almost 3,000 troops in the relatively stable north of Afghanistan, where it commands the International Security Assistance Force.

With pressure mounting on Berlin, a militant Islamist group in Iraq has threatened in a videotape showing two purported German hostages to execute them if Germany keeps its troops in Afghanistan.

The Kataeb Siham al-Haq (Righteous Arrows Battalions) said in the tape posted on Saturday on an Islamist website: "We give the German government 10 days from the date of this statement to announce and start the withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan.

"Otherwise, you will not even see one corpse for these two agents," said one of three masked gunmen who appeared standing behind the purported hostages. Berlin confirmed on February 12 that two German citizens had been missing in Iraq for a week.

The Berlin newspaper Tagesspiegel, citing security sources, reported at the time that the victims were a woman in her 60s, who is married to an Iraqi doctor, and their son who is in his 20s.

In another incident, a German aid worker was shot dead in northern Afghanistan last Thursday. Sunday's statement also threatened to attack Austria if its government did not withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.

"Austria was and still is one of the safest countries in the world... But if Austria came on to the list of countries targeted by the mujahedeen (holy warriors), the situation will change," it said.

"To Austria we say: Your troops in Afghanistan do not represent a real force or a real threat to our brothers, the mujahedeen, but they represent important support for Bush and his gang," it added.

Addressing the Austrian government, the statement said: "Don't destroy the security of a whole country, just for five soldiers you have sent to Afghanistan."

"This war is not yours. This war is between the mujahedeen and America".

Afghan officials in Pakistan to discuss proposed tribal councils against militants

The Associated Press - Sunday, March 11, 2007

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: An Afghan delegation is in Pakistan for talks on holding traditional tribal council meetings to help fight militants along rugged parts of the two countries' border, officials said.

Meanwhile, Pakistan's military said Sunday that two of three suspected militants killed in a clash with security forces near the Afghan border over the weekend were Uzbeks.

A two-day Pakistan-Afghanistan meeting on how to convene jirgas — traditional meetings of tribal elders — was set to begin Monday in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, said Pakistan's minister for culture, Ghazi Gulab Jamal.

Afghan and Pakistani leaders last year proposed convening jirgas in the tribal areas, believed to be Taliban militant hotbeds, on both sides of the border. Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri are widely believed to hide along the border, parts of which are rugged, porous and ill-defined.

Afghan officials have repeatedly said Taliban leaders are orchestrating attacks in Afghanistan from Pakistani territory, a charge Pakistan denies. Jamal said the Afghan and Pakistani officials will discuss the proposed councils' composition.

He said their talks will focus on "what type of jirgas are needed? What type of people are needed to be invited? And what should be on the agenda?"

"The basic agenda, the real purpose, is that peace should be brought to this region," said Jamal, who will attend the talks as part of a five-member, Pakistan government-appointed commission to work with Afghan officials on convening the proposed councils.

A 12-member team of Afghan officials has arrived in Pakistan for the talks, said Majnoon Gulab, charge d'affaires at the Afghan embassy in Islamabad.

Pakistan — a close U.S. ally in the war against terrorism — has deployed about 80,000 troops along the border. Security officials have said that Arab, Central Asian and Afghan militants operate in the tribal areas.

Pakistani troops and a group of suspected militants clashed near the Afghan border on Saturday, leaving one soldier and three suspected militants dead, the military said over the weekend.

Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad, the Pakistan army spokesman, said two of the suspected militants were Uzbeks. He did not say how they were identified as such, or give the third casualty's nationality.

He said the three were killed as they tried to enter Pakistan from Afghanistan. "Pakistani forces have further stepped up security and surveillance along the Afghan border," Arshad said.

U.S. to send another 3,500 troops to Afghanistan

BOGOTA, March 11 (Xinhua) -- The White House announced on Sunday that another 3,500 U.S. troops will be deployed in Afghanistan, which will bring the number of U.S. forces there to the highest level of 27,000 since 2001.

    The decision was taken by President George W. Bush as "part of the effort to speed up the training and expand the size of the Afghan forces," said National Security Spokesman Gordon Johndroe during Bush's recent visit to Colombia. Previously, the Democratic majority in Congress had opposed Bush's plan to heighten U.S. troop levels in Iraq, but called for more troops for Afghanistan.

    Despite strong opposition from the public and the Democrats, Bush announced his plans to send another 21,500 troops to the war-torn nation of Iraq on January 10. Recently the troop "surge" further expanded with an addition of 2,400 support troops and another 2,200 military police.

    The president has proposed to release 3.1 billion U.S. dollars to fund the new reinforcements to Iraq and Afghanistan by cutting federal spending, which would include areas like agriculture, commerce, education and health.

    America's military build-up in Afghanistan is coming at a time when violence there is on a steady rise. On Saturday, Taliban insurgents ambushed a police patrol in the southern province of Kandahar, leaving eight dead. The following day saw a suicide bombing and another gunfight, which killed four more police officers.

    Last year, there were around 140 suicide bombings in Afghanistan. The Taliban who were ousted from power in 2001, have claimed responsibility for these attacks.

NATO Needs to Fill Afghan Gap as Offensive Gains, Boucher Says

By Marie-Louise Moller and James G. Neuger

March 12 (Bloomberg) -- NATO allies need to send more troops to Afghanistan to step up an offensive that is making inroads against the Taliban, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher said.

Boucher said the Afghan government is broadening its reach across the country, and some North Atlantic Treaty Organization governments have joined the U.S. in dispatching more combat forces to the hard-fought south and east.

``People have done things, but there's still that gap in the NATO requirements and people need to look at how we can fill that gap,'' Boucher said in an interview today in Brussels during a week-long trip which includes a visit to Afghanistan.

France, Italy and Spain are keeping their forces away from frontline combat in the south, and Germany needed parliamentary approval last week to send as many as eight Tornado reconnaissance jets to police the southern skies.

NATO has fielded 35,460 troops in Afghanistan, with American, British, Canadian and Dutch forces doing most of the fighting against the resurgent Taliban, the Islamic fundamentalist movement driven from power by the U.S. in 2001.

NATO and Afghan forces last week launched their largest joint offensive, codenamed ``Achilles Heel,'' with the initial goal of clearing a roadway for the construction of a hydroelectric power plant in the southern Helmland province.

``NATO is pushing out,'' Boucher said. ``The Afghan government is extending itself throughout the country and dealing with the resistance, dealing with the elements that are there, the Taliban, the drug pushers and others that are out there. The operation is not just a military one.''

Boucher declined to specify how many more troops the U.S. wanted NATO to provide. The U.S. last month extended the tours of 3,200 soldiers by four months to June while Britain announced plans to send 300 more troops and redeploy 500 to the south. U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair failed at a European Union summit last week to extract public pledges of more troops from other countries.

Boucher saluted Pakistan's efforts to fight insurgents on its side of the border, refuting calls by some Senate Democrats to cut military aid to Pakistan unless President Pervez Musharraf extends the clampdown.

``That's not productive, that's the wrong way to go,'' Boucher said. ``We've got to support them and we've got to help them deal with their problems on the frontier as well.''

Hillier visits troops in Afghanistan

Last Updated: Monday, March 12, 2007 - CBC News

Canada's top soldier paid a surprise visit to Afghanistan Monday, a day after the defence minister arrived in the country.

Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier told reporters he doesn't regret signing a 2005 agreement with an Afghan commission to monitor what happens to Taliban suspects captured by Canadians.

Human rights groups have criticized the policy, which doesn't let Canada have any say in the prisoners' treatment once they're in Afghan custody. "No regrets whatsoever. We're in certain circumstances here and we think we have a very good agreement with the Afghanistan government," said Hillier.

"Opportunities to improve the mechanics of that are always potentially there and formalizing the discussions we started with the human rights commission is one of the ways of doing that."

Hillier's visit comes hours after the arrival late Sunday of Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor in Kandahar. O'Connor will meet with the head of the Afghan human rights commission to discuss the treatment of Taliban detainees handed over by Canadian troops to the Afghan government.

"I want to look the man in the eyes and I want to be confirmed that they are going to do what they say they are going to do," O'Connor told reporters when he stepped off the plane. "I want assurances from him that he will monitor and he will inform us of any abuses."

The head of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission in Kandahar is Abdul Noorzai. O'Connor has been under fire over Canada's policy regarding the handover of suspected Taliban detainees.

He initially said that the International Committee of the Red Cross monitored the treatment of such detainees. But the ICRC told the Globe and Mail last week that that wasn't the case.

Responding to that story Thursday, O'Connor clarified that the ICRC has carried out several visits to detainees in temporary Canadian custody in Kandahar. Under a new agreement, Canada must notify both the ICRC and the office of the human rights commission in Kandahar about the handling of detainees.

Poland earmarks unfettered troops for Afghan mission

CanWest News Service; Ottawa Citizen - Monday, March 12, 2007

OTTAWA -- Canada is grateful Poland is sending 1,000 troops to southern Afghanistan, but the Eastern European country is banking on a much stronger thank you from its NATO allies - protection from what it sees as growing threats from Russia.

"It's not a gesture. It's an obligation. We are a member of an alliance. We feel it was our duty to respond," Witold Waszczykowski, Poland's top foreign affairs bureaucrat, explained in an exclusive interview about his country's decision to help fight the growing Taliban insurgency.

Poland, which became a NATO member eight years ago, offered the troops without caveats - the restrictions that some NATO countries have placed on their Afghan contributions that prevent their soldiers from fighting in the more volatile southern region around Kandahar, where Canada's 2,500 military personnel are based.

"Because some other day, we may be in need. So we will count on reciprocity. So this decision is made on this kind of thinking -- solidarity," Waszczykowski said in Ottawa, where he led a delegation of diplomats and military officials.

Waszczykowski said Russia has repeatedly threatened Poland, and many of the former Warsaw Pact neighbours, with everything from cutting off energy supplies to military action if it supports NATO expansion, or the U.S. plan to extend its ballistic missile defence system to Europe.

As Waszczykowski travelled to Ottawa last week to discuss his country's contribution to the NATO mission in Afghanistan, a Russian general bragged about his air force's ability to destroy military installations inside Poland.

The Pentagon has invited Poland to participate in its ballistic missile defence shield for Europe by hosting a base for rockets that would shoot down incoming nuclear warheads, and it wants the Czech Republic to host sensors. The shield is being built to protect Europe from missiles from Iran, North Korean or other rogue states -- not Russia, which NATO and the U.S. considers an ally.

But such assurances have failed to persuade Moscow, where President Vladimir Putin has criticized NATO expansion as a direct threat to his country.

Last week, Russian Lt.-Gen. Igor Khvorov bragged that even if Poland went ahead and joined the Pentagon program "all types of our aircraft are capable of applying electronic counter measures against them or physically destroying them."

In Poland, comments such as those are considered threats to national security. "This is not rhetoric. These are accusations, charges and threats coming in recent weeks from Moscow, from mostly Moscow generals," said Waszczykowski.

Waszczykowski said Russia's fears of NATO and U.S. military dominance are groundless and reflective of a "psychological problem" the country has since the Soviet Union lost its superpower status - not to mention its hold over countries such as Poland.

"Russia is no longer a major superpower, is not a power which is matching the United States, so definitely psychological problems," he said. "That's why they are objecting to the enlargement of NATO although they technically understand and definitely know that NATO is not directed against them."

Afghanistan is often touted as a test of NATO's relevance in the post-Cold War world. The alliance was founded half a century ago to protect Europe from an invading Soviet Red Army.

But Waszczykowski said Poland is still counting on NATO to guard its interests in Europe if that becomes necessary.

"We are trying to remind our partners in the European Union and NATO that, let's be cautious because we are facing behaviour we cannot accept," he said. "Solidarity is supposed to be major principle of co-operation in case of problems because we are united in those institutions."

It's been a generation since the Solidarity movement was born in the Gdansk shipyards, sparking Poland's emergence from the Iron Curtain and the collapse of the Soviet Union. But Waszczykowski's comments suggest a more general Polish notion of solidarity is still alive and consists of countering what it views as a threat from Moscow.

He said Poland could end up contributing as many as 1,300 troops to Afghanistan including special forces, but the core would be a 700-strong battle group that would focus on protecting the main highway connecting Kandahar with Kabul to the north, as well as two eastern provinces bordering Pakistan.

But Waszczykowski stressed that Poland's troops are flexible and can be deployed anywhere. He applauded Canada's efforts to persuade NATO countries to relax caveats.

Waszczykowski was also in Canada to push the government to waive its visa requirement for Polish nationals, which remains a sore point in bilateral relations.

"The whole of Europe is open. We are part of NATO, part of the European Union, we are the brothers in arms, and we need visas," he said. "Are we threatening your society? Are we going to overflow your labour market? No."

Kiwi troops in Afghanistan for another year

Stuff.co.nz, New Zealand  

New Zealand troops will stay in Afghanistan another year and could stay past 2008 as the rebuilding of the fragile nation continues. A frigate is also again being deployed to the Arabian Gulf to take part in operations there.

Prime Minister Helen Clark and Defence Minister Phil Goff today said Cabinet had confirmed New Zealand's contribution in Afghanistan would be rolled over another year until September 2008 at a cost of around $30 million.

This commitment includes:

· a 120-personnel Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in the Bamyan province;

· two personnel based with the British contingent to help train the Afghan National Army;

· up to five officers to serve with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) headquarters;

· four police officers to help train the Afghan National Police.

A frigate would also join the Maritime Interdiction Operation in the Arabian Gulf for just over a month during the middle of 2008. This leg would be added to a planned deployment to the South/South East Asia region.

New Zealand would also send two health personnel to the Multinational Medical Unit at Kandahar Airport.

Mr Goff said New Zealand troops had been in Bamyan for 3½ years and he was "proud" of the work they had done there. The frigates Te Mana and Te Kaha have been deployed to the Gulf previously.

Miss Clark said the Government decided each year whether to rollover the deployment in Afghanistan but she is doubtful this will be the last. "I'd be surprised if the job isn't still going after that but we've tended to take the decisions a year at a time."

Afghanistan had been in "chaos" in late 2001 and New Zealand had never thought the problems it faced could be fixed quickly.

Mr Goff said New Zealand's continued presence in Afghanistan would depend on its other responsibilities and requirements on it in other parts of the world.

Miss Clark said today's announcement was not timed with her visit to Washington next week. Usually an announcement would have been made earlier but due to Mr Goff's overseas travel schedule had been taken this month instead.

She said the United States was well aware New Zealand was playing "a considerable role for its size in Afghanistan".

The Taliban regime, which sheltered al Qaeda operatives, was toppled in a United States-led invasion in late 2001, following the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US.

The New Zealand SAS conducted operations in Afghanistan between December 2001 and November 2005. Mr Goff said 37 countries were providing military assistance in Afghanistan and, on a per capital basis, New Zealand was punching above its weight.

He said New Zealand had answered a general request from the United Nations and Nato for further contributions before rolling over the deployment to 2008.

It could not send more troops to Afghanistan because it might need to send them to hotspots closer to home, such as in East Timor or the Solomon Islands.

New Zealand has 400 troops deployed overseas at this time, not including those on board the frigate going to the Gulf. Mr Goff said the security risk to the New Zealand troops in Bamyan was judged to be "medium", better than in other parts of Afghanistan.

Insurgencies in Bamyan were less likely given the fact the locals saw the New Zealand PRT as making a positive contribution. "That makes the risk factor much less where we are but you can't rule out risk in any operation of this nature."

Miss Clark said Cabinet had not considered sending SAS troops back to Afghanistan, a fact Green MP Keith Locke welcomed.

"It is good that our SAS will not be part of the military debacle in the south of the country where the trigger-happy American forces have only made matters worse. So many civilians have been killed in Nato's bombing raids that the Taliban extremists are, unfortunately, staging a comeback," Mr Locke said.

Germany Can't Let Itself be Blackmailed

Internet messages from Islamic militants threatening Germany have revived fears that the country is at risk of attack because of its military involvement in Afghanistan. Berlin may pay for the release of hostages, but it must resist demands to pull out of Afghanistan, German commentators say. REUTERS

Members of a group calling itself "Arrows of Righteousness" read out their message demanding Germany pull out of Afghanistan in exchange for the release of two hostages.

Germany has received a fresh reminder that it too is a target for terrorists despite its refusal to fight in the Iraq War and its hesitant involvement in the fight against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan, so far limited to the dispatch of surveillance aircraft approved by parliament last week.

Islamic militants posted a video statement on the Internet over the weekend threatening to attack Germany and Austria unless the two countries break ranks with the US and withdraw personnel from Afghanistan.

"Germany will face more threats and dangers if it doesn't withdraw its troops from Afghanistan," an unidentified speaker said in a video statement posted Saturday on an Islamic Web site used by al-Qaida-linked militants.

The authenticity of the video could not be verified, but it was released by the Voice of the Caliphate, which is said to be run by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida group.

The unidentified speaker said about 2,700 German soldiers in Afghanistan will "not be safe from attacks" by the Taliban and al-Qaida fighters in Afghanistan. He also threatened that militants will carry out attacks in Austria and against Austrian personnel in Afghanistan.

The Web site ran subtitles in perfect German. Security analysts said the message may have been recorded by Islamic militants living in Europe.

Separately, a little-known Iraqi Islamist militant group said on Saturday that it would kill a kidnapped German woman and her son in 10 days unless Berlin withdrew its troops from Afghanistan. In Iraq, the Arrows of Righteousness group posted a video on a Web site showing the weeping woman, aged over 60, and her son, in his mid-20s.

"We give the German Government 10 days from the date of this statement to announce and start the withdrawal of their troops from Afghanistan, otherwise ... they will not even see the bodies of these two agents," said a masked man, reading a statement on the video.

The woman, married to an Iraqi physician and has reportedly been living in Iraq for years.

Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble told German radio on Monday that German troops would continue to assist the reconstruction of Afghanistan. He said the government "must not allow itself to be blackmailed."

"We're part of the global danger zone and even in times when we weren't affected, we couldn't be under any illusions that we're not just as threatened as the Spaniards, the British or others as well," said Schäuble.

German newspapers say the government may well pay up to get the hostages released, just as it is reported to have paid for other German hostages kidnapped in Iraq over the last two years-But it cannot afford to let terrorists blackmail it into quitting Afghanistan, the papers add.

Conservative Die Weltwrites: "It's only logical that the kidnappers of the two Germans in Iraq refer to Afghanistan. Even if one can only hope that that they belong to the kidnapping industry and are only interested in ransom money -- they sense how the Germans can be unsettled. The fact that they are threatening attacks is almost to be welcomed in this clarity. It opens our eyes: whatever we do, we're no exception."

"It's to be feared that there will be increased attacks and suicide attacks against Germans and Austrians. There as well as here. How will the Germans deal with that? Will the defeatists come to the fore? Afghanistan isn't like Bosnia, Congo or Lebanon. This is about defeat or victory -- for the entire western alliance. One can't blame America here."

Business daily Financial Times Deutschland writes: "Those who are opposed to our involvement in Afghanistan now see their arguments as confirmed -- Germany has made itself a target for terrorists, they say. But the attempts at blackmail are no proof for this theory. Even if there weren't any German troops stationed in Afghanistan, Germany would still be regarded as a supporter of the Afghan war. Because it allows NATO troops to be stationed on its soil, for example. Those who want terror always find a way to justify it. But those who refuse to fight terrorism because they are scared of terrorism, have already lost."

"It's unlikely that the kidnappers of the Germans are really interested in Afghanistan. ...It's more plausible that the two have got into the clutches of the Iraqi kidnapping industry which wants ransom money rather than pursuing political demands. It's known in Iraq that Germany pays up: money flowed for Susanne Osthoff and the two engineers from Leipzig."

"It's the German government's own fault that it's now being blackmailed again. But the question whether it should or shouldn't pay doesn't arise anymore -- it was already answered in the first two kidnappings. In contrast with the British government which remained hard and accepted the decapitation of one of its citizens in front of a camera, the German government hasn't subjected itself to a tough fundamental decision. With luck and money the current kidnapping can be resolved. Germany will have to live with the fact that Germans in Iraq will continue to be kidnapped and bought free."

"But the government must not allow itself to be blackmailed into withdrawing from Afghanistan. The terrorists have recognized that support for the mission in this country is not unconditional -- they're speculating that Berlin can be driven out of the coalition by threats."

Left-leaning Die Tageszeitung writes: "Now we've got the threat of attacks and hostage deaths because the army is about to get involved in the fighting in Afghanistan with its surveillance aircraft. That has brought the Hindukush very close to Berlin. There are good reasons for being opposed to sending Tornados. What reasons are there in favor? Is it the future of NATO, or fear of having to send ground troops? It's time that was discussed openly. The fog that has been pumped into this debate will no longer work when people start dying. This is something blackmailers can achieve: they can enforce honesty."

Conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitungwrites: "Psycholgical terror follows the same laws as bloody terror: It can provoke fear but also resilience. Whether it succeeds depends not on its actions but on the actions of its opponents. The German government seems determined not to be deterred from its reconstruction work in Afghanistan. The population there will decide whether that proves successful."

How Fervent Is Taliban Support?

TIME 3/10/2007 - Robert Densmore in Kandahar

Mullah Mohammed Meerza is what the Afghans call "soft" Taliban. But there's nothing effete about him. He's almost burnt by the sun, his hard hands calloused. He lost his father at the age of five and grew up hungry and poor. As the eldest child, he had to fend for the rest of his family. Of his childhood, he simply says, "I have no good memories." He has come into the city of Kandahar on a winter's day in late January to speak to a reporter but has to leave before night falls and the risks of capture increase. The interview is rushed.

Soft Taliban, he explains, comprise about 95% of the Taliban force. "They very much want to join the government, provided that they have security and opportunities for work," he says. But it would help if government subsidies came their way. Says Meerza: "There is still a great distance from here to Kabul... There is very little incentive from the government to cooperate." He says Pakistanis are offering $1,000 stipends to commanders who join the Taliban, that he's been approached himself. And the Kabul government's counter-offer to work against the Taliban? $10. "There's no incentive," he says repeatedly. He says that the anti-government fighters have varying motivations. "Sixty to seventy percent are fighting for the money," he says. "Thirty to forty percent are fighting for Islam."

And the hard Taliban? "Those five percent," Meerza says, "are very forceful. They use extortion and are always in and out of Pakistan." The hard Taliban deploy to the frontlines of the war against the Afghan government and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), the U.N.-mandated coalition that is attempting to secure Afghanistan against insurgency. These extremists, says Meerza, "are looking everywhere for insurgents who could be a threat to them. Even I would have a very difficult time infiltrating them."

In a separate interview, a clearly "harder" Taliban reverses Meerza's statistics. Mullah Rahmatullah says "95% are supporting [Mullah Omar, the fugitive founder of the Taliban]; 5% are soft Taliban and will not fight." Rahmatullah commands about 10 men, many of whom live with their families in Pakistan. "We have several training camps there and we receive everything from them: money, equipment, weapons. In Baluchistan, we have three camps of Taliban and there are other places as well." He complains, "Religious people no longer have power in Afghanistan. This is not the case in Pakistan."

Meanwhile, Mullah Noor Ahmad, a Taliban commander of 15 fighters and an admirer of Mullah Omar from the beginning, makes no excuses for the Taliban's tactics, including suicide attacks. "They have proven very useful," he says. "Very effective... Any method that kills the enemy is acceptable. This allows us to spend money, for example, to fight face to face or from a distance, or even fight with the pen. Anything in order to win the war. And if I am killed, I will go to paradise." He adds, "The Taliban will hit anyone who is working with the coalition." He has no doubts about their progress. "All the time we are successful... Fifteen Taliban are equal to one hundred fighters."

Meerza sees the Taliban as resurgent as well but believes their success stems from other causes. "If things remain the same," he says, "in two years the Taliban will have control of 80% of the people. This is due to corruption in the government ? and a lack of trust." Many Afghans in the southern provinces are now increasingly trusting of the old religious warriors, who ensure peace and safety from bandits in places where the police and the Afghan army are ineffective. Says Meerza: "Now the Taliban have a good relationship with the people. They no longer take food and water by force." Rahmatullah says, "What we want are posts in [President Hamid] Karzai's government. As soon as we are part of the government and as soon as all foreigners leave, we will stop fighting." Until then, he says, the Taliban will continue taking over the country. "People simply recognize who is the most powerful," he explains; "they want whoever has the most power."

Robert Densmore is an independent journalist and a veteran of the global war on terrorism. His work focuses on Afghanistan's human element, from military, political, and civilian perspectives. He is also the editor of Vettrauma.org, an outreach resource for veterams returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Afganistan toward a new age and the future of Trans-afghan Pipeline (I)

Mehmet Seyfettin EROL - Sunday , 11 March 2007

This commentary is from USAK's Energy Review Newsletter
http://www.turkishweekly.net/energyreview/TurkishWeekly-EnergyReview10.pdf

Afghanistan has been the first address of the global power struggle after 9/11. In the country, the security and stability problems are growing day by day as the Taliban increases its influence and the attacks ascend. The current trend foresights that the nation building targets are far away from the initial intentions. In this framework, most of the proposed projects have not been realized. One of them is the Trans-Afghan Project which is a big question mark.

For further discussing the future of this project and to find answers, firstly, an understanding of the current situation, the reasons behind the problems and the extent of internal and external dynamics’ affects on the process is needed. Therefore, in this commentary a brief snapshot of the current situation will be given. In the next one, the rivalry after the US invasion, the search for balance and the position of Afghan groups will be examined. Afterwards, the future of Trans-Afghan pipeline project will be investigated through the current developments.

Definitely, there are many factors affected in the troubled atmosphere of Afghanistan. Principally, the US’s internal and external political crises have an important part in this unrest in the Afghanistan unrest. US is behind the schedule, in terms of targets and aims she promised initially. Also, Iraq’s shadow falls on “the second class” Afghanistan. This policy is the result of US’s voluntary intention.

Another problematic dimension of the whole picture is the US’s liquedation the internal dynamics and the resulting “angry/offended” group in Afghanistan. Accordingly, the groups who initially supported US, especially Northern Alliance are regretting their support and trying to participate in the newly forming equilibrium.

New development, the ethnical groups isolated from the system, the return of ethnic discrimination and the Peshtun dominance is easing the work for those groups and their leaders.

Also after the Taliban, the explotion of opium production and trade with the US invasion has turned Afghanistan into an arena for international mafia. Another interesting point is the usage of American army helicopters in the opium trade. Because US has an active role in this process, there is no need to further discuss the Afghan leadership’s inability and weakness.

The enthutiasm and support of the international community has been diminished substantially since the first days of the invasion. Besides the failure in sustaining stability and security is also nurturing the ground for Taliban’s stronger than before comeback. US has reasoned her invasion to finish Taliban and capture Bin Ladin, now the belief in US’s ability to achieve this has been damaged. Also, the attacks of US soldiers result with civilian casualties and house bombings are adding up to the tragic side of the whole picture. There is an open disappointment towards Western allies, especially US, among Afghan public. As a result, there is an ever increasing feeling of reaction against invaders.

On the other hand, the support given by the countries of the region including Iran to US has disappeared now. On the contrary, these countries are supporting all sorts of anti-US formation including Taliban. Taliban’s sophisticated arms and increasing dominance are an indicator of this. The future is not bright and the Iran and Russia’s pulling back of their initial support combined with the Pakistan’s return to Taliban are dimming the hopes.

Hence, the developments happened since the invasion of Afghanistan till now, has prepared the under work of a new Afganistan centered regional competition. In this process, the US’s provocation of problems between Pakistan-Afghanistan and Pakistan-India are indicating the other dimension of the picture. These operations may be perceived as the US strategy to prolong her settlement in the region and turn the region in to a fireball, but the end results may be quite different than expected outcomes.

In our next commentary, this new era of competition, the actors and the preferences of the Afghan groups in this new formation will be investigated and the analysis from the perspectives of Trans-Afghan project partner countries will be discussed.

Shining a light

Mar 8th 2007 - From The Economist print edition - Think your customers are difficult? Karim Khoja must cope with the Taliban

“THEY may be Taliban, they may be warlords, who cares?” asks Karim Khoja, rhetorically. “We are apolitical—they are customers.” Nobody could accuse Mr Khoja of being narrow-minded. Indeed, his easy-going approach has allowed him to build a successful mobile-phone business in one of the world's least hospitable markets, war-torn Afghanistan. One legacy of more than two decades of occupation, fighting and terror—and little in the way of economic activity before that—was that Afghanistan did not have much of a traditional fixed-line telecoms infrastructure. This presented a chance to leapfrog the old technology and go straight to mobile phones. A mobile-phone network requires a lot of radio masts, however. Whether they remain standing, especially in remote parts of Afghanistan, depends on the goodwill of the locals. Hence Mr Khoja's customer-centric philosophy. “When we go to a village, we talk to the elders and explain how when a mast comes to an area it brings jobs and economic growth,” he says. He adds, not entirely reassuringly, that everybody in Afghanistan, including the Taliban, understands the importance of being able to communicate.

To date his firm, Roshan, which means “light” in the country's two most popular languages, has not lost a single radio mast, although a significant proportion of its network is in areas said to be controlled by the Taliban. An Indian worker employed by a contractor to Roshan was kidnapped and executed in Kandahar last April, but the circumstances of the crime do not indicate any general hostility towards the firm, insists Mr Khoja.

Roshan has prospered despite its stated refusal to bribe, a scruple that Mr Khoja hints is not shared by all his competitors. Phones and pre-paid phone cards have become a popular alternative currency in Afghanistan, as in many developing countries, but “we don't hand them out to win favour,” he says. “Unless we start training the Afghan people that baksheesh is wrong, there will always be expectations.”

It may help that Roshan is 51% owned by the for-profit arm of the Aga Khan Development Network. (The other owners are Monaco Telecom, now part of Britain's Cable & Wireless, and MCT, an American venture-capital fund.) Although the Aga Khan's Ismaili strand of Islam differs markedly from the Taliban's, his was one of the few international non-governmental organisations allowed to operate in Afghanistan under their rule. Roshan seems to have benefited from the goodwill this created.

A typically business-minded Ismaili, Mr Khoja went to work as an unpaid volunteer at the Aga Khan Foundation in 1998 after “retiring” at the age of 40 from a lucrative career in telecoms that included stints in Canada, Britain, Croatia, Pakistan and Poland. Born in South Africa and educated in England, Mr Khoja has travel in the blood. His retirement did not last long. He started working in Afghanistan in 2002 and became Roshan's paid chief executive after it began operations in 2003 as the first competitor to the government-owned incumbent.

Today Roshan has over 1m subscribers, around 55% of a national market that has grown rapidly and will soon be served by five national and two regional operators. All this competition has driven down prices from around $3 per minute to less than 10 cents. That said, roaming charges for foreign visitors are high. The growing number of “extreme tourists” visiting Bamiyan, the site of the Buddhas destroyed by the Taliban in 2001, “don't care how much they pay for calls,” says Mr Khoja. This has created an unexpectedly profitable market for Roshan.

The company is Afghanistan's largest taxpayer, largest investor (over $250m so far, with a further $75m planned this year) and largest employer, claims the ebullient Mr Khoja. As well as its staff of 800, around 20,000 people earn a living either by running “public call offices” (earning a princely-for-Afghanistan $150 a month) or selling pre-paid phone cards ($50 a month). Some franchises were given to former mujahideen soldiers in return for handing in their Kalashnikovs.

Mr Khoja is particularly proud of his firm's marketing, which has made Roshan the “brand of brands, bigger than Coca-Cola in Afghanistan”. Its slogan, Nazdik Shodan (“getting closer”) is hugely popular. The firm sponsored the Afghan equivalent of “American Idol”, a television talent contest, though this nearly backfired when Roshan's failure to send a text message confirming the receipt of votes led to a protest outside a call centre in the losing contestant's town. It ended only when the loser turned up in person to say the result was fair.

But such mishaps are rare. Things are going well enough that Mr Khoja now spends only a couple of weeks a month in Afghanistan, devoting the rest of his time to working for the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development, and cheerleading abroad for Afghanistan. Last week he was in New York to receive an award for Roshan's corporate philanthropy. He made the most of the opportunity to tell some of America's leading bosses how well his firm was doing.

Perhaps the biggest constraint on Roshan's growth is the worsening violence in some parts of Afghanistan, which Mr Khoja attributes partly to the attention of Afghanistan's foreign allies shifting elsewhere, at least until recently. Roshan has had to stop building in parts of the country where NATO troops are trying to reverse recent Taliban advances.

Mr Khoja remains ever the optimist, though perhaps not entirely apolitical. “If guys like me keep telling Americans about the good things happening in Afghanistan, maybe that will keep their attention on it,” he says. “If Americans see that the Afghan people want them and are worth investing in—well, they are a lot likelier to succeed in building Afghanistan than they are sorting out the mess in Iraq.”

[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.]