In this bulletin:

• ANKARA DECLARATION – Afghan-Pakistani leaders meet
• Pakistan's Musharraf Hopeful Over Relations With Afghanistan
• Taliban Behead Afghan Police Officer
• NATO: 75 Taliban Killed In Afghanistan
• 30 Afghan civilians among 'Taliban' dead: police
• 4 suspected Taliban, 2 Afghan army troops killed in Afghan violence
• Czech diplomat comes under fire in Afghanistan, 2 guards lightly injured
• Afghan Violence Down From Last Year
• Afghanistan asks Iran not to force out Afghan refugees
• More aid share going through Afghan government
• Canadians Reported Afghan Torture Claims
• Canada got early warning of abuses
• Afghan politician rejects prisoner abuse claims
• Jonathan Kay on Afghan prisoner torture allegations: 'This is a war, not a grad seminar'
• Truck strike 'hits Afghan goods'
• Afghan insecurity putting pressure on NGOs
• Swiss back Afghan drive for law and order
• Afghan tribesman with resemblance to Osama arrested twice

ANKARA DECLARATION – Afghan-Pakistani leaders meet

His Excellency General Pervez Musharraf, the President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, and His Excellency Hamid Karzai, the President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, visited Ankara on 29-30 April 2007 at the invitation of His Excellency Ahmet Necdet Sezer, the President of the Republic of Turkey.

President General Pervez Musharraf and President Hamid Karzai held comprehensive, cordial and useful talks, together with President Ahmet Necdet Sezer and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on regional and international issues. They emphasized that the international community must work together to promote the objectives of Afghanistan Compact. They pledged to cooperate towards promoting peace, security, stability and economic development in the region.

During the talks, the Presidents of Pakistan and Afghanistan agreed to continue to have dialogue and cooperation in all dimensions between the two brotherly countries and to combine their efforts to enhance prosperity of their peoples.

The two Presidents:

Agreed that their historical ties serve as a common basis to address all challenges hampering the stability, security and the development of their region and to enhance their cooperation, building upon the "Joint Press Statement" of 07 September 2006 issued during President Musharraf's visit to Kabul.

Agreed to further strengthen bilateral relations on the basis of good-neighborliness, respect for territorial integrity and non-interference in each other's internal affairs.

Acknowledging the great opportunity that exists for progress and economic development in the region, they pledged to work together to improve and strengthen the climate of trust and cooperation.

Agreed that extremism and terrorism are a common threat to both Afghanistan and Pakistan, as it is a danger to the region.

They reiterated their commitment to continue supporting moderation, fighting all forms of extremism and terrorism through coordinated action. They expressed concern at the alarming increase in poppy cultivation in Afghanistan and underlined the connection between terrorism, drug-trafficking and organized crime in the region, and emphasized the need for concerted efforts to combat these menaces.

Agreed to deny sanctuary, training and financing to terrorists and to elements involved in subversive and anti-state activities in each other's country and to initiate immediate action on specific intelligence exchanges in this regard.

Reaffirmed their commitment to enhance goodwill and create

further confidence building measures and mechanisms, including

through interaction between political representatives, civil

society, academicians, media, and sports and cultural links,

Resolved to work jointly for facilitating orderly repatriation of Afghan refugees from Pakistan.

With a view to monitoring progress on the above agreed matters and coordinating the confidence-building measures and mechanisms, the Presidents established a "Joint Working Group (JWG)" with the participation of high level representatives of the three countries.

President Karzai expressed the gratitude of the people of Afghanistan to the people of Pakistan for continuing to host millions of Afghan refugees. He also appreciated Pakistan's offer to host the next meeting of Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan (RECCA).

The Presidents of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan commended the initiative of Turkey for hosting the summit meetings and appreciated the offer to organize further meetings towards the end of 2007 or early 2008.

Pakistan's Musharraf Hopeful Over Relations With Afghanistan

Published: 5/1/2007

ANKARA - Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf voiced optimism Monday on chances of improving his country's relations with its northwestern neighbor after his meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Ankara.

"We reached an accord to overcome our differences and we hope that a new era has opened in our relations," Musharraf told private news channel NTV.

"I can say that this is a fresh start."

Afghanistan has accused Pakistan of harboring al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists and gave support in their bid to drive out Western forces from Afghanistan and overthrow the government of President Hamid Karzai. Pakistan has denied the accusations.

Responding to a question on the whereabouts of Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, Musharraf said, "We do not know where he is and it would be wrong to speculate on it without solid intelligence."

"Allegations about Bin Laden should be proven. We do not even know whether he is still alive," Musharraf added.

Taliban Behead Afghan Police Officer

(AFP) - May 1, 2007 -- The governor of the southern Afghan Kandahar Province says Taliban militants today beheaded an 18-year-old police officer.

Niaz Mohammad Sarhadi said the police officer was returning to duty from holidays when he was captured by insurgents in the village of Mushan in Panjwayi district.

"Terrorists beheaded the officer, and his headless body was left in a school in the village," Sarhadi said.

NATO: 75 Taliban Killed In Afghanistan

Death Toll Claimed After First Day Of New Offensive Involving 2,000 Troops

SANGIN VALLEY, Afghanistan, May 1, 2007 - (AP) NATO-led troops killed 75 suspected insurgents on the first day of an offensive against Taliban militants in a valley in southern Afghanistan, a British military officer said Tuesday.

The militants died Monday, when British, Danish and Afghan troops fought their way up the Sangin Valley in Helmand province, Maj. Dominic Biddick, who commanded a company of British troops in the operation, told The Associated Press.

Biddick said the troops detained several more suspected militants and discovered an arms cache during "a full day of fighting." One British soldier was wounded, he said, without providing any details of his condition.

"The operation went better than most people had anticipated," Biddick told an AP reporter traveling with his unit. "At one point, there were six companies in clashes at the same time." His tally of 75 insurgents killed could not be independently verified.

The Sangin Valley mission is part of Operation Achilles, NATO's largest-ever maneuver against the Taliban, which began in March.

The operation is focused on reclaiming Helmand province, Afghanistan's most volatile, from insurgents so that the government of President Hamid Karzai can expand its reach.

On Monday, the U.S. military reported that 136 suspected militants were killed in three days of fighting in western Herat province — the deadliest clashes in Afghanistan since January.

30 Afghan civilians among 'Taliban' dead: police

Herat (AFP) - At least 30 civilians, including women and children, were among the dead after clashes in western Afghanistan that the US-led coalition said killed 136 Taliban, police said Tuesday.

Hundreds of people had demonstrated in the Shindand district of the western province of Herat on Monday, after coalition and Afghan operations there on Friday and Sunday, insisting civilians were among the victims.

Herat police chief Mohammad Shafiq Fazli told AFP an investigation had found that "there were at least 30 civilians, including women and children, among those killed in Shindand's fighting."

The information was based on "reports from various sources" from the area, he said, giving no details.

A delegation had gone to investigate, a spokeswoman for Herat's governor said. "We know civilians have been killed but we don't have the figure," said spokeswoman Farzana Ahmadi.

But a spokesman for the US Central Command said it had received no reports of civilian casualties in the fighting.

"Every precaution is taken to prevent injury to Afghan civilians during both battles, and no civilian casualties were reported," said Major David Small.

"If any reports are made through official channels, they will be investigated," he said, adding that to his knowledge no investigation into alleged civilian deaths was underway.

In the Herat fighting, coalition and Afghan troops responded to an attack Friday by more than 70 Taliban fighters in Shindand's Zerkoh Valley with ground and air fire that killed 49 Taliban, the coalition said. A US soldier also died.

On Sunday the security forces attacked Taliban fighting positions, including with bombs. Another 87 Taliban fighters were killed during the 14-hour engagement, it said.

The police announcement came hours after 500 students protested against US military action in the eastern province of Nangarhar, where six people were killed Sunday.

The demonstrators, who burned an effigy of US President George W. Bush, said all six were civilians. The coalition has said four were militants and that a woman and a teenager were killed in crossfire.

The incident was in Nangarhar's Bati Kot area, where US Marines were accused of opening fire on civilians after a March 4 ambush. About a dozen people were killed. The Marine unit was ordered out of Afghanistan days later.

There is growing concern at civilian deaths in operations against Taliban insurgents, including those carried out by the US-led coalition, which invaded Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban regime in 2001.

"The American military unfortunately makes such mistakes which definitely is having a deep negative impact on the international forces' mission against terrorism," a parliamentarian from Herat, Ahmad Behzad, told AFP Tuesday.

"If the US forces do not concentrate on military targets and if they make such mistakes again, this will cause the defeat of the coalition forces," he said.

The UN mission in Afghanistan had been asked by the government and local community to look into what happened at Shindand.

"We do have concerns about the possible use of disproportionate force and possible displacement of people in the area," its spokesman Adrian Edwards told AFP.

The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission also expressed concern about civilian casualties. "It's the civilians who pay much of the price of the war," said commissioner Nader Nadery.

"The increasing civilian casualties could affect the confidence of the people in operations against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. It will also provide an easy tool for the Taliban to use against the progress over the past five years."

While scores of civilians have been killed in military operations, more have lost their lives to militant attacks, including bombings and assassinations.

New York-based group Human Rights Watch said this month assaults by the Taliban and associated Islamist groups had killed nearly 700 Afghan civilians since the beginning of 2006.

4 suspected Taliban, 2 Afghan army troops killed in Afghan violence

The Associated Press - 2007-05-01 - KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - An airstrike killed four suspected insurgents assailing a town in eastern Afghanistan, while a roadside bomb left two Afghan army troops dead in the west, officials said Tuesday.

About 11 insurgents attacked Spera, in the border province of Khost, on Monday, the U.S.-led coalition said in statement. Police defended the town for about two hours until a coalition aircraft came to their aid, killing four insurgents and wounding seven others, the statement said.

One Afghan policeman and one "tribal soldier" suffered minor injuries, it said. In western Herat province's Shindand district, the roadside bomb killed two Afghan soldiers and wounding one more on Sunday, the Defense Ministry said in a statement.

Shindand has been rocked by violence in recent days, with coalition and Afghan forces reporting the deaths of 136 suspected militants in two battles. The casualties sparked protests on Monday, with demonstrators claiming the victims were civilians.

After a winter lull in violence, attacks and military operations have surged again this spring, particularly in the volatile south and east.

An Associated Press tally has counted 1,292 deaths in the first four months of this year, including 525 dead in April alone.

Another clash between Taliban and Afghan army forces four days ago in southern Zabul province left three suspected insurgents dead, including a commander identified as Mullah Abdul Rahman, the Defense Ministry statement said.

Czech diplomat comes under fire in Afghanistan, 2 guards lightly injured

The Associated Press - Tuesday, May 1, 2007 - PRAGUE, Czech Republic: A car carrying a Czech diplomat came under fire south of the Afghan capital on Tuesday, and two diplomatic guards were injured, Czech Foreign Ministry said.

The Czech charge d'affaires, Filip Velach, was not hurt in the daytime incident, which occurred about 100 kilometers (63 miles) south of Kabul, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zuzana Opletalova said.

It was not clear who opened fire or why. After the shooting, Velach and the two Czech police guards hid in a nearby house until they were rescued by a helicopter from the NATO-led international force in Afghanistan, Opletalova said.

The two guards — part of a special police force that guards the Czech Embassy in Kabul — were lightly injured, she said, but gave no further details. The Czech Republic currently has about 150 troops in Afghanistan as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, and plans to increase that to about 225 later this year.

Afghan Violence Down From Last Year

April 30, 2007: Casualties in Afghanistan are, so far, lower, by about 30 percent, than they were last year. So far this year, about 320 Afghan civilians and security personnel have been killed, along with at least 680 Taliban and 39 U.S. and NATO troops. The fighting forces involve about 20,000 American and NATO troops, about the same number of Afghan security forces, and about four thousand Taliban. The Taliban are trying to stay out of sight, until they actually attack someone. The government and foreign forces are trying to track down the Taliban, while also protecting several million civilians in southern Afghanistan.

There are actually about 50,000 U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, but not all are involved in combat operations in the south, where the Taliban are concentrated. Same situation with Afghan security forces, which are spread throughout the country. Afghanistan does send many of its best trained units to the south, but most of the fighting falls on soldiers and police recruited locally. These guys know the territory, and are defending their own (clan and tribe, for the most part.)

Another force to be reckoned with are the gunmen working for the drug gangs. Some of these are actually Taliban, as the drug gangs have found a home among some of the pro-Taliban tribes. However, most of the drug gangs want no part of fighting government or foreign troops. The drug gangs are all about making lots of money. For this reason, the government has tried to keep anti-drug operations separate from those waged against the Taliban. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. (strategy page)

Afghanistan asks Iran not to force out Afghan refugees

KABUL: Afghanistan called on neighbouring Iran to stop repatriating tens of thousands of Afghan refugees, saying the destitute country could not afford to resettle them.

More than 25,000 Afghans have been sent back by Iranian authorities since April 21, and more are being forced out, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

"We would like to ask Iran to not repatriate Afghan refugees. Our capacity is very limited to receive a big number of refugees," foreign ministry spokesman Sultan Ahmad Baheen said.

"Taking into consideration our good relations with Iran and international laws for refugees, we expect the Iranian government not to force out refugees in big numbers. It would create lots of problems for us here," Baheen said.

A UNHCR official on condition of anonymity said Iran had decided to repatriate some half a million Afghans living as refugees in the Islamic republic.

Two million Afghans, more than half of them unregistered, are living in Iran while another two million are in Pakistan, having fled during the decades of conflict in their troubled homeland.

More aid share going through Afghan government

KABUL, May 1 (Reuters) - International donors are increasingly routing Afghan aid through the government, but requiring too much to be spent that way may drive some donors away, the U.N.'s Special Representative to Kabul said on Tuesday.

Under pressure over the mounting insurgency and what many Afghans see as a failure to rebuild the country, President Hamid Karzai has urged donors to give his government more control over the billions of dollars pledged for reconstruction after decades of war.

About 30 percent of aid currently goes through the government, and U.N. Special Representative Tom Koenigs said the increasing ability of Afghan institutions to handle rebuilding work meant more could be given that way.

"It has been increased in the past year and it will increase," Koenigs told reporters after an annual aid coordination meeting between government and donors. But he added: "To say nothing except through the budget, then you might lose some money."

Issues for donors included constitutional bans in some countries on giving aid directly to other governments and a need to continue efforts that were particularly effective, he said.

A foreign military reconstruction team had built 50 schools around the eastern city of Gardez for $1.2 million using local materials and labour, while some other schools had cost $1.2 million each, Koenigs said.

The varying priorities of the more than 60 Afghan and foreign agencies helping rebuild Afghanistan are apparent in the capital, Kabul.

While aid money is funding the replanting of Kabul's highest hill, the road up to the project, used by hundreds of people every day to access their homes, is a heavily potholed dirt track wide enough in parts for only one car.

At the meeting of the Joint Coordination and Monitoring Board, aid donors agreed to fund an increase in police numbers by about a third -- taking the maximum number of officers to 82,000.

But Koenigs was unclear how many extra police would be employed, saying there were varying estimates about official police numbers and the reality of boots on the ground.

Canadians Reported Afghan Torture Claims

The Associated Press - Monday, April 30, 2007

OTTAWA -- Canada's government conceded Monday that it has received reports from its officials about alleged torture in Afghan jails.

After a week of denying knowledge of any specific claims of abuse, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day revealed that officers in Kandahar had heard at least two firsthand allegations of torture.

"Yes, they have actually talked to detainees about the possibility if they were tortured or not," Day said in response to a reporter's question. "They actually had a couple of incidents where detainees said they were."

Asked whether the prisoners in question were handed over to Afghan authorities by Canadian troops, Day replied: "I don't have that precise information, but we'll look into it and we'll get back to you."

Canada signed an agreement with Afghanistan in 2005 that committed Canadian soldiers to hand over captured Taliban prisoners to local authorities. The Canadian government has tried to deflect criticism that its agreement is flawed.

Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper reported last week that dozens of detainees said they had been choked, starved and given electric shocks by Afghan officials after they were handed over by Canadian forces.

Day did not reveal when the claims came to light _ he did not mention them under intense questioning last week _ or what action was taken to follow up on them.

Day said the officers had no evidence to back up the abuse claims, but did not say whether an investigation had been conducted. Day has long insisted that the allegations of abuse were lies made up by captured insurgents, despite the fact that no probe has been completed.

Some 2,500 Canadian soldiers are fighting alongside Afghan, American and other NATO forces trying to weed out Taliban fighters in the most violent areas in southern Afghanistan.

Canada got early warning of abuses

Rights group raised alarm in Ottawa last year about trouble in Afghan prisons

May 01, 2007 – Tornot Star - Bruce Campion-Smith - Tonda maccharles

OTTAWA–Foreign affairs staff directly involved with overseeing Canada's Afghan mission were told last year about disturbing reports of growing human rights abuses within Afghan detention facilities.

Sam Zarifi, of Human Rights Watch, says he personally delivered that message when he met with Canadian officials on the "Afghanistan desk" at foreign affairs headquarters in Ottawa in the latter part of 2006.

He says he drove home his agency's fears surrounding Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security, the country's intelligence police, who often take charge of prisoners nabbed by Canadian troops serving in Kandahar.

"We told them that we are worried that the NDS is becoming increasingly involved and that the NDS is increasingly abusive and that they should be careful about it," Zarifi recalled yesterday.

Also yesterday, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day revealed that Corrections Canada officers in Kandahar had heard at least two first-hand allegations of torture.

After a week of denying knowledge of any "specific" claims of abuse, Day said, in response to a reporter's question, "Yes, they have actually talked to detainees about the possibility if they were tortured or not.

"They actually had a couple of incidents where detainees said they were." Day couldn't say when the allegations came to light or if the detainees had been captured by Canadians. Nor did he say if Canada followed up the charges.

The government has been under fierce pressure in the last week after media reports that some prisoners nabbed by Canadians have been abused after being transferred into the custody of Afghan security forces.

But again yesterday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper cast doubt on the reports. "For a long time there have been vague allegations. We need specific evidence," Harper said in question period.

Zarifi said he also bluntly told the Canadians that NATO allies had been ill-prepared for their role in seizing detainees. "We didn't feel that NATO as a whole and Canada in particular had done all they could to prepare for becoming a detainee-holding power and that they should do more," he said.

He declined to name the officials he met with, saying "I don't want to put them on the spot," but said they seemed receptive. "We got what we felt was a pretty positive response. Everybody said, `Yes, we note your concerns and we'll try to address it,'" said Zarifi, research director for the agency's Asia division.

The visit with Canadians was part of a concerted effort by the organization to draw the attention of Canada, and other countries active in Afghanistan, to worrying reports of abuse at the hands of NDS.

Last July, for example, Zarifi and other representatives took their message to NATO officials, including Canadians, in both Brussels and Kabul.

Those concerns were based on the agency's own observers in Afghanistan, Zarifi said, adding, "we were hearing increasing complaints about the NDS behaviour."

He said both the British and Dutch forces, serving alongside Canadians in southern Afghanistan, took encouraging action to ensure their troops could make follow-up visits to prisoners they had handed over to Afghan custody.

"Canadians didn't and that's a mystery. "We know that one of the main suggestions we had, namely that they have to monitor the detainees, was not taken onboard," Zarifi said.

The agency's 2006 overview of Afghanistan makes note of deteriorating situation in the troubled nation. "By late 2006, Afghanistan was on the precipice of again becoming a haven for human rights abusers, criminals, and militant extremists, many of whom in the past have severely abused Afghans," it read.

Last fall, the agency sent a letter to NATO warning it had received "credible reports" of detainees being abused by the National Directorate of Security.

The letter was addressed to NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and copied to the foreign ministers of NATO countries. However, officials with MacKay's office said last night they had no record of ever receiving the letter.

"In some cases the treatment amounted to torture," wrote Brad Adams, the executive director of the agency's Asia division, in the letter.

Written as NATO leaders gathered for a summit in Riga, Latvia, Adams urged the military alliance to investigate the allegations of prisoner abuse and "pay considerable attention to the deteriorating human rights situation" in Afghanistan.

While the organization can't confirm the facts behind the recent reports of prisoner abuse that have caused a political firestorm in Canada "they do match reports of behaviour by the NDS," Zarifi said.

"A behaviour that we had warned NATO about." Yesterday, Liberals used the Human Rights Watch letter to demand action from the Conservatives on the Afghan detainee issue.

Harper told the Commons his government would assist Afghan officials with their own probe of the abuse charges, a comment that sparked ridicule from opposition benches. "We're going to let the Afghans inquire into their own practice of torture?" said Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe.

Last night, MPs voted 225 to 28 against an NDP motion calling for an immediate end to Canada's combat mission in Afghanistan. The vote followed one last week when the NDP helped the Tories defeat a Liberal attempt to ensure the combat mission ends in 2009. The NDP said at the time it couldn't vote for anything other than an immediate withdrawal of combat forces.

Afghan politician rejects prisoner abuse claims

Updated Tue. May. 1 2007 CTV.ca News Staff

Kandahar province's governor rejects allegations that Canadian-captured prisoners endured abuse at the hands of Afghan police and intelligence officers.

"I know this (did) not happen but still, it is not a joke. We have to investigate, we have to see," Asadullah Khalid told CTV News on Monday.

The investigation has been ordered by Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai. "He was the one who wanted the investigation to see is it true or not," the governor said.

However, Khalid's statement comes on the same day that Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said Corrections Canada officers in Afghanistan have heard first-hand allegations of torture.

"Yes, they have actually talked to detainees about the possibility if they were tortured or not," Day said Monday in response to a reporter's question. "They actually had a couple of incidents where detainees said they were."

However, he told The Canadian Press the officers didn't seen any evidence, such as physical marks, to back up the allegations. The minister doesn't know if the detainees were turned over by Canadian troops or other NATO soldiers.

Day's remarks are believed to be the first time that a senior Conservative minister has clearly admitted that Canadians in Afghanistan had been informed of specific abuse allegations.

Last week, Day claimed any allegations of abuse were lies made up by captured Taliban fighters. Retired Maj.-Gen. Lewis Mackenzie says torture is widespread throughout the region.

"Torture happens in the region -- not just in Kandahar, not just in Afghanistan, all the stands around the neighbourhood. Torture happens, so acknowledge that and then deal with it," he said, appearing on CTV's Canada AM.

The problem of torture is not a Canadian issue, but a NATO one, he said. "They're the ones running the show over there at the diplomatic and the military level," he said.

Mackenzie suggested NATO may eventually set up their own facility that could show the Afghans how to properly run a prison.

In Brussels, NATO spokesman James Appathurai told CTV Newsnet's Mike Duffy Live that while NATO welcomes the investigation, only allegations exist at this point.

"The Geneva Convention says that it's our responsibility to make sure that prisoners of war -- and we are at war there -- are not put in a situation where they could be tortured. And that's why we should stop the transfers now," NDP Leader Jack Layton told MDL.

Khalid confirmed that Canadian monitors now have access to prisons. "Canadian delegation was there. Uunder new agreement they can come anytime and meet anyone," he said.

However, he still doesn't have a copy of the new agreement with Canada permitting this to happen.

An agreement signed in December 2005 didn't give Canada the right to check up on the well-being of prisoners it handed over, even though other NATO countries had such clauses.

Earlier, in Monday's question period, the Conservatives said the claims of suspected Taliban insurgents should not be believed over Canada's officials on the ground -- a retreat from their position at one point that the allegations are actual fabrications.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper maintained there is no specific evidence of detainee abuse and if the rumours materialize into fact, they will be investigated.

"We have no specific cases and the Afghan human rights commission has said they have no specific cases," the prime minister said in French.

Liberal Leader Stephane Dion called for a "straight story" from the Conservatives over the allegations in the second week of debate around the handling of Afghanistan detainees. "When will the prime minister end this mismanagement and the dishonesty and get some control over this mission?"

Harper responded by saying the Liberals needed to trust the Canadians on the ground. "Unlike the members opposite, we don't automatically assume any allegations made by the Taliban against the Canadian Forces are the unbiased truth," Harper fired at the opposition.

The Tories repeated that the opposition should be taking the word of Canadians in Afghanistan over the Taliban.

The Afghan men alleging abuse told The Globe and Mail newspaper last week that they were well-treated by Canadian soldiers, with the trouble starting after they were transferred into the custody of the Afghan police and intelligence services.

Despite an attempt by Harper to switch the subject to the environment issue, the opposition continued to pound the Conservatives. Layton called for an inquiry into the detainee abuse allegations.

"It seems as though the prime minister remains in full denial on the situation of detainees in Kandahar," Layton fired back. Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh said a leading human rights group warned of possible abuse five months ago and Foreign Affairs refused to address it.

"Human Rights Watch told the foreign affairs minister to work with NATO to develop policy for better monitoring," Dosanjh said of a memo sent to Foreign Affairs and recently unearthed by the opposition.

Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor, who has taken heavy fire from the opposition over this controversy, wasn't in question period on Monday. One of his aides sent out an email message to reporters addressing rumours the minister might not be in his portfolio for long.

"If any of you give credit to the rumour that  (the minister of national defence) will resign, (you) will look (stupid). It is not true, he will NOT resign.''

With a report from CTV's Lisa LaFlamme and files from The Canadian Press

Jonathan Kay on Afghan prisoner torture allegations: 'This is a war, not a grad seminar'

Last week’s headline-hogging story was alleged prisoner abuse in Afghanistan. Well, not so much alleged prisoner abuse in Afghanistan itself, but rather what different Canadian politicians had to say about alleged prisoner abuse in Afghanistan. “Ottawa stirs storm of confusion,” blared The Globe and Mail in an especially breathless Friday banner headline. And then another front page Globe splash on Saturday: “The government’s changing story.”

Even if the charge of Canadian wrongdoing remains unproven, the barrage of accusations made for compelling Question Period theatre. Certainly, it was enough to relegate this boring little news factoid to the back pages: According to a countrywide survey of Afghanistan by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, the country’s infant mortality rate has declined markedly since the Taliban were ousted in late 2001.

Given that the Taliban’s major health-care obsession was banning male doctors from treating female patients, this is perhaps not surprising. But the scale of the improvement is heartening, nonetheless. The new data indicates that about 13.5% of Afghan children die before their first birthday. That is a tragically high figure. (The Canadian figure is about 0.5%.) But it represents an 18% reduction from the 16.5% of children who died in 2001. Based on Afghanistan’s population and birth rate, I peg the total number of Afghan babies saved every year thanks to the improved infant-mortality numbers at about 43,000, or about 120 babies every single day.

This is an extraordinary humanitarian accomplishment. And all the Canadian soldiers who put their lives on the line every day to help protect these families should take pride in it — as should the Liberal and Conservative politicians who (respectively) launched this mission and stood by it in the face of pacifistic media backbiting.

Oh wait. Scratch that. It turns out we’re a nation of war criminals. Or so I am informed by University of British Columbia professor Michael Byers, who claimed in Sunday’s Toronto Star that the available evidence suggests Defence Minister Gordon O’Connor and chief of defence staff General Rick Hillier are “playing fast and loose with torture,” and are pursuing a “policy of war crimes.” Byers is asking the International Criminal Court to examine the case, a path that could (theoretically) result in the incarceration of O’Connor and Hillier in The Hague.

But why stop there? As Byers himself writes, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court targets not only torturers but everyone “up the chain of command.” Shouldn’t that mean Stephen Harper and everyone in his Cabinet?

And that’s not all. As Joël-Denis Bellavance reported in La Presse on Saturday, documents obtained from Canada’s Foreign Affairs Department show that the Liberal government was warned in 2003, 2004 and 2005 that torture was an ongoing practice in Afghan prisons. Yet Paul Martin nonetheless signed a 2005 agreement by which our soldiers would transfer detainees to Afghan custody.

Following on Byers’ initiative, maybe we should be preparing to cuff former defense minister John McCallum and former foreign affairs minister Bill Graham — not to mention their boss Paul Martin, and perhaps even his one-time environment minister.

This all sounds like a joke, which I suppose it is. But Byers’ modest proposal hits on a serious problem: While our soldiers are at war with Islamist terrorists, our elites — including not just the usual suspects in the ivory tower, but senior media figures — are treating the whole exercise like one big human-rights grad seminar.

I’m not disputing the seriousness of the torture allegations: Not only is torture inhumane, but empirical evidence suggests it’s not even much use at getting useful information from true terrorists. But I object equally to the idea that even our tangential involvement in the alleged mistreatment of a few dozen suspects amounts to “war crimes.”

Until international law became the obsessive focus of academics in the frivolous foreign policy lacuna between the Cold War and 9/11, it was generally taken for granted that wars involved messy moral compromises. This is especially true in a chaotic snake pit-like Afghanistan, where seemingly everyone has blood on their hands. As the infant mortality numbers cited above show, NATO troops have made a difference — but only because they’ve cut necessary deals with a dubious national government propped up by dubious local warlords.

As a matter of grad-seminar morality, no, this isn’t perfect. But the only other option in a place like Afghanistan is to send in hundreds of thousands of troops and take over the country lock, stock and barrel — which no one advocates; or to get out of the place entirely, which would amount to sending it back to the Middle Ages.

This is fundamentally a humanitarian war we’re fighting. And humanitarian calculus is about arithmetic, not bright-line rules. I know 43,000 sets of parents who can attest that the current messy arrangement is better than letting the Taliban take over the country again — even if, despite our efforts, a handful of suspected thugs got worked over behind bars in the process. It’s something Mr. Byers should think about the next time he’s drawing up lists of his fellow Canadians who should be examined for “war crimes.” jkay@nationalpost.com

Truck strike 'hits Afghan goods'

- Ilyas Khan BBC News, Karachi

Thousands of tonnes of goods in transit to Afghanistan are piling up in the Pakistani city of Peshawar because of a truckers strike, traders say. The truckers are protesting about increased taxes in Afghanistan and roadside extortion by warlords.

Landlocked Afghanistan receives most of its imports via the Pakistani sea port of Karachi. Most supplies are taken to Kabul and northern Afghanistan through Peshawar and over the Khyber Pass.

They include supplies for Western forces fighting the Taleban, as well as supplies for non-governmental organisations, the government and Afghan traders.

Traders said on Monday that more than 6,000 tonnes of durable goods destined for Afghanistan, as well as thousands of tonnes of fruit and vegetables due to be taken to Kabul, had been held up.

The truckers are protesting because they say the Afghan government has raised road taxes and toll fees by more than 11 times in the past year. They also complain of extortion by security personnel at various points on the road to Kabul.

The strike was announced on Thursday, when negotiations with the government in Kabul failed, the truckers said.

On Sunday, their representatives met with the commercial attache at the Afghan consulate in Peshawar and were told that their demands had been forwarded to the authorities in Kabul, Sawab Khan, a spokesman for the truckers' union, told the BBC.

But members of the Afghanistan-Pakistan Chamber of Commerce (APCC) in Peshawar said they did not expect an early resolution of the crisis.

"The truckers' complaints are genuine, but the Kabul government is not expected to bring down the taxes by almost 70%, as the truckers are demanding," said Abdul Hamid Gurwara, a member of the APCC.

More than 350 trucks carry an average of 7,000 tonnes of goods over the Khyber Pass to Kabul every day, the truckers and traders say. This includes between 40 and 50 tankers taking oil for the Western coalition forces in Afghanistan, traders say.

Most of these goods are sent forward from Peshawar, which is fed by Pakistan Railways and trucks from the army-owned National Logistics Cell (NLC). A small portion of the goods are taken by trucks directly from Karachi to Kabul, though they, too, pass through Peshawar.

Sawab Khan said every truck pays about 400,000 Pakistani rupees (more than $6,500) annually in taxes and bribes. "This is too much for our transporters, who are mostly poor and hard-pressed to make both ends meet," he said.

Truckers who refuse to pay bribes are often made to park along the road and wait, sometimes for more than 24 hours, before they are allowed to move on, he said. Some truckers also complain of extortion on the Pakistani side of the border.

Sawab Khan said that truckers carrying supplies into Afghanistan from Iran via Herat and from Central Asia via Hairatan were also on strike.

Supplies to the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, and also partly to Herat, pass through Quetta and across the Chaman border in Pakistan's Balochistan province. The truckers operating on this route say they confront fewer problems and are not planning to go on strike.

Afghan insecurity putting pressure on NGOs

(AFP) - 1 May 2007 - KABUL - Amid kidnappings, assassinations, bombings and all-out battles, aid groups say Afghanistan’s violence is forcing them to cut back on efforts to help the destitute country’s neediest people.

Worryingly, the security threat is growing in areas outside the southern stomping grounds of insurgents and the drugs mafia, where the non-governmental organisations which are sticking it out are already taking precautions, one analyst said.

The Taleban’s demand for France to pull out its troops or for Kabul to free prisoners in return for the release of one French and three Afghan aid workers has raised concerns about a trend in kidnappings for political reasons rather than financial gain.

A French woman being held with them was freed Saturday. The government’s release in March of five Taleban prisoners in exchange for an Italian hostage has had an ‘encouraging effect on these kinds of problems,’ said Handicap International country director Arnaud Quemin.

‘We observe a global warming of the situation in the country so we are more careful about how we manage our movements,’ said Quemin, who has 250 staff -- 10 of them expatriates -- working with people with disabilities.

‘The risk is statistically becoming higher, either to be taken in fire between different forces or because of bombing in the cities. So we try to decrease the risk of exposure to such things by limiting our movements.’

The group does not keep its expatriate staff in the southern province of Kandahar for security reasons, he said.

Last month it suspended work in parts of adjoining Helmand province when NATO-led and Afghan forces launched Operation Achilles, intended to wrest back control from the Taleban and drugs lords. ‘There was a risk of being in the wrong place at the wrong time,’ he said.

However the Agency Coordinating Body For Afghan Relief (ACBAR), an umbrella body of nearly 100 Afghan and international non-governmental organisations, is not seeing NGOs pulling out of the volatile south.

Rather, ‘people are very much tuned into what is happening and adjusting their operations,’ said director Anja de Beer. ‘Their area of operations has shrunk considerably and people keep a watchful eye on where to go and when.’

Swiss back Afghan drive for law and order

A pay cheque should be on its way thanks to Swiss aid (Keystone)

  Switzerland is helping to ensure Afghanistan's 60,000-strong police force gets paid on time and strike a blow against domestic violence in the country.

Moves to rebuild the police come at a testing time for Afghanistan where unrest has surged in recent weeks leaving hundreds of people dead.

As part of international efforts to boost law and order, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) is funding the installation of a nationwide computer payroll system for the Afghan National Police.

While this may sound like small potatoes to those drowning in electronic wizardry, it represents a big technological leap forward for Afghanistan's fledgling police force, which was resurrected in 2003.

In the past the Ministry of Interior processed salary payments and personal data by hand, leading to often-lengthy delays for those in the provinces and providing fertile ground for corruption.

"Although corruption is widespread there is great will from all sides to combat it," Michael Gerber, the SDC's programme manager for Afghanistan, told swissinfo.

"One of the first steps will be to improve efficiency, transparency and accountability within all concerned institutions including the police. And here the electronic payroll system can make a small but significant difference."

The project falls under the Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan (Lofta), which was set up by the United Nations in May 2002.

Since 2003 Switzerland has contributed just over SFr3 million ($2.5 million), mainly for the establishment of the new payroll system. The Swiss are also part of a steering committee that can make decisions concerning the selection criteria and requirements for police staff.

So far 33 out of Afghanistan's 34 provinces have introduced the system and more than 250 policemen and Ministry of Interior staff are receiving computer training on how to use it.

Another focus of Swiss funding is the recruitment of more policewomen to boost the number of female officers in the ranks up from the current figure of 160.

The SDC and the UN Development Programme are both financing a project that aims to increase this figure by 300 over two years, establish a gender unit at the Ministry of Interior, and extend a pilot domestic violence unit to Kabul and five provinces.

"Women traditionally had a very low representation within the Afghan police. Domestic violence against women is widespread – and in most cases not investigated nor prosecuted," said Gerber.

"Up until now female victims had very few possibilities to report crimes, due to the fact that police stations are entirely managed by men."

Gerber said Switzerland was trying to improve the situation through the recruitment of 300 policewomen and the introduction of "family response units" at certain police stations.

He said experience showed that through recruiting, enabling and empowering policewomen, violence against women could be reduced and a contribution made to security and peace building in Afghanistan.

But Gerber warned that restoring public confidence, especially among women, would take years. swissinfo, Adam Beaumont

  Afghan tribesman with resemblance to Osama arrested twice

PTI - Tuesday, May 01, 2007

NEW YORK: An Afghan tribesman with an uncanny resemblance to Osama bin Laden has been arrested twice, both times following reported sightings and massive manhunts for the Al Qaeda leader, Pakistani intelligence officials said.

Over six feet tall and with the same angular nose as bin Laden, Sher Akbar comes from an Afghan village, Baghe Metal, in an area where US officials believe bin Laden has been hiding.

Bin Laden is believed to be six feet four inches to six feet six inches tall and weigh 160 pounds. He is 50 years old. The most recent arrest of bin Laden's near-twin came after Afghani officials reported informants saw bin Laden moving across the border into Pakistan, near the town of Chitral.

"We arrested this man as a result of this investigation, but it's not who you might think it is," a senior Pakistani intelligence official told ABC News, providing a photograph to make his point.

The official said an extensive investigation involving Pakistani and US intelligence officers found that the look-alike has no connection to bin Laden, but that local residents had tried to collect rewards based on Akhbar's resemblance to bin Laden.

The United States has offered a 25 million dollar reward for information that leads to the location of bin Laden.

[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.]