In this bulletin:

• Kabul Says Taliban Have Killed 100 Police in Two Months
• One Killed, Five Wounded In Rocket Attack In Kabul
• Two U.S. service members killed outside Kabul prison
• Report: Afghan who shot soldiers was ill
• Pakistanis held; tribal council head shot dead
• Senators okay reconciliation bill, call for talks with Hekmatyar
• Bus crash kills 9 in Afghanistan
• AFGHANISTAN: Gov't questions effectiveness of foreign aid billions
• New French government must withdraw troops: Taliban
• Ambassador Samad on the current situation in Afghanistan
• Why Canada should stay
• The Afghan detainee deal's fine, but let's focus on the big picture
• When does an Afghan become a detainee?
• New school opens in Panjshir province
• Afghanistan trying to curb news media
• Afghanistan Persuades Truckers to End Strike
• Parliamentary commissions to probe Farid's killing
• Out of the ruins...
• Disfiguring skin disease plagues Afghanistan

Kabul Says Taliban Have Killed 100 Police in Two Months

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty - KABUL, May 7, 2007 -- Afghanistan's Interior Ministry says more than 100 of its police officers have been killed in Taliban-related violence during the past two months.

Ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary says most of the killings have been in southern and eastern Afghanistan. Those are areas where Taliban fighters are most active, despite internationally aided efforts to hunt them down.

One Killed, Five Wounded In Rocket Attack In Kabul

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty - KABUL, May 7, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- A rocket attack this morning in the Afghan capital, Kabul, killed one man and wounded five people, including a small boy.

A spokesman for the interior ministry told our correspondent the missile struck near a building complex in Kabul's east. It is not known who may have been behind the attack.

Two U.S. service members killed outside Kabul prison

May 6, 2007 - COMBINED JOINT TASK FORCE- 82 COMBINED PRESS INFORMATION CENTER
BAGRAM AIRFIELD, AFGHANISTAN

KABUL, Afghanistan – Two U.S. service members were killed and two others wounded Sunday when an apparent Afghan National Army soldier fired shots into their vehicles as they left the Pol-E-Charki Prison in Kabul. Other Afghan National Army soldiers providing external security for the prison rushed to the aid of the US personnel and fatally shot the rogue soldier.

The two wounded soldiers are listed in stable condition. The names of the deceased soldiers are being withheld pending notification of next of kin. U.S. and Afghan officials are investigating this incident.

Report: Afghan who shot soldiers was ill

By AMIR SHAH - Associated Press May 7, 2007

KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghanistan's Defense Ministry said Monday that an Afghan soldier who shot and killed two U.S. troops the day before outside a top-security prison was mentally ill.

The gunman was shot dead by other Afghan troops at Pul-e-Charkhi prison, some 20 miles east of Kabul, said Maj. Sheldon Smith, a spokesman for Combined Security Transition Command, which trains Afghan security forces. The shooter also wounded two U.S. soldiers.

Defense Ministry spokesman Zahir Azimi said Monday that the Afghan soldier had been hospitalized twice for mental illness. Azimi said the man had been in the army for a year and a half, and that shortly before the shooting, he had been behaving nervously around his fellow soldiers.

The four American soldiers were working as mentors to Afghan troops providing external security for the prison, Smith said. The prison is being revamped to house Afghans transferred from Guantanamo Bay. The victims were not identified.

Afghan soldiers with their U.S. trainers have been deployed at the prison since the opening last month of a new high-security wing designed to eventually house Afghans released from the U.S. jail for terrorist suspects.

The revamp is supposed to improve security at the jail, which is infamous among Afghans for tales of torture and appalling conditions dating back to communist rule in the 1970s.

Since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 that toppled the Taliban, hundreds of al-Qaida and Taliban suspects have been incarcerated there, some of whom have been involved in a series of deadly riots and breakouts.

Across Afghanistan, violence is escalating as insurgents and the military ramp up operations after a winter lull. On Monday, a rocket slammed into a street in the Afghan capital, Kabul, killing a man and wounding five others including a small boy, while a roadside bomb in the east killed a policeman, officials said.

An Associated Press tally has counted at least 43 suicide bomb attacks so far this year, which have killed about 100 people. Nearly half of the suicide attacks have left only the bomber dead.

Pakistanis held; tribal council head shot dead

Pajhwok News, 05/07/2007 - KANDAHAR CITY - Four pro-Taliban Pakistanis were netted in an Afghan army operation in the volatile south, where a tribal council chief was separately gunned down by unidentified assailants on Sunday, officials said.

The Pakistani Taliban were arrested in the Band-i-Barq area of the Greshk district in Helmand, Gen. Mohiuddin Ghauri, commander of the 3rd Brigade of the 205 Army Corps in the province, told Pajhwok Afghan News.

A three-day operation against insurgents concluded in the troubled district on Sunday, said the general, who explained the detainees injured in the fighting were under treatment at a local hospital.

Several villages of Greshk had been cleansed of militants during the sweep, Ghauri continued without giving further details of the military action.

But Mullah Hakim, a Taliban commander in the district, denied foreign militants were fighting alongside them. The government's claim of arresting the aliens was in fact mere propaganda against the movement, he said.

In the southeastern Paktika province, the head of Khushamand district tribal council was shot dead on his way to office by two motorcyclists Sunday morning, said Governor Dr. Akram Khpalwak.

Khpalwak added the killing of Maulvi Shamal, also a leading former jihadi commander of the Jamiat-i-Islami, was the handiwork of terrorists opposed to peace in Afghanistan.

Foreign intelligence agencies had infiltrated a number of elements into the country to foment trouble by killing ex-jihadi commanders, tribal elders and religious scholars, the governor alleged.

A province-wide swoop on the miscreants would be launched shortly, the governor promised, arguing Afghanistan was in urgent need of stability to ensure smooth continuity of the reconstruction effort.

Zafar Khan, deputy chief of the provincial council and resident of Khushamand, said the slain commander had no feud with anyone. He believed Shamal was gunned down by the enemies of Afghanistan - a reference to Taliban insurgents.

Separately, NATO said its troops executed an operation to seize a weapons cache in the Kabul province recently. The operation yielded a large quantity of arms containing 30 107-millimeter rockets.

That size rocket had a range of about six kilometres and carried three pounds of explosives, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement. They are not very accurate, and are normally aimed at large areas like a village.

"Such rockets can also be used in improvised explosive devices, said Lt. Col. Roy Lane, ISAF Counter-IED chief of operations. "The success of this operation demonstrates ISAFs resolve to deny the insurgents the ability to pose threats to the government of Afghanistan, said ISAF spokeswoman Lt. Col. Maria Carl.

Senators okay reconciliation bill, call for talks with Hekmatyar

Pajhwok News, 05/07/2007 -The upper house of parliament on Sunday approved the reconciliation and amnesty bill amidst calls from some senators for negotiations with former premier Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

The bill was already endorsed by the lower house of parliament following some changes by President Hamid Karzai about two months back.

The draft bill was first approved by the two houses of parliament on January 31 and was sent to the president for final approval.

If signed into law by the president, the bill will grant amnesty to all those involved in the last two-and-a-half decades of war and internecine in the country.

During today's session, the senators also take up the 14-article draft prepared by the temporary reconciliation commission of upper house; however, the debate remained inconclusive due to differences among members of the Upper House.

Dialogue with opposition parties as well as neighbouring countries, particularly Pakistan, reviewing suggestions of the opposition parties on a number of issues, and censoring of movies contrary to the Afghan culture are the main points of the 14-article draft.

During their speeches, some senators stressed the need for negotiations with former premier and chief of the Hezb-i-Islami Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

Those advocating talks with dissidents argued negotiations were the only viable option to restore peace and bring stability to the country.

Chairman of the Senate Sibghatullah Mujaddedi accused the foreign troops of not supporting the reconciliation process.

He said they had made several efforts to bring Taliban and other dissidents into the fold of the national reconciliation; however, the coalition forces did not cooperate with them in pushing forward the process.

In the same breath, the elderly politician lashed out at the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI, and said negotiations with Taliban would remain elusive in presence of the network.

"There will be no solution to the problem, either through peace or war, unless ISI centres are dismantled, because there is an ISI operative behind every Taliban fighter," observed Mujaddedi.

He said the same intelligence network was responsible for all the bloodshed in the country.

Bus crash kills 9 in Afghanistan

Associated Press Mon May 7, KABUL, Afghanistan - A bus crashed in northern Afghanistan, sparking a fire that left nine people dead and 25 injured, an official said Monday.

The bus flipped over as it sped around a corner in Balkh province and burst into flames Sunday, said Sherjan Durrani, spokesman for the Balkh police chief.

Durrani said he did not know what sparked the fire, but suspected it was something flammable loaded on the bus. Two fire trucks dispatched to the scene arrived too late to help, Durrani said.

AFGHANISTAN: Gov't questions effectiveness of foreign aid billions

KABUL, 7 May 2007 (IRIN) - Billions of dollars spent by the international community on war-ravaged Afghanistan's reconstruction and development have had a limited impact on the country's economic growth, Afghan officials said.

Since the ousting of the Taliban regime in late 2001, donors have spent some US$13 billion on various rebuilding and development activities in the country, of which only 12 percent has been channelled through the government, the country's Finance Ministry said.

Speaking in the wake of Afghanistan's Development Forum (ADF) held on 29-30 April in Kabul aimed at assessing development outcomes and the country's future needs, Finance Minister Anwar-ul-Haq Ahady said: "We are accountable for only US$3.7 billion of the US$12.8 billion of aid money that has been spent in the country in the last five years: the rest has been spent by donors themselves," said Ahady.

Foreign aid bypassing government systems - Some Afghan legislators have criticized the way aid money has been distributed through a cascade of foreign subcontractors which, they say, siphons off international funding to one of the world's least developed countries.

Mustafa Kazimi, chairman of the economy committee of the Afghan parliament's lower house, said: "Out of every US dollar spent by donors on Afghanistan 's reconstruction 80 cents finds its way out of the country".

"We have about 60 donors," said Ishaq Nadiri, senior economic adviser to Afghan President Hamid Karzai. "There is a need for the international aid money to be rationalised and made more meaningful to the citizens of Afghanistan".

Praful Patel, South Asia Regional Vice-President of the World Bank, said at the forum that the coordination of aid to Afghanistan had been poor. He confirmed that two-thirds of all development expenditure in Afghanistan bypassed the government's systems. "No wonder we ask ourselves why there is so little capacity built despite the fact that about $1.6 billion has been spent on technical assistance in the last five years".

"But then we get cases when a school is built but no teachers are available simply because the ministry did not know about it and did not staff it. Or infrastructure is provided that will deteriorate rapidly because the ministry is unaware of it and does not include maintenance costs in the budget," Patel said.

The EC allocates about 50 percent of its overall funding to Afghanistan to government-managed trust funds and programmes, an official in Kabul confirmed.

Lindy Cameron, a representative for Britain's Department for International Development in Kabul, told IRIN that the organisation spends 80 percent of its aid money through Afghan government channels.

The asymmetric expenditure of international aid money by the government of Afghanistan and some donors, will be fixed once public institutions start functioning efficiently and the capacity to implement and monitor development projects is established, added another donor who preferred to remain anonymous.

At the ADF, "the government of Afghanistan conveyed a very convincing message to donors about aid effectiveness," Alastair J. Mckechnie, World Bank's director for Afghanistan, said.

The UN's top official for Afghanistan acknowledged some limitations which were affecting the issue of aid management by the Afghan government. "Some donors' have constitutions that restrict aid money channelled through the recipient country's government," said Koenigs.

Acknowledging concerns about low capacity in Afghanistan's nascent public institutions, the Afghan government has called on donors to ensure sustainable effectiveness and better coherence in their engagements in Afghanistan.

"The Ministry of Finance itself acknowledged that there is a problem in the budget execution capacity of many ministries. Presenting the 1386 [2007] budget to the parliament, the minister showed how around 500 million dollars of resources are carry-over funds not yet spent in 1385," remarked Mario Ragazzi, a communications officer for the European Commission (EC) in Kabul.

Some Afghan officials challenge the current criticism of weak capacity in state bodies, saying it is an ineffective metaphor. "Only in the last three months," said Ehsan Zia, Afghanistan's Minister of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD), "we have lost eight professional staff all of whom have been absorbed by international organisations offering attractive salaries."

"Donors and international organisations buy capacity in our modest human resource market at the cost of public institutions," she added.

New French government must withdraw troops: Taliban

May 7, 2007 - KABUL (AFP) - A new French government must pull troops out of Afghanistan, the Taliban said Monday after France's presidential election, and offered to extend a deadline over the release of a French hostage.

A spokesman said the insurgent movement is ready to extend the deadline for its demands to be met for the release of the Terre d'Enfance (A World For Our Children) aid worker if the Afghan and French governments make contact.

"We ask the new French government to secure the national interests of France and Afghanistan," Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP here hours after rightwinger Nicolas Sarkozy won the election.

"It mustn't sacrifice its national interests for the interests and strategies of the Americans. It is also not fair that the French youth or the Afghan youth die in fighting.

"Our first demand from the new government of France is that before anything else they must present an exact timetable for the withdrawal of their troops from Afghanistan."

The hardline Taliban, which was in government between 1996 and 2001, is waging a growing insurgency that is being tackled by troops from Afghanistan and 37 other countries, including France which has about 1,000 troops here.

The Taliban was driven from power by a US-led coalition in late 2001 in the wake of the September 11 attacks in the United States.

The group has demanded the French troops leave or that Taliban prisoners be freed from Afghan jails in exchange for volunteer Eric Damfreville and three Afghan co-workers captured more than a month ago.

"As we said earlier, our deadline extends at the end of the election process in France," Ahmadi said. He said Sunday that this meant until the new government was in place, which should be around late June.

"If anybody contacts us, either the Afghan government or the French government, about the hostages, we are ready to further extend the deadline," Ahmadi said.

Another Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said the group did not yet have an exact date for the deadline. "We will wait for a while after the election of the president. He will be busy with internal issues of his government but he will also pay attention to foreign issues," he said.

The spokesmen said last week that a Taliban council of leaders would decide what to do with the hostages, should the demands not be met. The Taliban's policy "regarding the foreign hostages is clear," Ahmadi said.

While the extremists have beheaded several Afghans -- many accused of spying -- their foreign victims have mostly been Turkish and Indian roadworkers and engineers helping to develop southern Afghanistan.

The Afghan government is "working very hard to secure the release of the French national and Afghans," spokesman Zemarai Bashary told reporters in Kabul.

"We request from those who have taken them hostage to free them because they are not political and military personnel, they were here just to help people," he said.

The Afghan government was severely criticised for releasing in March five Taliban prisoners in exchange for an Italian captive and has vowed not to repeat the deal. The Italian's Afghan driver and interpreter were beheaded.

Ambassador Samad on the current situation in Afghanistan

OMAR SAMAD - Globe and Mail commentary Update May 7, 2007

While the Afghan detainee access and treatment issue has kept Canadian politicians and media very busy over the past two weeks, the people of Afghanistan continued to face a series of serious challenges on the security, economic-development and state-building fronts almost 5½ years following the ouster of the Taliban.

As far as the detainee issue is concerned, the Afghans, having previously reached similar bilateral arrangements with some other nations, did not hesitate to update and upgrade the 2005 arrangement to give further assurances to Canada that we are willing to work together to improve detainee conditions under the law, to provide direct access for monitoring and, more importantly, to continue with the important job of helping restore good governance practices and advance the cause of implementing rule of law in the country.

Afghans realized that the allegations need to be looked into, that the claims need to be checked for validity and that, as part of the reforms that are taking place in a devastated country with 30 years of conflict behind, we need to find solutions that work for Afghanistan and the international community, by realizing that state-building is a long-term proposition that takes time, capacity, resources and political will.

On other fronts, the armed Taliban factions, who are increasingly resorting to extreme methods of violence against soft and hard targets, are becoming more adept at manipulating public opinions through kidnappings, suicide attacks and intimidation tactics to weaken our resolve.

The Afghan people dread their attempts at making a comeback. That would be the end of democracy, human rights, education for girls and rights for women, development and reconstruction.

By association with extremist and terrorist groups, it would also re-create a serious threat to security at the regional as well as global levels.

We cannot allow that to happen.

We need to push ahead on the security front to stabilize the provinces along the Afghan-Pakistan Durand Line frontier and continue to engage regional countries, especially Pakistan to work with us to prevent extremist and terrorist elements from finding refuge, arms, resources and training in our region.

On the other hand we need to accelerate our efforts at putting people to work through developmental projects that promote economic growth, help institutions with capacity building and service delivery, and fight corruption and the poppy-dependent economy.

NATO and other international security forces also need to increase their levels of coordination with Afghans and amongst each other to prevent civilian casualties, and come up with measures to maintain trust and friendship with locals.

Donor countries and organizations from more than 60 nations met in Kabul last week as part of the Afghanistan Development Forum to address the country's development priorities. The Afghans expressed their appreciation for continued international assistance to help with all recovery and reform benchmarks. We also made it clear that people now expect to see aid money be better managed and provide effective results that can be felt and seen.

Afghanistan is still a fragile country in transition from war and devastation to peace and rebuilding. It faces numerous challenges, but its people are eager for change and the international community's commitment to work on this strategic mission in one of the world's poorest and most disadvantaged nations is one key factor for success.

Why Canada should stay

Al Qaeda poses a threat to this country that will not decrease if we withdraw troops from Kandahar, says Seth G. Jones

May 07, 2007 – Toronto Star, Seth G. Jones

There is a growing movement in Canada to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, illustrated by such newspaper headlines as: "Is it time to go?" and "Canada must leave Afghanistan." Such a move would be a tragic mistake. Withdrawing would be a severe blow to NATO's efforts in Afghanistan and would ultimately undermine Canada's own security.

There are at least three myths in the Canadian media that need to be dispelled.

The first myth is that Canada has no significant national security interests in Afghanistan. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Pakistan-Afghanistan front is the headquarters of Al Qaeda, which is a more competent international terrorist organization than it was on Sept. 11, 2001. It has close links with the Taliban and is led by Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri, who have been pivotal in the rise of suicide attacks against NATO soldiers in Afghanistan.

Al Qaeda possesses a robust strategic, logistics and public relations network in Pakistan, especially in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. This infrastructure has enabled it to play an important role in orchestrating international terrorist attacks. Canadian cities are also threatened. As an October 2006 Al Qaeda statement warned, Canada faces "an operation similar to New York, Madrid, London and their sisters, with the help of Allah."

Al Qaeda has been involved in an average of six major global attacks per year since 2002, up from one attack per year from 1995 to 2001. These attacks have spanned multiple regions, including Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. It is also involved in hundreds of smaller attacks each year in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Al Qaeda's modus operandi has evolved and now includes a repertoire of more sophisticated improvised explosive devices and suicide attacks. Its organizational structure has also evolved, making it a more dangerous enemy. This includes a "bottom up" approach (encouraging independent thought and action from low-level operatives) and a "top down" one (issuing orders and co-ordinating a global terrorist enterprise with both highly synchronized and autonomous moving parts).

Al Qaeda poses a threat to Canada, which will not decrease if Canada withdraws. Canada's values are ultimately at odds with a terrorist organization that is committed to the restoration of the Caliphate in the Middle East and the establishment of a radical version of Islam. Al Qaeda needs to be destroyed, not appeased.

The second myth is that Canada should withdraw because other NATO countries are not pulling their weight. It is certainly true that several NATO countries have severely restricted the ability of their conventional forces to fight. The result is that a few countries – such as Canada, Britain and the U.S. – share a disproportionate amount of the risks in Afghanistan.

But this is not a reason to withdraw. It brings Canada into a small group of countries that speak with their actions. For better or worse, coalition operations always include a wide variation in the competence and commitment of participating countries.

Canadian soldiers have demonstrated in Afghanistan that they are among the most competent in the world. I have travelled to Afghanistan regularly for the past four years and have seen Canadian operations from the front lines.

During Operation Medusa in 2006, for example, Canadian military forces prevented the Taliban from overrunning the strategically important city of Kandahar, home of Taliban leader Mullah Omar. The Canadians faced an embattled Taliban force that dug trenches and engaged Canadian forces with recoilless rifles, mortars, rockets and heavy machine guns. Taliban losses were staggering. Withdrawing Canada's battle-hardened forces from Afghanistan would be a huge blow to NATO.

The third myth is that Afghanistan is largely hopeless. To be fair, NATO operations in Afghanistan have been mixed. The Taliban and other groups have engineered a competent insurgency from bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The insurgency will ultimately be won or lost in the rural areas of Afghanistan, not in the cities. NATO countries have struggled to secure and rebuild rural areas in the south and east. Part of the reason has been too few international forces and poor Afghan governance. The ability of insurgent groups to establish a sanctuary in Pashtun areas of Pakistan has also been critical to their survival.

But there are clear successes. The security situation in western, central and northern Afghanistan is relatively benign. Afghans overwhelmingly support the NATO military presence.

It would be a mistake to sugarcoat NATO's efforts in Afghanistan. But the failure to eliminate Al Qaeda and other groups should not be viewed as a reason to pull out. A RAND Corporation study I conducted of all counter-insurgencies since 1945 indicates that it takes an average of 14 years for governments to defeat insurgents. Greater patience and resolve are required.

Canada's role in Afghanistan is critical to defeating Al Qaeda and radical Islam more broadly. Success will take time and sufficient resources. It would be a tragedy if the naysayers in Canada succeeded in reducing their country's commitment.

Seth G. Jones is a political scientist at the RAND Corporation and adjunct professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

The Afghan detainee deal's fine, but let's focus on the big picture

JEFFREY SIMPSON - From Saturday's Globe and Mail, May 5, 2007 at 9:48 AM EDT

The new deal for treating and inspecting the treatment of Afghan "detainees"
is welcome, if overdue. The controversy, fuelled by reporting in The Globe
and Mail, certainly made the Harper government look less than sure-footed
and exposed cracks in the government.

The "detainee" affair, therefore, has done its work in the sense that the
situation should improve. Now, perhaps, focus can return to the big picture
in Afghanistan.

Canadian forces are in Kandahar province, the old heartland of the Taliban
and former home to the Taliban's leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar. When the
Taliban regime was toppled, he and others fled to Pakistan, where they have
regrouped, attracted new recruits and renewed their links with the
international jihadists in al-Qaeda.

The success of the jihadists in Iraq, courtesy of the disastrous U.S.
invasion and resulting sectarian violence, has become a terrific recruiting
and fundraising tool for al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies in Pakistan.
Occasionally, the Pakistani government rounds up an al-Qaeda bigwig to
demonstrate its support for the "war on terror." More often, however,
Pakistani authorities think it's too risky to themselves and their
institutions to crack down.

Inspired by tactics in Iraq, the Taliban began using suicide bombings and
improvised road devices in Afghanistan against Canadian and other forces.
Taliban attacks against NATO forces rose from 1,632 in 2005 to 5,388 in
2006. Suicide operations jumped from 27 in 2005 to 139 in 2006, and many
reports from the borderlands of Pakistan report recruitment of future
suicide bombers is going well. These are the tactics that have killed and
wounded Canadians, not firefights of the kind the Taliban sensibly resist.

The openness of the Pakistani-Afghan border remains one of the insurgents'
huge advantages. An essential doctrine of successful counterinsurgency is
that borders need to be sealed, so that insurgents cannot seek sanctuary or
be re-equipped. That's why the French built a huge wall and no-go zone along
the Algerian-Tunisian border during their unsuccessful "savage war of peace"
to keep Algeria French. The Israeli wall has the same ostensible military
objective: to keep Palestinian terrorists from Israel. U.S. military
incursions into Cambodia and Laos during the Vietnam War reflected
frustration at Vietnam's open western borders.

Bruce Riedel, a career CIA officer now with the Brookings Institution in
Washington, writes in the latest Foreign Affairs journal that al-Qaeda has
regrouped in Afghanistan, opened a second military front in Iraq and
assisted its "Taliban allies making a comeback in Afghanistan." If NATO were
to withdraw from Afghanistan, he writes, the Taliban would get a "big
boost."

NATO is not likely to be leaving Afghanistan soon, but it isn't likely to do
much more there, either. At the moment, no one is making noises about
replacing the Canadian, British and Dutch soldiers in the southern provinces
where the fighting occurs. Australia, a non-NATO country, and Poland have
committed additional troops, but other governments are unwilling to send
more.

Mr. Riedel urges more U.S. troops for Afghanistan, but that idea won't fly
because of President George W. Bush's "surge" committing so many additional
forces to Iraq to stem the violence there. Every indication from Washington
suggests the U.S. military is stretched too thin because of the demands of
Iraq.

Counterinsurgencies are not won (if they can be won) by military means
alone. Aid and reconstruction are critical as tools to win "hearts and
minds." These budgets in Afghanistan are dwarfed by military expenditures.
The financial commitments that donor countries made at conferences in London
and Bonn about Afghanistan's future have not been met.

"Hearts and minds" are also won by confidence in local government, but, in
Afghanistan, what we would define as "corruption" is deeply embedded in
society and politics. The opium economy continues to flourish. In the words
of a participant at a conference on Afghanistan organized by the
Waterloo-based Centre for International Governance, the drug trade offers a
"stunning example of tribal co-operation and communication."

Warlordism and tribal power politics are facts of life, and always will be.
These realities may offend the tender sensitivities of Canadians, as do the
ways that Afghans sometimes treat each other in prison. Afghans have a very
different conception of how society should operate than Canadians do, and
Canadians are dangerously kidding themselves if they believe this conception
can be changed.

The Kabul government's sway is weak, and will remain weak. Pakistan thinks
of Afghanistan as its playground, and will continue to do so. The border has
always been porous, and will remain so. The society, by our standards, has
been corrupt, and will always be. The drug trade is the largest part of the
private economy, and nothing will change that.

Canada can try to ensure better treatment for "detainees." That reality can
change a little. The other realities will be harder to adjust.

When does an Afghan become a detainee?

Critics say latest comments from DND expose conundrum in new policy on those arrested by Canadians

ALEX DOBROTA - From Monday's Globe and Mail May 7, 2007

Ottawa — The Defence Department's latest statement about an Afghan man whose mistreatment by local police caused an uproar in Parliament last week has done little to clarify the incident, according to critics of Canadian detainee policies – and may also expose gaps in the newest agreement on the treatment of prisoners in Afghanistan.

The detainee who was beaten while in Afghan National Police custody in 2006 and rescued by Canadian troops was never captured by Canadian Forces in the first place, the Department of National Defence claimed.

The soldiers were only questioning the civilian before he was arrested by the Afghan police, Lieutenant-General Walter Natynczyk said in a statement. For the Conservative government, the claim will likely serve to ward off some of the heat it has been taking over the past two weeks on its detainee policy.

But for critics, this new version of events raises the question of when an Afghan individual officially becomes a Canadian prisoner. And the answer is absent from the new agreement on detainees brokered by the Tories, critics have said.

“It just seems that it's getting more and more confusing as to when the detainee transfer agreement applies and when it doesn't,” said Alex Neve, secretary-general of Amnesty International Canada.

“It just puts some more confusion,” echoed Denis Coderre, Liberal defence critic. “The more you dig the more you find.”

Colonel Steven Noonan, a former task-force commander in Afghanistan, disclosed the incident of the beaten man in a Federal Court affidavit that forms part of the government's response to a legal challenge by Amnesty International Canada and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association to stop all further detainee transfers.

Col. Noonan's sworn evidence was cited by the Opposition in Friday's Question Period to challenge Tory claims that government officials had no knowledge of cases where detainees handed over to Afghan authorities were beaten or tortured.

DND issued a terse statement Friday that clearly set out to contradict media reports and opposition claims about the incident. Lt.-Gen. Natynczyk said the soldiers approached the man in the village of Zangabad, but never detained him.

“From their questions, the [Canadian Forces] members concluded that there was no need to detain the individual as he was of no value or threat to them,” Lt.-Gen. Natynczyk said. “Subsequently, the local Afghan National Police arrested him.”

It remains unclear, however, whether Canadian soldiers witnessed the arrest, or whether Afghan police officials saw the troops questioning the man. The statement only mentions that Canadian soldiers later visited the man in prison and noticed he had suffered “minor injuries” while in custody.

The soldiers took charge of the man and transferred him to another police detachment, the statement said. Lt.-Gen. Natanczyk was travelling outside the country and could not be reached to clarify his comments yesterday, DND spokeswoman Tanya Barnes said.

New school opens in Panjshir province

Source: North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Release # 2007-357

PANJSHIR PROVINCE, AFGHANISTAN (May 7) – Officials from the International Security Assistance Force Provincial Reconstruction Team Panjshir, along with the provincial governor, parliamentarian representative and an Afghan senator, celebrated the opening of a school here May 2.

The two-story Bazarak Girls School is the first for girls in the province providing education through the high school level. It will host approximately 3,000 students annually in 16 classrooms with desks and blackboards.

"Education is a priority for us," said Gov. Haji Buhlol Bajig. "The children have been eager to learn, and now they have the proper environment to do so."

"It's been a pleasure working with the PRT," Governor Buhlol said. "I hope the parliament members take this message back to the capital. We're working hard here and we want more funding."

The parliamentarian, senator and other provincial leaders addressed the gathered crowd of more than 200 before cutting the ribbon.

"If the girls are educated, then the mothers will be educated and the future of our children and our country will be different than in years past," said Parliament member Judge Rahala. "Islam emphasizes education, and we can not ignore half of the population." Lt. Col. Chris Luedtke, Panjshir PRT commander, noted Panjshir's reputation for vigilance.

"Panjshiris fought for Afghanistan, and now Panjshir fights for all children's education," Colonel Luedtke said. "This was a dream of Panjshiris, built by the hands of Panjshiris, and now it will be filled with Panjshiris."

Afghanistan trying to curb news media

KABUL, Afghanistan, May 7 (UPI) -- Afghanistan's government is attempting to curb the nation's independent news media, which have flourished since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

For the past year, The New York Times reported, the Afghan government has been trying to quell the growth of the independent news media, as government officials try to fend off accusations of corruption and ineffectiveness. Because of government worries, Parliament is considering amendments that critics say would undo much of the press freedom that has been achieved since the Taliban's fall.

Aqa Fazil Sancharaki -- director of the Afghanistan National Journalists' Union, which has been fighting the amendments -- said he was not optimistic. He said one of his main concerns is the possible establishment of a media commission under strong government control.

"The government does not want to see and hear about its corruption and weaknesses on the media," said Shukria Barakzai, a member of Parliament and a former journalist.

The proposal before Parliament would rule out any coverage seen as violating the provisions of Islam or insulting other religions, the Times reported.

Afghanistan Persuades Truckers to End Strike

Government agrees to provide a written assurance of acceptance of their demands

Ghafar Ali Khan - english.ohmynews.com May 7, 2007

Negotiations between the Afghan government and the truckers who have been on strike for the last nine days have reached a successful conclusion but the truckers have asked for a written assurance of the acceptance of their demands before they end the strike.

Around 15,000 heavy trucks transporting petroleum, edible goods, construction materials and other goods for NATO forces and Afghanistan are stopped on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

The truckers' demands include a reduction in the taxes levied by the Afghan government and the elimination of illegal taxes charged by Afghan warlords at various points on the highway leading from Torkham to Kabul.

During the nine-day strike the supply of goods to NATO forces and Afghanistan had completely halted and the truckers were determined to continue their protest for an indefinite period if their demands were not met.

Afghan Goods Transport Association chief Haji Abdul Rehman told journalists that they held negotiations in the Nangarhar province of Afghanistan with Gov. Gul Agha Sherzai and Afghan commanders.

"They had accepted our demands but we will not end the strike until the Afghan authorities announce acceptance of our demands on media," said Rehman. "We also want written assurance from the Afghan authorities that no illegal tax will be extorted from truckers in future."

"The Nangarhar governor has assured us that most of the posts between Torkham border and Jalalabad had been abolished and no bribes will be taken from the truckers in future and the tax levied by the provincial will also be withdrawn," Rehman said.

He said that the Pakistan home department had assured him of the acceptance of their demands.

A delegation of the truckers association has also been dispatched to Kabul, where they will hold further negotiations with high officials. "We are expecting some positive results within a couple of days," Rehman said.

Rehman was taken into police custody this weekend in the Pakistani city of Peshawar. The police have said that he would be released on bail in a day or so. He faces charges for parking heavy trucks on the roadside and causing traffic jams in the city.

Parliamentary commissions to probe Farid's killing

KABUL, May 5 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Three commissions of the Upper House were Saturday tasked with investigating the assassination of Senator Abdul Saboor Farid. They will probe the murder in coordination with other security agencies.

Abdul Saboor Farid, former prime minister and renowned jihadi leader of the Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA), was gunned down near his residence in the posh Khairkhana neighbourhood in the capital on May 2.

A decision on assigning the investigation to the three house panels was taken at an emergency session of the Meshrano Jirga. Aminuddin Muzaffari, first secretary to the Upper House, told media-people the senators condemned Ustad Farid's killing in the strongest of terms.

Commissions on interior and defence affairs, safety and security of parliamentarians and complaints were ordered to coordinate the probe with other security organs to make sure the killers were brought to justice.

"Some members suggested Farid's replacement should come from the Kapisa province that he represented," the secretary said, but others insisted on the selection of a competent member from the slain senator's family.

According to the Afghan Constitution, 34 of the 102 members of the Upper House are to be nominated by the president and the rest elected through provincial and district councils. The relevant law says if a selected MP dies, the president has the right to name a new member in his/her place.

Muzaffari said the senators accused the government of failing to protect the lives of parliamentarians, much less the ordinary Afghans, even in the nation's capital.

Muhammad Younus Qanuni, speaker of the Lower House, condemned recent civilian deaths in Coalition operations in Nangarhar and Herat provinces. "We are extremely saddened by the raids in Ghanikhel district and Zerkoh Valley, which offer a grave cause for concern."

Out of the ruins...

By Rachel Morajee, Published: May 4 2007

The spiral staircase winds up to a rooftop overlooking the mountains around Kabul, mud-brick houses clinging to their sides like swallows’ nests. But Shawali Bahani’s house bears little resemblance to those traditional adobe constructions.

Green-and-white candy-striped columns twirl up the front of the 37-room mansion and there are three tiers of balconies fronted by butterscotch coloured glass. “I built this house for foreigners,” explains Bahani, a 53-year-old engineer. “Afghans couldn’t afford to live here.”

But apparently expatriates don’t want to either. The property, a $300,000 investment, has lain vacant for more than a year – clear evidence that the Afghanistan capital’s property market, so euphoric with speculative development after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, has crashed back down to earth.

“There is loads of rubbish on the market,” says Richard Scarth, a British chartered surveyor who runs the Kabul-based Property Consulting Afghanistan. “Who wants to live in a 28-bedroom house with 10 bathrooms, no garden and nowhere to park a car? No one.”

Such extravagance didn’t seem so crazy six years ago. Real estate prices in Kabul were higher than Tokyo or New York as thousands of international aid workers and consultants poured into the bombed out remains of the city. News agencies were paying thousands of dollars for one house with no running water and an unexploded rocket in the basement.

Mirwais Ekhsani, a 22-year-old realtor who runs the Wazir Akbar Khan Property agency, recalls a time before the hardline Islamic regime ended when he rented a four-bedroom house to a Danish charity for $500 a month and danced with joy. By contrast; “in 2002, right after the Taliban fell, it was possible to rent a house like that for $15,000 a month.”

But the market has changed dramatically in the past few years. “Now you would get $3,000 to $4,000,” Ekhsani says. Land prices in central Kabul have fallen from $500 per square metre to $300 per square metre. And speculative investors such as Bahani, who counted on a big influx of wealthy foreigners looking for lavish properties, have been left in a lurch.

Still, many market observers see the correction as a positive development – a sign that Kabul is rebuilding and stabilising. Previously, the only viable place for foreigners to live was Wazir Akbar Khan, a neighbourhood in the eastern part of the city made famous by the best-selling novel The Kite Runner and seen as the Beverley Hills of Afghanistan in the 1960s. Because the area had been occupied by mujahedin commanders, many of its houses, with original fittings and swimming pools, survived and were eventually rented to embassies and aid organisations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Even here, however, the number of properties totalled only 450 in 2001. In the past six years, that supply has doubled. The neighbourhood is now a more social one, with Thai, Lebanese and Croatian restaurants, and five-bedroom homes sell for more than $500,000.

More importantly, perhaps, the building boom has spread to other parts of the city. Neighbouring Shir Poor, for example, is filled with vast Pakistani-designed villas plated with hundreds of mirrored tiles. These properties typically belong to wealthier officials in Hamid Karzai’s administration, though the previous residents, bulldozed out in 2003, were never compensated.

Elsewhere, whole neighborhoods destroyed by the fighting, such as Karte Char and Karte Se in western Kabul, have slowly been rebuilt, driving prices down and allowing foreign companies, aid agencies and their employees to move in. “Every house in Kabul has the same problems with water and electricity, so people are now thinking: ‘Why not move to a district further west and pay half the price?’ ” says Naser Shahalemi, operational director of Gilbert Real Estate, a US-backed estate agency that does business all over the country.

These re-emerging neighbourhoods are full of modest, three- or four-bedroom homes in streets that bustle with small tailor’s shops, beauticians and fruit stalls only half and hour’s drive away from Kabul’s embassies and the United Nations offices. But evidence of the recent conflict remains. Sitting in the garden of his three-house compound in Karte Char, where roses are just coming into bloom, New York-based owner Torialai Popal points to the bullet marks in the property next door. “My houses were like that,” he says. “It was an absolute disaster. It took a lot of work to make them habitable again.”

Ordinary Afghans are still strugging to recover. The Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC), which renovates houses and mosques and repaves roads and digs drains in Kabul’s medieval old city, has tried to set an example by restoring seven mud-brick houses with delicately carved doors and window panels and elaborate plasterwork.

Many homeowners think they are too poor to do the work themselves, explains Jolyon Leslie, head of the AKTC, but such projects prove that damaged and derelict properties can be modernised with proper electrics and bathrooms for as little as $3,000.

Walking up a staircase where an adobe nook for an oil lamp sits next to a modern light switch, he points out the mix of old and new. “The oil lamp is for the nights when there is no power,” he says.

When AKTC started its work, Kabul’s historic quarter was under threat from developers who saw it as a slum that should be pulled down. But the group’s efforts to clear the streets and restore older houses has paid off. “The owners can see that these houses can be very comfortable and they are enormously proud of how beautiful they are,” Leslie says.

The programme has also retrained scores of carpenters, stone masons and builders in traditional techniques as well as generating hundreds of days of work for unskilled labourers. But this is a drop in the bucket in the face of Kabul’s breakneck growth.

More development – not of expensive mansions but of standard homes and apartments and infrastructure – is desperately needed to serve the city’s booming population. Thirty years ago, when Afghanistan was still a mecca for backpacking hippies, the capital had 750,000 residents. By 1999 it had 1.8m and, according to World Bank estimates, the number grew at 15 per cent per year for the next five years. Larger than the next 10 largest Afghan cities combined, it is now groaning under the weight of its own growth.

Only 18 per cent of homes have access to running water, electricity is available less than one day in three in the winter months and the streets are full of sewage. Foreign aid agencies have moved in to help fix these problems but the side effect has been to push poor and even middle class Afghans out of the market. In Microrayon, a Soviet-built housing project that straddled the front line during the civil war, boxy two-bedroom flats rent for at least $300 a month, six times the average government official’s salary.

This imbalance has a wider impact, says Hamid Hamedy of Hamedy Real Estate. “The cost of living is what drives corruption,” he says. “Officials have to live in the city but can’t afford a home.”

“There is huge demand for affordable homes,” agrees Naser Shahalemi, of Gilbert Real Estate, who is currently in talks with a Dubai bank to secure mortgage lending for lower-income Afghans. “If you could build decent-quality flats where people could pay $300 a month, you would make money.”

Raising the investment for more housing will depend on the security situation. Confidence was dented a year ago after the government lost control of the city to riots and crowds of young boys set about looting and burning. “It really set the market back,” Torialai acknowledges. “Foreigners were the target of the riots and it worried them but a lot of Afghan investors also pulled their money out.”

With rising crime and a growing battle against Taliban insurgents in the south and east of the country, the risks are great. But, as the centre of the multi-billion dollar aid effort, Kabul will continue to see good demand for quality housing. Scarth – who with the London Development Agency helped prepare east London for commercial development even though some plots were owned by 100 parties and had no access to roads – thinks the situation in Kabul is similar. “You have to create the conditions for investment,” he says. “Kabul is crying out for the same sort of agency.”

In the up and coming Karte Se neighbourhood, residents agree that better development planning would be welcome but many are thankful simply for peace. “There are no parks, not enough electricity and water but at least we can still make a living,” says Mohammed Akwali, a tailor whose shop opens on to a busy street. “No one is fighting here anymore.”

Disfiguring skin disease plagues Afghanistan

By Robert Birsel - May 7, 2007 - KABUL (Reuters) - The 10-year-old Afghan girl has big eyes, a shy smile and a dark lesion speckled with blood on her right cheek.

The girl has leishmaniasis, a disease caused by a parasite transmitted by a tiny sandfly that can lead to severe scarring, often on the face. The girl, Sahima, wearing a purple tunic and trousers and pale blue shoes, answers "no" softly when asked if the sore hurts.

But her father is worried about the lesion, the size of a big coin. "Of course, this doesn't look good," the father, Najibullah, said at a leishmaniasis clinic crowded with children with sores in the Afghan capital, Kabul.

Najibullah said he first noticed a mark on his daughter's face two months ago. "It was a very small dot but it grew and grew. If it grows any more it will cover her whole face."

Leishmaniasis isn't a priority for the government and its aid donors, grappling with shocking rates of infant mortality, tuberculosis, malaria and trauma.

The most common form of the disease is not fatal but it causes untold misery. Victims with scarring on their faces are stigmatized: children are excluded at school and girls often won't be able to find husbands.

Long-neglected by the rich world, the disease is attracting a bit more attention in the West, if not more funds.

Some foreign troops in Afghanistan and Iraq have also been bitten by the sandflies and have developed the disease. NATO saw about 150 cases in Afghanistan in 2005 and about 12 last year, a force spokeswoman said.

NATO camps have been fortified to try to stop the sandflies and soldiers are warned to keep sleeves rolled down, to use insect repellant and to watch for bites.

But it's Afghanistan's poor who are most vulnerable. Kabul, battered and neglected for years, has the world's worst outbreak of leishmaniasis, health experts say.

"It's out of control, absolutely out of control," said Reto Steiner, a medic with the German Medical Service which helps run the Kabul clinic. "You won't control it until the sanitation has recovered."

The deep ulcers caused by the parasites will heal if left untreated, but that invariably involves disfigurement and can take many months. That has given rise to one of the diseases many nicknames: saldana, or one-year sore.

Though present in all Afghan cities, it is in Kabul's crowded neighborhoods that the disease has exploded and spread to hundreds of thousands of people.

"When we have one case in a family, of course, it's not only one case: it will be all the family and even the neighbors," said Health Ministry official Abdullah Fahim.

The sandflies that spread the parasites are carried by animals including dogs and a species of gerbil, as well as people. The insects often breed on waste land and in rubbish.

Although they don't fly well, the insects infest the cracks and crevices in people's homes from where they emerge to bite exposed parts of the body -- noses, chins, cheeks and hands -- as people sleep, from late spring to autumn.

"It's a disease of destruction," said Toby Leslie, a researcher from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. "It will thrive in post-war areas and areas where there's poor sanitation, poor community services."

Cutaneous leishmaniasis is not fatal although a less-common form, visceral leishmaniasis, can cause organ failure and death. "Leishmaniasis is one of the top neglected diseases, certainly outside Africa, and it just doesn't attract the funding that's needed," Leslie said.

Doctor Faquir Amin says he's been treating leishmaniasis since the 1960s. Refugees returning from abroad are particularly susceptible as they have no resistance, he said.

"No one's taking care of it. The people are coming, it's crowded, the people are susceptible and the disease is increasing," Amin said at his Kabul clinic. "It is not a killer disease but mentally people suffer. We have to deal with it."

The sores are treated with a course of injections, or cauterized to kill the parasites. Amin's clinic has the only laser cauterizing machine in Afghanistan. Electric cauterizing machines are also effective and much cheaper. Prevention is also key, experts say.

Bed nets impregnated with insecticide are being distributed to stop malaria and they will also stop sandflies spreading leishmaniasis. But only a few nets are being distributed compared with the number needed.

"The ministry is battling to get funds and no one's interested. It's impossible to get funds," said Health Ministry adviser Kathy Fiekert. "This is an issue that needs to be addressed."

[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.]