In this bulletin:

• Afghanistan suicide attack killed 59 children, officials say
• Ball bearings used in Afghan bomb
• District chief among several killed in Afghan violence
• Afghan army leader says poor weapons putting his soldiers at risk
• U.S. ponders future of aerial attack on Afghan opium
• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Musharraf
• As Afghan violence increases, so should NATO's resolve
• Afghanistan pushes reconciliation effort
• British soldier dies in Afghanistan road crash
• Two Men Detained for Bomb Attack in Afghanistan
• RFE/RL Newsline
• Afghan MP credits God for delay that spared her life
• Journalist Held Over Musa Qala Visit Freed
• History has little to do with Remembrance Day in Afghanistan
• War dead from Afghanistan add new focus to Remembrance Day

Afghanistan suicide attack killed 59 children, officials say

The Associated Press Friday, November 9, 2007

KABUL, Afghanistan: A suicide attack in northern Afghanistan earlier this week killed 59 schoolchildren and wounded 96 others, the Education Ministry said Friday.

The schoolchildren were lined up to greet a group of lawmakers visiting a sugar factory in the northern province of Baghlan on Tuesday when a suicide bomber detonated explosives. In total, at least 75 people were killed, including several parliamentarians.

Fifty-nine schoolchildren aged 8 to 18 and five teachers were among those killed in the attack, said Zahoor Afghan, an Education Ministry spokesman.

The attack was the deadliest in the country since the toppling of Taliban regime from power in the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

"The education minister has ordered that no children should be ever again be used in these sort of events," Afghan said.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai declared three days of mourning Wednesday and ordered an investigation. No group has claimed responsibility, and the Taliban denied any involvement.

NATO and Afghan troops, meanwhile, battled Taliban fighters near Gulistan district, in western Farah province on Friday. The soldiers seized the district center after it was overrun by militants last week, said Bariyalai Khan, the spokesman for the provincial police chief.

In southern Zabul province, Taliban militants on motorbikes ambushed and killed Shahjoy's district chief and two of his bodyguards on Thursday, said Mohammad Rasool Khan, a district police chief.

The victims were shopping in a market when four militants on two motorbikes shot them dead, said Khan.

U.S.-led coalition forces and Afghan troops, meanwhile, clashed with Taliban insurgents in southern Helmand province's Nahr Surk district on Wednesday, leaving several militants dead, a coalition statement said.

The joint force was conducting a reconnaissance patrol near the district when insurgents engaged them with machine guns, rocket propelled grenades and small-arms fire, the statement said.

"The combined force immediately engaged the Taliban fighters with small-arms fire and close air support, killing many of the insurgents before they fled the area," it said.

Violence in Afghanistan this year has been the deadliest since the Taliban's ouster. More than 5,700 people, mostly militants, have died so far this year in insurgency-related violence, according to an Associated Press count based on figures from Afghan and Western officials.

Ball bearings used in Afghan bomb
By Alix Kroeger - BBC News, Kabul

Early investigations into Tuesday's bombing in the Afghan province of Baghlan indicate that the attacker used ball bearings to maximise casualties.

The ball bearings were mixed with explosives, the interior ministry says. Efforts to establish an accurate casualty toll will get underway later on Friday.

The provincial governor says the death toll now stands at 52, with 106 people injured. The Taleban have denied that they were responsible.

This is not the first time an Afghan suicide bomber has used ball-bearings to increase the force of the blast, but it is certainly the deadliest. Investigators at the scene of Tuesday's bombing found ball bearings scattered around.

The interior ministry estimates around 1,000 may have been used, one of the reasons the death toll was so high. Credible estimates range from 52 to 75. Other figures go even higher.

Later on Friday, officials will go house to house in Baghlan, asking if any members of the family were killed in the blast.

This is necessary because some families took away the bodies of their relatives before they could be added to the casualty figures.

The police chief and the provincial governor of Baghlan have come in for criticism because they were out of town when the bomb went off. They have defended their actions.

The police chief said he was at a conference, while the governor was meeting one of Afghanistan's vice-presidents in the city of Mazar-e-Sharif.

But in the absence of any evidence as to who carried out the attack, that has not been enough to stop the rumours and speculation swirling around the country.

District chief among several killed in Afghan violence

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) — Taliban militants gunned down the head of a hard fought-over district in Afghanistan, while US-led forces killed several insurgents in separate fighting, officials said.

The governor of troubled Shahjoy district in the southern province of Zabul was shot dead while shopping in a local bazaar on Thursday under the protection of his two bodyguards, who were also killed, police chief Mohammad Rasoul said.

The four attackers fled on motorbikes. "Our district chief, Tor Jan, and two guards were killed by Taliban," Rasoul said. The extremist Taliban movement claimed responsibility for the attack, which was similar to scores of others carried out by the Al-Qaeda-linked militants.

Shahjoy lies on the key road that links Kabul and the southern city of Kandahar, the first major centre captured by the rebels when they swept to power 11 years ago.

Meanwhile, the US-led coalition said it killed several Taliban fighters in the southern province of Helmand after coming under attack on Thursday with machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and small weapons.

The Taliban insurgency, joined by other extremist outfits, has gained steam since it was launched in the months after the hardliners were driven from government in 2001 by a US-led force.

A suicide blast on Tuesday killed 75 people, including 59 children and six lawmakers, outside the northern town of Pul-i-Khumri, some 150 kilometres (90 miles) north of Kabul.

Afghan army leader says poor weapons putting his soldiers at risk

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - The buildup of the Afghan National Army, considered an integral part of Canada's 'exit strategy,' will continue at a snail's pace unless NATO provides better weaponry, a senior Afghan military commander says.

There currently are about 38,000 soldiers in the Afghan army, about half the number believed necessary to keep the Taliban at bay on its own.

Canadian commanders have nothing but praise for the bravery of Afghan troops, who only earn about US$100 a month.

But after years of work and training, there are still only about two battalions of Afghan soldiers in Kandahar province where most Canadian soldiers are based.

The matter was raised when Gen. Rick Hillier, the Chief of Defence Staff, visited Afghanistan last month.

"An army is what's required to allow them to keep their security, so that's a long-term project," Hillier told reporters.

"It's going to take 10 years or so just to work through and build an army to whatever the final number that Afghanistan will have, and make them professional and let them meet their security demands here," he said.

Bravery aside, Afghan soldiers are in dire need of better weapons, said the commander of the Kandak 21 battalion, which has been working with the Canadian Operational Mentoring Liaison Team.

Most Afghan troops are armed with old Soviet AK-47s and covet the same kinds of firearms being used by Canadian and American troops.

"We are still having the same old weapons. The same complaints exist," Lt.-Col. Shirin Shah Kowbandi told The Canadian Press.

"The Canadian teams, when they first arrived for the training, said they would try and provide us with the good weapons but unfortunately we have not received any (such) weapons yet," he noted. "The old weapons are still misfiring."

What worries him the most is the danger his men are in when doing battle against the Taliban.

"It is a very bad effect indeed. It puts them in danger. If the weapon is not good the soldier is not courageous to go towards the enemy and fight because he does not trust his weapon," said Shirin Shah.

That, he said, also makes it harder to recruit new soldiers into the ANA.

Better firearms are not all the Afghan Army needs. The military vehicle used by the ANA is the Ford Ranger truck with a mounted machine-gun. It's not uncommon to see a dozen soldiers on the trucks, with rifles and rocket launchers slung over their shoulders, heading off to battle.

Shirin Shah said he worries that Hillier may be too optimistic on the time frame for an independent Afghan army.

"I acknowledge his words. He was right. If the process is going the same slow speed as it is going on now I would say it would take more than the 10 years," he warned.

"But if the process gets improved and the weapons are provided as soon as possible, it wouldn't take 10 years."

Defence Minister Peter MacKay acknowledged the needs of the Afghan military while in Kandahar this week and promised help is on its way.

"We've been working with other NATO countries to identify firstly what they need most," MacKay said during his recent trip.

"We had hoped to have an announcement this week. There's an announcement coming very soon in that regard with some of that equipment."

"Clearly, as time progresses, we will be working with others to secure larger, more functional equipment that will provide them the ability to do more of their own security," he said. "But they need training in that equipment first."

Shirin Shah has been battling the Taliban for more than 15 years dating to his time as a commander with the Northern Alliance.

Despite a recent offensive by the Taliban in the Arghandab district, north of Kandahar city, the insurgents have been weakened and do not have the support of the Afghan people, he said.

"The Taliban are detested by the civilians and they have now no way except to give up," he said. "Many Taliban have (already) surrendered," he added.

U.S. ponders future of aerial attack on Afghan opium

Thu Nov 8, 2007 - By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A heated debate within the Bush administration over Afghanistan's surging opium trade could lead the United States to shelve a contentious plan to spray poppy crops with herbicide from the air, officials say.

Aerial spraying, used by the United States to fight cocaine production in Latin America, is championed by counternarcotics officials in the White House and State Department as the most effective way to destroy poppies in Taliban-controlled areas and cut a key source of funding for the Islamist militants.

But it has run into broad resistance from Afghan officials, the U.S. Congress and Defense Department, and European allies who fear it could backfire on efforts to win over the Afghan people, according to officials and experts involved in the discussions.

Critics say spraying would give the Taliban a powerful propaganda tool among villagers devastated by a Soviet campaign that destroyed food crops with aerial defoliant.

"Aerial spraying would likely have a serious detrimental effect on the counterinsurgency front," said Seth Jones of the RAND Corp, a global policy think-tank based in California.

"It's hard to overstate how much disinformation there is among Afghan farmers. It would be fairly easy for insurgents to say: 'The U.S. is spraying chemicals to kill your crops.' And in fact, they've already started saying this."

Record poppy harvests have given Afghanistan a $3 billion opium industry whose corrupting influence poses a serious threat to government authority and saddles other countries with the criminal and health problems of the heroin trade.

The Afghan crop, which produces 93 percent of the world's opiates, is a major source of income for Taliban insurgents in the south who have deepened ties with farmers and traffickers, according to U.S. defense and counterterrorism officials.

"It's fueling the insurgency. Removing that revenue would diminish the threat considerably," said Beth Cole of the U.S. Institute of Peace.

U.S.-backed herbicide spraying proved controversial in Latin America, where its use on coca fields is blamed for anti-American sentiment that helped bring leftist Evo Morales to power in Bolivia The U.S. House of Representatives endorsed a funding ban on Afghan herbicide spraying in its 2008 appropriations bill for foreign operations, while the Senate version declared aerial spraying as less effective than manual eradication. Final legislation is expected later this year.

The U.S. National Security Council (NSC) was due to enter the debate as early as this week to consider whether aerial spraying should be part of U.S. policy on Afghanistan.

"The question is whether aerial spraying would be an option. This would be a decision by the administration as a whole as to what avenue to pursue here," said one U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Formal NSC backing could escalate U.S. efforts to persuade the Afghan government to accept a limited aerial spraying program, experts said.

NSC officials declined to comment, while a State Department spokeswoman said only that the United States will implement whatever strategy the Afghan government chooses to adopt.

In 2007, Afghan poppy cultivation jumped 17 percent to 477,000 acres -- more than all of the land set aside for coca in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia combined, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has opposed spraying in preference for manual and mechanical eradication, including the use of tractors to churn up poppy fields.

But in recent weeks, Kabul has agreed to impanel an outside committee of science experts on the safety and efficacy of the herbicide glyphosate, the agent recommended by Washington.

Experts who monitor events in Afghanistan believe U.S. and Afghan officials could be nearing a tentative deal to allow test spraying by ground-based teams, an option less contentious than aerial spraying that could still set an important precedent for herbicide use in Afghanistan.

"This would be in conjunction with a major eradication effort in Helmand province that would rely mainly on tractors and other mechanized methods," said one expert who recently visited the country. Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold, produces more than half of Afghanistan's opium crop.

(Additional reporting by Jonathan Hemming in Kabul and Andrew Gray and Matt Spetalnick in Washington; Editing by Kristin Roberts and John O'Callaghan)

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Musharraf

By ROGER COHEN - November 8, 2007, Ny Times Op-Ed Columnist

When Zalmay Khalilzad was the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, he would clash with Colin Powell, then the secretary of state, over whether Gen. Pervez Musharraf's Pakistan was friend or foe.

Khalilzad saw a disingenuous Pakistan whose post-9/11 commitment to undoing its Taliban creation was ambivalent at best. Far from confronting the Islamist radicals, Musharraf's security apparatus — or elements of it — abetted the reconstitution of the Taliban in the border areas.

It was clear to Khalilzad that the age-old Pakistani dream of a weak Afghanistan under Islamabad's sway endured.

Powell was skeptical of this view from Kabul. His priority in 2003-2004 was shoring up a friend, Musharraf, to pursue Al Qaeda and hold the line in a nuclear-armed Islamic state. His message to his Afghan envoy: don't criticize the Pakistanis, they're doing what they can.

Uncoordinated policy tends over time to produce a mess. Pakistan and Afghanistan present linked problems — of Islamist radicalization, transborder Pashtun restiveness and democratic transition — but the Bush administration's dealings with them have been erratic.

And here we are, three years later, with a beleaguered Musharraf imprisoning lawyers and gagging the press in the name of a "state of emergency;" a revived Taliban leavened with foreign jihadists destabilizing southern Afghanistan and turning on Pakistan itself; Pakistan's democratic transition on hold and Afghanistan's democratic experiment in danger.

Things could be worse. Pakistan's nukes are not in the hands of the Islamist International. The Taliban has not retaken Kabul. But the picture is bleak.

U.S. funds — $22 billion — have poured into Afghanistan to defeat the Taliban even as $10 billion has gone to a Pakistani military still inclined to view the Taliban as agents able to provide Islamabad with "strategic depth" to the Afghan west as its confronts India to the east.

These self-defeating financial flows illustrate the discombobulated Bush foreign policy also evident in Iraq: the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing. The result is self-amputation. Musharraf should have been held to account much earlier on the Taliban's steady revival.

This failure has led to the recent rampages of Islamist militants in Pakistan's Swat valley, long a vacation spot, now a war zone. From Pakistan's remote tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, the threat has turned inward.

As Vishakha Desai, the president of the Asia Society, has pointed out, these Islamist attacks near Swat have already included the partial destruction of a seated image of the Buddha carved into a 130-foot-high rock, a work of Buddhist art second only in importance in South Asia to the Bamiyan Buddhas, destroyed in 2001 by the Taliban.

Blowback, outrageous Buddha-blasting and all, is visiting Pakistan. A strategy conceived to undermine Afghanistan now threatens Pakistan. The army, with U.S. help, has responded by getting serious in the border areas. Many Pakistani soldiers have died. But it's late in the day.

This is the uneasy backdrop to Musharraf's promulgation of a provisional constitutional order. That's Orwellian for martial-law lite. Confronted by a serious legal challenge to his recent re-election, the galvanizing presence of Benazir Bhutto and the baby-turned-monster of Taliban-jihadism, the general chose repression.

His measures have been deplorable. But this is not the dictatorship of Gen. Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, who hanged Bhutto's father. Musharraf, as his Jekyll-and-Hyde alternation of military and Savile Row gear suggests, is a dictator with a gentleman's itch. He's playing for time. The United States must use his vulnerability to get more of what it wants.

There are hopeful signs. Only a sophisticated society could produce an opposition so grounded in constitutional law. Unlike Palestine-dawning, Pakistani democracy does not equal Islamist electoral victory: radical parties are weak. The U.S.-mediated Bhutto-Musharraf pact that brought Benazir home suggests civilian-military compromise is possible.

But is Musharraf part of the problem or the solution? The more isolated he becomes, the more he will resemble what Dan Markey of the Council on Foreign Relations called "a completely diminished asset."

Musharraf is not yet that. Given the nuclear-charged risks, the U.S. must stick with him and maintain aid for now, but with the insistence he move rapidly toward promised elections, restore an independent judiciary, work with Bhutto and get real about quashing the Taliban.

U.S. failure to harmonize Afghan and Pakistani policy has been disastrous. You can't beat the Taliban in Afghanistan alone. You can't stabilize Pakistan within a democratic system — guided or not — while developing Islamism for export and alienating the professional middle class.

These lessons must be learned — by Musharraf and Bush. As Khalilzad put it to me: "Afghanistan and Pakistan need each other. The moderates of both countries must work together."

As Afghan violence increases, so should NATO's resolve
November 9, 2007 – The Age

The deadly suicide bombing in Baghlan province should not curtail the international peace effort.

AN enormous shadow has fallen over the future of Afghanistan. This week's deadly suicide bombing in the previously stable northern province of Baghlan is a critical and symbolic escalation in the use of tactics and technology being used by terrorists in Iraq. If there was any more evidence needed that the two conflicts have become inextricably linked, this is it. Increasingly, they are becoming part of the same war, and it is a connection that will be further tightened by the political turmoil in Pakistan, where President Pervez Musharraf's battle for his own survival will distract from the US-backed fight to contain insurgents and Taliban militants who use his country's northern tribal belt as a place to regroup, recruit al-Qaeda-inspired fighters and launch attacks into Afghanistan's southern provinces.

Tuesday's bloody suicide attack was significant on several fronts, including the fact that it was targeted at representatives of Afghan institutions created to address the legitimate grievances of ordinary Afghans. It took place at the opening of a sugar factory — the very kind of industrial enterprise that Afghanistan needs to help build a productive future — and claimed upwards of 40 lives, including those of teachers and children who had gathered to welcome six members of the country's fledging parliament. While the Taliban has denied responsibility for the attacks, they and al-Qaeda are the only groups known to have used suicide bombs so far in Afghanistan.

The bombing also marks an ominous shift away from attacks on purely military targets, and announces a new phase in the intensity of organised terror as the reach of resurgent militant groups extends from their main area of operations in the south and east to the hitherto peaceful north and the central provinces around Kabul. This perilous slide in security, where suicide attacks are on the rise, the number of combat deaths is growing and an increasing amount of the country is deemed as too dangerous for UN agencies and NGOs to operate in presents a major challenge to NATO-led forces and the fragile government of President Hamid Karzai. Karzai and NATO are already struggling to secure the country and promote economic development and reconstruction, and as the the number of civilian casualties climbs, public confidence in their mission is likely to decline. Efforts to build up an Afghan army and police force that will provide real security to the population are also being undermined by the explosion in opium cultivation, the proceeds of which are being used to sustain the insurgency and the corrupt and rapacious warlords who have their own agendas that do not include democracy or central governance.

But there were never going to be any quick fixes in Afghanistan and this week's events, while a serious blow to NATO's mission, should act to reinforce its commitment to stay the distance. Now, more than ever, NATO must stick together as an alliance and those member nations uncertain about their long-term commitment have been provided with a powerful impetus to remain. For its part, Australia should maintain its sizeable contribution to the international effort to create a viable state. It is also an opportune moment to explore further options for resolution, including a greater troop commitment, and stepping up efforts to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table, although, at this point, it is not easy to see what NATO would be willing to offer or an invigorated Taliban inclined to accept. But all options to bring peace and and stability should be pursued with renewed vigour. The alternative does not bear thinking about. Afghanistan must not be allowed to become another failed state in a region already in turmoil. Afghans deserve a life beyond the poverty of war and extremists must be denied the opportunity to again use the country as a training ground and launching pad for terrorist attacks around the world.

Afghanistan pushes reconciliation effort

Rafiq Maqbool / Associated Press

LOSS: Mourners at the funeral of slain lawmakers in Kabul. As bloodshed persists, President Karzai is talking of the need for reconciliation.

Facing a resilient insurgency, officials say President Karzai is seeking negotiations with elements of Taliban to end the conflict.

By Henry Chu, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer - November 9, 2007

KABUL , Afghanistan � After nearly two years of increased bloodshed , Afghan President Hamid Karzai is reaching out to Taliban militants, who have been waging battle against his government, in a renewed push for a political settlement to a conflict that increasingly seems unwinnable militarily, analysts and diplomats say.

Speaking of the need for national reconciliation, Karzai has invited insurgents to lay down their arms and talk, and even join his administration. His overtures have met with responses that range from contempt to cautious consideration by various elements within the Taliban, the radical Islamic movement that U.S.-led forces ousted from power in 2001.

But observers say that those differences can be exploited and that the signs of flexibility, however tentative or fleeting, are encouraging.

"There's more space than there's ever been for a solution to this other than endless conflict," said Adrian Edwards, a United Nations spokesman here in the Afghan capital.

The push for dialogue comes after a summer of deadly militant attacks. The country was hit Tuesday by its most devastating suicide bombing yet, which killed as many as 73 people, including more than a dozen children and six lawmakers. The Taliban has denied responsibility.

Such incidents have deepened public unease and anger with Karzai's government, which many Afghans blame for the lack of improvement in their lives and the deterioration in security.

An estimated 5,700 people, a large number of them civilians, have been killed this year in clashes between insurgents and allied troops working in conjunction with Afghanistan's fledgling security forces. Taliban attacks and kidnappings have spread beyond the group's traditional stronghold in the south and east to northern provinces around Kabul and in the capital itself, leaving residents fearful.

Amid a marked increase in suicide and roadside bombings, 206 coalition soldiers, about half of them Americans, have died in Afghanistan so far this year, according to icasualties.org. The combined coalition toll for all of 2006 was 198.

As winter approaches, battle fatigue may be setting in for the Afghan government, and possibly the Taliban as well, prompting the search for some sort of political accommodation to curb the violence. The question is what kind of deals can be struck, and with whom.

The Taliban is not a monolithic organization, making it impossible to reach an overarching agreement but possible to exploit factional divisions. Critics warn against any deals offering amnesty or political favors that would, in effect, reward extremists.

Many people here were alarmed when Karzai, just hours after a suicide bomber killed at least 30 people aboard an army bus in Kabul on Sept. 29, appeared to offer to meet with two notorious anti-government figures, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and factional warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

"If I find their address, there is no need for them to come to me. I'll personally go there and get in touch with them," Karzai said. "If a group of Taliban or a number of Taliban come to me and say, 'President, we want a department in this or in that ministry, or we want a position as deputy minister . . . and we don't want to fight anymore,' . . . I will accept it because I want conflicts and fighting to end in Afghanistan."

The president's spokesman, Humayun Hamidzada, said that Karzai's comments were taken out of context and that no offers to negotiate had been extended to Omar, Hekmatyar or any "hard-core elements" of the Taliban with links to Al Qaeda.

"This offer is for others -- people who are stuck in the middle," Hamidzada said. Many of the Taliban's rank and file are believed to be alienated Afghans who have joined the insurgency less out of Islamist fervor than out of anger with the government over lost homes, unremitting poverty and a feeling of disenfranchisement.

Hamidzada dismissed as a nonstarter the demand by some Taliban leaders that foreign troops must leave before any negotiations can take place. He underscored that any talks with militants would require them to give up their weapons and abide by the constitution.

"At this stage we are talking about the principle of talking," Hamidzada said. "Everything will be within the framework of the constitution. We're not going back on human rights; we're not going back on women's rights. We're not returning to the days of the Taliban."

Reports recently have surfaced of an impending deal with Mullah Abdul Salaam, a prominent Taliban and tribal leader in the south who commands hundreds of armed followers.

Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper said the deal would see Salaam and his fighters pledge support to the Afghan government and British troops stationed in the south. Hamidzada would not confirm the report but said, "Some figures are working on switching sides, and we are working closely to make it happen."

What Karzai offers in return will be under close scrutiny. Human rights and other groups already have decried the involvement in government of former warlords and other leaders accused of wartime atrocities, and the lack of progress in holding such men to account.

British soldier dies in Afghanistan road crash

LONDON (AFP) — A British soldier serving in Afghanistan was killed Friday after the vehicle he was travelling in rolled off a bridge, the ministry of defence here said.

The soldier, from 36 Engineer Regiment, was pronounced dead at the scene of the pre-dawn accident near Sangin in the restive southern Helmand Province.

No enemy forces were involved, the ministry said.

Another soldier and an interpreter were also hurt, but their injuries were not life threatening. Immediate medical assistance was provided.

The troops were taking part in an operation in support of the Afghan National Army. The dead soldier's next of kin have been informed.

The death brings to 83 the number of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan since the start of US-led military action in late 2001 to oust the Taliban, the country's hardline Islamist former rulers.

Most of Britain's soldiers in Afghanistan are based in Helmand, where Taliban insurgents are said to have teamed up with foreign fighters from Al-Qaeda and opium producers helping to finance the insurgency.

Britain has about 7,000 troops in Afghanistan -- the second-highest number after the United States in the United Nations-sanctioned, NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.

The figure is set to rise to around 7,800 by the end of the year.

Two Men Detained for Bomb Attack in Afghanistan

by Matthew Williams 15:42, November 9th 2007

Two men were detained on suspicion of involvement on the suicide bomb attack that happened on Tuesday, in Baghlan, leaving 41 victims and 100 injured.

The bomber had his body wrapped with explosives and he attacked a delegation that was visiting a sugar factory. Among the victims and injured there were children and parliamentarians.

Since the Taliban insurgents denied their implication in the attack many theories appeared regarding the responsible for the attack.

Taliban insurgents are responsible for more than 130 suicide attacks in Afghanistan, but they denied their implication in the attack from Tuesday.

Provincial governor Mohammad Alam Ishaaqzai said that the two men arrested by the police in Baghlan are a mosque prayer leader and a resident from the industrial part of the town, Reuters reports.

He said: “The initial investigation shows these men may have had a hand in this attack.”

He refused to say whether they belong to a political or an insurgent group.

According to Mr. Ishaaqzai the two were questioned by a high-ranking Interior Ministry team from the capital Kabul.

Afghanistan’s education ministry said that another 59 children and five teachers of the 100 injured died, thus rising the death toll at 75.

Zuhor Afghan education ministry spokesman said: “We have got 59 school children, aged from eight to 18, and five teachers killed in that blast,” AFP reports.

On Thursday five of the parliamentarians that were killed in the attack were buried in Kabul.

President Hamid Karzai and members of his government and the parliament participated at a prayer service at Kabul’s mosque in honor of the dead.

Due to this incident Education Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar banned children from participating at welcoming events.

The northern part where the attack occurred is relatively peaceful in comparison with the south and the east, where this kind of attacks are common.

RFE/RL Newsline, - Friday, November 9, 2007 Volume 11 Number 209

U.S. AMBASSADOR CALLS FOR ELIMINATION OF TALIBAN SANCTUARIES OUTSIDE AFGHANISTAN

In a UN General Assembly debate on Afghanistan on November 5, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad reiterated that the availability of external sanctuaries for the Taliban and Al-Qaeda has undermined security and progress in Afghanistan, and he called on the insurgents to lay down their arms, Pajhwak Afghan News reported on November 6. "These sanctuaries should be eliminated and replaced by increased regional cooperation against extremists and terrorists," he said. Khalilzad also pointed out that a lack of good governance at the provincial and local levels remains a major obstacle to development and stability in Afghanistan despite successes in other fields. "Where officials are weak, ineffective, or abusive, the goodwill and support of the people is put at risk," he said. "And Afghanistan cannot succeed if its people do not actively support their government." Separately, the Afghan ambassador to the United Nations, Zahir Tanin, expressed similar views, but Pakistani UN Ambassador Munir Akram argued that the problem is inside Afghanistan and there is no need to externalize the issue. MM

AFGHAN PRESIDENT BARS SCHOOLCHILDREN FROM ATTENDING CEREMONIAL EVENTS

President Hamid Karzai issued a decree in Kabul on November 8 barring schoolchildren and university students from participating in ceremonial events across the country, the Bakhtar News Agency reported. The decree is in response to the deadly Baghlan Province suicide bombing on November 6 that killed and wounded dozens, including many children who were assembled to greet a high-level government delegation sent from Kabul to inaugurate a sugar factory (see "RFE/RL Newsline," November 7, 2007). The decree instructs the Afghan central and provincial authorities to cease sending children and young people to ceremonial and formal functions in order to avoid endangering their lives. Furthermore, the decree ordered the ministries of Education, Higher Education, and Interior to take additional administrative and security measures to ensure the safety and well-being of young people in Afghanistan. MM

AFGHAN OPPOSITION LEADER ADDS TO CONTROVERSY AFTER BAGHLAN BOMBING

Burhanuddin Rabbani, the leader of the main opposition party, the United National Front, claimed in a news conference in Kabul on November 7 that the six slain lawmakers presumed killed in the November 6 Baghlan bombing were instead shot dead afterward, Pajhwak Afghan News reported. Furthermore, he accused the Karzai administration and its international allies of failing to establish security in Afghanistan, adding to the uproar and controversy in the aftermath of the tragic incident. Similarly, Syed Aqa Fazil Sancharaki, another member of the opposition front and head of the National Union of Journalists, raised the spectrum of a conspiracy to liquidate the legislators, asking, "Where were the hosts when the guests were visiting the province?" The opposition also called for the arrest of the Baghlan governor and police chief for interrogation in connection with the attack. President Karzai has promised a thorough investigation of the incident. MM

Afghan MP credits God for delay that spared her life

Kelly Cryderman , CanWest News Service Published: Friday, November 09, 2007

KABUL -- It was a car tire low on air - just a two-minute delay while her driver filled it up - that Afghan MP Safia Siddiqi believes saved her from an horrific death.

"My car was a little bit behind the others," said Siddiqi, who lived in Canada for several years and still makes regular visits. "I was the last person to arrive."

The Afghan parliamentarian was just outside the sugar mill near the northern town of Pul-i-Khumri on Tuesday afternoon, rushing towards the metal gate to catch up with other colleagues for a tour of the factory, when the huge blast went off.

The ground shook so it felt like an earthquake, she said, and screams filled the air.

More than 50 people, many of them children, teachers and tribal elders, died in what has become the largest bomb blast in Afghanistan in recent memory. Dozens more were injured.

"It was only 1 1/2 minutes. If I was earlier I would not be here," said a visibly distraught Siddiqi in an interview at her apartment in northeast Kabul Thursday evening.

"There were so many bad things, so many bloody things," she said. "Everyone had the signs of blood on their clothes ... in the difference of 10 minutes, we had lost everything."

In her car were her driver, a nanny and her seven-month-old son, who travels with her when she tours Afghanistan's districts and provinces. She panicked at the thought of another attack following the explosion.

Having survived two Taliban attacks as she campaigned for her seat in the eastern province of Nangarhar, she said it is God who has kept her alive.

"It might be because of my baby and it might be because of my people."

The blast killed six of Siddiqi's colleagues, including Mustafa Kazimi, a popular Hazara opposition leader.

Thousands of Kazimi supporters filled the streets of Kabul on Thursday, many waving his picture or taping it to their car as they moved towards his funeral. Police blocked off main thoroughfares to control the procession, checking vehicles and credentials.

Many ended their journey at the burial site for five of the six slain MPs, which sits near the bombed-out shell of the Darulaman Palace.

"All the people, all the population is shocked," said bus driver Ghulam Hussien as he watched a large group of mourners rush forward.

Aside from the funeral procession, Kabul on Thursday was a quiet, anxious city as people privately mourned the dead or stayed inside for fear of further attacks or violence. Traffic, normally chaotic, flowed with ease for most of the day.

Part of the worry centres on questions of who was behind the bombing and how it was pulled off. The Taliban, who usually target southern provinces, claim they weren't behind the attack. Siddiqi and others ask why there wasn't better security provided for the trip.

And although the attack has been widely referred to as being the work of a suicide bomber, the parliamentarian has her doubts. She said suicide bombs usually aren't as large and deadly.

"I don't think a suicide bomb can kill that many people."

It has been a stressful two days since. Siddiqi has been visiting the families of the dead and wounded, and she had to call up to correct Afghan TV stations that were reporting her dead.

She only smiles when she talks about the breakfast all the 14 members of parliament shared before heading off on their tour of development projects in the north Tuesday. They were all outside in the sun at the Salang Pass, talking and enjoying the meat kabobs.

"It was the last gathering of the committee members," Siddiqi said, "and I don't think we will have that nice, enjoyable time again in the future."

Siddiqi is known as a passionate proponent of women's rights and rural development. It's hard now to muster her usual optimism.

It's only at the end of the interview, just as the last of the Kabul sun fades away and a smoggy darkness moves in, that a bit of defiance returns.

"We are struggling and we believe in the development of Afghanistan, and we are working for it," she says. "Nobody can stop us."

Journalist Held Over Musa Qala Visit Freed

Police deny claims that they sought to curb press freedom.

Institute for War & Peace Reporting

By IWPR staff (ARR No. 272, 9-Nov-07)

Abdul Wadood Hejran, a reporter for Ariana Television in Helmand, was freed on the evening of November 8, after nearly 24 hours in detention following a trip with three other journalists to the Taleban stronghold Musa Qala.

Hejran, whose colleagues were briefly detained, was unavailable for comment today, November 9, though he did indicate in a brief telephone conversation with IWPR that he was well and back at work.

Hussain Andiwal, police chief of Helmand province, told IWPR that there had been no intent to curb freedom of the press by holding the journalists.

"We do not want to lock journalists' mouths," he said. "But leaving for Musa Qala, where a 15-year-old boy was hanged because he had a one dollar bill in his pocket … the police need to know who is going to these places. If they had been killed, it would have been our responsibility. So we have a right to ask questions."

The journalists on the Musa Qala trip say that they informed the local authorities about their plans to visit the town.

The detention of Hejran was unfortunate, added Andiwal, but dictated by circumstances. On November 8, most of the Helmand police force was occupied with the funeral of Engineer Abdul Matin, the parliamentarian who was killed in a bombing in Baghlan on November 6.

The body was flown from Kabul to Helmand that day, with most of the province's officials in attendance.

"We did not want to jail [the journalists]," he insisted. “But due to the burial ceremony we were delayed. We just wanted to ask them questions."

IWPR has been informed unofficially that its reporter, Aziz Ahmad Tassal, one of the journalists on the Musa Qala trip, is no longer wanted for questioning by the security forces.

On his return from Musa Qala, he had received calls from policemen who said they wanted to interview him. Officers had also come to his home.

History has little to do with Remembrance Day in Afghanistan

Kelly Cryderman , CanWest News Service Friday, November 09, 2007

KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan -- Cpl. Martin Pelletier says he shed his cigarette habit more than two years ago, and hadn't really missed the nicotine.

But this week Pelletier is, sitting on a deck at the airfield after a long convoy, lighting up twice in 20 minutes. His penchant for smoking returned again in August, the day fellow medic Master Cpl. Christian Duchesne, 34, died in a bomb blast.

Since then he has also bought a digital camera - the purchase brought on by a strong urge to collect pictures of his friends.

"I saw him (Duchesne) a week before the accident and he was so passionate about his work. He was so excited to make a difference in the Afghan environment," said Pelletier, 24, who works with the Canadian operational mentor liaison teams (OMLT).

He said Duchesne's death has made him all the more fervent about his own job.

"I lost a friend. It gives everyday a new meaning for me," Pelletier said. "My personal mission is to save lives."

For Pelletier and others, the Canadian mission in restless Kandahar province has ended abruptly the decades of Remembrance Day being an occasion to mark wars and deaths of long ago.

Before the mission in Afghanistan, many young Canadians his age viewed Remembrance Day was a faraway concept - more about paying respect to their grandfathers' war service, or recounting long ago battles such as Vimy Ridge and D-Day.

Now there are no uniformed enemies and few front lines. Today it's religious extremists who live alongside other Afghans, guerrilla attacks, and buried bombs on the roads used to get to battle.

But young Canadians are once again risking life and limb. Seventy-one have died in Afghanistan since 2002.

"I think it's wakeup call for a lot of Canadians," said Defence Minister Peter MacKay as he visited Afghanistan this week.

"We have veterans now who are 19 and 20 years old who are returning from Afghanistan. And this is a modern remembrance. This is something I think has been an awakening for our country of the importance of military service, of the incredible sacrifice and dedication of those in uniform."

Gen. Rick Hillier, chief of the defence staff, also sees a new attitude toward Nov. 11.

"I do believe that Remembrance Day resonates differently with Canadians today, it resonates very viscerally, and is very real," Hillier said in a statement. "Our fine young men and women, our sons and daughters today are serving in harm's way, proudly wearing the Canadian flag on their left shoulder.

"Those who are putting their lives on the line and those who have paid the ultimate price are the people with whom we have worked, and socialized and lived," Hillier said. "They are continuing a proud tradition of service before self that began more than a hundred years ago, and it is for us to ensure that what they have done, the risks they have taken and the burden on their families is not forgotten."

While Remembrance Day is particularly poignant at Kandahar Airfield, the soldiers there are in a continual state of remembrance - with a hard push to prevent Canadian injuries and deaths.

"The enemy, as we know, is adapting pretty quickly so we are trying to do the same thing on our part," said Maj. Max Messier, commander of Canada's counter-IED group.

IEDs, improvised explosive devices, or homemade bombs, have caused the most deaths among Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan, alongside horrific injuries.

Suicide IEDs killed many in 2006, but the IEDs planted on roads, operated by pressure plates, remote devices or command wire, have taken the lion's share of soldiers' lives most recently - 22 since the beginning of the year.

And they're getting more powerful and deadly as insurgents learn what works and what doesn't. Messier is trying to combat the Taliban's gains with training to the spot the bombs, and reporting from locals.

"Every time you drive on a road you never know when you will see one," Messier said. "One IED, one injury, one casualty is too much."

They're the scariest part of Afghanistan for soldiers, said Cpl. Martin Lavigne, another 24-year-old, and a C-9 gunner with 2nd Battalion Royal 22nd Regiment, from Valcartier, Que.

The Taliban "are professionals at that," he said. "That's the worse thing here."

Lavigne said it's not only the actual bombs that can do harm - the randomness of the attacks wears away at people's nerves. He watches his friends closely for signs of emotional stress.

"We want to go back to Quebec the same people, physically and mentally too."

As for Pelletier, he will be thinking of Duchesne on Remembrance Day. He says quietly that he found himself questioning the mission after his friend's death.

Overall, he said he still believes in Canada being in Afghanistan. But it's helping "the guys" who work beside him day in and day out that really keeps him motivated.

"I'd rather be here than home right now because I would be really worried if I was at home. I'd feel helpless," Pelletier said.

"I tend to think of other people before myself. That's the principle of the army, really, because it's more about the person next to you."

War dead from Afghanistan add new focus to Remembrance Day

OTTAWA - As the poppies of autumn blossom on lapels across the country, a continuing war and its sad fallout adds a new focus to the annual Remembrance Day ceremonies, especially for the young.

This year, fresh memories of flag-draped coffins coming home from Afghanistan and the pipes and bugles of televised military funerals add new poignancy to the annual commemoration of the country's war dead.

Remembrance Day traditionally marks the end of the terrible First World War in 1918, at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. But it now stands for the more than 100,000 dead of all of Canada's wars, including the one being fought today in the rocky hills and scrub brush plains of Afghanistan.

It's no longer about great-grandpa's war. Today's war dead are young, some just a few years out of high school and that strikes a nerve, says Bob Butt of the Royal Canadian Legion.

"Obviously, Afghanistan has raised the awareness," he says. "It brings things home to a lot of people, especially to the younger generation," he says. "I think the younger generation does care."

For a 17-year-old high school student, the death of a 21-year-old soldier resonates far more than other deaths long ago and far away.

"If you're 17 and the guy's 21, it's your generation," says Butt.

Rudyard Griffith of the Dominion Institute, which promotes knowledge of Canadian history and traditions, agrees.

"Growing numbers of Afghanistan veterans, many of whom are in their 20s ... must have an impact."

For more than 80 years, the crimson poppy has been a ubiquitous symbol of remembrance, each a tiny tribute to the dead.

Butt says the number of poppies distributed has grown slowly every year for more than a decade. In the early 1990s, the Legion handed out between 12 million and 14 million. Last year, the number was just over 18 million, about one for every two Canadians.

The field poppy, or Flanders poppy, papaver rhoeas, thrives in disturbed soil. They bloomed in bright red blankets across the shell-churned fields of Europe in the First World War. Soldiers' memories of those flowers, and John McCrae's iconic poem recalling the blowing poppies in Flanders Fields, made them an obvious choice as people gathered in the aftermath of that war to remember the carnage and mourn their losses.

In recent years memories and mourning are again fresh as names from a new generation of soldiers are added to the rolls of war dead, this time from another land where poppies blow, although Afghanistan's poppies are a more sinister, opium-producing cousin of the European flower.

Canada lost 60,000 dead in 1914-1918, an average of 39 deaths every day for more than four years.

About 70 Canadians have been killed in Afghanistan, but for many, they bring home the sacrifice of war far more than the tens of thousands from wars long shadowed in the past.

Terry Copp, a professor emeritus at Wilfrid Laurier University who taught Canadian military history for years, says he has seen interest in Canadian military history expand exponentially since he launched his first course on the Second World War in 1981. His colleagues at the time were "aghast" at the idea, but he struck a chord.

It eventually became the largest arts course at his university, suggesting that a younger generation has a deep interest in war and its impact on Canada.

Copp notes, too, that people these days are expressing their feelings outside of the traditional November services.

In recent months, when bodies come home from Afghanistan, people have taken to lining overpasses along Ontario's Highway 401 as the hearses roll by en route to Toronto from Trenton, where the military planes land their sad cargoes.

The onlookers often stand to attention. Some carry Maple Leaf flags. Others salute as the black convoys pass.

"That really was something that started in the last six to eight months," Copp says. "I don't remember it before last year's Remembrance Day on anything like the scale I see now."

Ontario renamed that stretch of road the Highway of Heroes. Highway 416, which runs south between Ottawa and the 401 is the Veterans Memorial Highway. Quebec has just named a stretch of road between Montreal and the Ontario board as Autoroute du Souvenir, or Remembrance Highway.

Griffith sees a cultural divide in people's attitude toward Remembrance Day.

"This stuff resonates more with the Tim Horton's crowd than the Starbucks crowd," he says.

The mourners on the overpasses tend to be middle-class, average Canadians, not university professors. But he says he thinks the gap is narrowing.

Butt sees a divide, too, but between urban Canada and rural Canada, which tends to produce many of the country's soldiers.

"They come from small places in Nova Scotia and small towns in Saskatchewan and rural Ontario and Newfoundland and places like that."

But Griffith also sees Remembrance Day as taking on a greater significance each year, especially in English-speaking Canada. Quebecers have traditionally been cooler toward the military in general and wars in particular.

"Remembrance Day has become, maybe, what we hoped Canada Day would be but never is. It is the one occasion in our calendar where we come together as a people and ponder the awesome responsibility of citizenship.

"In English Canada, at least, it is our St-Jean-Baptiste Day, the touchstone of English-speaking nationalism."

[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.]