In this bulletin:

• Afghanistan clash, airstrikes kill 24
• British Soldier Killed In Afghanistan
• Rise in Violence in North Shows Afghanistan’s Fragility
• Pardoned in Afghanistan, N.C. man chooses to stay in prison
• German foreign minister explores situation of Afghans in Pakistan
• German prosecutors drop investigation into alleged abuse of prisoner in Afghanistan
• Dr Spantas appreciation letter to his Australian counterpart
• Pakistan Says U.S. Needs Pakistan For Fight In Afghanistan
• Canada's aid failures threat to military mission in Afghanistan, NGO says
• Cut CIDA's role in Afghanistan: think-tank
• Bloc Quebecois wrong in supporting Afghanistan mission beyond 2009
• Connection Between Drugs and Conflict Must Be Addressed in Afghanistan
• War on Terror: Securing and Stabilizing Afghanistan
• AFGHANISTAN: UN to track civilian casualties more closely
• Qaeda leader in Afghanistan money man behind Bin Laden
• Kiwi soldiers return historic artefacts in Afghanistan
• AFGHANISTAN: Opium abuse harming women's, children's health
• Soldiers terrorize Afghani hospital
• Pakistan losing territory to radicals
• People turn to cleric for justice
• Officials, cleric cut a deal
• Pakistan Is Going Down the Road of the Shah's Iran
• 10 Afghan cricketers to be coached abroad

Afghanistan clash, airstrikes kill 24

By Alisa Tang - The Associated Press Posted : Tuesday May 29, 2007 8:00:33 EDT

KABUL, Afghanistan — Taliban militants ambushed U.S.-led coalition forces in southern Afghanistan, sparking a 10-hour battle and airstrikes that killed an estimated two dozen militants, the coalition said Monday. Villagers said seven civilians were among the dead.

“In some cases, people are said to be Taliban by one side and claimed to be civilians by the other,” Richard Bennett said. “Many Afghans have weapons in their homes, and they may protect their homes. They might not be Taliban. On the other hand, they might be Taliban or other insurgents.”

The number of bombs dropped in Afghanistan also has far surpassed the number in Iraq in recent years. Some suggest the reason is there are too few U.S. ground troops in Afghanistan and the target areas are far removed from international media scrutiny.

Air Force Lt. Gen. Gary North, chief of the Central Command’s air component, said Monday that the reason is because the Afghan enemy is more easily identified than the insurgents in Iraq, and often comes in larger groups.

“What we see in Afghanistan more often is not the single or four or five insurgents, but larger numbers — 10 or 20 or maybe 30,” he said at a U.S. air base in southwest Asia.

“We have seen upwards of 100 people on a trail, and so to affect that target area, sometimes we’ll drop more than one munition. For taking down an enemy compound, we may put nine bombs on the compound.”

He said his pilots often decide against dropping bombs in combat because “there’s a very deliberate checklist, which includes our lawyers, which sit side by side with us in the [command center],” making judgments on the suitability of targets under the laws of war.

The general was interviewed at his headquarters base. As a condition for visiting the base, journalists are required by the Air Force to withhold the identity of the host country, because of local political sensitivities to the U.S. presence.

Sunday’s violence began when an Afghan police and coalition convoy that was escorting 24 supply trucks hit two roadside bombs and was ambushed by Taliban fighters in Helmand province, a coalition statement said Monday.

The blast killed an Afghan truck driver and wounded three coalition soldiers, it said.

A 10-hour battle ensued, involving gunfights and airstrikes that killed “an estimated two dozen enemy fighters,” it said. The coalition said “one enemy fighting position” was destroyed, and “no Afghan civilian injuries were reported.”

But Abdul Qudus, a villager from Helmand’s Gereshk district, told the AP by phone that airstrikes hit a civilian area.

“They came and bombarded the houses of innocent people. Three houses were completely destroyed. Seven people — including women and children — were killed, and between 10 and 15 were wounded,” Qudus said. “Villagers are still searching for five missing people.”

Another villager, Abdul Wahid, said the airstrikes struck 10 miles away from the convoy ambush site on the main highway.

There was no way to verify the claims of the coalition or the villagers at the remote battle site. Taliban fighters often seek cover in civilian homes, where they fire on U.S. and NATO forces, leading those homes to be targeted.

British Soldier Killed In Afghanistan

May 29, 2007 -- The British Ministry of Defense says another British soldier has been killed in Afghanistan. The ministry said in a statement that the soldier was killed as a "result of enemy action" on Monday (May 28) in the southern Helmand Province. The death follows the killing of a British soldier last Friday (May 25) in an explosion in Helmand. They are the 56th and 57th British soldiers to have died in Afghanistan since the U.S.-led drive to overthrow the Taliban regime began in November, 2001.

Rise in Violence in North Shows Afghanistan’s Fragility

By ABDUL WAHEED WAFA and CARLOTTA GALL Published: May 29, 2007

KABUL, Afghanistan, May 28 — Angry supporters of Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, the ethnic Uzbek strongman, clashed with the police in the northern town of Shiberghan on Monday, leaving at least seven people dead and 34 wounded, officials said. The government sent army units to the area, anticipating further unrest.

Also in the north, a suicide bomber attacked a convoy of foreign security contractors, killing himself and two Afghan civilians. It was the fourth such attack in the north in the past two weeks.

The bombings in the relatively peaceful north indicated a rise in insurgent activity, and the violence in Shiberghan was a reminder of how tenuous Afghanistan’s internal stability remains, with former militia leaders like General Dostum still capable of rallying armed supporters to settle local power struggles.

A United Nations official said Monday that as many as 380 civilians had been killed in the conflict in Afghanistan in the first four months of 2007, and called on Western military forces and the Taliban to respect international humanitarian law and do more to avoid civilian casualties.

“The protection and safety of civilians must come first and foremost,” Richard Bennett, the United Nations’ top human rights officer in Afghanistan, said at a news briefing in Kabul.

The conflict in Shiberghan began when more than 1,000 protesters from the youth movement of General Dostum’s political party, Junbesh-e-Milli, demanded that the provincial governor be removed, and tried to storm his office. Most of those killed and wounded were shot by the police as they tried to contain the crowd, townspeople said. Among the dead was the deputy leader of the Junbesh Youth Movement, said Rais Qurban, a resident.

Another resident, Mujib-u-Rahman, said that NATO peacekeepers were present in the town and that fighter jets were heard overhead. But it was unclear what role the peacekeepers might have played, and NATO has made no statement about the episode. Mr. Rahman said by telephone that residents stayed off the streets, shops were closed and every square was full of soldiers.

The crowd was protesting the arrest of six men for the attempted assassination of a legislator from the region, Ahmad Khan, who was a senior representative of Junbesh but recently split with General Dostum, an Interior Ministry statement said. The governor of Jowzjan Province, Juma Khan Hamdard, is a former ally of General Dostum’s who had fallen out with him over the arrests.

Government officials accused General Dostum’s supporters of taking the law into their own hands and rioting under the guise of holding a demonstration. In a statement, the Interior Ministry said that the rioters fired on security forces, wounding four policemen, and that dozens of General Dostum’s armed supporters attacked the governor’s house and disarmed and beat guards.

“We had received 41 patients in our main hospital,” Dr. Mirwais Amini, acting chief of public health for the province, said in a telephone interview. “Seven of them died in the hospital and two others are in critical condition.” Most of the wounded were young people with bullet wounds, he said.

The provincial police chief, Gen. Khalil Aminzada, said Monday evening that the Afghan police and army were in control of the city, but that they were receiving reports from the villages that more than 500 people were preparing to attack the city. “The situation is very bad and we are waiting for an attack by Dostum’s supporters,” he said.

President Hamid Karzai condemned the violence in a statement and ordered the army and the police to restore order. “It is the legitimate and constitutional right of every Afghan to take part in peaceful demonstrations, but these demonstrations must not turn violent and cause the breakdown of law and order in the country,” he said.

General Dostum, a Soviet-trained general, has dominated his ethnic Uzbek region in northern Afghanistan for almost three decades, gaining a reputation for ruthlessness, both against his enemies and within his party and militia.

His militia have been disarmed and he has been removed from official life, holding only the symbolic post of chief of staff for defense. But he remains a powerful presence in Jowzjan, his home province.

The suicide attack on Monday, in Kunduz, was aimed at private security contractors who slowed for a speed bump, Agence France-Presse reported, quoting local police officials. It said the Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.

Two policemen were killed in a separate attack on a United Nations food convoy, Agence France-Presse said, citing officials. It said that in another attack in the south, which has been the center of Taliban activity, a NATO soldier was killed in an explosion and another soldier and an interpreter were wounded, citing a NATO statement.

Abdul Waheed Wafa reported from Kabul, and Carlotta Gall from Islamabad, Pakistan.

Pardoned in Afghanistan, N.C. man chooses to stay in prison

Published on Tuesday, May 29, 2007 KABUL, Afghanistan The Associated Press

A North Carolina man imprisoned in Afghanistan for running a private jail for terror suspects has a new passport. His dog has been vaccinated for overseas travel. But two months after being freed by presidential decree, Jack Keith Idema remains in his Afghan cell.

The reasons why, like most of Idema's dramatic personal story, are murky and complicated. They include a visa dispute and a compensation claim by one of his victims.

They also involve documents that Idema says would finally prove his claim that he was a hired mercenary hunting al-Qaida suspects on a mission sanctioned by U.S. counterterrorism officials _ a claim that American authorities have denied.

Idema's Afghan lawyer and prison officials say Idema could be only days from leaving the country. But Idema, a former Green Beret from Fayetteville, N.C., has appeared in no hurry to leave a prison cell that by local standards is top of the line.

His self-described prison "suite," has its own kitchen, a private bathroom, couches, rugs, TV, Internet access and a small staff. He is also friendly with prison guards aligned with the Northern Alliance, the coalition of anti-Taliban militias that helped the U.S. drive the hardline militia from power in late 2001.

"He is allowed to keep a dog, weapons and a cook. Why? Because the anti-Taliban factions of the Afghan government have never, not once, considered him a prisoner, but a temporary guest," Idema's U.S. lawyer, John E. Tiffany, said in a recent court filing.

Idema is one of three U.S. citizens arrested in July 2004 and imprisoned at Policharki prison for abducting several Afghans and holding them in a makeshift jail in Kabul. Brent Bennet, another former soldier, was released last September, as was freelance journalist Edward Caraballo, who was filming their activities, in April 2006.

Idema's detention is just the latest episode in a personal history that includes three years in U.S jail for fraud in the 1980s. He claims to have fought with Northern Alliance forces against the Taliban and was featured in a book about the Afghan war called "Task Force Dagger: The Hunt for bin Laden."

Some of the Afghans Idema imprisoned in 2004 claimed they were beaten and their heads held under water. However, Idema says he never mistreated prisoners and the prosecution offered scant evidence at his sometimes chaotic Kabul trial, where he initially was sentenced to 10 years in jail.

Idema told The Associated Press by cell phone from Policharki that it might be hard for people to understand why he has remained after President Hamid Karzai's decree in late March that freed him.

But he said he risked arrest by Afghan intelligence agents and that departing would harm his chances of recovering documents, tapes and computer files that show his alleged relationship with U.S. officials.

"My car is parked outside right now," Idema said. "I could drive through the Policharki gates right now. Then what happens? I get arrested. (The intelligence service) will arrest me for not having an Afghan visa and they'll torture me and kill me. If I'm lucky, I'm only going to be tortured."

A U.S. federal judge in April said the United States had to respond to a lawsuit by Idema alleging that the State Department and FBI illegally kept him imprisoned, directed his torture and destroyed evidence. Idema said he has audio recordings and documents to back up his claims.

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul responded by saying that since Idema had been freed by Karzai, his claims no longer had merit.

"Mr. Idema's habeas claim is moot because his criminal sentence has expired and because his continued presence in Policharki prison is due to his refusal to leave without his personal belongings," the U.S. said in a court filing.

The U.S. said it has secured Idema a passport and helped him with travel information for him and Nina, a dog that Bennet had adopted. Idema, who is insisting on taking the animal with him, said it had received shots so that it could travel.

Idema's Afghan lawyer, Rahim Ahmadzai, said Idema also wants $500,000 of equipment _ computers, cameras and weapons _ and a special passport returned from the Afghan government.

"Jack's attitude is he wants compensation for that, otherwise he doesn't care if he has to spend the next 10 years in prison," said Ahmadzai.

Another issue has been compensation demanded by one of the men Idema held in his prison.

The man, a senior judge called Sadiq, originally had wanted $13,000 in compensation, but told the AP that he gave Idema a letter on Friday forgiving him.

"Because I'm an Afghan Muslim, I forgive all these things," said Sadiq, who goes by one name. "I'm not his enemy, he's not my enemy."

Abdul Salam Ismat, a senior Afghan justice official, said compensation claims usually cannot keep someone jailed.

"For us, he's completely free. He's not a prisoner. But Mr. Idema's story is that he's safer inside Policharki, so he's staying there," Ismat said. "We could have kicked him out on the street after he was pardoned, but that might not have been well received by the international community."

Associated Press reporter Jason Straziuso reported from Kabul. Matt Apuzzo reported from Washington.

German foreign minister explores situation of Afghans in Pakistan

29 May 2007 12:08:02 GMT Source: UNHCR

Reuters and AlertNet are not responsible for the content of this article or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author's alone.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, May 29 (UNHCR) – Better understanding of the refugee situation in Pakistan and management of population movements topped the agenda during a recent visit by German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier to witness the Afghan repatriation from north-western Pakistan.

Steinmeier and his delegation visited Afghanistan and Pakistan last week in preparation for the June 6-8 meeting of the Group of Eight (G8) leading industrialized nations and upcoming European Union (EU) foreign minister meetings in Germany. The aim of the visits was to discuss and agree on issues which could be raised in these high-level meetings and in direct consultations planned in Germany with the foreign ministers of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Germany currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU and G8.

Last Wednesday, the delegation travelled to the UN refugee agency's voluntary repatriation centre (VRC) in Peshawar, North West Frontier Province in Pakistan. UNHCR Pakistan's assistant representative, Kilian Kleinschmidt, briefed the German foreign minister about the overall situation, with particular emphasis on the recent Afghan registration exercise, repatriation and plans for camp closure.

"Pakistan is home to the world's largest refugee situation, the largest assisted repatriation in modern history and the largest registration of refugees ever conducted," said Kleinschmidt. "More than 1 million Afghans have been processed by UNHCR through this VRC in the last six years, which makes it the largest repatriation centre in the world."

During his visit, the foreign minister witnessed the Afghan repatriation process, which includes physical and biometric verification, deregistration and iris verification. He expressed his appreciation for the efforts by UNHCR and stated how "amazing it was to see the world's most modern technology applied in this environment."

His main focus, however, was how the international community and Germany could contribute efficiently to the management of population flows between Pakistan and Afghanistan. As a result, he insisted on carrying to the G8 meeting a sample Proof of Registration (PoR) card issued after the Afghan registration exercise and a biometric border crossing card issued by Pakistan's National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA), "to show my colleagues what could be do-able in Pakistan and Afghanistan if we bring them together."

The repatriation of PoR holders started from April 19 this year and will continue till the end of the year. Some 20,000 registered Afghans have so far chosen to repatriate with UNHCR assistance averaging $100 per person.

The Pakistan government reiterated that unregistered Afghans would be considered illegal immigrants and would be dealt with under national laws. However, undocumented Afghans were given a six-week window from March 1 to April 15 to repatriate in safety and dignity with UNHCR assistance. Unprecedented anti-fraud measures were taken at the VRCs, including thorough interviews, fingerprint biometrics, iris verification and the use of election ink to prevent recycling. More than 200,000 Afghans repatriated over those six weeks.

During his visit, the foreign minister also met the refugee elders of Katchagari camp, which is scheduled for government closure on June 15. Thanking the Pakistan government for over 27 years of generosity, elder Haji Dost Muhammad said, "If the government of Afghanistan gives us land and it is developed by the international community and all the basic facilities such as water, health and education are provided, we are ready to repatriate." He added that those who cannot return must have viable relocation options.

New dates for closure of four camps in Pakistan were agreed at the 12th Tripartite Commission meeting between the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and UNHCR in February this year. Besides Katchagari, Jalozai camp (also in NWFP), Jungle Pir Alizai and Girdi Jungle camps (both in Balochistan province) will also be closed. Together, the four camps host more than 220,000 Afghans, who have been asked to choose between assisted voluntary repatriation and relocation to an existing camp in Pakistan.

Pakistan has hosted one of the largest refugee populations in the world for nearly three decades. Although it is not party to the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol, the government has respected international protection principles. More than 3 million Afghans have voluntarily repatriated from Pakistan with UNHCR assistance since 2002, making it the largest such operation in the refugee agency's history.

By Rabia Ali

in Peshawar, Pakistan

German prosecutors drop investigation into alleged abuse of prisoner in Afghanistan

The Associated Press Tuesday, May 29, 2007

BERLIN: Prosecutors dropped an investigation Tuesday into allegations that two German special forces soldiers mistreated a German-born Turkish citizen while he was being held in Afghanistan.

Murat Kurnaz, who later spent years at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo, has claimed that two German soldiers came to interrogate him at a camp near Kandahar in 2002, and one of them slammed his head into the ground.

Prosecutors in Tuebingen said in January that they were investigating two unidentified members of Germany's KSK special forces, deployed in Afghanistan as part of a U.S.-led coalition.

In a statement Tuesday, prosecutors said they were dropping the case for lack of evidence, but said still had "remaining doubts" about the soldiers' version of events.

Kurnaz was detained in Pakistan in 2001, turned over to U.S. authorities and held at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as a terror suspect. He was released in 2006 after a U.S. federal judge found the evidence did not justify his detention.

The Defense Ministry has said that German soldiers questioned about the allegations recalled the presence of a German-speaker among prisoners they helped guard near Kandahar, but that the only contact they remembered was one soldier calling out to the man.

Dr Spantas appreciation letter to his Australian counterpart

MoFA: Posted On: May 29, 2007

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Dr Spanta welcomed the recent decision of the Australian government for the deployment of 950 more troops to Afghanistan as part of the UN mandated ISAF and commitment of $99,6 Million aid.

In a letter to H.E. Alexander Downer the Australia's Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, he expressed Afghanistan’s appreciation and his pleasure to see elevating the bilateral relation between the two countries.

Pakistan Says U.S. Needs Pakistan For Fight In Afghanistan

May 29, 2007 -- Pakistan's foreign minister says the need for cooperation on Afghanistan is likely to ensure that Pakistan remains an ally of the United States.

Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri says Washington understands that Pakistan has a "fundamental" role to play in the future of Afghanistan.

Kasuri also said he is due to meet Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta on Wednesday (May 30) in Potsdam, Germany.

"When I meet my Afghan colleague, what I will point out to him is that if we start attacking each other publicly, it will be counterproductive,╜ Kasuri said. ôAnd that's the good thing that came out of [an earlier] Ankara meeting. The rhetoric has gone down. Both countries understand the difficulties. The international community understands the difficulties."

Pakistan and Afghanistan are both allies of the United States in the war against terrorism. But Afghan and Pakistani government troops have clashed repeatedly along their disputed frontier this month.

Canada's aid failures threat to military mission in Afghanistan, NGO says

Andrew Mayeda CanWest News Service Tuesday, May 29, 2007

OTTAWA - Canada's "failures" on the development and aid front are endangering the military mission in Afghanistan, says a non-governmental organization that operates in Kandahar province.

In fact, the situation is so severe that the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) should be relieved of its duties and replaced with a special envoy who will co-ordinate development, aid and counter-narcotics policy, argues the Senlis Council.

"When you're on the ground in Kandahar, it's sad to say that despite good intentions, CIDA's efforts are non-existent," Vancouverite Norine MacDonald, the group's founder, said Monday.

"We are confronted every day by people without food, without water, without medical aid, without shelter."

Senlis is calling for a major overhaul of Canada's strategy that would see its development and aid budget increased to the same level as the military budget.

Currently, Canada spends more than 10 times on military operations than it does on development.

"Our military are doing a remarkable job in the most difficult circumstances, but our government is not doing what needs to be done in development, aid or counter-narcotics policies to be sure that we have the support of the Afghan people," said MacDonald. "Without winning the hearts and minds of the Afghan people, we will continue to win the battles but we will not the war."

Almost six years since the United States and its allies invaded the country, people in southern Afghanistan are actually worse off economically, said MacDonald.

The province is gripped by "extreme poverty" and "growing disenchantment" with NATO forces, she said.

Refugee camps are teeming with starving people, making the camps an "easy recruiting ground" for the Taliban, who pay recruits about $200 per month.

No substantial food aid has been delivered to Kandahar province since March 2006, said MacDonald.

Meanwhile, mounting civilian casualties are feeding resentment toward Canadian troops and their allies.

According to a Senlis survey of 17,000 Afghan men this spring, more than 80 per cent of men in southern Afghanistan worry about feeding their families.

Fifty per cent believe the Taliban will defeat the NATO coalition.

Senlis also slammed the U.S.-driven policy to stamp out the opium trade by eradicating poppy crops. Opium production has actually increased while leaving poor farmers without work.

Instead, the group is proposing a "poppy-for-medicine" pilot project that would license Afghan farmers to grow opium for use as morphine or codeine, an approach that has worked in countries such as Turkey and India.

Senlis also recommends that Canada adopt the UN millennium development goals as success criteria for the Afghanistan mission. The goals target progress in areas such as poverty and hunger, universal primary education and gender equality.

But MacDonald reserved her harshest words for CIDA, which has been criticized for the slow pace of its development efforts.

"For some reason, CIDA has a structure in historical development that makes it difficult for them to work in a war zone," said MacDonald.

However, she was vague on exactly how a special development envoy would turn things around. She said the envoy would decide on the strategy after consulting with government, military and aid-agency officials.

A Senate committee on national defence also found no evidence of a "visible" Canadian development effort and called on CIDA to funnel money through the military to deliver aid.

The office of Josee Verner, the minister in charge of CIDA, did not respond to a request for comment.

Despite its concerns, Senlis is not calling for a Canadian withdrawal from Afghanistan. In fact, Canada should not set a timetable for leaving, but instead set clear goals for the mission and not leave until they are accomplished, said MacDonald.

Canada has about 2,500 troops in the Kandahar region in the southern part of Afghanistan. Fifty-five Canadian soldiers and one diplomat have died there since 2002.

Senlis was founded in 2002 and is bankrolled by Swedish philanthropist Stephan Schmidheiny, an early investor in the Swatch Group. It has offices in London, Paris, Brussels, Ottawa and Kabul, as well as field offices in Kandahar and Helmand provinces.

Ottawa Citizen

Cut CIDA's role in Afghanistan: think-tank

Last Updated: Monday, May 28, 2007 | 9:42 PM ET

Canada's lead agency for international assistance in developing countries is not up to the job of delivering aid to Afghanistan and should be relieved of that responsibility, a think-tank said Monday.

"The extremely limited results achieved by Canada’s International Development Agency in Kandahar to date demonstrate the incapacity of the agency to operate effectively in a war zone," according to a report by the Senlis Council.

The international think-tank, with offices in several countries, including Canada, researches and recommends foreign policy and policy on security, development and counter-narcotics strategies.

CIDA's "limited achievements" are undermining Canadian military efforts and compromising the likelihood of mission success, the report says.

Kandahar’s refugee camps are growing steadily and its hospital is dilapidated and filthy, the report states.

As well, there is no functioning food aid distribution system, and legal money-making opportunities remain extremely limited, according to the report.

"The failure to demonstrably address the extreme poverty, widespread hunger and appalling child and maternal mortality rates in Afghanistan — let alone boost economic development — is decreasing local Afghan support for Canada’s mission and increasing support for the insurgency."

Norine MacDonald, of the Senlis Council, said the problem is a structural issue because the money the agency does have is not ending up on the ground.

"When you're on the ground in Kandahar, it's sad to say, despite good intentions, CIDA's efforts are non-existent," MacDonald said.

"We are confronted every day by people without food, without water, without shelter, without medical aid. So our efforts are so minimal as to be non-existent."

MacDonald said the council surveyed more than 17,000 Afghan men and found that over 80 per cent worry constantly about feeding their families.

As well, 50 per cent of them said they believed the Taliban will win the current guerrilla war that's taking place in the south.

The report recommends that CIDA be replaced by a special envoy.

"A special envoy would be in the ideal position to co-ordinate the efforts of Canadian individuals and aid organizations to assist in the Afghan reconstruction and development process," the report says.

The proposed special envoy should have a budget equal to Canada's military spending in the war-torn country, about $1 billion a year, the council recommends.

Last March, a Senate report recommended the federal government overhaul or abolish CIDA.

Bloc Quebecois wrong in supporting Afghanistan mission beyond 2009

Tue 29 May 2007 

OTTAWA – The Bloc Quebecois is prepared to support extending the mission in Afghanistan beyond 2009, as Prime Minister Stephen Harper proposed during a trip to Afghanistan last week. The Bloc’s defence critic, Claude Bachand, announced this new position last week on the eve of a meeting of parliamentarians in Europe.

This position is incompatible with the wishes of the majority of Quebeckers, says the NDP’s Quebec spokesperson, Thomas Mulcair. “The Bloc’s position is incomprehensible. It is out of touch with Quebeckers. This mission in Afghanistan remains unbalanced and unclear. It isn’t working. It’s the wrong mission for Canada.”

In Portugal, Bachand offered to lobby European parliamentarians to promote the extension of the mission. “Conservative MPs couldn’t have done a better job themselves,” added Mulcair. Bachand will be back tomorrow and will likely report to his colleagues on his success in doing Harper’s lobbying work.

This is not the first time Bachand has pushed the Bloc Quebecois towards supporting Stephen Harper’s military misadventures. In April 2006, during the debate on the mission in Afghanistan, Bachand declared that “once people are informed about the Canadian Forces’ mission, they will agree with it, which will give us stronger support. So let’s keep going.” Bachand’s support was warmly applauded by the Conservatives. However, it is interesting to note that the Bloc later voted against the mission in Afghanistan during Bachand’s absence.

Connection Between Drugs and Conflict Must Be Addressed in Afghanistan

May 28, 2007: The nexus between opium and insecurity in Afghanistan and its implications for reconstruction and development were addressed in a meeting today (Sunday) in Madeira of the NATO PA Committee on the Civil Dimension of Security by Andrea Mancini of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and Emmanuel Reinert of the think tank Senlis Council.

"Battling the connection between drugs and conflict", said Mancini "requires a long term commitment and the recognition that opium in Afghanistan is as much a narcotic issue as matter of insurgency". But the international community's response to the "three interacting crises of security, poverty and opium", added Reinert, "will not be won on the battlefield alone".

In order to gain the support of the Afghan people by winning their hearts and minds, NATO and its partners, as well as the UN and the EU, need to adopt an integrated strategy, which should include effective poppy eradication but also serious economic incentives to the Afghan population to abandon opium cultivation. However, as indicated by the Senlis Council, forced eradication is fuelling support for the Taliban and the insurgency, compromising Alliance troops' safety and mission.

To avoid such a negative outcome, Mr. Reinert illustrated a "poppy for medicine" strategy that could complement the work of the UNODC. The model involves government and international community controlled village-based poppy cultivation and production of medicine tablets. "Afghan morphine tablets would help address the global demand for essential pain medicine", writes the Senlis Council, "and all economic profits will remain in the village, allowing for economic diversification".

In a parallel strategy, NATO should step up its efforts in increasing co-operation between the security and development sectors. In particular, the Alliance's training and capacity building is essential to help the Afghan government address the drug problem, particularly by developing its army and police. This was also stressed by NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer while addressing NATO legislators last Friday: "countries must do more to help train and equip Afghanistan's national army and police".

While progress has been made in the development of the Afghan National Army, "the situation appears to be somewhat less successful with regard to the Afghan National Police", said British parliamentarian Frank Cook in his report on Afghanistan to NATO PA Defence and Security Committee. "Influence over local poppy policy enforcement", writes Mr. Cook, "has also made local police posts particularly vulnerable to the corrosive effects of the narco-economy".

Members of the Afghan parliament, participating for the first time in an Assembly session, contributed to the discussions in Madeira today and, while praising Mr. Cook's effort, they also reminded delegates that their country's problems should be seen in a broader regional context and encouraged the international community to adopt a more structured regional strategy. Members of the Pakistani parliament also participated for the first time in an Assembly session in Madeira.

Source: NATO

War on Terror: Securing and Stabilizing Afghanistan

Jim Kouri, CPP May 28, 2007

Since 2001, the United States has appropriated over $15 billion to help secure, stabilize, and reconstruct Afghanistan. In February 2007, the administration requested $12.3 billion in additional funding to accelerate some of these efforts to prevent the conflict-ridden nation from once again becoming a safe haven for terrorists and from devolving into a narco-state.

More than 50 nations, including the United States, and several multilateral organizations are engaged in securing, stabilizing, and reconstructing Afghanistan. Progress has been made in areas such as economic growth, infrastructure development, and training of the Afghan army and police, but after more than 5 years of US and international efforts, the overall security situation in this poor and ethnically diverse country has not improved and, moreover, has deteriorated significantly in the last year.

The lack of security limits the success of efforts to stabilize and rebuild Afghanistan. Direct challenges to these efforts include a resurgence of the Taliban, the limited capabilities of Afghan security forces, inadequate infrastructure, limited government capacity, corruption, a largely illiterate and untrained labor force, a dramatic increase in drug production, and a lack of viable licit economic opportunities.

Since 2003, analysts from the Government Accounting Office have issued five reports on US efforts in Afghanistan -- one on food and agricultural assistance, two on reconstruction assistance, one on efforts to establish Afghan national security forces, and one on drug control programs.

The GAO identified programmatic improvements that were needed, as well as many obstacles that limited success and should be taken into consideration in program design and implementation. A key improvement analysts identified in most of the US efforts was the need for improved planning, including the development of strategic plans with elements such as measurable goals, specific time frames, cost estimates, and identification of external factors that could significantly affect efforts.

Some additional needed improvements identified include better coordination among the United States and other donor nations, more flexible options for program implementation, and timelier project implementation. The GAO also concluded that several obstacles, especially deteriorating security and the limited institutional capacity of the Afghan government, challenge the effectiveness of US efforts.

Responsiveness to recommendations for programmatic improvements varied. Progress to date has been mixed in all areas the GAO reported on, including reform of Afghanistan's security sector. Analysts reported that progress needs to be congruent in all five pillars of the security reform agenda established by the United States and several coalition partners.

The United States has been involved to some degree with each of the five pillars and initially was charged with taking the lead in establishing the Afghan army, but has since allocated significant resources to reconstituting the police and countering the illicit drug trade. Although some army and police units have been trained and equipped, Defense reports that none are capable of independent operations, Afghanistan still has no formal national judicial system for the police to rely upon, opium poppy cultivation is at record levels, and the Afghan police often find themselves facing better armed drug traffickers and militias.

In the absence of national security forces capable of independently providing security for the country, the International Security Assistance Force is helping to provide security for Afghanistan. Though reconstruction assistance helped Afghanistan elect its first president, return millions of children to school, and repatriate millions of refugees, Afghanistan continues to face reconstruction challenges, which are exacerbated by the security-related concerns.

The US Defense Department, State Department, and US Agency for International Development officials have suggested that securing, stabilizing, and reconstructing Afghanistan will take at least a decade and require continuing international assistance.

The Defense Department revised its plans to adapt to the deteriorating security situation and to rapidly increase the ability of the Afghan National Security Forces to operate with less coalition support. These modified plans call for a total of $7.6 billion for the ANSF in 2007, which is over a threefold increase compared with fiscal year 2006 and represents more than all of the US assistance for the ANSF in fiscal years 2002 through 2006 combined.

The costs of these and other efforts will require difficult tradeoffs for decision makers as the United States faces competing demands for its resources, such as securing and stabilizing Iraq, in the years ahead.

Sources: Department of Defense, Government Accounting Office, Central Intelligence Agency

AFGHANISTAN: UN to track civilian casualties more closely

Source: IRIN

Reuters and AlertNet are not responsible for the content of this article or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author's alone.

KABUL, 29 May 2007 (IRIN) - The increasing number of civilian causalities in the armed conflict in Afghanistan has prompted the UN to set up a database of information on non-combatants affected by the insurgency.

"The database will be similar to the one already used by the UN in Iraq," Javier Leon Diaz, a UN human rights expert in Afghanistan, told IRIN on Monday.

In the first four months of 2007 alone, up to 380 civilians were killed in military operations by all sides in Afghanistan, the UN Assistance Mission for Afghanistan (UNAMA) said.

Monitoring the situation of non-combatants in volatile parts of Afghanistan is a very difficult and complex exercise, according to UN officials.

"Although we have seen more military operations this year yet our efforts to count and verify figures have been restricted by a complex environment and we have found it very difficult to be accurate," conceded Richard Bennett, UNAMA head of the human rights division.

The UN's belated civilian casualty database will be developed by the High Commission for Human Rights in Geneva, but will be regularly updated by UNAMA in Kabul.

"It is still unclear whether the database will be available for public use, but it will help the UN to verify the very confusing pieces of information about the situation of Afghan civilians in the current conflict," Diaz said.

Who is to blame?

The UN has blamed Taliban insurgents for violating international humanitarian law (IHL) in their fight against Afghan and international forces and says it is concerned about the growing number of civilians affected in the ongoing armed conflict.

Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) has, meanwhile, accused US Special Forces of breaching IHL in one incident on 4 March, in which more than 12 civilians were shot dead in the eastern province of Nangarhar.

US forces publicly conceded the use of indiscriminate force in the Nangarhar incident and apologised for the harm inflicted on Afghan civilians.

However, US officials have blamed the Taliban for civilian causalities in Afghanistan. They say the Taliban use non-combatants as shields in their attacks on Afghan and international forces and choose to fight from civilian locations.

IRIN asked Diaz whether such a justification was acceptable: "Unfortunately, civilian casualties are unavoidable in conflicts," said Diaz.

Diaz told IRIN that civilian causalities would be justifiable if soldiers opened fire in self-defence and/or if the force used was proportionate to the military objective.

Qaeda leader in Afghanistan money man behind Bin Laden

by Habib Trabelsi Tue May 29, 4:06 AM ET

Mustafa Abu Yazid, reported by the Al-Jazeera television channel to be the new head of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, is a former treasurer to Osama bin Laden and a founder member of his network, according to an expert on Islamist groups who knew him personally.

"Mustafa Abu Yazid, also known as Said, has come forward as the general director of the Al-Qaeda organisation in Afghanistan," the Qatar-based channel reported on Thursday, airing video extracts of a black-bearded man with thick glasses and a white turban.

The expert on Islamist groups, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity, said Abu Yazid would replace Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, an Iraqi and high-ranking member of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, whose arrest was announced by the United States in April.

"Mustafa Abu Yazid is a former member of Egyptian Jihad who enjoys the confidence of Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden," he said.

In the 45-minute video Yazid spoke about Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq and the Palestinian territories.

He punctuated his speech with verses from the Koran and quotes from the Western media, including an April 2 New York Times article.

"In Afghanistan the mujahedeen expecially need money. We have hundreds of volunteers for martyrdom operations, but don't have the money to equip them," he said, appealing for funds from "Muslims all over the world."

According to Yasser al-Sirri, the director of the London-based Islamic Observatory, Yazid "was born in December 1955 in the Al-Sharqiya area of the Nile Delta."

Sirri said Yazid was "trusted by Bin Laden, for whom he ran businesses in Sudan" when the founder of Al-Qaeda lived in exile there before Khartoum expelled him in 1996.

"Yazid is known for his integrity and management skills, but has never taken organisational or military responsibility at the heart of Al-Qaeda, of which he was one of the founders in 1989," Sirri said.

Yazid is on the list of 27 individuals, organisations and charities whose assets were frozen by the US Treasury in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

He is number four out of 12 individuals on the list, after Bin Laden himself, Mohammed Atef (alias Abu Hafs al-Masri) and Sayf al-Adl, but ahead of Al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri, another Egyptian.

According to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, it was Yazid who transferred funds via Dubai for Mohammed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Wal al-Shehri, three of the September 11 hijackers who flew aircraft into the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, DC.

In the video posted last Thursday on an Islamist website, Yazid pledged allegiance to Bin Laden, Zawahiri and Mullah Omar, spiritual chief of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

He also claimed the presence of "numerous Arab and other nationalities in Afghanistan for the past year."

In a reference to "Afghan Arabs," who battled against forces of the then Soviet Union in Afghanistan before they pulled out in 1989, "the role of these mujahedeen was as important (now) as it was during the time of the anti-Soviet jihad."

Kiwi soldiers return historic artefacts in Afghanistan

6:00PM Tuesday May 29, 2007

New Zealand soldiers helping with the rebuilding of war-torn Afghanistan have returned priceless artefacts more than 1300 years old.

The Army said soldiers deployed in the Bamyan Province had been told of an illicit trade in heritage items and confiscated several items shown to them by a local man.

New Zealand Provincial Reconstruction Team (NZPRT) commander Colonel Roger McElwain, said the soldiers were well aware of the value of history to a nation.

The small statues and coins were estimated by a local expert to be from the seventh or eighth century AD.

They were exactly the sort of items the government had been trying to safeguard, said Col McElwain.

They were handed over to Governor Sarabi by Defence Minister Phil Goff at a special ceremony in the provincial capital.

Col McElwain said New Zealanders had an excellent understanding of the importance of protecting items of cultural significance.

"It is wonderful to be able to return these items to the people of Afghanistan, a country that has been robbed of many treasures in its turbulent he said.

New Zealand has 122 defence force personnel in the NZPRT in Bamyan. They were there to maintain security in Bamyan Province and to provide advice and assistance to the provincial governor, the Afghan national police and district sub-governors.

- NZPA

AFGHANISTAN: Opium abuse harming women's, children's health

YAMGAN, 29 May 2007 (IRIN) - Sadaf started consuming opium seven years ago after she could not find any medicine to overcome a headache that had bothered her for weeks. "When I first smoked opium I felt dizzy for a while, but did not have a headache - so I continued," the mother of four told IRIN in the Yamgan District of Afghanistan's northeastern Badakshan province.

[This report is also available as a radio story on IRIN's Afghanistan Radio Page http://www.irinnews.org/RadioCountry.aspx?Country=AFG]

Sadaf smokes locally produced opium with a tiny hookah thrice a day with her children huddled around her. In the intoxicating atmosphere of the mud hut filled with opium smoke there is no chattering by her children; they look dazed and silent.

Grabbing the head of her four-year-old son who suffers pneumonia, the mother put a blowback of smoke into his mouth and puffed a second breath at his face. "I do this to make him calm and sleep well," Sadaf said to justify her actions.

Fanila Zaki, a health worker in Badakhshan, said many such children suffer acute respiratory diseases caused by frequent exposure to opium smoke.

"Some mothers think when their children do not cry and sleep they are fine," said Zaki, "but that is simply incorrect and misleading".

High maternal mortality

With some 1,600 mothers dying per 100,000 births, Afghanistan has one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the world, officials at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) office in Kabul said.

In Badakhshan, 6,500 mothers out 100,000 die while giving birth - the highest maternal mortality rate in the world, the UN agency says.

Opium abuse exacerbates the situation, specialists say. Women who consume opium during pregnancy loose much of their energy and become venerable to different diseases, the provincial health department reported.

"Most addicted mothers suffer asthma, coughing and lung problems which make them very weak to endure the burden of pregnancy," a local health worker said.

Health workers say some addicted mothers also loose the chance of a future pregnancy because opium addiction damages their uterus.

Financial burden

Addiction has put a heavy financial burden on many poor families, plunging them deeper into poverty and social insecurity.

"I've been spending 200 Afghani [US$4] on opium every day for the past seven years. I sold my land in order to afford my addiction," another addicted woman, Bibi Mullah, said.

Badakhshan, one of Afghanistan's most isolated, underdeveloped and poverty-stricken provinces, has a rugged terrain that impedes movement in its sparsely populated districts.

There is no official data about the number of drug addicts in Badakhshan. However, the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) says one million people have drug addiction problems in Afghanistan of which 45,000 are women.

Poor health service

According to Mohammad Alim Yaqoobi, head of the UNODC office in Badakhshan, the majority of people in Badakhshan lack access to health services and awareness about the harm of opium addiction.

"People tend to consume opium as a painkiller. It takes time until they actually realise that opium itself is a disease and that they are addicted to it," added Yaqoobi.

Locals in the district say if health services were provided they would not use opium as a substitute for medicine.

In Yamgan and many other districts of Badakshan, donkeys are the only means of transport for the locals. A resident of Jokhan village in Yamgan District needs two days, either on foot or by donkey, to reach the nearest medical facility. Opium is thus considered a readily available option.

UNODC has been working in Badakhshan to enlighten locals about the risks associated with opium addiction.

However, given the high rate of illiteracy in the estimated 900,000 population of Badakhshan, it is very difficult to maintain a robust public information campaign. Some 3,730 opium-addicted individuals who had received treatment in Badakhshan resumed opium consumption shortly after the rehabilitation, according to UNODC.

Soldiers terrorize Afghani hospital

Tom Blackwell National Post Tuesday, May 29, 2007

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - At the best of times, Dr. Sharifa Siddiqi has an unenviable job.

As director of southern Afghanistan's main civilian hospital, she oversees an under-equipped, dishevelled facility that must nevertheless care for a flood of seriously wounded from one terrorist bombing after another.

Lately, Mirwais Hospital has had to deal with an added burden: the region's security forces. Armed to the teeth, Afghan police and soldiers regularly barge in and demand immediate treatment for their comrades, violently disrupting the hospital.

Recently, said Dr. Siddiqi, about a dozen men appeared, brandishing rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. They insisted doctors drop everything to help someone hurt in a mine explosion. She called the Governor of Kandahar to complain.

"They come at me, saying, 'I'm a commander, I'm a mujaheed,' " said the hospital director, who is also a general surgeon and a rare female administrator in this conservative corner of Afghanistan.

"Everyone is ordering me around, even though they have no authority over me. ? I don't think they're human. They act like animals."

Security agencies and other government departments also dump dozens of bodies a month at Mirwais, forcing the hospital to dip into its meagre patient care funds to bury them.

The hospital's other problems are only slightly more routine: a shortage of blood so severe it asks patients and their relatives to donate; a dangerous and inadequate supply of oxygen; and substandard medication.

It all comes as the number of suicide bombings and roadside bomb attacks in Kandahar city seems to be increasing. Three bombs exploded in just one day recently, killing 10 and hurting numerous others.

However, "if there is one explosion or 10 explosions, the monthly income for the hospital is the same," Dr. Siddiqi said.

In stark contrast, foreign military forces have access to a modern, Canadian-led trauma hospital just a few kilometres down the road at the sprawling NATO base.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has been helpful to Mirwais, providing aid and expertise, Dr. Siddiqi said, and sometimes local patients are treated at the airfield hospital. Generally, though, the foreign community in southern Afghanistan has not been magnanimous.

Canada, the NATO member in charge of reconstruction for Kandahar province, donated five computers, shelving for a hospital library and an ambulance, although not all the equipment for it, Dr. Siddiqi said.

Canadians also provided money for a new X-ray machine, to be bought by the Afghan health ministry in Kabul.

But when the machine arrived from the capital about six months ago, it turned out to be secondhand, was missing parts and had no instruction manual. "It's not worth anything," she said.

The apparatus remains in its wooden packing crate, stored prominently in the hospital's front lobby.

Lieutenant Des James, a spokesman for the Canadian-run Kandahar provincial reconstruction team, said he could find no record of his organization, at least, having funded the machine. The ICRC and UNICEF are the international agencies responsible for the hospital, he noted.

The Senlis Council, a British-based think-tank headed by Norine MacDonald, a Canadian lawyer, has reported the Kandahar hospital is "wholly inadequate" to deal with the population's basic needs, let alone war-zone cases, and there is little evidence the West has provided much help.

Built about 20 years ago during the Communist era, Mirwais serves Kandahar, Zabul and Uruzgan provinces, among others. It was briefly in the news during the war in 2001, when several al-Qaeda fighters held off attackers from within its walls.

Even today, it has few of the trappings of a 21st-century acute-care hospital.

The emergency examination room consists of six patient tables with thin black pads, bare walls and no other apparent equipment.

One slightly grimy-looking room viewed on a recent visit consisted of two untidy beds, each holding a young child, and a single chair. The sign outside said it was an ICU: intensive care unit.

The two sparse operating theatres contain a minimum of modern gear.

Although the Taliban, when in power, would force people to give blood, there is no such system in place now to build up a supply, Dr. Siddiqi said. So the hospital has a novel offer: Any patient who comes in with a minor ailment and gives a pint of blood gets a free bed.

Relatives of those needing surgery must also give blood, both for the patient and to add to the bank.

After one recent suicide bombing, the hospital was inundated with 70 seriously injured people, but had only 40 units of blood. Dr. Siddiqi sent out a truck with a loudspeaker that drove around the city calling for donors.

The hospital also lacks any central oxygen system, meaning patients have to be given the gas from a collection of rusting tanks that are left strewn in the yard outside when not being used. They pose less of a danger there if they explode. Oxygen supplies are especially short at the end of the month, when the budget is running out.

One time, Mirwais had six children who needed oxygen but only four tanks available. Staff had to move them back and forth between the young patients.

Drugs, increasingly imported from Iran and Pakistan, are often of low quality and sometimes lack the ingredients the labels claim, the administrator said.

Despite such conditions, staff at the hospital appear dedicated, if underpaid and overworked by the steady influx of casualties.

The hours and poor income can mean a troubled home life, said Dr. Shapoor, an anesthetist.

"Everyone has financial problems. ? It's all very stressful," he said. "I don't mind working 24 hours -- if I am able to provide comfortably for my family."

Pakistan losing territory to radicals

By David Montero
The Christian Science Monitor May 29, 2007

SWAT, Pakistan - In this valley of orchards near Afghanistan, 90 police hid along the banks of a riverbed in March, preparing to arrest the powerful Pakistani cleric Maualana Fazlullah. Informants said the target, charged with terrorism, would soon appear with a modest contingent of followers. Instead, Mr. Fazlullah rode into sight on a white horse, surrounded by hundreds of people.

When the officers advanced, brandishing tear gas and batons, word flew through the town. Thousands more supporters turned out to further protect Fazlullah. The officers backed off in an incident that shocked the country, exposing as it did the state's powerlessness to apprehend a wanted terrorist.

Such scenes are common in the tribal agencies of Waziristan, where the Taliban hold sway under a controversial truce signed with the government in September. But Swat is not Waziristan: It rests squarely in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), a government-administered area long considered beyond such lawlessness.

The rise of Fazlullah exposes the economic and political failures fanning extremism even in these areas, and hints at the consequences, both for Pakistan and the international community, if the province continues down a path of deprivation. Allow him to persist, many observers say, and others will be emboldened to roll back the state's policies of moderation – small but symbolically important gains in women's empowerment, girls' education, and religious tolerance.

"My opinion is, if you take him out today, there will be a reaction," says Asfandiar Amir Zeb, a former mayor of the district of Swat. "Leave it for a month, there will be a bigger reaction. If you leave it for six months, you won't be able to catch him."

Many observers insist that, if the government openly supports a movement against Fazlullah, ordinary citizens will take up the call. Liberal forces abound throughout Pakistan's frontier with Afghanistan, but they lack leadership and support from the central government.

"The majority of people are liberal. But there is no institution for the liberals. The government schools, to some extent, but they are very [few]," says Wajid Ali Khan, a former member of the provincial assembly from the Awami National Party.

Fazlullah signals a dangerous tipping point: He is the local leader of Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammad (TNSM, or The Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Laws), an armed militia that fought in Afghanistan alongside the Taliban. Police say he commands thousands of followers, is stockpiling weapons, and has growing links to Al Qaeda – all of which could turn the area into another terrorist haven. The urgency of the issue was underlined in April, when a British court sentenced five suspects to life for plotting attacks in Britain. Many of those sentenced received jihad training in Malakand, a district adjacent to Fazlullah's.

Many are poor

From the vantage of the cosmopolitan capital, Islamabad, Pakistan is one of the most rapidly growing economies in Asia. But Swat, home to 1.5 million, is a reminder that the frontier has long been deprived of that wealth. The gradual death of an agrarian way of life in Swat, following increased mechanization and a series of land reforms that undercut sharecropping, has promoted the wealth of a few at the expense of thousands. With little local industry, residents of Swat have some of the lowest incomes per day in the province, a formula for discontent.

Local officials in Swat complain they haven't received development funds from the federal government in more than two years. "If I had money, I would give [the city] a vision for development. But I don't have any money," says a frustrated Jamal Nasir Khan, a mayor of Swat based in Saidu Sharif, the district capital. Mr. Khan says he'd like to build more schools and health facilities for the area's population, 49 percent of whom live below the poverty line and 61 percent of whom are illiterate.

It is a problem repeated throughout the NWFP. "Since 1977, there has been no attempt at regional equality," says Karachi-based economist Kaiser Bengali.

Although NWFP has some of the highest rates of poverty, illiteracy, and violence in Pakistan, it received just $34 million in federal aid and development grants in 2006, compared with Punjab's $210 million – even though Punjab, by many accounts, already has the healthiest economic indicators in Pakistan.

"In some villages, the largest employer is the jihadis," Mr. Bengali adds.

Swat is a startling example. Because unemployment is high, Fazlullah is able to summon hundreds of volunteers – who receive meals in exchange – to help build his new madrassah in Mingora, the city of 175,000 where he lives. Situated along the Swat River, the large religious school will someday offer poor students of this city, which has no university, a free education in Fazlullah's ultraconservative brand of Islam. Aides say proudly it will cost nearly $2.5 million, suggesting that while Fazlullah's audiences may generally be poor, he has wealthy patrons.

Since he began preaching two years ago, Fazlullah has drawn more than 15,000 weekly to his Friday prayers. His vision of militant Islam reaches thousands more in the valley by way of his illegal radio station, which he used until recently to warn parents not to send their girls to school. Few parents seem to have heeded that warning, but the government still intervened in May, striking a compromise in which officials would look the other way if Fazlullah stopped preaching against girls' education.

"Tell me, what wrong have I done? I am preaching religion, and religion is not terrorism," Fazlullah says in a brick room on the site of his new madrassah, surrounded by bearded aides.

People turn to cleric for justice

Aside from work, many also turn to Fazlullah for justice. "We are making compromises between rival parties and ending enmities," says Fazlullah.

Fazlullah's growing legitimacy exposes the void left by a justice system that is collapsing in the NWFP. Unlike North and South Waziristan and other parts of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), state law technically applies here. But successive layers of bureaucracy – colonial, modern, secular, religious – have made justice, once free and quick, slow and more expensive.

"There is no local justice, no economic justice. Corruption is a bigger problem than you imagine," says Shah Salam Khan, a lawyer of the district high court, mentioning payoffs to judges and police.

In calling for sharia, or Islamic law, what residents really seek is good governance often neglected by the state, says Ayesha Siddiqa, a political analyst in Islamabad. It's a troubling analogy to North and South Waziristan, where local reports say that the Taliban have established their own courts and hospitals, offering services neglected by the state.

And, as in those areas, Taliban violence has surged throughout the NWFP in the past year, suggesting that it, too, is becoming a haven for militancy. Nine criminal cases, including the charges of terrorism, have been filed against Fazlullah. The police say they suspect that he's formed links with terrorist groups like Jaish-e-Mohammed, which is suspected of collaborating with Al Qaeda in a spate of attacks, including a bombing last March in Karachi that killed an American diplomat. He denies these links.

Yet the police say they cannot arrest Fazlullah. "We are ready to go after him anytime. But there are national activities," says Mohammad Yameen Khan, the district police officer of Swat, referring to President Pervez Musharraf's sacking of the country's chief justice, which has spawned growing protests. "You don't want to open too many fronts. The forces are committed elsewhere, in the burning places," he adds, referring to neighboring areas witnessing Taliban-related violence.

Officials, cleric cut a deal

In late May, despite the cases against him, Fazlullah signed a peace deal with local officials, agreeing to prevent his followers from running militant camps in return for keeping his radio station.

Many observers say that the state is simply not interested in taking down the Fazlullahs of Pakistan.

"These people remain a good tool of policy in the region, in Afghanistan … as well as internally," says Ijaz Khattak, a professor at the University of Peshawar. "If other liberal parties become stronger, they will challenge the regime. These people are there to stop them."

Pakistan Is Going Down the Road of the Shah's Iran

by Ivan Eland
antiwar.com / May 29, 2007

The Bush administration has blown chances to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, to win wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and now to have any chance of maintaining a stable nuclear-armed Pakistan. Like U.S. policy toward the shah's Iran in the 1960s and 1970s, the Bush administration, despite a rhetorical commitment to spread democracy around the world, has put all of its eggs in the basket of an autocrat unlikely to survive – in this case, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. Although Musharraf uses the U.S. war on terror and desire to get bin Laden to play the United States like a fiddle, the Bush administration's reasoning is that alternatives to Musharraf are worse. If the United States keeps solidly backing Musharraf, however, things could get much worse than even bin Laden using Pakistan as a haven: a nuclear-armed Pakistan controlled by radical Islamists.

Unfortunately, Pakistan probably has already been "lost," and U.S. policy has played an important role in its demise. U.S. policymakers have repeatedly underestimated the consequences of the deep unpopularity engendered by profligate U.S. government meddling in the affairs of other countries. In Iran, although the shah's government was brutal, the regime also became so identified with its unpopular U.S. benefactor that this became a major contributing factor in its collapse and replacement with a militant and enduring Islamist substitute.

The Bush administration, with its macho bravado, especially has had a tin ear for the ramifications of anti-U.S hatred. After 9/11, instead of scheming to use the attacks as a justification to go after Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the Bush administration should have eliminated the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, used enough U.S. forces to get bin Laden instead of relying on unreliable Afghan fighters, taken full advantage of Musharraf's limited-time offer to give the U.S. military free reign in Pakistan to hunt down bin Laden and al-Qaeda, and then withdrawn from the region.

Instead, the Bush administration allowed mission creep to take its eyes off the prize of taking down al-Qaeda. The U.S. mission in Afghanistan turned to nation-building, counterinsurgency, and the stanching of the drug trade. The occupation of Afghanistan by non-Muslim forces and close U.S. support for the dictator Musharraf in neighboring Pakistan predictably revved up Islamic militants there and gradually turned them against his regime. In an attempt to discreetly court these militants to support his government and to maintain the flow of U.S. military aid to ostensibly fight them, Musharraf allowed these groups to operate in the wild tribal regions of western Pakistan on the Afghan border and even reached a truce with them that withdrew the Pakistani government's military forces from these areas. This wink and nod has allowed both al-Qaeda and the militant Taliban to recover and reenergize themselves what are now essentially safe havens. The stepped up Taliban attacks on U.S. forces in Afghanistan can be explained by the continued U.S. occupation there and the havens given to them by Musharraf.

Given Musharraf's unenthusiastic pursuit of al-Qaeda in Pakistan, why does the United States continue to support him? The answer is mainly out of fear of "instability" – read any change in a nuclear-armed country. The United States, with its sprawling informal empire, tends to be status-quo-oriented, as evidenced by the Bush administration's failure to take advantage of the only way out of Iraq – the radical decentralization or partition of that country.

The United States fears that the only alternative to Musharraf in a nuclear-armed country is the Islamic militants; but this outcome is the most likely if the unpopular United States continues to back Musharraf so closely. Musharraf has faced mass protests across Pakistan for his increased despotism and his suspension of the country's chief justice. Musharraf feared that the judge, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, could issue rulings that would interfere with his attempt to have the parliament elect him to another five-year term. Also, several former generals have talked openly about overthrowing him in a coup. Yet they might not be able to control any coup and reestablish military rule. The Islamists have been strengthened by Musharraf's suppression of alternative non-Islamic opposition parties; Musharraf has said that their leaders – exiled former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawa Sharif – will not be allowed to return for upcoming parliamentary elections.

Instead of the disastrous policy the Bush administration has pursued, it should end the occupation of Afghanistan, which would cool the Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan and Islamic militancy in Pakistan. In addition, the United States should threaten to cut off aid to Pakistan unless Musharraf and his intelligence services make a genuine attempt to capture or kill bin Laden. With a cooling of militant Islam in the region, brought about by a U.S. withdrawal, Musharraf should have more leeway to pursue bin Laden without an Islamist backlash. Finally, the United States should press Musharraf to open the elections to non-Islamist oriented parties and allow their leaders to return from exile. These actions would further bleed support from the Islamist radicals.

Unfortunately, keeping the Islamists around, but contained, has been good for the autocratic Musharraf regime. The problem is that the instability caused by this policy can no longer be contained. Like the shah of Iran, Musharraf must use increased violence to put down popular protests, thus further fueling the spreading uprisings. The shah's Iran and Pakistan have one important difference, however: Pakistan has nuclear weapons. Tragically, the Bush administration may eventually give the world an Islamist bomb.

10 Afghan cricketers to be coached abroad

Reported by Javed Hamim
Translated & edited by S. Mudassir Ali Shah 

KABUL, May 29 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Ten players of the Afghanistan cricket team - eyeing a debut in the 2011 World Cup - will receive advanced and elaborate coaching in the departments of batting, bowling and fielding in England and India.

Taj Malik Alam, Afghan Cricket Federations chief secretary and coach of the national team, said on Tuesday three players - Muhammad Nabi Ahmadzai, Hameed Hasan and Noor Ali - were already in England representing different clubs.

In addition to playing club-level cricket, the ACF official told Pajhwok Afghan News, the trio would also receive training and professional advice from senior coaches during their stay in England.

Another seven cricketers will be leaving for India next month to attend a 10-day coaching camp, to be conducted by legendary former Australian all-rounder Dennis Lillie at the MRF Pace Academy in Chennai.

Nominated for the course are Raees Ahmadzai, Kareem Sadiq, Hasti Gul Abid, Daulat Ahmadzai, Nauroz Mangal, Shahpur Zadran and Ahmad Shah Ahmadi. Alam said the Asian Cricket Council would sponsor the players trip to, and stay in, the Indian city.

Alam continued the coaching was essentially aimed at preparing the national side for a series of upcoming international one-day cricket tournaments for teams without Test status, administered by the International Cricket Council.

In the 2008 global division five, Afghanistan, Bahamas, Botswana, Germany, Jersey, Mozambique, Nepal, Norway, Singapore, the United States plus two qualifiers from East-Asia Pacific region will be vying in the league-system event for the 2011 World Cup qualification.

He viewed the foreign tours as a propitious sign for players sound grooming and grounding ahead of international competitions, where Afghanistan would have to put in robust performances to qualify for the 2011 cricket extravaganza.

Former skipper Raees Ahmadzai believed they could gain a lot of valuable pointers and tips from the erstwhile Aussie great during the 10-day Chennai camp.

His colleague Karim Sadiq also hoped the training would immeasurably enrich the participants knowledge of fundamentals of the game. The camp would go a long way in keeping the players abreast of international cricket standards, he concluded.

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