In this bulletin:

• Policeman, three Taliban killed in Afghan clashes
• Warlords unite to form political party
• Former strongmen forms political alliance
• Turkey pledges $1 million for health services
• Japan-sponsored road project in Mazar completed
• US to provide 100-mw generators for Kabul
• US to give Pakistan 750 mln dlrs for tribal areas
• Australia backs embattled Pakistani president
• Three stoned, shot dead for adultery in Pakistan
• Defence wants to stop Afghan torture investigation
• Setting limits on our Afghan commitment
• Major batch of drugs and arms seized on Tajik-Afghan border
• AFGHANISTAN: New contract to curb child marriages
• Beards - and polio - in Taliban country
• U.S. Pays Kin in Deaths of Afghan Boys
• Afghan treasure heads home
• The Taliban's brothers in alms

Policeman, three Taliban killed in Afghan clashes

Khost (AFP) - A Taliban fighter was killed and another was wounded in a gunbattle with Afghan police in the southern city of Kandahar Thursday, police said.

The clash erupted when two armed Taliban attacked a police foot patrol in the city, wounding one policeman, local police officer Mohammad Nasib told AFP.

One Taliban was killed and another was wounded and taken into custody, he said. Kandahar is the former bastion of the hardline Taliban militia.

In another incident a policeman was killed and three others were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded during a police patrol in eastern Paktika province on Wednesday, provincial governor Mohammad Akram Khapelwak said.

Police launched a manhunt after the incident in Wazakhwa district of Paktika and clashed with a group of Taliban, killing two militants, the governor said.

"Police surrounded the group, two Taliban fighters were killed and two others were wounded as a result of clashes," he said.

The attack came a day after a suicide bombing aimed at a police vehicle in neighbouring Khost killed nine people and wounded 34 others. Taliban insurgents, who are more active in southern and southeastern Afghanistan, have vowed to step up suicide attacks this year.

The Islamic extremists were forced from power in a US-led invasion in late 2001 over their refusal to hand over Osama bin Laden wanted for September 11 attacks in the United States.

Warlords unite to form political party

AFP 03/15/2007 - KABUL - Commanders from the anti-Soviet resistance, ex-communist leaders and other strongmen from Afghanistan's decades of war are banding together in a political group, spokesmen said yesterday.

The multi-ethnic United National Front, still to be formally launched, "is to fill the vacuum for a powerful, strong and broad-based political party," spokesman Mustafa Kazimi said.

"We have had lots of political parties emerging over the past five years but they've had no major achievements."

The front includes leaders of the fight against the 1979-1989 Soviet occupation, often called warlords, who turned on each other in the 1992-1996 civil war that was fought for power along ethnic lines.

Kazimi, himself a resistance commander, described the new political group as a "reform-seeking formation comprised of different political and ethnic groups as well as key political figures."

The coalition is perhaps the most significant political group to emerge since the Taliban government was toppled in 2001 and Afghanistan was set on an internationally backed course to democracy at a conference in Bonn, Germany.

Burhanuddin Rabbani, Afghan president from 1992 to 1996 and head of the Jamiat-i-Islami faction in the resistance, had been chosen to head the front, faction spokesman Waqef Hakimi said.

Other key members were notorious warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostam, whose forces were pitted against those of Rabbani in the war, and parliament Speaker Younis Qanooni, once a member of the Northern Alliance faction of the revered late commander Ahmad Shah Massoud.

Former communist officials and other leaders of the jihad (holy war) against the Soviet were also in the group. "The aim of the United National Front is to work on nation-building and to practise the democracy which we had agreed on in Bonn," Kazimi said.

Many of the men in the new alliance were behind a rally of up to 25,000 people in Kabul late February that backed parliamentarians' demands for an amnesty for crimes and abuses committed in wars and conflict since 1979.

President Hamid Karzai amended the amnesty bill to allow group amnesty but enshrine the rights of individuals to seek redress and it has been accepted by parliament.

Karzai's chief of staff, Mohamed Umer Daudzai, said this week the establishment of such a group would not be considered a threat to the president and was part of the democratic process. "We gave democracy to the people and it's our responsibility to promote rights of expression, the right to form parties," he said.

Former strongmen forms political alliance

KABUL, Mar 13 (Pajhwok Afghan News): A new political group, comprising former mujahideen and pro-communist strongmen, was formed in Kabul on Tuesday.

Formation of the United National Front was announced after several days of deliberations among stalwarts of various political groups and some government officials, spokesman for the newly-formed alliance Sayed Mustafa Kazimi, told a news conference on Tuesday.

Prominent among those joined the alliance included former president Burhanuddin Rabbani, speaker of the lower house Younus Qanuni, Minister for Energy and Water Ismail Khan, communist-era minister Sayed Mohammad Gulabzoy and Rashid Dostum, military aide to President Hamid Karzai.

Kazimi said it was a broad-based alliance representing all the ethnic communities and aimed at strengthening democracy in the country. He hoped the front would prove the first step in strengthing the political process and others would also follow the suit.

Kazimi said the United National Front was a step towards achieving the goal of true democracy that will put an end to ethnic, religious and other prejudices in the society.

Another member of the front Sayed Mohammad Gulabzoy said they had specific plans for bringing changes to Constitution, the working procedure of the parliaments and appointment of governors and attorneys.

The new alliance is mainly consisting of strongmen who are either members of the parliament or enjoying key positions in the government. Almost all of them are supporters of the recently-approved amnesty draft, which is yet to be signed by President Karzai into a law.

Turkey pledges $1 million for health services

KABUL, Mar 13 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The government of Turkey will provide $1 million for improvement in health services in northern Afghanistan.

In this connection, an agreement was signed between Minister for Public Health Sayed Amin Fatimi and Turkish ambassador to Kabul Ethem Tokdemir on Monday.

Fatimi said the fund would be spent on training of medial staff and improvement in services of the Afghan - Turk Friendship Hospital in Maimana, capital of Faryab, Khwaja Bahauddin Hospital in Takhar, a children hospital in Shiberghan and a mother and child healthcare centre in Taloqan. The projects will be completed by the end of the current year.

Speaking on the occasion, the Turkish ambassador said they would facilitate transfer of patients suffering from serious diseases to Turkey for proper treatment. Sources in the Foreign Ministry say Turkey has granted around $200 million to Afghanistan over the previous four years.

Japan-sponsored road project in Mazar completed

MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Mar 13 (Pajhwok Afghan News): A Japan-sponsored project for the asphalting of roads in Mazar-i-Sharif was completed on Tuesday. The levelling of roads inside Mazar city was begun in 2005 by the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and over 10 kilometers of road was asphalted at the cost of $10 million.

The inauguration ceremony of the new roads was held on Tuesday and was attended by the secretary of the Japanese Embassy, the Governor of Balkh and representatives of several national and international organizations working in the area.

Inoue Kenji, Secretary of the Japanese Embassy, said his government is committed to completing the construction projects initiated in the province.

He added that his country would implement uplifting projects in Balkh, Kandahar, Nangrahar and Bamyan provinces.

According to Kenji, Japan has spent $ 1.1 billion on various development projects in Afghanistan. Atta Mohammad Noor, the provincial governor of Balkh, expressed his gratitude for the support of the Japanese government, and said that the asphalting of the roads would help to solve several problems for the local population.

He said: "We are satisfied with the asphalting of the roads; we would like the Japan government to support us in constructing a stadium". Mazar-i-Sharif residents have also welcomed the asphalting of the road.

Ahmad Jan a driver in the city said the pavement of the road had made it much easier and faster to reach Mazar.

US to provide 100-mw generators for Kabul

KABUL, March 13( Pajhwok Afghan News): The United States will provide power generators with a capacity of 100 megawatts of electricity to Kabul over the next two years, the Minister of Economy, Jalil Shams, said on Tuesday.

The US has agreed in principles to donate power generators to enhance the powers supply in the capital, but an official agreement is yet to be signed.

Shams told the Parliamentary Commission on National Economy that, if signed, the project worth $140 million, would be launched in October this year to increase electricity for the coming winter.

"The United States has told us to provide 20 per cent of the 100-megawatt power by the coming winter and the remaining 80 per cent will be readied in 2008, however we would like to have the project completed by the end of this year," Shams said.

According to the plan, all generators are expected to be brought by the end of the current year. Shams said the generators were powerful enough to last for up to 25 years without needing to be repaired.

He added that the diesel-generators were less expensive than most of the other traditional ways of getting power in Afghanistan.

US to give Pakistan 750 mln dlrs for tribal areas

Islamabad (AFP) - The United States is to give Pakistan 750 million dollars over five years to develop its troubled tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, a senior US official said Thursday.

US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Richard Boucher announced the funding after holding talks with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, a lynchpin in the US-led "war on terror."

Washington and other Western allies have expressed concern about the regrouping of Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants in Pakistan's impoverished tribal belt and about peace deals between the government and rebels.

"I am pleased to announce I was able to confirm to the government of Pakistan that we will be providing 750 million dollars over five years to support the tribal area development strategy," Boucher told reporters.

"This commitment to the development of Pakistan, this commitment to the long-term relationship, is another example of the very broad and deep relationship we have," he added.

The administration of US President George W. Bush will seek the approval of Congress for the aid, Boucher said.

"This is a good plan, a comprehensive plan to provide economic development, education and other opportunities to the people who live in the border regions of Pakistan, the tribal areas in particular," he added.

The Pentagon was also asking the US Congress for 75 million dollars to upgrade the Frontier Corps, Pakistan's paramilitary border force that has borne the brunt of the fight against militants, he said.

Pakistan launched military operations in 2003 to clear the tribal areas of hundreds of Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants who fled Afghanistan after the fall of the ultra-Islamic Taliban regime in late 2001.

But after the deaths of hundreds of soldiers and around 1,000 militants it signed peace deals with tribal elders and insurgents in Waziristan. US officials in Afghanistan say attacks on foreign forces have since increased.

US Vice President Dick Cheney paid a surprise visit to Musharraf last month during which he urged him to crack down on militant safe-havens in the tribal areas, saying that the Taliban and Al-Qaeda were regrouping there.

Boucher however defended Musharraf's performance. "President Musharraf has been a very strong ally, Pakistan has been a very strong ally... we work closely with President Musharraf and the Pakistan government because we have common interest," he said.

The US official, who arrived in Islamabad on Wednesday from Kabul, was cooler on Pakistan's plans to fence part of the border with Afghanistan to stop the movement of militants. Afghan officials have rejected the move.

"Militarily, fencing may have a role, that is something that is best worked out in a common discussion. We hope that discussions will take place -- we can help with that," Boucher said.

Australia backs embattled Pakistani president

Sydney (AFP) - Australia on Thursday threw its support behind Pakistan's beleaguered President Pervez Musharraf, calling him an important figure in the global fight against terrorism.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said he hoped Musharraf could "hold on" in the face of an outbreak of protests over the suspension of the country's top judge.

"President Musharraf is a very important figure in the fight against terrorism," Downer told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

"The prospect of some alternative leader of Pakistan coming from nowhere and us having no sense of what that person's view would be on terrorism, that's a worry for us.

"We certainly hope that President Musharraf is able to hold on -- I've no reason to believe he's not." On Wednesday, Pakistani lawyers boycotted courts for a third day in protest at the suspension of chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.

Lawyers wearing black armbands and chanting anti-Musharraf slogans also staged rallies in cities including Karachi, Multan and Lahore, where opposition politicians joined in.

The protests come at a time when Pakistan is under pressure from its western allies to prevent militants in its lawless tribal regions from launching attacks on NATO and US-led forces across the border in Afghanistan.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force has 37,000 troops in Afghanistan, while there are also around 14,000 troops in the US-led coalition focussed on counterterrorism.

Three stoned, shot dead for adultery in Pakistan

Peshawar (AFP) - Pro-Taliban extremists in a Pakistani tribal area stoned and then shot dead two men and a woman for alleged adultery, officials and witnesses said Thursday.

Some 800 tribesmen watched the executions by the Lashkar-i-Islam (Army of Islam) group on Wednesday in the Khyber tribal district on the border with Afghanistan, they said.

The trio were tied up with ropes, and tribal elders and other men gathered at a patch of open ground and stoned them. Two masked members of the hardline group then shot them with Kalashnikov rifles, witnesses said.

The killings are likely to fuel concern about the "Talibanisation" of parts of Pakistan and the introduction of Islamic Sharia law, particularly in the tribal areas and in North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan.

"The Lashkar-i-Islam men caught them and after investigations it was proved that they were guilty of adultery," a group member told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Members of the religious group, led by cleric Mangal Bagh, raided a house on Monday and abducted the three after local residents suspected them of "illicit" activities, local residents in the Bara region said.

The victims were named as Allah Noor and Shahzad while the woman was identified as Taslima.

The local administration said it did not intervene in the situation as the restive tribal agencies are semi-autonomous and Pakistani laws do not apply.

"We had reports about the killings, but we do not interfere in the matters related to tribal customs and traditions," a tribal administration official told AFP.

Last year 25 people died in street battles in Bara between mullahs who used illegal radio stations to preach rival versions of Islam. One of the mullahs, Mufti Munir Shakir, is the spiritual leader of the Lashkar-i-Islami chief.

The latest killings come less than two months after two lovers were tied to trees and stoned to death by angry relatives in Donga Bonga village in central Punjab province, in a so-called "honour killing".

Pakistan's conservative tribal areas became a haven for Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants who fled the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001. Most people in the region are ethnic Pashtuns, like the Taliban.

Under the ultra-Islamic Taliban regime from 1996 to 2001 in Afghanistan, which was backed by Pakistan, there were numerous reports of women being stoned to death for adultery.

President Pervez Musharraf launched military operations in 2003 to rid the tribal zone of Islamic militants, but he has been criticised for signing peace deals with rebels in North and South Waziristan districts.

Militants in parts of northwest Pakistan have recently torched video shops and televisions and banned barbers from shaving beards.

US Vice President Dick Cheney told Musharraf in February to crack down on Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants who are "regrouping" in the tribal belt.

"Pakistan is paying the price for supporting extremists in Afghanistan. First we got Kalashnikov culture and heroin during the Afghan jihad and now the Talibanisation of our society," said Iqbal Haider, secretary general of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

Defence wants to stop Afghan torture investigation

March 15, 2007 - Canadian Press

The Defence Department says it may go to court to block a military watchdog from investigating a complaint about Canada's handling of prisoners in Afghanistan.

If it goes to court, lawyers might still be arguing long after Canadian soldiers have left Afghanistan.

The move could lead to a court showdown between the department and the Military Police Complaints Commission, or it could prompt the commission to take its investigation into the open with formal public hearings.

The department questions the jurisdiction of the commission to look into the complaint filed last month by Amnesty International Canada and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association.

The rights groups said Canadian military police handed prisoners over to Afghan authorities, even though they should have known that Afghan police and the security directorate "routinely torture prisoners." They cited 18 specific cases of individuals who were turned over to the Afghan system.

The department, however, argues that there's no evidence that any prisoner handed over by Canadians was ever tortured.

Jason Gratl, president of the B.C. association, said a court case could drag out for years and delay the investigation to the point where "the bodies would have long been buried and the evidence lost."

"The Department of Justice is a department that is quite capable of engaging in protracted litigation," he said. "The nearly limitless resources that the Canadian government has would allow this litigation to possibly have a duration longer than the expected participation of Canadians troops in Afghanistan."

Col. Patrick Gleeson of the judge advocate general's office wrote to the commission earlier this week to say that, after reviewing commission chairman Peter Tinsley's decision to take on the case, the department and the Canadian Forces take the position that the complaint is outside the commission's mandate.

"We are therefore considering whether to instruct the attorney general of Canada to commence an application for judicial review of Mr. Tinsley's decision with respect to this specific complaint," he said in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Canadian Press.

Gleeson said the complaint involves "a hypothetical determination that a detainee might have been or might in the future be, tortured by Afghanistan authorities – with no evidence or even an allegation that a detainee transferred by the (Forces) was ever tortured."

He went on to say that the matter covers "a high-level, multi-departmental government of Canada policy regarding the transfer of detainees by the Canadian Forces to Afghanistan authorities and an arrangement made with the government of Afghanistan pursuant to this policy."

He added that the practice of handing over prisoners is ``directed by the operational chair of command and is required to be followed by all (Canadian Forces) members involved in the handling of detainees, not just the military police."

The commission wrote back, saying Tinsley's February decision was clear and "the complaint in question raises grounds relating to the conduct of members of the military police in an activity which is expressly enumerated in the regulations" of the National Defence Act.

Stan Blythe, chief of staff to the commission, said the government's letter was unusual.

"They've essentially asked this commission to explain their intentions ... and that seems like a very unusual thing to ask a tribunal to do. We are, after all, an independent tribunal with a statutory jurisdiction."

The commission was also counting on the department for help in obtaining documents and witnesses. If the department goes to Federal Court, that kind of co-operation is unlikely.

However, Tinsley has the option of calling public hearings. He decided against hearings initially, but could change his mind. "If there is a lack of co-operation ... that's a factor which could lead the chair to reconsider and call a public hearing," said Blythe.

Gratl said he recognizes that the department has the right to question jurisdiction. "We believe that their right should not be exercised and the commission should be permitted to carry on with its job and fulfil its mandate to investigate the conduct of the military police," he said.

"If the Department of Defence chooses to slowly grind our complaint to death using delays at the Federal Court of Canada it may well be able to do so. "We believe, though, that they ought to let the commission carry out its mandate."

Setting limits on our Afghan commitment

- March 15, 2007 – CBC Jeremy Kinsman: Diplomatically Speaking

So it goes. Power is again shifting in the world today, making the managing of change the enduring challenge of foreign policy.

Some argue that under the strains of big tectonic shifts — America bogged down, the rise of China — the golden age of multilateralism is winding down. Others maintain that the period ahead represents its best chance for recovery.

Whichever the case, Canada has interests at stake and values to uphold, such as human rights, and an international trade and payments system that is reliable.

But the danger for us that we may be losing our ability to focus on enough of our real priorities and that we are becoming increasingly consumed by one overriding concern — our escalating commitment to Afghanistan.

From a foreign policy standpoint, the project has important merit — provided it can strengthen our broader international capacity and not reduce it. But we have to be able to chase several goals simultaneously. And this probably means we should set limits on our Afghan engagement.

In governments, the avatars of change are policy planners. Internationally, they inhabit a special zone, talking to each other under the convention of "planners' rules," which permits them to speculate independently of the positions of their political masters.

Often, their trial balloons become reality when the timing is right, such as Washington's steps at the moment to engage such George W. Bush pariahs as Iran and Syria, a policy shift presaged by the Iraq Study Group report, among others.

In Ottawa, the notion of trying to talk with moderate Taliban is on the planners' table.

Whether this will come to pass of course remains to be seen. The main role of ever-fretful planners is to serve as a "get-ready corps" to prepare governments at least intellectually for change.

Arthur J. Schlesinger Jr. (John Kennedy's favourite historian), set the tone in 1948 when he described "Western man in the middle of the 20th century," as "tense, uncertain, adrift."

Under this scenario, surprise would always be the norm. But who could have foreseen so many of the shocking events that followed, Kennedy's assassination among them.

Predictable or not, though, nations must be able to adapt to the great sea changes in world affairs like the Iranian revolution in 1979, which signalled a huge upheaval in the Muslim world; the advent of Soviet glasnost and perestroika in the late 1980s, which would end the bitter Cold War; or today's over-arching dynamic of globalization.

The rise of China and India, slated to be the world's number two and number four economies by 2025, greatly alters the global landscape. The so-called emerging economies now account for over 50 per cent of world industrial production, though in general their per capita incomes have not increased much, outside of China.

Planners hoped that the globalization of financial, trade and information would be matched by a corresponding convergence of political and cultural values. Instead, identity-based backlash is occurring.

What this means, in part, is that the rigid assumptions of international financial institutions and the World Trade Organization are consequently in for changes, particularly in the aftermath of the collapse of the Doha Round of trade negotiations, which turned out to be about very little of consequence to anybody.

In partial reaction, regional blocs are emerging. Irrespective of their testy political relations, the economies of Japan and China are becoming increasingly joined at the hip.

Asian economies are consolidating according to what some commentators call "Asian values." So, too, are some of the larger Latin American countries through the trade agreement known as Mercosur.

The U.S. is now vigorously courting these trade blocs, witness Bush's recent five-day trip through the heart of Latin America, and corporate America's unrelenting pitch to sell clean-coal technology to China. It's also talking about more economic and regulatory convergence with the European Union, which raises the question: Why isn't Canada more active in these arenas as well?

The international political and security landscape is going through a similar shift in weights and opportunities. With America's global influence on the wane because of the Iraq debacle, U.S. planners are now weighing the appeal of a more collective world leadership to co-manage key security issues, as briefly happened in 1990-92.

The question today: Will China participate as an important conservative stakeholder in stability? Will Russia join the team?

If so, the playbook is going to need adjustment to reflect the fact that, just as in economics, one size does not fit all. Altogether, the strengthening of international institutions is very much in Canada's interests. Assuming we have the wherewithal to play our cards right.

Our (UN-sanctioned) role and experience in Afghanistan could enhance our influence, if we widen our diplomacy beyond the enclosure of the Afghan theatre itself. No planner could have foreseen we would have been this engaged for so long with such an unlikely partner. Nor that it would be so costly.

When Gen. Rick Hillier sold then prime minister Paul Martin on Canada exchanging duty in Kabul for more ambitious tasks in the Kandahar region, Martin sought assurance that Canadian forces could still handle other peace-making duties abroad, having in mind a possible UN force in Sudan's Darfur.

Hillier said this could be the case but he had evidently not expected the Taliban would re-emerge in such force, with new equipment and tactics including suicide bombing.

Today, our military capacity is too absorbed by this intensified struggle to permit participation in another multinational military exercise. We've made our choice. But for how long can we keep it up?

Almost everyone acknowledges that military force alone won't help Afghanistan develop the economic, social and political stability it has never had, and the Harper government has really ramped up our development and other assistance.

In government, it is becoming an all-consuming and ever-widening cause. Public service managers have been told that if their foreign policy and aid activities aren't connected to Afghanistan they aren't on the agenda.

This may be a sound application of Stephen Harper's vaunted emphasis on focus. But with a government agenda narrowed to a few goals, the effect is to deny political-level attention to international activity of probably greater relevance to direct Canadian interests, particularly in trade.

Prime Minister Harper has taken to referring to Canada as a "global leader." And from the foreshortened perspective of a minority government, it is hard not to see Afghanistan as the one essential statement of our international bona fides.

But we can't be a "global leader" without actively deploying our credit over a much wider agenda, especially in a time of great impending change.

Even though the modus operandi of his government is that not much from the past is of value, Harper could benefit from reflection on the perspectives of some of his predecessors.

Pierre Trudeau, for example, believed our important relationships all over the world were what made Canada a global power. We need to pursue them still. For Brian Mulroney, these relationships and our multilateralist vocation allowed Canada to punch above her weight on several fronts.

This concentration on Afghanistan is welcome by many in the international community, but it does carry serious opportunity costs for us. Our planners need to get to work on keeping Canadian interests and values competitive across the board while at the same time making sure we succeed in Kandahar and get out when we said we would in 2009.

Major batch of drugs and arms seized on Tajik-Afghan border

DUSHANBE, March 15 (Itar-Tass) - - Tajik border-guards prevented overnight a break-through of a group of armed smugglers from Afghanistan, Itar-Tass learnt at the Border Troops Department of the Tajik National Security Committee on Thursday.

According to the available information, spotting several transgressors who were trying to cross the Pyandzh River from the territory of Afghanistan, a detail of a frontier post of the Pyandzh border detachment opened precautionary fire. After a 15-minute shootout the transgressors left their homemade crossing means and under the cover of fire from the Afghan side escaped to Afghanistan.

At the site of the incident, border-guards found two sacks with opium and heroin weighing 23 kilograms, a Kalashnikov submachine-gun, a pistol, a rifle and two boats.

As of the beginning of the year, according to the department, this is the fifth armed clash with Afghan smugglers on the Tajik border. “Tension on the border will increase, taking into account that a record-high harvest of opium - - over 6,000 tonnes was raised in Afghanistan last year,” a representative of Tajikistan’s secret services explained. Since the beginning of the year, more than 500 kilograms of opium and heroin have been seized on the Tajik-Afghan border.

AFGHANISTAN: New contract to curb child marriages

KABUL, 14 March (IRIN) - The Supreme Court of Afghanistan has approved a new marriage contract which is expected to help stop child and forced marriages in the country.

The new 15-page formal marriage contract, the 'Nikah Nama', has been welcomed by women's rights NGOs in a country where 60 to 80 percent of marriages are forced, according to the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC).

"The new marriage contract is a strong legal instrument that will end child marriages and will empower women's legal status after marriage," said Nibila Wafiq, a women's rights programme officer for German NGO Medica Mondiale.

In Afghanistan, the legal age for marriage is 16 for girls and 18 for boys, but human rights groups say every year thousands of Afghan girls are forced to marry at a younger age.

According to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), 57 percent of marriages in Afghanistan involve girls below the legal age of 16.

The new marriage document stipulates that if a man wants to marry, he should make sure that his would-be wife is at least 16. Marriage certificates will not be issued for underage brides.

Gender activists see the new marriage contract as a courageous reform in a society where only six years ago women were deprived of education, work and political participation. However, officials note that only one to three couples apply for formal marriage registration per day in a country of about 25 million people. This would suggest that the vast majority of Afghans are not officially registering their marriages.

To counter this, the Ministry of Women's Affairs has launched a marriage registration awareness campaign to boost the number of legally registered couples. Officials say that one of the messages they will be trying to get across is that an Afghan man will not compromise his traditionally dominant position in the family by officially registering his marriage.

In Afghanistan, men can have up to four wives as allowed by Islamic law. Abdul Wakeel Omari, an official at Afghanistan's Supreme Court, told IRIN that it would be possible for any Afghan man to have four marriage contracts, all valid at the same time.

Under Afghan civil law, the right to divorce is the prerogative of men. However, Medica Mondiale has lobbied officials in the country's Supreme Court to grant the right of divorce to women whose husbands marry another woman without their approval.

Beards - and polio - in Taliban country

Asia Times Online / March 14, 2007 - By Ashfaq Yusufzai - PESHAWAR - "Shaving beard isn't done here. Contact only for hair cut," reads a sign pasted outside the entrance of a barber's shop in Upper Dir, a rugged and mountainous district in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) that borders Afghanistan.

All the barber shops in Timergarah, the district headquarters, and Munda have stopped providing shaving services since leaflets advising them that it was Islamic to grow a beard were distributed by an unnamed group last Tuesday.

On March 4, there were explosions inside two saloons, a music shop and four other shops in the adjoining Bajaur Agency, part of the Federally Administered Tribal Agencies along the restive Afghan border. The Taliban have banned music in the tribal areas, and have started fining taxi drivers found listening to music.

According to news reports, a video shop in front of a police station in Bannu, the home town of NWFP Chief Minister Akram Durrani, was attacked by armed men suspected to be Taliban on February 27, who destroyed compact-disc players and CDs of Urdu, English and Indian films.

The district of Tank, on the border with South Waziristan, has slipped into the control of the Taliban. There is a total collapse of civil administration. Police stations remain closed after sundown and Taliban fighters patrol the streets and the bazaars riding on their favorite Datsun pickups.

Most Taliban groups and their al-Qaeda friends crossed over to Pakistan's tribal region after US-led forces toppled their government in Afghanistan in late 2001. Since then, thousands of people, including Taliban fighters and locals, have died in military attacks conducted by either the US or the Pakistan Army.

"The spillover of militancy from tribal areas to settled parts of the NWFP is understandable, because the establishment is supporting the Taliban and al-Qaeda," asserted Peshawar-based Afrasiab Khattak, a lawyer and human-rights activist who is an expert on Afghanistan.

According to Khattak, missile and air attacks by the US on alleged "terrorist" targets inside Pakistan's tribal areas have worked to the advantage of the Taliban, who have increased their support base in these border regions. There are persistent reports that sympathetic tribesmen are providing shelter and support to Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda fugitives.

Last September, President General Pervez Musharraf signed a controversial peace deal with the Pakistan-based Taliban groups, which has resulted in a new assertiveness displayed by the Islamic radicals in these Pashtun-dominated, semi-autonomous border areas.

"Both the Pakistan and Afghanistan governments are accusing one another of supporting the Taliban and al-Qaeda, but practically both have failed to stem the tide of militancy," commented Ashraf Ali, a scholar at Peshawar University who is researching the Taliban.

Administrative control in North and South Waziristan and Swat district has slowly slipped into the hands of radicals. A demoralized police force, which has been the target of suicide attacks - most recently in January - is unable to provide protection to businesses banned by the Taliban. Some music-shop owners have moved to Peshawar.

"The Taliban frequently visited our shop and asked us to close down. One day, they delivered an ultimatum: either you close it or we will do it for you," said Hamza Khan, whose family owned a chain of music shops in Tank for 20 years, and has now relocated to Peshawar.

The local Taliban burned TV sets even in Charsadda district, which is adjacent to Peshawar. "The government has lost its writ due to which the Taliban are thriving," observed Ali, who is doing his doctorate.

Even girls' schools in upscale Peshawar are receiving anonymous threats of suicide bombing. Several schools were recently forced to close after the administration received threatening letters. The Taliban are against providing education for girls and letting women work.

Last month, two government-run girls' schools in Mardan, the second-biggest district in NWFP, were shut down as a precaution after warnings from Taliban groups. Another letter warned that female students must be veiled from head to toe or the schools would be blown up.

Religious extremists in the district of Swat have derailed the government's anti-polio campaign. At the forefront is a charismatic local cleric, Maulana Fazlullah. "Anyone getting crippled by polio or killed by an epidemic is a martyr," he announced at a sermon during Friday prayers.

The cleric, who likes to ride on a horse followed by his supporters in the bazaars, said: "Vaccination of children against polio is a conspiracy by the US to make the coming generation sterile."

In February 2006, in neighboring Darra Adamkhel, religious extremists killed a senior doctor and health workers involved in the polio campaign.

Anti-US sentiments are growing even in Peshawar city, rued researcher Ali. "Some barbers are refusing to shave off beards - a sign of their hatred for the US," he said. (Inter Press Service)

U.S. Pays Kin in Deaths of Afghan Boys

By JASON STRAZIUSO - The Associated Press Wednesday, March 14, 2007

CHINAR, Afghanistan -- The American colonel bowed his head at the fresh dirt graves of three young boys marked by brightly colored martyrs' flags Wednesday. Then he sat down next to the boys' fathers, expressed his condolences and handed them an envelope full of cash.

Lt. Col. Brian Mennes, commander of a paratrooper regiment in the 82nd Airborne Division, said his visit to a simple mud-brick home was a sign of respect and an attempt to mend relations after the boys were mistakenly killed during the latest NATO offensive.

"I doubt many countries in the world, particularly that have been fighting here, go to these lengths to show the people we're sorry when bad things happen, even in very complex situations when you have the enemy fighting among the people," he said. "I doubt the Soviets did this," he added, referring to fighting during the Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.

The display of sorrow _ and compensation _ was part of a campaign to calm Afghan anger over civilian deaths. While the U.S. made payments after a military truck crash last May set off rioting in Kabul, any restitution for deaths of civilians from combat haven't been publicized.

The three youngsters were killed by an airstrike Saturday. Mennes said his unit, 1st Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, launched an attack after intelligence indicated Taliban fighters had gathered.

Civilian deaths have been a growing problem during the U.S. and NATO fight against a resurgent Taliban. President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly pleaded with Western forces to avoid harming innocent Afghans, fearing deaths will turn people against the international effort and breed vengeance among aggrieved tribal families.

An Associated Press tally indicates the deaths of about 40 civilians this year could be attributed to NATO or U.S. action, based on figures from military and Afghan officials. That is out of a total of 83 civilian deaths from combat counted by AP.

AP counted at least 95 Afghan civilians killed during assaults by NATO and the U.S.-led coalition in 2006. It tallied 512 total civilian combat deaths for the year.

Earlier this month, Afghan witnesses and officials said U.S. military action may have killed up to 19 civilians in one day _ up to 10 shot by Marines after being attacked by a suicide bomber March 5 and nine killed in an airstrike when Taliban fighters took refuge in a home.

U.S. commanders say Taliban fighters often attack American troops and then hide in civilian homes, putting women and children in harm's way as they try to escape retaliation, or even to cause the deaths of innocent people as a way to kindle anger against foreign troops.

Mennes said it was possible the three boys killed Saturday were used as human shields. It wasn't known whether any Taliban fighters died in the airstrike, and he declined to share more details, citing military security.

"I can't say conclusively" that the kids were used as human shields, he said. "But the Taliban does fight among the people."

The 82nd Airborne paratroopers in this mountainous region straddling Helmand and Kandahar provinces are providing a security cordon for the heart of NATO's newest offensive, Operation Achilles. British soldiers are doing the heaviest fighting just across a mountain pass from Chinar in Helmand province.

The Americans are the first international soldiers stationed in the area since the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001. U.S. commanders describe this as Taliban country, and lush green opium poppy fields grow everywhere _ including across from Chinar's police station.

After a lunch with local elders at Chinar's police compound, Mennes walked through the village accompanied by a security detail.

As children peeked from behind doors, the U.S. contingent stopped at the village cemetery, where three fresh mounds were covered in stones and marked by six tall sticks with colored pieces of cloth tied to them _ a sign that a "martyr" was buried there.

Four elderly men in turbans said a short prayer, then Mennes, his command sergeant major and an Afghan army commander met with the fathers of the dead boys, two of whom were brothers.

A prayer was said by one of 15 turbaned men squinting into a setting sun, and the Afghan officer told the gathered men: "May God bless the boys and God bless the family and may no tragedy like this happen again."

"I know there is nothing we can do to ease your pain," Mennes told the fathers, one of whom continually dabbed his eyes with his scarf. "We just came to express our condolences and compensate a little bit for the loss."

Earlier, Mennes gave the family $600 to buy food for visiting friends and relatives. On Wednesday, he gave the fathers $6,000 more, telling them the $2,000 gift for each child was on behalf of the Afghan government.

U.S. soldiers patrolling in the valley earlier ran over a farmer's crops in the area, and Mennes said he would also be paid compensation.

He said soldiers try to be "polite and respectful" during missions, and try to make up for it when things go wrong. He said he is always aware of the human aspect of war.

"This is not like going to work at Wal-Mart," Mennes said. "Everything we do affects so many people. We try to stay extremely conscious of the effects we have both on our enemy and the people we're trying to help."

Afghan treasure heads home

[ 15 Mar, 2007 2326hrs IST AP ] – Times of India

GENEVA: It was a treasure-in-exile. Piece by piece, the cherished objects from Afghanistan were assembled in Switzerland in a rare agreement among Afghans after nearly 20 years of fighting against Soviet occupation and then each other.

Even the Taliban, who later were to destroy the gigantic Buddha statues at Bamiyan, joined in the race to save the country's national heritage - jewellery, documents, a foundation stone laid by Alexander the Great; and the simple implements of Afghan life - an ornamented copper waterpipe, a wooden pitchfork and hand-woven carpets.

Now, international and Afghan authorities have declared Kabul safe for their return, and the collection of some 1,500 pieces is going home to Afghanistan's national museum, probably on March 15 aboard a German air force plane.

In 1998, when Afghans realised that most of its national heritage had been destroyed, they asked Switzerland to take what remained, Paul Bucherer, director of the Afghanistan Museum in the north-western Swiss town of Bubendorf, said.

"It was a joint request from the Taliban and the Northern Alliance," two of the major fighting forces at the time, said Bucherer, an expert in Afghan history and culture who has often visited the country and had high-level contact with both sides.

But getting the treasure out of Afghanistan was extremely difficult. A cargo flight that would have brought thousands of artifacts to Switzerland in 2000 had to be cancelled because of problems in obtaining international legal authorisation to export the objects, Bucherer said.

In fighting the following January, the collection was destroyed, he said. But individuals had already started bringing items to the Swiss museum Afghans on trips to Europe, Europeans who had collected artifacts while living in Afghanistan in more peaceful times. The first objects were brought "by Taliban and other Afghans carried in their hand-luggage in 1999".

Alexander laid the foundation stone when he started building the Greek city now known as Ai-Khanum, in northern Afghanistan, some 2,300 years ago.

The Taliban's brothers in alms

By Syed Saleem Shahzad - Asia Times Online / March 14, 2007

ISLAMABAD - The initial shots in the Taliban's spring offensive have already been fired in southwestern Afghanistan, and the chances of the insurgents winning against some of the best-equipped soldiers in the world are being keenly assessed.

At the same time, across the border in the heart of Pakistan's capital Islamabad and beyond, the Taliban's seedlings are growing into trees. The spread of Taliban-style radical Islam, which has already taken control of large areas of the tribal regions of North and South

Waziristan and North West Frontier Province, poses a renewed threat to the military-led government of President General Pervez Musharraf. And it is a battle that could also have far-reaching consequences for the Taliban in Afghanistan, who draw much of their support from within Pakistan.

Recent protests by female students from a seminary in Islamabad, which resulted in the government having to back down, illustrate the power and support of radical clerics in the country.

Since last month, female students from the Jamia Hafsa madrassa (seminary) in Islamabad have occupied a nearby public children's library over the government's demolition of what it claimed were two illegally built mosques. (The government also says that Jamia Hafsa is illegally built on public land.)

Jamia Hafsa is adjacent to Lal Masjid (Red Mosque), which lies in the heart of the city, very close to the headquarters of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Whenever there is a major terror attack in the world, such as in Madrid or London, attention immediately turns to Lal Masjid as a possible breeding ground of the perpetrators.

The mosque and the women's seminary are run by two prominent religious personalities, Ghazi Abdul Rasheed and Maulana Abdul Aziz, the sons of slain religious leader Maulana Abdullah. Abdullah was close to the late dictator General Zia ul-Haq. His Friday sermons were popular among the military and the civilian bureaucracy, and he often preached the cause of jihad.

Abdullah's sons have continued his legacy, both his calls for jihad and his mysticism, and they were the driving force behind a religious decree insisting that Pakistani army personnel killed while fighting against tribals in South Waziristan be denied a Muslim burial. The decree was signed by 500 clerics and scholars and led to open defiance within the Pakistani armed forces, which in turn contributed to their withdrawal.

Under Western pressure, Pakistan's Ministry of Interior has officially declared the brothers "wanted", but several efforts to have them arrested have petered out. Every bid to nab them only adds to their popularity, and they have emerged as the real leaders of the religious hard core of the country.

The girls' occupation - the support of the brothers - prompted the government to lay siege to Lal Masjid, but after several weeks the siege was lifted. The students (although much fewer than the original hundreds) still control the library, saying they will only leave once the two mosques are rebuilt, which the government has agreed to do.

Long-bearded youths watched suspiciously as I approached Lal Masjid. Two men with their faces covered with cloth stopped and searched me, demanding an identity document.

Once they were satisfied, another young man escorted me to the residence of the brothers. A black-hooded figure watching me from a small window in an outside gate let me into a courtyard, even though Rasheed was in the middle of a television interview.

Rasheed is far more accessible to the media than his elder brother Aziz. Both are portrayed as ideologues of al-Qaeda and the Taliban, charges they never deny, along with their open support of all of the struggles in which mujahideen are engaged, from Afghanistan to Iraq.

It was the media-shy Aziz, however, who had agreed to meet with me. Photographs were out of the question - he will not have his taken. Aziz's fiery speeches at the mosque routinely electrify the youth, and compact discs and cassettes of his sermons are widely distributed across the country.

"The situation of the country is really one of a quagmire," Aziz said. "Baloch separatists, Sindhi and Urdu-speaking sub-nationalists and tribal [people] in North West Frontier Province are seriously disgruntled over the federalization of Pakistan. Our enemies, like India and the West, are exploiting the situation, and it seems that both forces will prey on us like hungry wolves as our disintegration does not allow us any effective defense.

"The question then is, what cohesive force will gather all the disgruntled elements together and make them an effective defense against our enemies? There is only one answer: the Islamization of Pakistan," Aziz said with conviction.

Our conversation was interrupted by Aziz arranging to give sermons over the telephone to madrassas in Punjab and Sindh provinces. "Maulana, is this not a Taliban movement you are preparing in Pakistan?" I asked Aziz.

"Indeed, somebody needs to give a wake-up call and prepare the people for the Islamization of society," Aziz responded with a smile. In the meantime, Rasheed had finished his interview and I spoke with him.

"Did you see how our determination and the help of God defeated the government's commitment to arrest us?" Rasheed asked me, referring to the siege of the mosque over the girls' occupation of the library. "Actually, it was the collective determination of all of us [circle of admirers] which terrified the government, and it just had to keep its hands off us," Rasheed said.

Security sources have confirmed to Asia Times Online that when the trouble at the library began, Musharraf ordered that the brothers be arrested. But his security forces refused, saying such a move would create havoc in Islamabad and beyond.

Musharraf apparently even floated the idea of having the Lal Masjid bombed, but his air force would have none of it. As a result, the government had little alternative but to back off, lift the siege and agree to dialogue.

"I want to make it clear that protest on any issue is the right of any citizen, whether he or she is religious or not," said Rasheed. "The students of the universities and the colleges carry out processions and rampage on the streets. They set public and private vehicles on fire, but are they ever called terrorists?

"The girls of my seminary did protest and they occupied a children's library, but peacefully. They did not break anything, not even television sets or CD players, which they believe are evil, yet they were declared terrorists, and stern action was promised against us two brothers and against the girls," Rasheed said.

Rasheed took his mobile phone from his pocket and showed me messages sent by a former ISI official who was once a close friend of Osama bin Laden - retired squadron leader Khalid Khawaja. The messages warned the brothers that the government was plotting to kill them.

"Our friend Khalid Khawaja kept informing us of threats around us, and as a result of such messages he was picked up by the ISI and booked on a fictitious charge," Rasheed said.

"The government does indeed have bad designs against us. Commandos were posted all around for target killings. An environment of terror was created, so much so that the Board of Religious Schools pulled its support of us. They were terrified that if we fell, they would be next in line. The federal minister for religious affairs, Ejaz ul-Haq [former president Zia's son], came to see us," Rasheed said.

"It was a strange environment. Ejaz was aware of the whole situation and he candidly held the feet of Maulana Abdul Aziz and said, 'I beg you, for God's sake, please retreat from this issue, otherwise there are strict instructions from Musharraf against you people.'

"Maulana Abdul Aziz then held the feet of Ejazul Haq and said, 'I beg you, too, for God's sake, enforce Islam in this country. Until then we will not retreat,'" Rasheed recalled.

"Most of our girls [more than 6,000] come from North and South Waziristan. When their relations learned about the situation [protest] they came all the way from the two Waziristans and gathered in the mosque. That was a real litmus test against the government. In a way, Waziristan, which the government has failed to pacify with military operations, entered the federal capital. The establishment had the shivers and it could see [what], if any operations were taken [against us], would happen to Islamabad," Rasheed said.

"The government had every intention to crush us, but then it had to request us to remove Waziristan's militants from the mosque. We responded that first the government had to lift the siege on the mosque. Only then would we ask them to leave. Musharraf took a strict stand, but all the agencies, including the Pakistan Rangers, were not ready to clash with Waziristani militants.

"Then Haji Omar [commander of the Taliban in Waziristan] said in an interview that if the government tried to attack Lal Masjid, they would take revenge. That was the last thing the government wanted and it lifted the siege and we asked the militants to leave. But the Waziris are still in Islamabad with their relatives, so if the government makes any advances again, they will immediately come to the rescue," Rasheed said.

During the siege, Islamabad witnessed an unusually high number of suicide attacks, which obviously spooked the government. Indeed, the government reaffirmed its deals with the Pakistani Taliban in the Waziristans whereby they have de facto rule in the tribal belt along the border with Afghanistan.

The brothers at Lal Masjid remain as defiant as ever after their brush with the government so close to the ISI's headquarters. There is no doubt that their influence is spreading across the country and that their hardline teachings are filling a void left by the absence of any real political opposition in the country to Musharraf's rule.

This plays into the Taliban's hands too, for when the going starts to get tough in Afghanistan, they will know where to look among their swelling ranks of supporters in Pakistan.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief.

[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.]