In this bulletin:

• Foreign troops would leave Afghanistan when al Qaeda is wiped out: Karzai
• Afghan President Invites Taliban Leader to Talks
• Pak, Afghan soldiers clash again on border
• Ten killed in Afghan blasts
• 14 Taliban killed in western Afghanistan
• Taliban claim capture of Dadullah's betrayer
• Blair lauds role of Karzai in war on terror
• ITALY: FOREIGN MINISTER TO VISIT AFGHANISTAN
• Afghan statesman fears country losing hope Gov't urged to forge new direction
• In Afghanistan, a slain hero is enlisted in battle against Taliban
• Denmark to return 4,000 Afghan treasures
• 'Appropriate' force used in civilian death incident: US
• Afghan battle lines become blurred
  Tories hold up committee delving into Afghan human rights
• Political interference at heart of Afghan document coverup: professor
• Karzai could do PM a favour and boot us out
• SAARC: Afghanistan comes in from the cold
• Forgotten women turn Kabul into widows' capital
• Was Osama Right?
• Back in circulation, Kabul Weekly hits newsstands

Foreign troops would leave Afghanistan when al Qaeda is wiped out: Karzai - From our ANI Correspondent

Islamabad, May 17: Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said that foreign troops would not leave Afghanistan till al Qaeda remains active in the country. "Foreign troops would not leave till Al Qaeda, which is active in Afghanistan and Pakistan, is wiped out, and this may take two or three years or more," Karzai said in an interview to Pakistan Television.

"Foreign troops would leave Afghanistan when the country becomes stable and has functioning institutions like the army and police. We do not want the foreign troops to stay here forever. The foreign troops themselves are not happy to stay here; they want to leave, but we are keeping them here. Their presence is bringing foreign investment in the country and infrastructure development activity," Karzai added.

Karzai said Afghanistan was a sovereign country and had a right to develop relations with any country, adding that Kabul's relations with New Delhi would not harm Pak-Afghan relations at any point of time.

He further said nearly five million Afghan refugees had returned to their homeland from Pakistan and Iran, but many still had to return. Afghans, who were still in Pakistan, owned businesses here, and it was difficult for them to return immediately, Karzai added.

Afghan President Invites Taliban Leader to Talks

Asia Pulse - 05/17/2007 - HERAT CITY - Afghan President Hamid Karzai, calling Taliban fugitive chief Mullah Muhammad Omar his brother, urged him to hold talks with the government if he had any regard for the nation and the people of Afghanistan.

At the same time, the president said the violent acts of Mullah Omar and his group (Taliban) run contrary to the teachings of Islam.

Addressing a gathering of around 500 people during his visit to the Shindand district of the western Herat province, Karzai said any crime committed by genuine Afghan Taliban was forgivable.

The president, accompanied by some cabinet ministers and senior central and provincial officials, went to Shindand to mourn the death of civilians in an air strike late last month.

The US-led Coalition claimed they had killed 136 Taliban in the air raid. However, residents complained the majority of the victims were civilians.

Comforting the aggrieved residents, Karzai said the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan would once again push the country towards chaos and civil war.

The troops' withdrawal, he went on saying, would also pave the way for foreign interference as well as the emergence of warlords in every village and street.

Karzai said he was in Turkey during the military action in Shindand and asked for an immediate end as soon as he came to know about the fighting.

He assured the people that such actions would not be repeated and the troops would not carry out search operations without permission.

At the same time, he promised to widen the district hospital as well as provide electricity from Iran or Turkmenistan to the district.

On this occasion, the local elders complained about 'unwarranted' search operations and the air strikes by the foreign troops. (Pajhwok Afghan News)

Pak, Afghan soldiers clash again on border

Published: Friday, 18 May, 2007, 01:17 PM Doha Time

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani and Afghan troops exchanged mortar and gun fire on their disputed border yesterday, days after clashes on the frontier claimed more than a dozen lives.

The two-hour battle erupted after Afghan forces fired a mortar at Pakistani soldiers near the Teri Mangal area in the Kurram tribal district, Pakistani military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad said.

“The exchange of fire continued until 5am,” he said. “There was a brief resumption of firing around 7am, but it ended quickly. “There are no casualties on our side and we are not aware of any casualties on the Afghan side.”

The Afghan ministry of defence said 20 rockets were fired at Afghan military bases and that two members of its security forces were wounded. The clash happened near an area where a US soldier and a Pakistani trooper were shot dead on Monday after a meeting, also involving Afghan officials, that was aimed at calming tensions.

The Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan said on Wednesday there were reports the shooter was a man in Pakistani paramilitary uniform and demanded that Pakistan investigate the incident.

Yesterday’s clashes had been reported to a joint intelligence centre set up last year between Afghan, Pakistani and Nato forces, ISAF spokesman Major John Thomas said. “They are involved in trying to resolve it,” he added.

Afghan officials meanwhile accused Pakistan of starting clashes in the same area on Sunday that continued into Monday, saying Pakistani troops pushed 4km over the disputed border. Pakistan denied the charges.

Thirteen Afghans were killed in the fighting, which included rocket fire, Afghan officials said. Meanwhile on Thursday Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Afghanistan was saddened by the ongoing border clashes with Pakistan but hoped they would not affect a planned bilateral meeting to find ways of curbing the Taliban insurgency.

Afghanistan says Pakistani troops seized some high ground in a southeastern border region. Islamabad accuses Afghan troops of firing without provocation.
“We want an end to these skirmishes. It is not in the interest of any country,” Karzai replied when a reporter asked him to comment on the clashes, which Afghan officials say killed at least 13 police and soldiers and several civilians.

“Afghanistan is very sad about these incidents. Afghanistan does not like casualties on either side ...” he said. Karzai said he hoped there would be no repeat of the clashes and expressed the wish that a planned peace jirga, or council, aimed at finding ways to stop the Taliban cross-border infiltration and insurgency, would take place as planned between the two countries.

The meeting, to involve 700 politicians, tribal elders, scholars and writers from the two countries, is expected to be held in August. The Taliban’s ability to operate from sanctuaries in the tribal areas of Pakistan has been a thorny issue in ties between Kabul and Islamabad since US-led forces overthrew the Taliban government in Afghanistan in 2001.

The two countries have historical disagreements over the border and the skirmishes have further soured relations. The clashes came more than two weeks after Karzai and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf met for the first time in months and agreed to step up security cooperation.

Relations between the two leaders have deteriorated sharply over the past 18 months, amid an increase in Taliban attacks on Afghan and Western troops in Afghanistan.

Kabul and Islamabad accuse each other of not doing enough to stop Taliban violence. Karzai repeated on Wednesday that the violence in his country emanated from Pakistan, once a major backer of the Islamists. Pakistan denies that and says the root of the Taliban problem is in Afghanistan.

On Wednesday, thousands of Afghans chanted “Death to Pakistan, Death to Musharraf”, outside the Pakistani embassy in Kabul.  – Agencies

Ten killed in Afghan blasts

Associated Press - Friday, May 18, 2007 (Kandahar)

A suicide car bomber rammed into a government convoy in southern Afghanistan, killing three people on the street and wounding the information minister.
Earlier, two bomb blasts 15 minutes apart killed seven people in the province, including three police officers responding to the first explosion.

Kandahar Governor Asadullah Khalid said the suicide blast killed three civilians on the street and slightly wounded Information and Culture Minister Abdul Karim Khurram and his chief deputy in Kandahar province.

Both had been riding in one of the armored vehicles, Khalid said.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the two earlier attacks. The first blast, a remote-controlled bomb targeting a truck, killed four private security guards, said Esmatullah Alizai, Kandahar province's police chief.

About 15 minutes later, a second blast hit police inspecting the wreckage, killing three and wounding four, Alizai said. A police officer at the blast site earlier had said 10 police died in the blasts.

Kandahar has previously seen such double-blast attacks, a tactic often used by insurgents in Iraq, but they are still comparatively rare in Afghanistan. Qari Yousef Ahmadi, a purported Taliban spokesperson, said the attack was planned to target police responding to the blast.

''First we set off a remote control explosion on a police vehicle, then we were waiting for the police to arrive on the scene, then we did a second blast,'' Ahmadi said by satellite phone from an undisclosed location.

The blasts came less than a week after Taliban field commander Mullah Dadullah was killed during a US-led operation in Helmand province.

The Taliban have warned of ''bad consequences'' if the government did not hand over Dadullah's body to his relatives. Khalid has said that Dadullah was buried at a secret location near Kandahar.

In neighboring Helmand province, insurgents attacked a joint NATO and Afghan police patrol, causing an unknown number of casualties, officials said. The insurgents fired a rocket at the NATO vehicle and engaged in a gunbattle.

Sangin district police chief Ghulam Wali said the joint NATO-Afghan forces were patrolling on foot, and he believed only the driver was in the NATO vehicle when it was hit. The gunbattle continued Thursday evening.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force confirmed there was an incident with casualties in Helmand province but did not immediately have further details.

14 Taliban killed in western Afghanistan

By AMIR SHAH - Associated Press / May 18, 2007 - KABUL, Afghanistan - Airstrikes targeted a convoy of suspected Taliban militants who had left a meeting in western Afghanistan, killing 14 and wounding 10, a provincial governor said Friday.

The Taliban had met Thursday to appoint a leader in western Farah province, Gov. Muhaidin Baluch said. As they left the meeting in Bakwa district, airstrikes hit seven of their vehicles, he said.

Two of the 10 wounded lost their legs, and the 14 dead were buried near where they were killed, Baluch said. NATO's International Security Assistance Force and the U.S.-led coalition said they had looked into the report, but had no information about it.

In the eastern Khost province, coalition and Afghan forces detained five suspected militants and destroyed a cache of weapons, the coalition said. "Credible intelligence" led the forces to the compound suspected of housing an assassination cell.

In the southern city of Kandahar on Thursday evening, a suicide car bomber rammed a government convoy, killing three bystanders and wounding Information and Culture Minister Abdul Karim Khurram, according to Kandahar Gov. Asadullah Khalid.

Earlier, two bomb blasts 15 minutes apart killed seven people, including three police officers responding to the first explosion. The first blast — a remote-controlled bomb targeting a truck — killed four private security guards, said Esmatullah Alizai, Kandahar province's police chief. About 15 minutes later, a second blast hit police inspecting the wreckage, killing three.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for both attacks. Such double-blast attacks — a tactic often used by insurgents in Iraq — are still comparatively rare in Afghanistan.

The blasts came less than a week after Taliban field commander Mullah Dadullah was killed in a U.S.-led operation in Helmand province.

The Taliban have warned of "bad consequences" if the government did not hand over Dadullah's body to his relatives. Khalid has said that Dadullah was buried at a secret location near Kandahar.

Taliban claim capture of Dadullah's betrayer

May 18, 2007 - KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) - The Taliban said Friday it had arrested a close aide to the rebel movement's slain commander Mullah Dadullah for treachery that led to his killing.

"We have captured the spy who helped US forces kill Mullah Dadullah," Taliban spokesman Shohabudin Atal told AFP from an undisclosed location.

Dadullah, known as the Taliban's top military strategist, was killed in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province last Friday in a joint Afghan and international operation.

One-legged Dadullah was the most senior Taliban figure to be killed since the 2001 toppling of the extremist group's government.

Spokesman Atal declined to disclose the name of the captured man but said Dadullah had stopped at the house of the suspect in Helmand's Bahramcha district when he came under attack from coalition forces.

Atal said the fate of the suspected informer was undecided, but the hardliners have previously executed people they have accused of spying for foreign forces operating in the country.

The spokesman said Dadullah's body was removed by his fighters but the same suspect passed on the information to coalition forces, who moved in and seized the corpse, which was later displayed to the media.

Asked how the rebels knew the man was a spy, Atal said: "Each time there was a (coalition) strike the man would disappear and then reappear after the bombing was over."

Atal said the man had confessed to being a spy for the United States. The Afghan national intelligence department in Kabul said Wednesday the rebel commander was tracked "with (the) most modern intelligence technology from the Pakistani border before being killed."

NATO forces, which helped in the operation, said "as soon as we had information he was in the country, we pinpointed him very well and we started tracking him."

Blair lauds role of Karzai in war on terror

KABUL: British Prime Minister Tony Blair has lauded the role of Afghan President Hamid Karzai in war on terror. According to Radio Kabul, British Prime Minister in a telephonic conversation with Hamid Karzai lauded his role as a good ally in the war against terrorism.

He said that the efforts made by President Hamid Karzai for improving relations between Afghanistan and Britain were remarkable and praiseworthy. Tony Blair expressed the hope that the existing friendly cooperation and bilateral relationship will continue even after leaving office as his country's Prime Minister.

In response, President Karzai reciprocated similar views. He praised Tony Blair and the British people for their contribution in improving the lot of the Afghan people.

ITALY: FOREIGN MINISTER TO VISIT AFGHANISTAN

Rome, 17 May (AKI) - Italy's foreign minister Massimo D'Alema will next Monday make a brief visit to Afghanistan where he is expected to raise with the Afghan government of president Hamid Karzai the requisitioning of hospitals of Italian NGO Emergency in Afghanistan. D'Alema's spokesman said on Thursday that "we continue to hope and work for Emergency to resume its activity" in Afghanistan. The medical charity pulled out its staff in protest at the continued detention of its local leader Rahmatullah Hanefi, on accusations of colluding with the Taliban. Hanefi has been held since shortly after he successfully mediated for the release of a kidnapped Italian reporter in March.

As well as calling on Italian troops stationed in Afghanistan as part of the NATO-led peacekeeping force, D'Alema will also meet Karzai and foreign minister Rangin-Dadfar Spanta.

Italy is the lead country for the reform of Afghanistan's justice system and ahead of a conference in Rome on 3 July, D'Alema will meet the Afghan justice minister Sarwar Danish and the chief prosecutor Abdul Jabbar Sabbit.

The minister's spokesman Pasquale Ferrara told reporters on Thursday that "as far as we know if (Emergency) should no longer be present in Afghanistan, its hospitals and clinics would be given to the Afghan government: this is the philosophy of Emergency in all the countries where it operates."

After the Afghan visit, D'Alema will fly to the Pakistani capital Islamabad for the first visit by an Italian foreign minister for many years. He is due to have meetings with President General Pervez Musharraf, the prime minister Shaukat Aziz and his Pakistani counterpart Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri.

Afghan statesman fears country losing hope Gov't urged to forge new direction - National Post; CanWest News Service - Friday, May 18, 2007

KABUL - As one of Afghanistan's most seasoned statesmen, Abdullah Abdullah has seen it all: the epic fight to oust the Soviet occupiers, the war that followed between mujahedeen factions, and the oppressive years of the Taliban regime.

Then the Islamists fell, replaced eventually by an elected government that included him as foreign minister, and he felt a new era of hope had arrived.

But Abdullah, pushed out of his job last year, says he is fast losing the optimism he once felt. The regime, he complains, has become isolated from the people, seems incapable of improving ordinary Afghans' lives, and is rife with corruption.

"The people need to see progress," the veteran politician said in a blunt assessment of the situation. "Three years ago, the people were more hopeful than today. This trend cannot continue ... We shouldn't let them lose hope forever."

Abdullah said President Hamid Karzai has asked him to return to government, but he told him he would do it only if the administration takes a new direction, more responsive to the needs of ordinary Afghans.

Calling Canada one of the top-six foreign powers in his country, he urged Arif Lalani, the new Canadian ambassador, to keep his mind open and take a "fresh look" at Afghanistan. Canada has so far offered unwavering support for Karzai.

Yet Abdullah said he also believes that international forces fighting and dying in Afghanistan should stay put, and hopes his comments will not become fodder for politicians calling for Canadian troops to pull out. "Leaving it alone is not the answer."

Abdullah has been prominent in Afghan politics for more than 20 years. During the Soviet occupation, he was an aide to Ahmed Shah Massoud, the popular mujahedeen leader assassinated in 2001. He reportedly learned his elegant English from British MI6 agents supporting the anti-Soviet rebels.

He served as foreign minister during the ill-fated mujahedeen government of 1993 to 1996. Going into exile when the Taliban took over in 1996, he was part of the Northern Alliance and lobbied western governments for help in toppling the fundamentalist regime.

He became foreign minister again under Karzai, only to be shuffled out of cabinet last year. At his home in suburban Kabul he spoke out this week for one of the first times since his departure.

Apart from "weakness and incompetence," the government is growing ever farther from ordinary Afghans, running the country from cloistered offices in Kabul, the soft-spoken former ophthalmologist said.

Abdullah also argued that corruption can take different forms. Excess bureaucracy and high business taxes force some to take illegal action, smuggling their goods to Pakistan.

International contracts tend to be subcontracted several times, with each person taking a piece of the pie. The result is that only about $30,000 of an international donation of $100,000 will end up being applied to the project, he said.

Then there are the police involved in bribery and other crime. "One thing that shouldn't happen is the law enforcers violate the law themselves. It shouldn't be tolerated."

He also said people are baffled that the government and foreign forces have been unable to vanquish the Taliban, creating an uncertainty "that is the worst thing a nation can have."

His gloomy perspective, though, is not shared by Col. Don Dixon, the enthusiastic commander of the Canadian Forces strategic advisory team, which provides management aid to Afghan ministers.

Critics should remember that, in just five years, Afghanistan has developed a parliament, a constitution and a nascent army and national police force out of nothing, he said. "Look how far they've come ... I think it's quite miraculous."

Nor should the country be judged by the tumultuous state of the south, or by Kabul, where extreme poverty is still evident, Dixon said. The region around Balkh, in northern Afghanistan, for instance, is "almost like the land of milk and honey" now, with well-paved roads and people heavily employed in the fields.

The Canadian program is the only of its kind among the foreign countries heavily involved in Afghanistan's reconstruction. Members, almost all military officers with management expertise, serve as chiefs of staff or other senior officials, helping ministers implement their priorities and develop the civil service.

The British government has indicated it plans to set up an operation modelled after Canada's, Dixon said.

In Afghanistan, a slain hero is enlisted in battle against Taliban

By Tony Perry - Los Angeles Times May 18, 2007

PANJSHIR VALLEY, AFGHANISTAN — On a hill overlooking this verdant valley, U.S. and Afghan officials came together Thursday to praise the legacy of a legendary guerrilla fighter in hopes that his memory will serve as a rallying cry against a Taliban resurgence.

Ahmed Shah Massoud, 48, was killed in a suicide blast two days before the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The assassination was ordered by Osama bin Laden, apparently as a way to eliminate a natural ally of the United States if it invaded Afghanistan looking for the Al Qaeda leader.

Now, with those who succeeded the Taliban and their Western allies seeking to provide a continuing sense of unity, Massoud, known as the Lion of Panjshir, is considered an ideal symbol for that cause.

Massoud's tomb, housed inside a 75-foot-high concrete, domed mausoleum, has been declared a national shrine by President Hamid Karzai's government, which replaced the Taliban.

In the capital, Kabul, where a main street is named National Hero Massoud, the commander's picture adorns lampposts and car windshields. There also are banners with his visage and the slogan "Unity is Massoud."

At the ceremony Thursday, a U.S. Marine Corps general compared Massoud to a rather notable American as he presented a plaque at the tomb.

Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis, speaking before a gathering of Afghan officials, soldiers and villagers, said that visiting the tomb of Massoud gave him "some of the same emotions I felt when I visited the grave of George Washington, the father of our country."

Massoud was a hero in the struggle against Soviet domination of Afghanistan and later the Taliban regime, but he was kept mostly at arm's length by the United States. The CIA, although eager to help topple the Soviets, had an on-again, off-again relationship with Massoud, preferring sometimes to back rivals favored by ally Pakistan.

But on this day, Massoud was hailed as a visionary by both Afghan and U.S. officials. The latter included two Marine generals, an Army general and a State Department representative.

At the ceremony, Ahmed Wali Massoud, wearing a pin with the U.S. and Afghan flags, said of his brother: "Although he is not with us, his vision and ideals live within us. Afghan people live through his vision: an Afghanistan without terrorists, Al Qaeda or Taliban. This is our dream."

Later, during a tea-and-cookies reception, a former Massoud confidant was more blunt. Unless the Americans help defeat the Taliban and their allies, the insurgency will spread to other nations in the region, said Abdullah, a former foreign minister in the Karzai government who uses one name.

"This is the next strategic step for Al Qaeda," said Abdullah, a physician who gave up his Kabul practice to come to this valley and fight alongside Massoud. Many analysts have predicted a springtime offensive by the Taliban, and attacks are occurring frequently.

In the restive southern city of Kandahar, 10 people died Thursday in three bombings, one of them an apparent assassination attempt against the governor of Kandahar province. The governor escaped injury, but three bystanders were killed in the suicide car bombing.

Earlier, four security guards were killed in a roadside explosion, Afghan officials said. As rescue workers responded, a second blast went off, killing three police officers.

Authorities said the tactic of staggered bombings, with the second of two explosions aimed at those arriving at the scene to provide help, was a rarity in Afghanistan.

But Taliban fighters have been borrowing methods from insurgents in Iraq, where such dual attacks are common. Many officials expect an even larger Taliban offensive in late summer after the opium poppy crop is harvested. The poppies, which are used to make heroin, provide money for the insurgency, officials said.

Most of the preparation by U.S., North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Afghan forces has involved additional training, better weaponry and changes in key leadership spots. But the information war, including memorializing Massoud, is also considered important.

Massoud "was a leader who could fight like a lion but kept compassion for the innocent," said Mattis, who is the commanding general of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force and the Marine Forces Central Command.

The U.S. has more than 20,000 troops in Afghanistan, among them about 250 Marines who specialize in training the Afghan army, police and border patrol. A NATO force, led by a U.S. Army general, has about 30,000 troops. So far this year, 33 U.S. military personnel have been killed in combat with insurgents, according to icasualties.org, which tracks injuries and deaths in the war.

"We stand here as partners in Massoud's vision," Mattis told the group.

Denmark to return 4,000 Afghan treasures

May 17, 2007 - KABUL (AFP) - Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen handed his Afghan counterpart a small, ancient replica of a lion, saying it was the first of 4,000 Afghan treasures his government would return.

Danish border police had a few years ago confiscated a hoard of Afghan artefacts that the government wanted to bring back to the country, Rasmussen told reporters at a media briefing with President Hamid Karzai.

"And symbolically, I would like to hand over one of the 4,000 pieces of this treasure to President Karzai," he said, giving his counterpart a nine-inch model of a lion.

Afghanistan has lost most of its ancient heritage through its decades of war in which looting and smuggling was rampant. About 1,300 ethnographic and archaeological objects were returned in March from a museum in Switzerland.

Rasmussen also restated Denmark's plan to increase the number of Danish troops in Afghanistan from the present 400. The parliament is due to vote on the boost, which the prime minister has said could take the deployment to 600, in a few weeks.

The troops are based mostly in the southern province of Helmand, which sees some of the most intense battles between troops and Taliban militants. Denmark lost its first soldier in combat there two weeks ago.

Rasmussen said his country had also decided to increase its financial assistance to destitute Afghanistan by more than 30 percent, taking it to the equivalent of more than 40 million dollars in a few years.

'Appropriate' force used in civilian death incident: US

by Jim Mannion - Wed May 16, WASHINGTON (AFP) - A US military commander used "appropriate level of force" during a battle last month in western Afghanistan in which dozens of civilians were reported killed, a senior US military official said Wednesday.

Brigadier General Perry Wiggins defended the actions of the commander on the scene as necessary and appropriate to protect his unit, which came under attack April 27 and 29 in the remote Zerkoh valley in Herat province.

Air strikes were called in by the US special operations forces during the fighting, and Afghan and UN officials later said as many as 50 civilians, including women and children, were killed. "The on scene commander demonstrated sound judgement throughout the engagement," Wiggins told reporters here.

"All targets were positively identified as hostile, (and) were under observation at the time of the engagement," he said. "The on scene commander used appropriate level of force to respond to the continuous enemy threat and protect his unit."

Wiggins said he did not know whether the US military had established how many, if any, civilians were killed in the fighting.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who protested after the event that civilian casualties had reached "unacceptable levels," visited the Zerkoh valley on Wednesday and told villagers he had told foreign forces to take more care.

The commander of the unit was not identified. Wiggins, the deputy operations director of the Joint Staff, said the legal findings made no mention of civilian casualties.

The coalition initially denied there had been civilian casualties, saying 136 Taliban fighters were killed. It said later it was investigating.

The legal finding that Wiggins read said coalition ground forces were "continuously engaged by intense enemy fire after entering an area of known Taliban activity."

"On scene commander used all necessary means available and took all appropriate actions necessary to defend his unit," he said. The commander's assessment of the situation was "consistent with and supported by reliable intelligence from varied sources."

"The thought process that the commanders go through is very calculated, and very methodical. And in this particular case, this commander did that," Wiggins added.

The battle in the Zerkoh valley was the deadliest in a string of recent incidents in which civilians have been reported killed in US air strikes. On May 9, Afghan officials said 21 civilians were killed by air strikes during fighting in Helmand province in south central Afghanistan.

Analysts attribute the increase to stepped up coalition operations against the Taliban and a reliance on airpower to back up relatively small numbers of ground forces operating in difficult terrain.

But growing anger over civilian casualties has undermined public support for the coalition, and also raised concern among other NATO allies.

Wiggins insisted that US forces go to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties and accused the Taliban of deliberately using civilians as human shields.

He showed aerial images of a building that was targeted during fighting May 8 and 9 in Helmand's Sangin district because a senior Taliban commander was believed to be inside. He said the strike was called off when the images showed children near a group of Taliban fighters.

"I want to put up front that the bull's-eye needs to be squarely placed on the Taliban, with regard to these types of civilians at risk," he said. "The enemy is operating in high concentrations of civilians. They're doing it premeditatively. They are putting civilians as human shields," he said.

Afghan battle lines become blurred
By M K Bhadrakumar – Asia Times

New fault lines have appeared on the Afghan chessboard. While the "international community" kept watch on the obscure lawless borderlands of Pakistan's tribal agencies for the Taliban's spring offensive, templates of the war began to shift - almost unnoticed.

Things are not going to be the same again. The war is transforming. Adversarial lines are being redrawn. The enemy's contours have changed. Front lines are being abandoned. In

another six to eight weeks, hot, dry winds will have arrived, bearing fine, yellow dust that envelops everything, making appearances even more deceptive. No one will be able then to tell with certitude who is the enemy.

Looking back, the ground began to shift on New Year's Eve, when the lower chamber of the Afghan Parliament passed a bill that would grant amnesty to all Afghans involved in any war crimes during the past quarter-century. The resolution said, "In order to bring reconciliation among various strata in the society, all those political and belligerent sides that were involved one way or the other during the two and a half decades of war will not be prosecuted legally and judicially."

The quarter-century covered the entire period from the Saur Revolution in the spring of 1978 through the bloody years of the Soviet intervention, through the riotous mujahideen rule and the senseless civil war that followed, all the way to the Taliban takeover in Kabul in 1996 until the ouster of that regime in the autumn of 2001.

For the first time, Afghans spoke out that they no longer held the United States in awe. At a single stroke, the December 31 amnesty move deprived the US of the one weapon that it wielded for blackmailing the "warlords" into submission - powerful leaders of the Northern Alliance groups, the mujhideen field commanders, and petty local thugs alike.

The prospect of a war-crime tribunal was held like a Damocles' sword over any recalcitrant Afghan political personality - be it Burhanuddin Rabbani, Yunous Qanooni, Rashid Dostum or Rasool Sayyaf. In the able hands of former US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, it did wonders while ensuring Hamid Karzai's election as president and in consolidating US dominance in Afghanistan.

What was astonishing was that the amnesty bill covered even Taliban leader Mullah Omar and Hezb-e-Islami leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Clearly, an Afghan "revolt" was afoot against the existing political order imposed by the US. Implicitly, it called into question the raison d'etre of the war, since the largest group in the mujahideen-dominated 249-member lower house of Parliament consists of the elected members of Hezb-e-Islami besides a sizable number of former Taliban figures (such as Mullah Abdul Salam Rocketti) who act as the Taliban's political wing in Kabul.

A lot of homework had obviously gone into the initiative. Afghan leaders, with their native wisdom, estimated that the war was going nowhere and that the chance of "victory" by the US, which was never good, had probably passed. They saw ahead that the superpower, which arrived full of hubris, might well depart humbled. They wished to be on call when the time came.

Of course, it was apparent to anyone that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was a divided house and that the United States' old European allies didn't share its apparent intention to turn Afghanistan into a client state under a NATO flag from where US power projection into the Persian Gulf and the Middle East and South Asia and Central Asia would become possible.

Most important, Afghans estimated that as in Iraq, dialogue would become unavoidable, and a regional solution involving Afghanistan's neighbors might become necessary. They were deeply skeptical whether Washington would stay the course. They could hear the Taliban's distant drums approaching Kabul's city gates.

The amnesty move unleashed a wave of political activism in the subsequent few weeks, leading to the formation of the new United Front early last month. The platform of the United Front is interesting. It calls for a parliamentary form of government; it wants to deprive the president of the power to appoint provincial governors (who should be elected officials instead); it demands changes in the electoral laws from the present so-called non-transferable system to a proportional system, etc. It speaks of dialogue, reconciliation and power-sharing.

But evidently the United Front is bent on cornering Karzai in a typical Afghan way - incrementally but relentlessly, until his political nerves give way and his US support becomes redundant. It is harshly critical of the Karzai government's ineptitude and corruption, and it draws attention to the great suffering of the Afghan people.

In the sphere of foreign affairs, the United Front vaguely seeks "coordination" with the foreign forces present in Afghanistan, and leaves it at that for the present. Significantly, it calls for the official recognition of the international border between Afghanistan and Pakistan - known as the Durand Line.

At first glance, the United Front lineup resembles erstwhile Northern Alliance - Burhanuddin Rabbani, Mohammed Fahim, Yunous Qanooni, Abdullah, Ismail Khan, and Rashid Dostum. But curiously, the United Front also includes two top Khalqi leaders from the communist era - members of the politburo of the Afghan Communist Party, General Nur al-Haq Olumi and General Mohammad Gulabzoi.

They were close associates of former defense minister General Shahnawaz Tanai, another top Khalqi leader, who staged an abortive coup attempt in March 1990 against the government in Kabul with the help of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and eventually fled to Pakistan seeking asylum.

Khalqis, who are drawn from the Pashtun tribes, have had a strong nexus with the Taliban over the years. Tanai, who is based in Pakistan, used to provide the Taliban with a skilled cadre of military officers, who flew the Taliban's "air force", drove their tanks and manned their heavy artillery, absolving the need of Pakistani regulars except in very selective roles. In the recent years, he has been a visitor to Kabul.

Therefore, questions arise. Is a far-reaching restructuring of the Taliban going on? Mullah Dadullah's killing seems part of the process. It does seem that Hekmatyar and the mujahideen/Khalqi elements within the Taliban are slouching toward mainstream politics in Kabul. A sidelining of the extremist, "jihadist" elements by ISI could be under way.

Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf could be acting, finally. Hekmatyar has certainly positioned himself somewhere in the vicinity of the United Front. He is almost visible. Mullah Dadullah's killing no doubt strengthens him. Equally, Taliban leader Jalaluddin Haqqani (who is second only to Taliban supreme Mullah Omar) too has a mujahideen pedigree. Also, Haqqani and Hekmatyar go back a long way. In the Afghan jihad of the early 1980s, Haqqani was a camp follower of Professor Rasool Sayyaf (one of the prime movers, incidentally, of the amnesty move in Parliament).

The mystery deepens insofar as Hekmatyar also has a strong "Iran connection", having spent five years in exile in Mashhad after the Taliban takeover in Kabul in 1996. The big question is whether Iran would countenance a Taliban organization that is cleansed of murderers of monstrous ferocity like Mullah Dadullah (or rabidly obscurantist extremists like Mullah Omar) entering mainstream Afghan politics.

Arguably, it might. At any rate, almost on the heels of the consultations in Pakistan by Ambassador Ronald Neumann, US special envoy on Afghanistan, early this week, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki arrived in Islamabad on Thursday. Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad is due to visit Kabul in June. Musharraf's close confidant, Railway Minister Sheikh Rashid, was received by Ahmadinejad in Tehran early this week.

While Mullah Dadullah's killing might have dealt a significant blow to the Taliban insurgency, Iran will still be cautious about the Taliban's command structure. Iran will also factor the growing anti-American sentiments among the Afghans. But Iran cannot be missing the point that it has indeed become a meaningful interlocutor for the US with respect to Afghan situation - just as over the future of Iraq.

The Afghan bazaar perceives that Ahmed Zia Massoud (brother of Ahmed Shah Massoud and vice president in the Karzai government) is the leading figure in the United Front. Some say Massoud staged a putsch against Karzai. There is bound to be speculation about ascendancy of Russian influence. Moscow went on a publicity binge over the visit by the delegation of the Collective Security Treaty Organization to Kabul on March 9-13. But these are early days.

What cannot be overlooked is that Russia and Iran are not quite on the same page. The acrimony over the Bushehr nuclear power plant has taken a toll. Ahmadinejad's public criticism of Russian policies while on a visit to the United Arab Emirates last week underscored that the trust deficit is real.

The alignments remain fluid. Qanooni, who is close to Tehran, is keeping a low profile. "Ustad" Rabbani is doing the talking. He is a great bridge-builder. Meanwhile, Karzai alleges that the United Front is "supported by foreign embassies". Indeed, the Front includes personalities who kept links in the 1980s and '90s with Moscow, Central Asian capitals or Tehran.

The United Front has rattled Karzai (and Washington). Karzai wouldn't like the initiative to slip into the hands of the United Front. The Senate, which is dominated by his nominees, passed its own resolution on May 8 calling on the government to hold direct talks with the resurgent Taliban and other opposition forces - "direct negotiations with the concerned Afghan sides in the country".

The Senate resolution also sought that in the meantime, NATO military operations against the Taliban should cease. It said, "If the need arises for an operation, it should be carried out with the coordination of the national army and police and in consultation with the government of Afghanistan."

This partly aims at assuaging Afghan public opinion, which is incensed over Karzai's inability to protect the people from the excesses perpetrated by the trigger-happy US forces. Meanwhile, the lower house of Parliament has raised the ante by exercising its constitutional prerogative to sack Karzai's close confidant, Dadfar Spanta, pinning responsibility for the recent deportation of 52,000 Afghan refugees from Iran. Karzai promptly questioned the legality of the move.

To be sure, Karzai is coming under multiple pressures. On the one hand, there are the incipient moves by political opponents eroding his credibility and authority. On the other hand, the "international community" has become critical of him. At a high-level conference in Brussels on April 28, Richard Holbrooke, former US ambassador to the United Nations in Bill Clinton's administration, said Karzai government had "lost momentum" and transparency and was alienating its erstwhile supporters.

He added that Karzai was "walking away from democracy"; that NATO was successful in containing the Taliban but the Karzai government's bad performance was rejuvenating the Taliban's support; that there had been a "massive waste" of US and European money in Afghanistan because of very poor coordination of the aid effort; and that Karzai was losing his authority.

Holbrooke harshly reprimanded Karzai: "We don't want to see in Kabul the kind of political chaos which in Baghdad is destroying the coalition effort."

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, who was present, shared Holbrooke's concerns. Given Scheffer's record of parroting US thought processes, Karzai would have felt exasperated. Indeed, within a week of the conference in Brussels, Scheffer headed for Islamabad, accompanied by the United States' supreme commander in NATO, where he and Musharraf pledged new anti-Taliban efforts.

Scheffer said in Islamabad, "It is my strong opinion that the final answer in Afghanistan will not be a military one and cannot be a military one. The final answer in Afghanistan is called reconstruction, development and nation-building."

The new buzzword is an "integrated approach" in Afghanistan. But no one has fleshed it out. There is an Afghan opinion building up over the imperative of an intra-Afghan dialogue leading to genuine power-sharing. But the US and NATO pretend they aren't seeing the groundswell of opinion.

Their emphasis is on the existential challenge posed by Afghan war to NATO's global role. They look over the Afghan ridge toward the new cold-war horizon. Meanwhile, the US is inexorably losing its monopoly over conflict resolution in Afghanistan. And regional powers include some that are against the open-ended presence of NATO forces.

It may turn out that the real "tipping point" is not over the Taliban's much-awaited spring offensive (which may not even happen), but if regional powers begin seriously to exploit the political rifts in Afghanistan for undermining the NATO strategy.

Not surprisingly, Washington shudders to think of any "regime change" in Islamabad in the present circumstances, no matter the political turmoil within Pakistan. As Scheffer put it in Islamabad on May 8 during the first ever visit to Pakistan by a NATO secretary general, NATO and Pakistan find themselves in the "same boat", and should seek an enduring, mutually beneficial partnership that goes beyond the "war against terror". And who else could hold the Pakistani end of the bargain better than Musharraf?

M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for more than 29 years, with postings including ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-98) and to Turkey (1998-2001).

Tories hold up committee delving into Afghan human rights

BILL CURRY - Globe and Mail Update May 17, 2007

OTTAWA — A House of Commons committee probe into the events surrounding the release of a highly-censored report on human rights in Afghanistan was held up Thursday by Conservative MPs, who for talked out the clock for hours.

The Tory filibuster finally broke after five hours and the witnesses were allowed to speak around 2 p.m.

The meeting of the House of Commons access to information and ethics committee was the second in a row to feature Tory MPs talking at length about procedural minutia to avoid delving into the committee's scheduled work.

The Conservatives were arguing that the opposition failed to give them enough notice for the study and that such a review raises concerns about revealing official secrets.

The opposition pushed for the probe following a recent Globe and Mail report showing how the government initially denied the existence of a report on Afghan human rights conditions, then released a heavily censored version. The Globe then obtained an uncensored version of the report which showed the government had blacked out sections that could be politically embarrassing to the government.

The committee was scheduled to hear today from University of Ottawa law professor Amir Attaran and independent journalist Jeff Esau, both of whom had filed requests for the human rights report under Canada's Access to Information legislation.

Political interference at heart of Afghan document coverup: professor

By MURRAY BREWSTER

OTTAWA (CP) - A parliamentary committee heard allegations that political interference motivated the federal government to hide a scathing human-rights report on the treatment of detainees in Afghan jails.

It happened after Conservative members spent five hours Thursday trying to block the start of an ethics committee investigation into the handling of Access to Information Act requests involving prisoners.

It was just one of several examples of paralysis on Parliament Hill as the government filibustered or completely shut down committees where they were isolated against a united opposition.

The first two witnesses to testify on the Afghan coverup claims were left to cool their heels at the Commons ethics committee. MPs spent most of the day arguing over the order of who should testify and whether the hearings should be closed to the public.

When they were finally allowed to testify, they led committee members in detail through the complicated paper trail of their information requests. "I do believe there was political interference, let me unambiguous about that," said University of Ottawa law professor Amir Attaran.

Jeff Esau, a freelance journalist and former army officer, did not repeat Attaran's accusation. But he told the committee he's noticed a "chill" going through the ranks of the civil service when it comes to information related to Afghan prisoners.

"There is a very obvious reluctance for anybody to talk about it," he said in response to an opposition question. "When you talk about stonewalling, I'm not sure it's a cold-blooded 'here we're going to do this'."

In a formal information request, Esau asked the Foreign Affairs Department earlier this year for copies of a study that analyzes the human rights reports of countries around the world.

When bureaucrats said no such report existed, the former military access-to-information officer wrote back to ensure the wording of his request was correct.

"I wanted to be very clear on this and . . . she wrote back and she said: we feel we've answered the letter of your request," he said.

"I battled the department to a standstill on this one and even with gentle persuading and prodding they were not willing to come out and say 'here's what we've got'."

It was only after Esau quoted the specific name of the human-rights report on Afghanistan that the Foreign Affairs information officer responded that records did exist and it would cost $1,000 to search the archives.

Attaran, who first raised concerns about the treatment of detainees in Afghan jails, told the committee it's clear the department's response to Esau was a "flagrant lie" in violation of the law.

Section 67 of the Access to Information Act makes it a criminal offence for the government to withhold information.

In negotiating with bureaucrats over his own similar information request, Attaran was told that the report he wanted would have to be reviewed before being released.

"I asked who was going to review the document, he (the information bureaucrat) declined to answer," Attaran testified. "I asked him if it was a sign of political interference. He declined to answer."

Later under questioning by the committee, Attaran said he had no concrete evidence to back up his claim and that it was up to the committee, the information commissioner and possibly the RCMP to uncover the truth. In his complaint to the information commissioner, Attaran has urged Robert Marleau to call for a police investigation.

The testimony, particularly of Attaran, was treated with skepticism by Conservatives. "The professor has his theories and he's entitled to his theories," said Ontario Tory David Tilson. "I want to hear from the people from the ministry. I want to hear from the information commissioner."

Earlier in the day, Tory MPs Mike Wallace and Scott Reid stalled the detainee probe, arguing they were not prepared for the witnesses and that the committee should seek legal advice.

The tactic has played itself out repeatedly on Parliament Hill this week. The Conservatives have shut down or delayed committees after finding themselves isolated and outnumbered by the opposition. Liberal Leader Stephane Dion said the Tories are in disarray.

Karzai could do PM a favour and boot us out - May 17, 2007 – Toronto Star - James Travers

War isn't just hell, it's hellishly complex. So complex that troubles now plaguing NATO's Afghanistan mission could, with luck, solve one of Stephen Harper's pressing political problems. It hurts the head a bit but here's how misadventure and compromise over there could help the Prime Minister over here.

As resentment of foreign troops rises with civilian casualties and a movement to bring moderate Taliban factions into the Kabul government gains strength, President Hamid Karzai will have to weigh the obvious dangers of sending NATO packing against the increasing merits.

True, Canada and its allies wouldn't be marching home with the decisive victory voters have foolishly been led to expect, nor would they be leaving behind the model Western state that was always a fantasy.

Instead they will have secured a less-than-perfect compromise that might just be good enough for international security, regional stability and, most of all, for countries like Canada whose troops are doing the fighting.

Being asked to go would work particularly well for a prime minister facing two probabilities: an election before the current extended mission is scheduled to end in February 2009 and further erosion of public support for a war now looking for an exit strategy.

As Canada's former UN ambassador Paul Heinbecker points out, those converging timelines are made more politically threatening by two Afghanistan realities.

One is that allies aren't rushing forward to replace Canadian forces in the dangerous south. The other is U.S. reliance on air strikes that, in accidentally killing civilians, undermine Karzai and drive ordinary Afghans toward the Taliban.

That puts Conservatives in a tight corner. Without willing replacements they can't pull troops out of Kandahar and NATO won't win a hearts-and-minds war as long as the U.S. compensates for too few forces on the ground with too many attacks from the skies.

One way out of that corner, Heinbecker says, is for Karzai to tell everyone to clear out.

As risky as that would be for a shaky government trying to control a fissured country, it may ultimately prove more attractive – and safer – than staying the current course. Since the beginning of March, more than 130 Afghan civilians have become what the military likes to call collateral damage.

More ominously, there are reports of fierce resistance from villagers who aren't aligned with the Taliban but oppose the U.S. presence and tactics.

Along with Karzai government demands for more caution, those incidents and their worrying implications are forcing some overdue NATO soul-searching. Germany is urging an urgent review and other members of the 37-member International Security Assistance Force are either privately or publicly questioning mission methods.

Heinbecker, who now heads Wilfrid Laurier's Centre for Global Relations, Governance and Policy, correctly identifies the problem as the absence of strategic coherence.

"There is not one command," he says. "There is a NATO command and there is a U.S. command and they are not concentric."

Differences are not limited to air strikes. Partners also differ on the critical mix between development assistance and, to use Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor's unfortunate words, retribution for 9/11.

Equally important, they can't agree on how best to deal with poppy farming that's central to both a narco-economy and the survival of some of the world's poorest people.

NATO is proving as unable to find workable solutions as the Harper government is unwilling to engage Parliament in a freewheeling examination of the mission, its limitations and chances of success.

Not surprisingly, the result in Afghanistan is growing animosity to foreigners killing locals as they work at cross-purposes and a Canadian government relying on bumper-sticker patriotism to support a war that warrants thoughtful explanation.

Whatever the causes or effects, the mission is now reaching a tipping point. Unless there is broad local support and unity of NATO purpose, it will either fail or sink into the usual quagmire.

Changing that outcome won't be easy. It would require dramatically reducing the need for air strikes by ballooning ground forces up from about 30,000 to 200,000 and for governments with unique domestic political situations to agree on a single, very long-term strategy their voters will not tolerate, let alone support.

Given the fat chance of any of that happening, a coalition government and an Afghanistan free of foreign troops starts to look better. After all, if war is hell, finding any way out and home can, in a pinch, pass for heaven here on earth.

SAARC: Afghanistan comes in from the cold

Afghanistan enters the SAARC bloc as a much-needed bridge between South and Central Asia in terms of trade and security and defense cooperation.

By Sudeshna Sarkar in Kathmandu for ISN Security Watch (16/05/07) - In the 1990s, it was known as the country ruled by the Taliban, the hardline Islamic group that re-imposed the veil and other restrictions on women and destroyed the Bamiyan Buddhas, two priceless pre-Islamic statues regarded as part of the world's cultural heritage.

In the next decade, it became the land bombed by the US and allied forces in search of Osama bin Laden, believed to be the mastermind of the September 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City.

This year, Afghanistan, occupying a strategic position between South and Central Asia, has acquired yet another identity as the newest member of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).

Though Afghanistan had expressed its desire to join the grouping since 1985 - when SAARC came into being with seven members - Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka - political instability and civil war kept it isolated.

Last year, at the 13th SAARC summit – the meeting of the heads of the seven member states – a somewhat more stable Afghanistan's request was finally approved. At the 14th SAARC summit, held in New Delhi, Afghan President Hamid Karzai took part as the eighth member country representative.

On the eve of the Delhi summit, Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta said Afghanistan's accession to SAARC would "certainly open new opportunities for all." Kabul, he said, would focus on trans-border transport networks, energy corridors and free flow of people and ideas within the region as a member of SAARC.

Though Afghanistan was already a member of groups such as the Economic Cooperation Organization and Organization of Islamic Conference, SAARC is the first bloc of contiguous countries to which it has been admitted. Besides a 2430-kilometer border with Pakistan, the landlocked country also borders China and Iran .

With both China and Iran also being given a berth in SAARC as observers, ties between the 10 countries are likely to deepen. Welcoming Afghanistan into the SAARC fold, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said it was "an appropriate recognition of the long-standing ties of culture and history that Afghanistan shares with us."

Besides ending its isolation and beginning a process of regional integration, Afghanistan's SAARC entry can translate into several tangible advantages for the bloc.

For starters, Afghanistan's SAARC membership could mean a major energy gain for the bloc. Though South Asia's energy needs are growing exponentially, there is little energy trade within the region or with energy-rich Central and West Asia. Afghanistan could become the key transit for energy, providing a route for imports of hydropower from Central Asia and gas from Central Asia and Iran.

The World Bank recommends building two initial regional energy trading hubs: "The first at the western flank of the region, comprising Afghanistan, Pakistan and northwestern India as importing markets, trading with Central and Western Asia; the second at the eastern flank of the region, comprising India [as the main importing market], Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka."

Afghanistan itself has natural gas reserves estimated to be nearly 100 billion cubic meters. Currently, it produces about 20 million cubic meters per year, all of it consumed internally.

The latest SAARC summit pledged greater connectivity and an upgraded transport system. The Asian Development Bank has completed a study on building inter-linked road corridors and an integrated multi-modal transport system in the region. With Afghanistan's inclusion, the heads of SAARC states have now asked for the study to be extended to the new member.

Once updated, the SAARC Inter-Governmental Group on Transport will identify and develop sub-regional and regional projects and draft appropriate regional agreements with the goal of building a series of corridors linking South Asia and eventually the bloc with Central and West Asia.

India, Afghanistan and Iran, have an agreement in place for the development of over 200 kilometers of highway linking the Afghan town of Delaram with Zaranj in Iran.

Improved connectivity will boost regional trade. At present, SAARC intra-regional trade is less than 2 percent of GDP. This is due to a higher level of protectionism within the region than with the rest of the world, which makes trading across borders expensive.

To address that, SAARC members have signed a trade agreement that envisions the creation of a free trade zone with zero customs duty on virtually all products.

The South Asian Free Trade Area agreement pledges to complete the customs duty reduction by 2012, though the least developed nations in the bloc – Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan and Maldives – will have an extra three years to slash tariffs.

The trade pact will give Afghanistan access to a much wider market with preferential trading arrangements. Currently, Kabul's largest export markets are the US, India and Pakistan .The main commodities are fruits and nuts, hand-woven carpets, wool, cotton, hides and pelts and precious and semi-precious gems.

Support to fight the drug trade - However, the commodity that accounts for nearly 60 percent of the economy is the illicit cultivation of poppy, from which opium is derived. Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium, the raw ingredient for heroin. Between 80 and 90 percent of the heroin circulating through Europe comes from Afghan opium.

Though the levels of drug trade decreased under the Taliban, it has grown rapidly since the regime's ouster. According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in Vienna, in 2006, about 6,100 tonnes of opium was produced - 33 times the amount grown under the Taliban government.

Its admission into SAARC will give the Karzai government support to fight the drug trade as well as a related menace, insurgency and militancy, said to be often funded by the drug trade.

SAARC members have signed a series of conventions to combat terrorism, narcotics and psychotropic substances, trafficking in women and children and other trans-national crimes. They have also signed an additional protocol to the terrorism convention that aims at preventing and suppressing financing of terrorism.

The conventions help members adopt the same principles, draw up appropriate legislation and share information and strategy. There is also a move to create a SAARCPol, an intra-regional police force.

But all this is not going to fructify overnight. In its 22 years of existence, SAARC has not met many of its goals, mostly due to saber-rattling between its two nuclear-armed neighbors, India and Pakistan. Even on the eve of the summit, when the SAARC commerce ministers met in Kathmandu to discuss the free trade agreement, developments were held up with India warning that New Delhi might withdraw the most favored nation status accorded to Pakistan if it did not reciprocate.

However, the very fact that the member countries are now willing to sit and talk is regarded as a big step forward. As the World Bank sees it, "SAARC could play a major role in helping build mutual trust, develop regional institutions and physical infrastructure, and partner with development organizations."

Other blocs like ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) and the EU are interested in interacting with SAARC.

On the eve of the Dehli summit, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, European Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighborhood Policy, said the EU saw itself as a "natural partner in all efforts at reinforcing regional cooperation, people-to-people contacts and trade liberalization in South Asia, which will bring benefits to all."

"In recent years, the EU has turned its attention to building a common European foreign, security and defense policy," she said. "We realize that by working together more effectively, we can better fulfill our potential and contribute to solving global and regional issues."

Sudeshna Sarkar is a senior correspondent for ISN Security Watch in Kathmandu, Nepal.

Forgotten women turn Kabul into widows' capital

By Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy in Kabul - The Independent (UK) Published: 17 May 2007

Glass lifts carry people up to the second floor of the shopping mall where gold jewellery and Levi's jeans are being sold in bright new stores. A large poster of a woman in a miniskirt hugging a man is plastered outside a shoe store while music blares from the mall's speakers. But outside, just around the corner, women are begging on the streets. They are the hidden face of modern Kabul.

Walking the streets of Kabul under a full burqa, the traditional garment that the Taliban insisted that women wear and which many still do, it is possible to gain access to Afghanistan's forgotten women.

There are two million war widows in Afghanistan, and their plight is easy to forget in Hamid Karzai's capital, where Western-style shopping malls, bars and French restaurants are opening up for wealthy foreign aid workers and Afghan expatriates.

Every morning Gul, who was widowed when an American bomb hit her house in 2001, leaves her two daughters to go begging on the streets of Kabul. "If I'm lucky, I'll make about 50 afghanis (80p), enough to buy two pieces of bread," she says.

Kabul, it is said, is the widows' capital of the world. As many as 50,000 women like Gul live in the city, and many make their home in the abandoned buildings that dot the suburbs, often living in horrific conditions. In a nation with a fractured infrastructure and, at £125 a year, one of the lowest per-capita incomes in the world, many widows are left without relatives able to take them in or offer even modest financial support.

Gul's blue burqa at least affords her some dignity. "The men hurl abuse at me, they make indecent gestures and I'm always being harassed, but at least they cannot see me," she says.

There is no social security system in Afghanistan. Widows are not provided pensions or housing so there is no safety net for them to fall back on. In other Muslim countries, getting remarried can resolve the economic problems of widows. But in Afghanistan's that is not so. Most Afghan men do not want to bring up children from a previous marriage.

"They are fiercely protective of their wives and the mere thought of them being married before is an insult to their honour," says Maria Akrami, a social worker who runs a small NGO in Kabul.

On the southern edge of Kabul, among the rubble and bombed-out buildings, Gul and her two daughters, Zeba and Seema, live in a simple one-room flat with no heating or water in a city where winter temperatures can plummet as low as minus 17C.

Inside, Gul's daughters prepare tea for their tired mother. They would like to attend school but do not have money to buy school supplies. "I want to become a teacher," says 14-year-old Zeba, "I wish I could go to school, I am happiest when I am learning," she says.

Sixteen-year-old Seema, meanwhile, is angry at the Afghan government's empty promises. "I don't think our lives will improve," she says. "My mother is a beggar, the government doesn't care about us. They do not offer to help us, nothing has changed for us in this new Afghanistan."

War widows often stand outside government buildings holding frayed photographs of their late husbands, hoping to be noticed. "They should be the government's top priority," says Ms Akrami. "These women are uneducated; they lack basic job skills and cannot fend for themselves. If America invaded us to liberate our women, this is a clear sign that they are failing miserably."

Was Osama Right?

By BERNARD LEWIS - Commentary,Wall Street Journal May 16, 2007

During the Cold War, two things came to be known and generally recognized in the Middle East concerning the two rival superpowers. If you did anything to annoy the Russians, punishment would be swift and dire. If you said or did anything against the Americans, not only would there be no punishment; there might even be some possibility of reward, as the usual anxious procession of diplomats and politicians, journalists and scholars and miscellaneous others came with their usual pleading inquiries: "What have we done to offend you? What can we do to put it right?"

A few examples may suffice. During the troubles in Lebanon in the 1970s and '80s, there were many attacks on American installations and individuals -- notably the attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, followed by a prompt withdrawal, and a whole series of kidnapping of Americans, both official and private, as well as of Europeans. There was only one attack on Soviet citizens, when one diplomat was killed and several others kidnapped. The Soviet response through their local agents was swift, and directed against the family of the leader of the kidnappers. The kidnapped Russians were promptly released, and after that there were no attacks on Soviet citizens or installations throughout the period of the Lebanese troubles.

These different responses evoked different treatment. While American policies, institutions and individuals were subject to unremitting criticism and sometimes deadly attack, the Soviets were immune. Their retention of the vast, largely Muslim, colonial empire accumulated by the tsars in Asia passed unnoticed, as did their propaganda and sometimes action against Muslim beliefs and institutions.

Most remarkable of all was the response of the Arab and other Muslim countries to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. Washington's handling of the Tehran hostage crisis assured the Soviets that they had nothing to fear from the U.S. They already knew that they need not worry about the Arab and other Muslim governments. The Soviets already ruled -- or misruled -- half a dozen Muslim countries in Asia, without arousing any opposition or criticism. Initially, their decision and action to invade and conquer Afghanistan and install a puppet regime in Kabul went almost unresisted. After weeks of debate, the U.N. General Assembly finally was persuaded to pass a resolution "strongly deploring the recent armed intervention in Afghanistan." The words "condemn" and "aggression" were not used, and the source of the "intervention" was not named. Even this anodyne resolution was too much for some of the Arab states. South Yemen voted no; Algeria and Syria abstained; Libya was absent; the non-voting PLO observer to the Assembly even made a speech defending the Soviets.

One might have expected that the recently established Organization of the Islamic Conference would take a tougher line. It did not. After a month of negotiation and manipulation, the Organization finally held a meeting in Pakistan to discuss the Afghan question. Two of the Arab states, South Yemen and Syria, boycotted the meeting. The representative of the PLO, a full member of this organization, was present, but abstained from voting on a resolution critical of the Soviet action; the Libyan delegate went further, and used this occasion to denounce the U.S.

The Muslim willingness to submit to Soviet authority, though widespread, was not unanimous. The Afghan people, who had successfully defied the British Empire in its prime, found a way to resist the Soviet invaders. An organization known as the Taliban (literally, "the students") began to organize resistance and even guerilla warfare against the Soviet occupiers and their puppets. For this, they were able to attract some support from the Muslim world -- some grants of money, and growing numbers of volunteers to fight in the Holy War against the infidel conqueror. Notable among these was a group led by a Saudi of Yemeni origin called Osama bin Laden.

To accomplish their purpose, they did not disdain to turn to the U.S. for help, which they got. In the Muslim perception there has been, since the time of the Prophet, an ongoing struggle between the two world religions, Christendom and Islam, for the privilege and opportunity to bring salvation to the rest of humankind, removing whatever obstacles there might be in their path. For a long time, the main enemy was seen, with some plausibility, as being the West, and some Muslims were, naturally enough, willing to accept what help they could get against that enemy. This explains the widespread support in the Arab countries and in some other places first for the Third Reich and, after its collapse, for the Soviet Union. These were the main enemies of the West, and therefore natural allies.

Now the situation had changed. The more immediate, more dangerous enemy was the Soviet Union, already ruling a number of Muslim countries, and daily increasing its influence and presence in others. It was therefore natural to seek and accept American help. As Osama bin Laden explained, in this final phase of the millennial struggle, the world of the unbelievers was divided between two superpowers. The first task was to deal with the more deadly and more dangerous of the two, the Soviet Union. After that, dealing with the pampered and degenerate Americans would be easy.

We in the Western world see the defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union as a Western, more specifically an American, victory in the Cold War. For Osama bin Laden and his followers, it was a Muslim victory in a jihad, and, given the circumstances, this perception does not lack plausibility.

From the writings and the speeches of Osama bin Laden and his colleagues, it is clear that they expected this second task, dealing with America, would be comparatively simple and easy. This perception was certainly encouraged and so it seemed, confirmed by the American response to a whole series of attacks -- on the World Trade Center in New York and on U.S. troops in Mogadishu in 1993, on the U.S. military office in Riyadh in 1995, on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, on the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen in 2000 -- all of which evoked only angry words, sometimes accompanied by the dispatch of expensive missiles to remote and uninhabited places.

Stage One of the jihad was to drive the infidels from the lands of Islam; Stage Two -- to bring the war into the enemy camp, and the attacks of 9/11 were clearly intended to be the opening salvo of this stage. The response to 9/11, so completely out of accord with previous American practice, came as a shock, and it is noteworthy that there has been no successful attack on American soil since then. The U.S. actions in Afghanistan and in Iraq indicated that there had been a major change in the U.S., and that some revision of their assessment, and of the policies based on that assessment, was necessary.

More recent developments, and notably the public discourse inside the U.S., are persuading increasing numbers of Islamist radicals that their first assessment was correct after all, and that they need only to press a little harder to achieve final victory. It is not yet clear whether they are right or wrong in this view. If they are right, the consequences -- both for Islam and for America -- will be deep, wide and lasting.

Mr. Lewis, professor emeritus at Princeton, is the author, most recently, of "From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East" (Oxford University Press, 2004).

Back in circulation, Kabul Weekly hits newsstands

Pajhwok - 05/18/2007 - KABUL - Afghanistans independent magazine Kabul Weekly has resumed publication, hitting newsstands in Kabul after five months of suspension forced by a financial crisis.

Encouragingly, the 10-page weekly is back in circulation with a neat and coloured layout. Priced at five afghanis, the trilingual periodical - claiming a circulation of 7,000 copies - contains articles in Dari, Pashto and English.

The Kabul Weekly staffers - apparently in high spirits - committed themselves to the welfare of the people whom they regard the real strength of the Afghan nation.

Its editorial reads: Some politicians, in a bid to muster our support for their propaganda, offered us cash and political patronage. But we rejected all such offers.

The day it suspended publication, the weekly appealed to UNESCO, Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF) and the Open Society Institute (OSI), which pledged to fund part of its budget.

With a grant of $12,000, UNESCO had helped the Kabul Weekly - whose hard-hitting reporting often earned it the wrath of intolerant rulers in the past - in its re-launch back in February 1993.

[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.]