In this bulletin:

• Karzai visits school to mark start of new academic year
• Afghanistan taking back madrassas: education minister
• NATO mulls Afghan poppy legalization
• 20 suspected Taliban, two police killed in separate clashes in Afghanistan
• 'Five die' in Afghan bomb attack
• Pakistani Tribal Leaders Pledge Not To Aid Militants
• Pakistanis near Afghanistan sign pact
• Afghan man arrested in Canadian's slaying freed
• Suspect's release strains Kabul ties
• The Truth About Talibanistan
• Afghan hearts and minds refuse to be won
• Afghanistan: Civilians caught in crossfire in south
• US soldiers sit in on local Afghan councils
• ADB Says Developing Asia to Post Robust Growth In 2007
• Restore power supply or leave the province
• OIC Fund for the Reconstruction of Afghanistan builds 16 health centres in Afghanistan
• Bush's Afghan warrior leaves Iraq proud of role

Karzai visits school to mark start of new academic year

KABUL, Mar 24 (Pajhwok Afghan News): President Hamid Karzai tapped the Amani High School bell on Saturday, to mark the start of the new academic year in the country.

Hundreds of government officials, school teachers and students attended today's ceremony with great enthusiasm. Addressing the audience, President Karzai praised the improvements made over the past five years in the field of education.

He acknowledged that despite the promising trend, there were challenges to education in some parts of the country. "Unfortunately, students, teachers and religious scholars face threat or lose their lives in some parts of the country".

He termed those involved in heinous acts such as killing and threatening of teachers and clerics as enemies of the Afghans and of education in the country.

"I want clerics and elders to struggle for strengthening education and stand

firm against its enemies", he said. 

He also called on the religious clerics to encourage people to let their daughters study. According to Education officials, 187 school teachers, students and education officials had been killed by anti-government elements while 187 schools were torched and 350 schools were closed due to insecurity and enemy threats in different parts of the country during the past year.

Education Minister, Muhammad Hanif Atmar, said there has been 70% decrease in arson attacks on schools and education officials as a result of the security activities and the creation of local councils.

Enemies of the country could not hinder the education process in the country with such wicked acts, he affirmed. Construction work on 1,100 schools had begun in the country and 500 have been completed, he said.

Around 800,000 new students will be admitted in schools this year, which will take the number of students across the country to over six million, he added.

During the ceremony, 107 school teachers, were awarded $500 USD, for meritorial work and as compensation for high risks that they have had to bear with.

The cash prizes were part of the Gandhi award pledged to Afghan president Hamid Karzai, during his visit to India .

Afghanistan taking back madrassas: education minister

by Bronwen Roberts - Mon Mar 26 - KABUL (AFP) - Afghanistan's government is setting up its own madrassas, or religious schools, to counter the Taliban's use of education as a "weapon of terrorism," Education Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar says.

The first will be established in two months, with one eventually to open in each of Afghanistan's 34 provinces, the minister said in an interview with AFP.

"The enemies of democracy in this country, the enemies of stability in this part of the world, are actually using education as a weapon of terrorism. They have established for some time now across the border hate madrassas," he said.

Afghans from poor backgrounds who are enrolled into these free boarding schools are ripe for recruitment into the Taliban insurgency.

"They teach them hate and they teach them the kind of things that have no consistency with our religion.

"And as a result they get suicide bombers recruited from these madrassas and they get Taliban fighters from these madrassas," said the 39-year-old minister, one of the youngest in President Hamid Karzai's cabinet.

The fundamentalist Taliban were students at madrassas in Pakistan before the government there helped them to seize power in Afghanistan in 1996. They were ousted in a US-led invasion in late 2001.

Atmar said it was now the government's "ethical responsibility" to offer a tolerant and modern Islamic education, as many parents wanted religious schooling for their children.

The planned schools, which Atmar said should initially accommodate up to 50,000 children, are to offer 40 percent religious education, 40 percent general education and 20 percent computer science and foreign languages.

The curriculum would produce graduates who are more employable than those from traditional madrassas whose students could become teachers in religious schools, mullahs or even "join the Taliban ranks," Atmar said.

The schools would be supervised by the ministry and community boards to ensure that teachers did not deviate from teaching a moderate version of Islam, he said.

The minister wants to recruit the best educators for the madrassas but faces a severe shortage of qualified teachers, with a poorly skilled labour force one of the many legacies of 25 years of war.

Around 80 percent of the existing teaching force of about 143,000 is not qualified, he said.

"We have to work on two fronts: one, to train a new generation of teachers with a special focus on female teachers and second to provide in-service training to our existing teachers," he said.

A priority is to boost the attendance of girl pupils with their numbers still far lower than for boys five years after the expulsion of the Taliban regime that did not allow girls to go to school.

"At the moment for every two boys, I have one girl in primary school. But in secondary, for every five to six boys I have one girl," Atmar said. "That ratio must change."

The minister conceded Taliban attacks, such as burning schools, had undermined his ministry's efforts in "small pockets in the country," primarily in the south where the insurgency is the most active.

A total of 44 teachers had been killed in such attacks in 12 months, he said, with most of the killings in the south.

"Six months ago, there was every day two to three incidents happening to our schools, teachers and students. These days it is only two to three incidents a week."

He attributed the fall in part to the establishment of local councils to protect schools and education, both through providing security and increasing public awareness.

And in a country where most people are illiterate -- the statistic rising to 90 percent of rural women, according to the United Nations -- the importance of education takes on particular significance.

"Democracy will never be fully operationalised if people are not able to read and write and if the human capital is not there," Atmar said.

NATO mulls Afghan poppy legalization

KABUL, Afghanistan, March 27 (UPI) -- Key NATO members are mulling the legalization of Afghanistan's opium poppy industry, according to a German news magazine.

Government officials in Germany, France, Rome and "senior executives" within NATO are currently discussing such a move, Der Spiegel writes in its latest issue.

Instead of selling the poppies to drug lords who make opium and heroin from the raw material, the farmers under the plan would sell them for the same price to an official institution that would relay the poppies to the international pharmaceutical industry, the magazine said.

"With the current strategies, we haven't managed to get the drug business under control," Der Spiegel quotes an unnamed senior NATO general as saying. Afghanistan produces close to 90 percent of the world's opium, the raw material from which heroin is made. Afghanistan's farmers depend on the income from the poppy production, but the drug business also finances the Taliban in its war against the West.

Recent efforts that included burning down the poppy fields -- a U.S. initiative -- have failed to bring about change.

20 suspected Taliban, two police killed in separate clashes in Afghanistan

- Tuesday, March 27, 2007

KABUL (CP) - Suspected Taliban militants attacked a district office in central Afghanistan in a clash that left 15 militants and two officers dead, the ministry of interior said in a statement Monday. The Sunday attack in Jalarez district in Wardak province also left a district chief and 10 militants wounded, the statement said.

In neighbouring Ghazni province, Afghan police and soldiers launched a joint operation against militants in Andar district, which left five suspected Taliban dead and seven wounded, said Mohammad Kazem Allayar, the province's deputy governor. Authorities also detained 22 suspected militants, he said.

The clashes in the two central provinces came at a time when NATO and Afghan troops are stepping up pressure against militants in the insurgency-wracked south. A suicide bomber in a car, meanwhile, attacked a NATO convoy in the southern province of Kandahar on Monday, killing himself but causing no alliance casualties, said Esmatullah Alizai, Kandahar's police chief.

'Five die' in Afghan bomb attack

BBC News / Tuesday, 27 March 2007

A suicide bomber has killed at least four policeman in an attack in southern Afghanistan, officials say. The blast occurred outside a police station in the town of Lashkar Gah in Helmand province.

Suicide bombings in Afghanistan have increased dramatically over the past year. Hundreds of people, many of them civilians, have been killed. The latest violence comes ahead of an anticipated spring offensive by the Taleban and their allies.

The suicide bomber was on foot and dressed in army uniform when he carried out the attack, a local police chief told the AFP news agency. "While being searched at the entrance he detonated, killing four police and wounding one," the official said. The bomber was also killed.

At least one other person was injured, officials said. Helmand has been the focus of a recent operation by Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) troops against the militants. At least 99 insurgents have been killed in it so far, officials say.

Pakistani Tribal Leaders Pledge Not To Aid Militants

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty - ISLAMABAD, March 27, 2007 -- Tribal leaders in northwest Pakistan (Bajur district) have pledged not to offer shelter or aid to militants in the region.

Some 800 local leaders and a representative of Pakistan's federal government signed the statement at a tribal assembly on Monday (March 26). Previous agreements handing security responsibilities to tribal leaders in Pakistan's northwest have drawn international criticism for failing to crack down on Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants operating near the Afghan border.

Pakistanis near Afghanistan sign pact

By HABIBULLAH KHAN - ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

KHAR, Pakistan -- Pakistanis living along the Afghan border have signed a third peace deal with the government promising not to shelter foreign militants, residents and officials said Tuesday.

The agreement was signed Monday in the Bajur region of Pakistan's mountainous border zone. Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, escaped a U.S. missile strike in Bajur last year.

President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has sought accords across the semiautonomous, tribal region after a series of bloody military operations failed to catch al-Qaida's top leadership or prevent Taliban militants fighting in Afghanistan from finding sanctuary there.

Malik Abdul Aziz, head of Bajur's tribal council, said the latest agreement was signed during a ceremony on Monday attended by about 700 tribal elders and government officials near the main town of Khar.

"After hectic efforts and talks with the local Taliban, we have signed a peace deal with the government to help it fight terrorism," Aziz told The Associated Press. "Local Taliban have assured us that they will not shelter foreign militants in their areas, and they are also part of a written agreement."

Pakistanis routinely refer to tribal militants, who are suspected of aiding their ethnic Pashtun brethren fighting in Afghanistan, as "local Taliban."

In return, the government will expedite development projects in the region, Aziz said.

Shakil Qadir Khan, the top government administrator in Bajur, confirmed the agreement, but provided no details.

Military and government officials in the capital, Islamabad, were not immediately available for comment Tuesday.

Musharraf, a key U.S. ally in its war on international terrorism, says the deals will empower tribal elders to counter militancy in their territory and open the way for development to counter the poverty that leaves the region's young men vulnerable to extremism.

However, critics argue the government's military pullback has handed even greater control to militants, and U.S. military officials worry that crossborder attacks into Afghanistan are rising as a result.

Bajur has seen much fewer attacks on Pakistani forces than the Waziristan region further south, where the government struck peace deals with tribal leaders in 2005 and 2006.

Still, in January 2006, a U.S. Predator drone allegedly targeted al-Zawahri at Damadola, a village in Bajur. Pakistani intelligence officials said then that al-Zawahri was not at the site, but four other senior al-Qaida militants were killed, although that information was never verified. Thirteen villagers also were killed.

In October, a Pakistani raid on an alleged al-Qaida training base at a religious school in Bajur killed 80 people and prompted angry protests against Musharraf and the United States. The next month, a suicide bomber killed 42 soldiers doing calisthenics at an army base in the northwestern town of Dargai, an attack widely believed to be a response to the Bajur airstrike.

Aziz said local militants have assured they would not allow any foreigners to use their soil for attacks against Pakistani troops or coalition forces across the border.

"I am confident that yesterday's deal will go a long way to restoring peace here," he said.

Afghan man arrested in Canadian's slaying freed

JOE FRIESEN - Globe and Mail - March 26, 2007

Kandahar, Afghanistan -- The man arrested in connection with the suicide bombing that killed a Canadian diplomat in Afghanistan last year has been released from prison a second time.

Pir Mohammed was recently released from a prison in Kabul, the head of criminal investigations in Kandahar said. He is not expected to face further charges.

Mr. Mohammed is believed to have now returned to his home in Kandahar province. He has always said he played no role in the suicide bombing and had sold the vehicle long before the attack took place

Suspect's release strains Kabul ties

MacKay expresses concern over delays in probe into envoy's slaying

March 27, 2007 - Bruce Campion-Smith - OTTAWA BUREAU – Toronto Star

OTTAWA–A senior Afghan official is appealing to Canadians not to lose faith in his country's troubled justice system after a man suspected in the bombing death of a Canadian diplomat was freed from jail.

"We remain committed to bringing the culprits to justice in the case of Glyn Berry's tragic loss of life," Omar Samad, Afghanistan's ambassador to Canada, said in an interview.

The case of Pir Mohammed and his alleged role in Berry's death in January, 2006, is emerging as a sore spot in the usually friendly relations between Kabul and Ottawa. Canada has expressed formal concerns to the Afghan government after learning that Mohammed, twice arrested in connection with the bombing, had been released again.

The Afghan police officer who arrested him – Capt. Sher Ali Farhad – has reportedly fled Kandahar with his family, fearing retribution, and has appealed to Canada for help. Farhad told CBC he believes Mohammed's connections to powerful tribal leaders in Kandahar could endanger him and his family.

Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay voiced his unhappiness with the latest developments yesterday. "We're very concerned about anything that would undermine the justice system or the investigation ongoing into those linked to the death of Glyn Berry," MacKay said.

Berry, 59, was killed in a suicide attack that badly wounded three soldiers. At the time, he was Canada's top diplomat in southern Afghanistan and political director of the provincial reconstruction team in Kandahar.

Samad acknowledged the "weaknesses" of the Afghan police and judiciary but was reluctant to blame the justice system for Mohammed's release. "It's not a simple case. It has its complexities. Since it is an ongoing investigation, I don't want to interfere in it or say anything," he said. "We are fully aware of Canada's concerns about this case because we are concerned also."

But MacKay signalled that Canada may be getting impatient with the drawn-out investigation into Berry's death. "We are expressing our concerns directly to the (Afghan President Hamid) Karzai government ... about the need to pursue this case with rigour," MacKay said, adding that Canada will support the Afghans "in any way that we can."

MacKay said he didn't know whether Farhad was seeking asylum in Canada, adding "if he makes application I'm sure that it'll be given due consideration."

Canada reiterates commitment to Afghanistan

NEW YORK, Mar 25 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The Canadian government has reiterated its commitment to Afghanistan both in terms of military presence and humanitarian aid.

Spokesperson for the Canadian Foreign Ministry Bernard Ngyuen said Canada had committed approximately $1.2 billion in development and reconstruction assistance to Afghanistan for the period from 2001 to 2011.

In an exclusive interview with Pajhwok Afghan News, the spokesperson said the Canadian government intended to bolster efforts to consolidate security gains on the ground and use them to advance reconstruction and help the Afghan people.

To that end, the spokesperson pointed out, the Canadian prime minister had announced up to $200 million in additional funding for reconstruction and development activities in Afghanistan.

Regarding any increase in troops' level of Canadian forces in Afghanistan, the spokesperson said Canada continued to show international leadership by committing troops, resources, and development and governance to help the Afghan government secure a better future for its people.

About the visits of senior Canadian officials to Afghanistan, the spokesperson said the visits underlined Canada's commitment to Afghanistan. Canada is encouraging the values of democracy, rule of law and respect for human rights in Afghanistan through efforts to improve security and contribute to development and governance in the country. Lalit K. Jha

The Truth About Talibanistan

TIME Magazine - By Aryn Baker, Kabul - Mar. 22, 2007

The residents of Dara Adam Khel, a gunsmiths' village 30 miles south of Peshawar, Pakistan, awoke one morning last month to find their streets littered with pamphlets demanding that they observe Islamic law. Women were instructed to wear all-enveloping burqas and men to grow their beards. Music and television were banned. Then the jihadists really got serious. These days, dawn is often accompanied by the wailing of women as another beheaded corpse is found by the side of the road, a note pinned to the chest claiming that the victim was a spy for either the Americans or the Pakistani government. Beheadings are recorded and sold on DVD in the area's bazaars. "It's the knife that terrifies me," says Hafizullah, 40, a local arms smith. "Before they kill you, they sharpen the knife in front of you. They are worse than butchers."

Stories like these are being repeated across the tribal region of Pakistan, a rugged no-man's-land that forms the country's border with Afghanistan--and that is rapidly becoming home base for a new generation of potential terrorists. Fueled by zealotry and hardened by war, young religious extremists have overrun scores of towns and villages in the border areas, with the intention of imposing their strict interpretation of Islam on a population unable to fight back. Like the Taliban in the late 1990s in Afghanistan, the jihadists are believed to be providing leaders of al-Qaeda with the protection they need to regroup and train new operatives. U.S. intelligence officials think that Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, may have found refuge in these environs. And though 49,000 U.S. and NATO troops are stationed just across the border in Afghanistan, they aren't authorized to operate on the Pakistani side. Remote, tribal and deeply conservative, the border region is less a part of either country than a world unto itself, a lawless frontier so beyond the control of the West and its allies that it has earned a name of its own: Talibanistan.

Since Sept. 11, the strategic hinge in the U.S.'s campaign against al-Qaeda has been Pakistan, handmaiden to the Taliban movement that turned Afghanistan into a sanctuary for bin Laden and his lieutenants. While members of Pakistan's intelligence services have long been suspected of being in league with the Taliban, the Bush Administration has consistently praised Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf for his cooperation in rooting out and apprehending members of bin Laden's network. But the Talibanization of the borderlands--and their role in arming and financing insurgents in Afghanistan--has renewed doubts about whether Musharraf still possesses the will to face down the jihadists.

Those doubts are surfacing at a time when Musharraf confronts his biggest political crisis since grabbing power eight years ago. Since March 12, Pakistani streets have been the scene of clashes between police and thousands of lawyers and opposition activists outraged by Musharraf's decision to suspend the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, for alleged abuse of office. Musharraf's critics say the President is attempting to rig the system to ensure he stays in power. Their ire boiled over when Pakistani police raided a television station to prevent it from covering protests outside the Supreme Court. Some Pakistanis who have excused Musharraf's authoritarianism in the past now portray him as a jackbooted dictator. "I think he has ruined himself," says retired Lieut. General Hamid Gul, former director general of the Pakistani intelligence organization Inter-Services Intelligence. "He's not going to be able to placate the forces he has unleashed."

Because Musharraf also heads Pakistan's army, it's unlikely that he will be forced from office. But a loss of support from his moderate base could deepen his dependence on fundamentalist parties, which are staunch supporters of the Taliban. If the protests against Musharraf continue, he will be even less inclined to crack down on the militants holding sway in Talibanistan--grim news for the U.S. and its allies and good news for their foes throughout the region. Says a senior U.S. military official in Afghanistan: "The bottom line is that the Taliban can do what they want in the tribal areas because the [Pakistani] army is not going to come after them."

In fact, the territory at the heart of Talibanistan--a heavily forested band of mountains that is officially called North and South Waziristan--has never fully submitted to the rule of any country. The colonial British were unable to conquer the region's Pashtun tribes and allowed them to run their own affairs according to local custom. In exchange, the tribesmen protected the subcontinental empire from northern invaders. Following independence in 1947, Pakistan continued the arrangement.

After 9/11, Islamabad initially left the tribal areas alone. But when it became obvious that al-Qaeda and Taliban militants were crossing the border to escape U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Pakistan sent in the first of what eventually became 80,000 troops. They had some success: the Pakistani army captured terrorist leaders and destroyed training camps. But the harder the military pressed, the more locals resented its presence, especially when civilians were killed in botched raids against terrorists.

As part of peace accords signed last September with tribal leaders in North Waziristan, the Pakistani military agreed to take down roadblocks, stop patrols and return to their barracks. In exchange, local militants promised not to attack troops and to end cross-border raids into Afghanistan. The accords came in part because the Pakistani army was simply unable to tame the region. Over the past two years, it has lost more than 700 troops there. The change in tactics, says Gul, was an admission that the Pakistani military had "lost the game."

The army isn't the only one paying the price now. Since Pakistani forces scaled back operations in the border region, the insurgency in Afghanistan has intensified. Cross-border raids and suicide bombings aimed at U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan have tripled, according to the senior U.S. military official. He concedes that "the Pakistanis are in a very difficult position. You could put 50,000 men on that border, and you wouldn't be able to seal it."

The troop drawback has allowed Pakistani militants allied with the Taliban to impose their will on the border areas. They have established Shari'a courts and executed "criminals" on the basis of Islamic law. Even Pakistani-army convoys are sometimes escorted by Taliban militants to ensure safe passage, a scene witnessed by TIME in North Waziristan one recent afternoon. "The state has withdrawn and ceded this territory," says Samina Ahmed of the International Crisis Group. "[The Taliban] have been given their own little piece of real estate."

The militants are using sympathetic mosques in Talibanistan to recruit fighters to attack Western troops in Afghanistan, according to tribal elders in the region. With cash and religious fervor, they lure young men to join their battle and threaten local leaders so they will deliver the support of their tribes. Malik Haji Awar Khan, 55, head of the 2,000-strong Mutakhel Wazir tribe of North Waziristan, was approached a year ago to join the Taliban cause. When he refused, militants kidnapped his teenage sons. "They thought they could make me join them, but I am tired of fighting," says Khan, who battled alongside the Afghan mujahedin in the war against the Soviets. "This is a jihad dictated by outsiders, by al-Qaeda. It is not a holy war. They just want power and money."

Tribal leaders interviewed by TIME say they do not support the aims of the jihadists. But the Taliban's campaign of fear has worn down local resistance. Malik Sher Muhammad Khan, a tribal elder from Wana, says, "The Taliban walk through the streets shouting that children shouldn't go to school because they are learning modern subjects like math and science. But we want to be modern. It's not just the girls. In my village, not a single person can even sign his name." Khan estimates that only 5% of the inhabitants of Waziristan actively support the militants. Others benefit financially by providing services and renting land for training camps. The rest, he says, acquiesce out of fear. A few months ago, militants stormed his compound in retaliation for his outspoken criticism of their presence in the area. During the melee, a grenade killed his wife. "If I had weapons, maybe I could have saved her," he says. "We have no way to make them leave."

The emergence of Talibanistan may directly threaten the U.S. Locals say the region The emergence of Talibanistan may directly threaten the West too. Locals say the region has become one big terrorist-recruitment camp, where people as young as 17 are trained as suicide bombers. "Here, teenagers are greeted with the prayers 'May Allah bless you to become a suicide bomber,'" says Obaidullah Wazir, 35, a young tribesman in Miranshah. National Intelligence Director John McConnell told the Senate Armed Services Committee last month that "al-Qaeda is forging stronger operational connections that radiate outward from their camps in Pakistan to affiliated groups and networks throughout the Middle East, North Africa and Europe." Muzafar Khan, a headman from one of the local tribes, told TIME that Uzbek commander Tahir Yuldashev, leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and a suspected confidant of bin Laden's, commands some Uzbeks, Chechens, Arabs and local fighters from his base in the borderlands. "We know they are al-Qaeda," says Khan. "They are foreigners, they have different faces, and they don't speak Pashto." He claims that "their camps are easy to find. Even a child could show you."

The camps hold from 10 to 300 militants and are usually hidden deep in the forest, according to local residents. They have simple structures, low concrete-and-brick buildings with high walls. Some have underground bunkers for protection in case of attack. Outsiders easily mistake them for traditional village housing. "We know they exist," says the U.S. military official in Afghanistan. "But it's like finding a needle in a haystack." A Pakistani intelligence official says there are training camps in the region and that Pakistan is doing everything it can to find them and destroy them. "I don't say that [foreigners] are not here, but wherever we know of their presence, we go after them and take action," he says. The best hope for dislodging al-Qaeda from the region may be local tribesmen, who have recently engaged in heavy clashes with foreign and local militants around the town of Wana.

Will Musharraf join the fight? Though the U.S. is pressing Musharraf to do more to rout terrorists in Pakistan, his political survival still depends on parties that resent his ties to Washington. There is a widespread view in Pakistan that Vice President Dick Cheney, during his trip to Pakistan two weeks ago, reprimanded Musharraf for failing to rein in the militants. But officials on both sides say the partnership between Bush and Musharraf remains solid. "Is it doing more? Well, yeah, it's doing more. We all gotta do more, do better, do different. It's a war," says a senior Western diplomat in Pakistan. "But for folks to sit there in Washington or London or wherever and say, 'Damn it! We're tired of this. Go fix it,' is not hugely helpful."

That may be true. But the Bush Administration is beginning to recognize that to stabilize Afghanistan and prevent the rebirth of al-Qaeda, it has to contain the growth of Talibanistan. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher announced in Islamabad that the U.S. intends to give an extra $750 million to Musharraf over the next five years to support development in the tribal areas. "I think this commitment to the development of Pakistan, this commitment to a long-term relationship, is another example of the very broad and deep relationship we have and that we are developing with Pakistan," Boucher said. "We have a fundamental interest in the success of Pakistan as a moderate, stable, democratic Muslim nation."

That infusion of U.S. money would go far toward developing a region nearly devoid of civil infrastructure. There's no doubt that in the long run, schools, hospitals, roads and electricity would do much more to quell militancy than would an increased military presence. But that kind of development takes years. As the militants consolidate power, Musharraf needs to take bolder steps. The judicial crisis and the resulting protests have weakened Musharraf's credibility among the moderate, secular Pakistanis who could provide a bulwark against the threat of jihadism. Musharraf has pledged to hold general elections at the end of the year, but regaining the support of moderate groups may require him to go further and open up the vote to opposition leaders Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, who have both been exiled. If Musharraf can prove that he is committed to democracy, Pakistanis may well choose to keep him in power. Armed with such a mandate, Musharraf would be better poised to tackle militancy in the tribal areas. Pakistan's Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri concedes that the peace agreement with the tribes in Waziristan has "weaknesses" that the government is addressing. An official says Islamabad intends to send two new brigades of troops to seize back the initiative.

Last month the same mountain passes used by militants set on attacking U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan served as passage for an unlikely delegation of 45 tribal elders from Pakistan's borderlands. They were headed for a meeting with Hamid Karzai, the President of Afghanistan, who has openly criticized Musharraf's failure to stem Pakistani support for the Taliban. "We have had too many years of war, too many widows, too many orphans, too many amputees. If this jihad continues, it will destroy Afghanistan and Waziristan," said an elder. "We need help, and we no longer trust the Pakistani government." The leader of the delegation presented Karzai with a traditional Waziri turban, a great soft-serve swirl of butter-yellow silk. As he placed it on the President's head, he said, "You are our President. You can free us from this disaster. We are at your service, and we support you." That the tribesmen would turn to one of Musharraf's rivals for help against the Taliban is a telling indictment of his leadership. And if Musharraf doesn't find a way to re-establish control over Talibanistan, he may find his backers in Washington giving up on him too.

With reporting by WITH REPORTING BY SIMON ROBINSON/ ISLAMABAD, GHULAM HASNAIN / DARA ADAM KHEL

Afghan hearts and minds refuse to be won

By Damien McElroy in Ghowrak, Kandahar - The Telegraph (UK) / March 26, 2007

Troops fighting in Afghanistan are meeting resistance not only from the Taliban, but from the people they are there to support.

In the dustbowl settlement of Ghowrak in Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan, a senior Allied delegation, lead by a British colonel, flies in on a hearts-and-minds mission to halt the leaching of support for the Allied mission.

"I'd say that was an artillery shell," said Col Simon Marr, of the 1st Bn Fusiliers, as the distinctive crump of high explosives reverberated across the scorched plateau.

It was good preparation for the verbal attack his delegation was to endure. "You do not need to be here in town," said Ghowrak's headman, Haji Pasha. "With your soldiers standing looking over us, watching our women and driving their vehicles destroying our land. Go into the hills to find the Taliban, don't disturb us."

Far from being enticed into repudiating the Taliban, elders lined up to complain about the foreign troops in their midst and, more bitterly, the lack of assistance from the Afghan government.

"Why are we not with you?" asks another villager rhetorically. "Why are we not thanking you for our security? Why should we do anything at at all for our government when it does nothing to help us?

"Please do something for us but do it in Kandahar to make our government give to us not to themselves."

A combination of patient listening and promises of aid is a well-tried method across conflict zones to win the backing of the locals. But it is a measure of the Taliban's insidious strength to see the combat operation and the community charm offensive in the same walled compound.

Ghowrak is a strategic outpost on the Hashingar Pass, a Taliban corridor to Helmand province, where British forces are caught in a fierce ground war with the resurgent movement. Fighters crossing smuggling routes travel unchallenged through Kandahar to strongholds from Helmand to Pakistan.

Without troops on the ground, the military cannot hope to disrupt the Taliban's supply lines. In early March, America's 82nd Airborne paratroops and the Afghan army commandeered Ghowrak's district offices as a base for patrols.

The political adviser to the mission, Ambassador Gulus Schelema, attempted to persuade the elders that the military would not inflict damage to their livelihoods by destroying opium crops.

He said: "I want to assure you that we will not attack the poppy; that we only seek to find a better crop for you. All across the world people are in a better situation than you and they do not grow poppy. You don't have to either."

But for the soldiers the crops are the least of their worries. "Those are poppy fields right there," muttered one US paratrooper on guard. "Do I care? I care about Taliban scouts."

Flushing out Taliban and holding the terrain in the Pashtun heartland is proving immeasurably difficult for Nato. In Kandahar, the Canadian army has had to scale back its ambitious plans.

Establishing a permanent presence 120 miles north of the city was a point of pride for Nato, evidence that the coalition could drive into the militant heartland.

But it proved too dangerous to run supplies to the troops there. The coalition's "assets" have been shifted to corridors around the provincial capital. The omens for Ghowrak are equally ominous.

Afghanistan: Civilians caught in crossfire in south

Source: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN)

KABUL, 26 March 2007 (IRIN) - Fighting between international forces and Taliban insurgents in southern Afghanistan continues to claim the lives of civilians, local residents say.

In a mud-brick house in the Gherishk district of the southern Afghan province of Helmand, Ezatullah, 38, is thinking about moving to Kandahar. "Every day we see nothing but fighting between the Taliban and foreign soldiers. One day, the Taliban take over a district and lynch locals whom they perceive as enemies; another day, foreign soldiers bombard and shell the area," Ezatullah told IRIN.

Others in the area say that non-combatants have been directly affected by recent military operations.

"We were caught in crossfire," said Abdul Samad, a resident of Gherishk. "I lost my niece in Thursday's [22 March] fighting and some others also got killed or wounded in the same operation," he added.

However, officials said no civilians were hurt in the recent military operation in the area, adding that Afghan and NATO-led International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) killed more than 60 insurgents in Helmand on 22 March.

"No civilian has been killed or injured in the Gherishk operation," said General Zahir Azimi, a spokesman for Afghanistan's Ministry of Defence. "We did not use air strikes or artillery, only foot soldiers were sent to some specific areas to repel insurgents."

The Taliban were ousted from power in October 2001, but its fighters have maintained a hit-and-run guerrilla war against US-led coalition forces and Afghan forces. Helmand - about 60,000 square km of plain land in the south of Afghanistan, an area more than half the size of Denmark - has been the stronghold of the mounting Taliban insurgency over the past three years.

More than 1,000 civilians were killed or injured in clashes between insurgents and ISAF in Helmand and neighbouring provinces in 2006, according to the New York-based NGO Human Rights Watch and other rights watchdogs.

Some 5,000 families have reportedly been displaced in the province since September 2006.

In February, General Abdul Rahim Wardak, Afghanistan's Minister of Defence, confirmed reports that the Taliban had occupied Mosa Qala and two other districts in the province.

Karim Rahimi, a spokesman for President Hamid Karzai, said "the government is holding back its operation to drive out the Taliban from Helmand only to avoid civilian casualties".

The Taliban have closed all schools in the areas under their control and have reintroduced their strict interpretation of Islamic law according to which men should grow beards, women should stay at home and no one should listen to music, local residents say.

The Taliban have reportedly beheaded dozens of tribal elders and other civilians whom they accused of siding with the US-backed government in Kabul.

US soldiers sit in on local Afghan councils

Low-level Taliban urged to disarm - By Jason Straziuso Associated Press / March 27, 2007

CHINAR, Afghanistan -- The US paratroopers sat down with Afghan elders and police to a shared lunch meant to foster relations. But even before the roast lamb had been mopped up, the Americans made an unnerving discovery: a cache of rocket-propelled grenades , mortars, and a land mine.

Soldiers, suspicious that the weapons could belong to militants, removed them from the police storage facility. The pleasant mood fostered over a meal was shattered. Even as Lieutenant Colonel Brian Mennes ordered his 82 d Airborne paratroopers to calm down, he acknowledged the problem.

"I think the fact that they have mines and mortars is a little suspicious," Mennes said. "We're going to take the dangerous stuff. Otherwise we're going to be in for a long couple weeks," indicating the weapons might have eventually been aimed at US positions just outside town.

Mennes and the other Americans sat down for the meal knowing some of their hosts were their enemies. To get a foothold in the area, the Americans have to talk with the Taliban.

"When you roll in here with 800 heavily armed men, it can cause a lot of anxiety. Until you [talk with them] they're real standoffish," said Mennes, who leads the 1st Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment based at Fort Bragg, N.C.

US and NATO soldiers are increasingly holstering their weapons and attending traditional Afghan lunches and tribal meetings known as shuras, embracing local customs in a land where conversation over tea is a national pastime.

The goal: to gather intelligence, advertise the aid and development that NATO and the Afghan government can bring, and talk transitory Taliban fighters into disarming. The counterinsurgency strategy is based on weeding out what NATO calls "Tier 2" Taliban -- poor farmers or jobless villagers who are enlisted by hard-core, ideologically minded Taliban.

"We don't actually want to kill the Tier 2 people. We want them to be a part of the country," said Squadron Leader David Marsh, a spokesman for the NATO-led force.

"We think if people trust us they will share intelligence with us that will help them in the long run," Mennes said. "The economy has to grow. Security has to grow. If I come in and kill everyone it does nothing."

But the American-Afghan lunch showed how tricky such get-togethers can be.

The US paratroopers discovered the weapons this month after meeting with dozens of Afghan elders in this isolated mountain town on the border between the provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, a place where US or NATO troops had never been. The area is known as Taliban country, and US and NATO officials know local police cooperate with the militia.

This village in particular will prove difficult in the short-term because troops are staying only a few weeks. Their primary mission is to watch over a key route the Taliban is using to ferry fighters and equipment into Helmand, site of NATO's latest mission.

NATO's top commander in the south, Major General Ton van Loon, let it be known to provincial-level officials that troops planned to arrest the district police chief for his ties with the Taliban, so he fled, leaving a deputy police chief to meet with Mennes.

"The Taliban is there. There's no doubt about it," said Zach Khan, Mennes' s cultural adviser and translator.

A s Mennes' s soldiers helped inventory the weapons, a grumble spreads through the troops, many of whom feel talking to residents isn't the way to go.

"I'm all for respecting culture and negotiations, but we should have just come in here and cleaned up," said Specialist Joshua Burrell.

ADB Says Developing Asia to Post Robust Growth In 2007

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

PRAGUE, March 27, 2008 (RFE/RL) -- Asia's developing economies are set to expand by 7.6 percent this year, due to strengthening domestic demand and a broadly favorable outlook for the global economy.

That's according to an annual report (Asian Development Outlook) out today by the Asian Development Bank. The bank says growth in China and India will continue to account for most of the expansion in the 43-country area. It also says Central Asian economies are expected to grow by at least 4 percent this year. (adb.org) ADB forecasts for gross domestic product growth in 2007:

- Kazakhstan 8.6%
- Kyrgyzstan 4.0%
- Tajikistan 7.5%
- Turkmenistan 8.5%
- Uzbekistan 7.4%
- Afghanistan 10.0%

Restore power supply or leave the province

BAMYAN CITY, Mar 25 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Governor of the central Bamyan province Habiba Sarabi has warned head of the energy and power department to restore power supply or leave the province.

According to residents, power supply to the city is suspended for the previous three weeks prompting a barrage of complaints from people.

The country's sole female governor conveyed the terse message during a meeting called to review complaints of people regarding the long suspension of power supply.

The governor said she had called the concerned officials to the general meeting and informed them about the concerns of the government and the people.

She said the director had been told to leave the province if his department failed to restore power supply within three weeks.

Contacted for comments, head of the department engineer Ikramuddin said electricity had been cut off due to the huge expenses.

He said the more expenses and less number of consumers forced them to stop the power supply. However, residents say the director does not know his job.

Ghulam Rasool, resident of the city, said they had requested the department for provision of power supply to their area, but the officials concerned remained adamant.

OIC Fund for the Reconstruction of Afghanistan builds 16 health centres in Afghanistan

- Source: The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC)

Jeddah: 24 March 2007 - Prof. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, received H.E. Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Abdurrahman Al Thani, Chairman of the Council of Trustees of the OIC Trust Fund for Assistance of Afghan People, who is attending the Fourth Meeting of the Council on the 25th of March.

The Chairman of the Council of Trustees briefed the Secretary General on the Fund’s activities during the past years, which included the drilling of 300 wells to ensure drinking water for different regions in Afghanistan, and the completion of the construction work of 16 health centres in different provinces, which have been handed over to the Afghan Ministry of Health to engage them in the service of the Afghan citizens.

The OIC Secretary General laid stress on the continuation of the Fund’s activities aimed at leveraging the reconstruction work in Afghanistan.

Bush's Afghan warrior leaves Iraq proud of role

By Claudia Parsons - Mon Mar 26 - BAGHDAD (Reuters) - On a farewell trip to northern Iraq this week, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad was hailed by Kurdish leaders as a "comrade in arms" who helped liberate them, but his legacy is a mixed one for Iraq.

As he prepared to leave the country this week, Khalilzad said he remained proud of his role in toppling Saddam Hussein, both working behind the scenes with Iraqi exiles before the March 2003 invasion and as ambassador in the past 21 months.

However, violence has killed tens of thousands of Iraqis since his arrival and sectarian divisions appear as wide as ever. Khalilzad said the basic problems for his successor in Iraq will be the same ones he faced.

"I wish the situation was different," Khalilzad told reporters during his trip to Kurdistan. "It's not as good as I would have liked, but I think the leaders of Iraq need to make the decisions that need to be made, particularly the Sunni and Shi'ite leaders. The compromises need to be made."

As a Sunni Muslim, Khalilzad was viewed with suspicion from the start by many Shi'ites in Iraq who accused him of bias.

In a joint interview with Reuters and two other agencies on Sunday, he said much of the criticism directed at him was part of the push and pull of delicate negotiations.

Khalilzad said he had spent many late nights "drinking tea" with Iraqi politicians, emphasizing the need for urgent action, telling them at times "we are very impatient people, you know the politics back home, and we want to see results."

"Our sense of time and the sense of time of the people of this region are not identical," he said.

President Bush launched a new Iraq strategy in January, sending 30,000 extra troops, and he is under growing pressure to set a timetable for the withdrawal of troops.

Aides say Khalilzad has been hurrying to tick off accomplishments before he leaves, shuttling between leaders to press issues such as an oil law and amendment of a law banning members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party from public sector jobs.

Reforming the law is a key demand of Sunni Arabs, the once- dominant minority under Saddam who now feel marginalised.

"There is a lot of hard work as we speak and I anticipate in the near term there may be agreement on that," Khalilzad said.

"I recognized from the beginning when I came that the big issue was to get an agreement among Iraqis on the basic issues that divide the country," he said. "The definition of the problem as I saw it has not changed, some elements have become more important than others as I complete my tour."

"It's fundamentally heading in the right direction but there are significant challenges. I'm optimistic with the changes that I see in recent months."

At a reception on Saturday held by Prime Minister Nuri al- Maliki, Khalilzad struck an idealistic note, invoking the "big idea" of living in democracy and prosperity, a vision he said was as realistic for the Middle East as for America.

Khalilzad, who is awaiting confirmation as ambassador to the United Nations, also said it was wrong to leave Saddam in power after the first Gulf War in 1991. "I felt that we did the wrong thing in terms of leaving Iraq with sanctions and Saddam."

In the nearly two years since he arrived in Baghdad, after 18 months as ambassador in his native Afghanistan, violence in Iraq has spiraled to the point where more than 34,000 civilians were killed last year, according to U.N. figures.

"National reconciliation" between Shi'ites, Sunni Arabs and Kurds, not to mention smaller groups such as Turkmen and Christians, is a mantra often invoked but not much in evidence. "The issue remains still how to get to a national compact," Khalilzad said in Sunday's interview.

Khalilzad referred to Iraq as a place of conspiracy theories and suspicion, and said his style had always been to engage -- a style he would employ at the United Nations too if confirmed.

"If it (the U.N.) loses credibility with the people or it doesn't adapt to the changed environment, it could become increasingly irrelevant," he said.

"I want to avoid that because I think the United Nations is a very important institution for the world." Asked about his future during the visit to Kurdistan, he struck a lighter note: "I always have a letter of resignation in my drawer when I start a job."

Govt asked to nominate true representatives for Jirga

KABUL, Mar 25 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan should include true representatives of the people in the Regional Peace Jirga between the two countries.

This was stated by President Karzai's advisor on tribal and border affairs Shahzada Massoud in an interview with Pajhwok Afghan News.

He suggested all the provincial councils, parliament and civil society organisations should be consulted over the nomination of members for the Jirga or assembly of elders.

Before making nominations, the government should keep level of knowledge and experience of the members in mind, as inexperienced and those unaware of the rules of Jirga, would spoil the whole practice.

Asked about foot-dragging by the Pakistani side, Massoud said he did not know about the Pakistan's policy. However, it (Pakistan) must take necessary measures to convene the Jirga as soon as possible, because success of the meeting depended on sincere efforts on part of the two sides.

He said the government and people of Afghanistan had no problem with the people of Pakistan; however, there were some circles in the other side who did not want peace in Afghanistan.

Regarding terrorism, he said tribes living on the border with Pakistan were more vulnerable to terrorist attacks than those living in other parts of the country.

The scourge of terrorism, which had earlier affected the border area, was now rapidly spreading to the central and western parts of Afghanistan, he feared.

Massoud expressed confidence in the commission constituted to make preparations for the Jirga and described it a national commission.

Suggestion regarding convening of the Jirga was presented during meeting between President Hamid Karzai and his Pakistani counterpart Pervez Musharraf in Washington late last year.

Since then, both sides are engaged in efforts to convene the grand assembly of elders to discuss terrorism, cross-border infiltration and present suggestions how to curb the menace.

[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.]