In this bulletin:

• Suicide blast kills seven including son: Afghan governor
• Troops capture Taliban's birthplace
• Afghan burden tasks Nato allies
• New Zealand extends Afghan troop deployment
• A spouse loses her comrade, a bride-to-be loses her groom
• UN: Gunfire 'Onslaught' Hit Afghan Kids
• US plans to train Pakistani tribes to fight Al-Qaeda, Taliban: report
• Fields of little glory: Nato begins to scale back its Afghan ambitions
• Top general says army is overstretched
• Germany Rebuts Allegation of Abandoning Allies in Afghanistan
• US launches justice reform programme in Afghanistan
• Challenging gender barriers, teen girls in Afghanistan enter the boxing ring
• Among poppies and Taliban, Afghan pomegranate farmers see demand
• The civilian presence in modern warfare

Suicide blast kills seven including son: Afghan governor

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) — A suicide attack outside the office of the governor of Afghanistan's southwestern Nimroz province on Monday killed one of his adult sons and six of his bodyguards, the governor told AFP.

The blast happened at the gate of the provincial headquarters in Zaranj city soon after the governor entered. Nimroz is a relatively peaceful province sharing a long border with Iran.

"Just as I got into my office today, there was a suicide attack outside the compound. Apparently I was the target of the suicide attacker," Governor Ghulam Dastageer told AFP.

"Six of my bodyguards and my son were martyred in the suicide attack," he added. "Fourteen other people, including police and civilians, were wounded."

Provincial police chief Mohammad Daud Askaryar said four of the wounded were civilians. "The attack was aimed at creating an atmosphere of fear in our province." he said.

Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi claimed responsibility for the attack in a telephone call from an unknown location.

"Our brave Mujahid (holy warrior) brother carried out the attack against Nimroz governor killing around 30 guards and policemen," he said.

Earlier on Monday, Afghan soldiers foiled an attempted bus bombing in the capital Kabul, preventing a would-be suicide bomber detonating his explosive-laden jacket, the Afghan defence ministry said.

Soldiers became wary when a man they did not recognise tried to get on an Afghan army commuter bus, ministry spokesman General Zahir Azimi told AFP.

"They realised that an unfamiliar person was trying to get on the bus," he said.

Some of the worst suicide bombings in Afghanistan have been on security forces' buses in the capital.

On September 29, a suicide bomber in an army uniform blew up a military bus in an attack that killed about 30 people and wounded many more.

A similar explosion on a bus taking police trainers to the police academy in mid-June killed 35 people.

There have been more than 130 suicide blasts in Afghanistan this year, most of them blamed on the Taliban movement that was in government between 1996 and 2001.

The worst was on November 6 in the northern province of Baghlan and killed nearly 80 people, 59 of them children, according to government figures.

In the latest series of suicide attacks against Afghan provincial authorities, the governor of troubled eastern Khost province, Arsala Jamal, survived a Taliban-style suicide attack late October which wounded five people.

In September last year the governor of Paktia province, Hakim Taniwal, was killed in a suicide attack against him -- he was the first provincial governor of the post-Taliban administration to be killed.

Eastern and southern Afghanistan see regular attacks linked to an insurgency launched by the Taliban movement after it regrouped in the months following its removal from government in a US-led invasion in late 2001.

In addition, Taliban insurgents attacked a police post near Girishk district of troubled southern Helmand province Sunday night, initiating a fierce clash which left two policemen dead and three wounded, the provincial police chief told AFP.

"Two police were martyred and three were wounded. We have not information on the number of casualties sustained by Taliban militants," Mohammad Hussain Andiwal said.

The Taliban's Ahmadi also claimed responsibility for the attack on the police post.

Troops capture Taliban's birthplace

Two Canadians slain in fierce battle that drove insurgents – some of whom used children as shields – from their historic enclave

GRAEME SMITH - From Monday's Globe and Mail November 19, 2007

SANGISAR, AFGHANISTAN — Canadian troops pushed the Taliban out of their birthplace in a storm of artillery shells and rockets on the weekend, during a major operation that killed two Canadian soldiers and an interpreter.

The smoke and dust of explosions hung over the dry fields of Sangisar, a stubborn enclave of insurgents where the Taliban's supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, founded the armed movement in 1994.

The same cluster of villages, about 40 kilometres west of Kandahar city, still served as a hideout for Taliban who raided the highway in recent weeks despite repeated military sweeps into the mud-walled warren during the past six years.

None of the previous operations left lasting security in Sangisar, however, so the Canadians decided to tackle a more difficult task: seizing a strategic point among the hostile villages and building a new police station. They attempted the first phase with only three platoons of infantry, five teams of snipers and reconnaissance specialists, and a small contingent of Afghan soldiers, in a zone where locals have reported hundreds of insurgents.

The gunfire started at sunrise Saturday and continued until noon. It was a bitter fight on both sides. The Taliban resorted to using children as human shields, according to soldiers who witnessed the tactic, and the encircled Canadians called in artillery and air strikes so close to their own positions that a soldier suffered shrapnel wounds from friendly fire.

“I feel like I aged 40 years,” said Corporal Philippe Lemieux, a member of a reconnaissance team, after two nights on the battlefield with little sleep.

A roadside bomb exploded under an armoured vehicle carrying troops toward the battle in the earliest hours of Saturday morning, killing Corporal Nicolas Raymond Beauchamp, 28, and Private Michel Lévesque, 25, and injuring three others. A military interpreter also died in the explosion.

Two other Canadians suffered minor injuries during the rest of the operation, military officials said, and one Afghan soldier was killed.

Estimates of the number of Taliban killed varied widely but most officials guessed at numbers in the double digits; Kandahar's police chief said 20 Taliban died, while another provincial official put the figure at 40.

A Taliban commander in the district, reached by telephone, dismissed the government toll as lies but acknowledged that his men had suffered casualties.

At least a dozen insurgents were killed by Canadians' direct fire and possibly more died in the hail of artillery and air strikes, said Major Richard Moffet, who commanded the Canadian battle group from a nearby hilltop.

The only specific report of civilian casualties so far was the death of a shopkeeper killed at his house, said Ustad Abdul Halim, an adviser to the governor.

Beside the stories of death, however, were breathtaking tales of narrow escapes.

At one point, 26-year-old Cpl. Lemieux said insurgents fired at him from three directions as he took cover in the frigid, foul-smelling water of an irrigation trench. Shrapnel from the Canadians' M777 artillery zipped by less than a metre from his head, tearing through a nearby knapsack and destroying a satellite phone.

Another Canadian soldier showed off the damage to his rifle where an incoming bullet had punched into the weapon, leaving him unscathed.

Several civilians also counted themselves lucky. Abdul Ahad, 40, a farm owner, said he discovered his cousin lying unconscious in a grape field Saturday morning, apparently the victim of an artillery shell. He took the injured man to the nearest road, where a passing Canadian patrol stopped and collected him for medical treatment at a nearby district centre.

“I was very happy the Canadians helped me,” Mr. Ahad said. “My cousin is okay now.”

Yet another close call happened later in the morning, as a reconnaissance section commanded by Sergeant Guillaume Ouellet, 33, hunkered down in the dirt troughs of a grape field.

He had successfully avoided detection all night, but the Taliban discovered him in the hazy morning light. The insurgents opened fire from three directions, he said.

“It was, ‘Good morning, Afghanistan!'” Sgt. Ouellet said. “It's a good thing the insurgents weren't co-ordinated, or I'd be dead.”

The reconnaissance team returned fire with their assault rifles and grenade launchers but realized they needed help, the sergeant said, so he called for artillery strikes on the mud compounds where the attackers were hiding.

He also popped a red smoke grenade, sending up a bright plume to avoid being hit by French Mirage jets that were strafing and firing rockets.

Construction of Sangisar's new police station was under way Sunday, and its presence will likely have symbolic as well as tactical value. The Taliban's so-called Commander of the Faithful started his career in Sangisar when he moved there as a young man from Uruzgan province, according to Ahmed Rashid's account in the book Taliban. Mullah Omar became the village preacher and opened a small boys' school, which later served as his first recruiting ground when he raised a militia to attack the remnants of the anti-Soviet guerrillas and establish a new regime.

“Why Sangisar?” Major Moffet said. “It was a node for the Taliban. Now it's ours.”

Afghan burden tasks Nato allies

By Caroline Wyatt - BBC News, Noordwijk

Tensions over Nato's mission in Afghanistan are clearly far from over, though the message from Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer was one of reassurance.

Speaking at a meeting of Nato defence ministers in the Dutch seaside resort of Noordwijk, he dismissed the idea that the mission was facing a crisis, and said some Nato countries had now offered to contribute more.

Despite a resurgent Taleban and pressure on some Nato governments - such as the Netherlands and Canada - to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan, the Nato chief insisted the alliance was making good progress there, and would see the job through.

Although the US stepped up the pressure at the meeting, there were no offers of major reinforcements, though up to nine nations may now be willing to increase their contributions.

However, what seems to be promised are more soldiers to help train the Afghan National Army (ANA) rather than to take the fight to the Taleban, as the US would like.

America wants more nations to help with the war-fighting aspect of Nato's mission.

The US currently supplies half the overall foreign forces in Afghanistan, some 15,000 of them working on the Nato mission in the south, while Britain is the next largest contributor, with 7,700 troops fighting fierce battles with the Taleban in Helmand Province.

Some member-countries, such as Germany, France, Italy and Spain, are constrained by so-called national caveats, which restrict where they can station their forces and whether or not they are allowed to fight.

German troops, for example, are confined to the relatively peaceful north in a non-combat role.

German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung announced at the talks that his country would triple the number of military trainers embedded with Afghan units to more than 300.

France promised to send several dozen extra trainers to Uruzgan Province, where Dutch troops are based.

Betraying a hint of the tensions underlying the meeting, Mr Jung rejected US calls for the German trainers to accompany Afghan units into the south, and criticised US calls for Nato allies to provide more troops.

"We need security and reconstruction and development: that is the wider concept," he said. "That's why I think these calls simply for more and more military involvement are misguided."

So are Britain and the US being asked to do too much, while others do too little? Jaap de Hoop Scheffer insists not.

"They're shouldering an important part of the burden, given the fact that in the southern part of Afghanistan where they are, the going is tough from time to time," he said.

"I keep saying that the fewer national caveats the better, and the more financial and military solidarity the better."

Britain itself sent out a strong message at the meeting that Nato must stick together as an alliance, if it is not to lose its credibility - and that nations wavering about long-term commitment must be supported and kept within the fold.

The Dutch, for example, have 1,600 troops in Uruzgan province, but are under pressure at home to bring the troops back when their current commitment ends next autumn.

If the Dutch leave, that could have a knock-on effect on Canada, where opposition parties are keen to bring their troops' war-fighting contribution around Kandahar to an end.

Experts warn that time is running out to get it right, with reconstruction in Afghanistan progressing more slowly than expected, and the Taleban regaining some hold in the south, in parts that the ANA is not yet able to protect.

Nato commanders on the ground have also said they need more troops and equipment, though the secretary-general said that 90% of what had been promised had been delivered.

Dr Paul Cornish, security expert at the Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House, believes this mission is a crucial test of Nato's will.

"What you're seeing is some member states of Nato saying 'we're part of this mission, and we want the overall thing to achieve its goal but we won't take the risk that others are taking'," he said.

"That is divisive and it's corrosive at the heart of Nato, so there are some very fundamental problems that are being taken very seriously indeed at the highest levels."

Despite the tensions, though, Nato's allies are still agreed on one thing: the mission in Afghanistan cannot be allowed to fail - because as well as Afghanistan's future, Nato's credibility, too, is at stake.

New Zealand extends Afghan troop deployment

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - New Zealand has extended the duration of its troop deployment in Afghanistan for two years until September 2009, Prime Minister Helen Clark said on Monday.

The tour of duty for the 120-member provincial reconstruction team in Bamiyan province, west of Kabul, had been due to end in September this year.

"A peaceful Afghanistan, able to provide for its people and prevent itself being used as a terrorist base, is in the interests of the international community," Clark said in a statement.

She said New Zealand's reconstruction team was making a difference and was welcomed by the Afghan government.

Thirteen other personnel, offering training and medical services, will serve with various forces, which have been present in Afghanistan since a U.S.-led coalition toppled the Taliban in late 2001 for refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden, architect of the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Clark said New Zealand would also send a warship to the Gulf region before September next year.

New Zealand troops have been in Afghanistan since December 2001, with the reconstruction team present since September 2003.

In July, a member of New Zealand's special forces was awarded the highest honour for bravery, the Victoria Cross, for a daring rescue of a wounded comrade in Afghanistan in 2004.

Earlier this month, a nephew of New Zealand's defence minister was killed in an ambush In Afghanistan, while serving in the U.S. army.

A spouse loses her comrade, a bride-to-be loses her groom

INGRID PERITZ - From Monday's Globe and Mail November 19, 2007

MONTREAL — One woman grieved in uniform in Kandahar, marching behind the casket that held both her comrade and her husband. Another woman grieved halfway across the world in a small Quebec town, mourning the soldier she had planned to wed when he returned home.

Two women, two broken hearts and lives, two more Canadian casualties in Kandahar.

Corporal Nicolas Raymond Beauchamp and Private Michel Lévesque Jr. became the 72nd and 73rd Canadian soldiers to die in Afghanistan when a roadside bomb exploded under their light armoured vehicle Saturday morning.

Their deaths bring to five the number of casualties from CFB Valcartier, Que.

In the case of Cpl. Beauchamp, 28, he left behind a woman who shared both his life and his passion for emergency medicine. Cpl. Beauchamp, a medic with the 5th Field Ambulance, lived with Corporal Dolorès Crampton, a medical technician. The two were serving in Kandahar at the same time.

Cpl. Crampton is believed to be the first Canadian soldier to face the grim task of escorting her own partner's body home from Afghanistan.

In Canada, the common-law couple lived in the community of Pont-Rouge, west of Quebec City, with their two dogs and three cats. Cpl. Beauchamp was deployed to Kandahar last summer and Cpl. Crampton followed two weeks later, a neighbour said.

“It wasn't her turn to go, but she made a request to go at the same time,” said Claude Gagnon. “She wanted to be with him.”

For Cpl. Beauchamp, the mission was a chance to carry out the duties he had dreamed about since adolescence.

“He was warm-hearted guy who knew there was a job to do and how to do it,” Master Corporal Patrick O'Regan said from Valcartier base Sunday. “He was one of those people I would trust with my life because he did his job so well.

“If I was injured and looked up and saw Nick, I would have no worries.”

A Valcartier spokesman said several military couples are serving in Afghanistan. But until now, none has publicly shared in the sombre ramp ceremony at Kandahar Air Field. At twilight, Cpl. Crampton marched slowly behind her spouse's casket, holding a pillow bearing his beret, while a piper played Amazing Grace.

Another family tragedy unfolded in the Quebec community of Rivière-Rouge in the Laurentians north of Montreal.

Pvt. Lévesque, 25, had been home on leave earlier this month. During that time, he proposed to his 18-year-old sweetheart. According to local reports, she told her friends she was pregnant.

“He was a young man full of hopes and dreams. That's how it is when you're in love at that age,” said Déborah Bélanger, the mayor of Rivière-Rouge and a friend of the family. “It's been very difficult for the whole family. It's not normal for parents to lose a child.”

Pvt. Lévesque was an enthusiastic young soldier with the 3rd Battalion, Royal 22nd Regiment, who was determined to serve in Afghanistan despite his parents' reservations. Last June, during a party thrown by the town, he told a local weekly newspaper he felt prepared for the mission.

“Of course, danger is present, but it's less dangerous than on the roads” of Quebec, he said at the time.

Last night, in a written statement, the Lévesque family said: “The only thing we can hold on to is Michel left us proud and happy. He believed in the Canadian Forces and this mission.”

Ms. Bélanger said flags have been lowered to half-mast in her community of 4,500. “This is a small community. Everyone knows each other. Everyone is in a state of shock.”

UN: Gunfire 'Onslaught' Hit Afghan Kids

By JASON STRAZIUSO – KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — An internal U.N. report obtained Monday said bodyguards protecting local lawmakers fired "deliberately and indiscriminately" into a crowd after a suicide bombing and that children bore "the brunt of the onslaught."

The report also said there was no evidence to show authorities had tried to identify those behind the shootings or bring them "to account for their crimes."

The United Nations mission in Afghanistan said the report is one of many conflicting views inside its organization and has not been officially endorsed.

The report by the U.N. Department of Safety and Security, obtained by The Associated Press, said it was not clear how many people died in the suicide bombing and how many died from subsequent gunfire after the Nov. 6 attack in Baghlan province.

The report said that as many as two-thirds of the 77 killed and more than 100 wounded were hit by gunfire; however, some estimates said the number of people shot was much lower.

"Regardless of what the exact breakdown of numbers may be, the fact remains that a number of armed men deliberately and indiscriminately fired into a crowd of unarmed civilians that posed no threat to them, causing multiple deaths and injuries," the report said.

"It is believed that at least 100 rounds or more were fired into the crowd with a separate group of school children off to one side of the road bearing the brunt of the onslaught at close range," it said.

Adrian Edwards, the world body's spokesman in Afghanistan, confirmed the report's validity, but said it was one of several conflicting views inside the U.N. and that its findings had not been endorsed.

"What you are seeing at the moment represents part of the picture only. What hasn't been resolved is that there is widely diverging, contrary views on this, and until those have been resolved, there is no complete finding," he said.

According to Afghan authorities, most of the casualties were the result of the suicide attack. Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary has said most of the victims were hit by ball bearings from the bomb, and not bullets.

Among the dead were 61 students and five teachers, six members of parliament and five bodyguards. The deadliest previous suicide bombing in Afghanistan was in June, when 35 people were killed in a bomb attack on a police bus.

The attack happened as the lawmakers were being greeted by children on a visit to a sugar factory in Afghanistan's normally peaceful north.

Among the parliamentarians killed was Sayed Mustafa Kazimi, the chief spokesman of Afghanistan's only opposition group, the National Front. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, and Afghan officials say they do not know who was behind the bombing. The Taliban has denied it was responsible. A government investigation is also under way.

Hundreds of children had crowded onto the tree-lined driveway leading to the New Baghlan Sugar Factory to greet visiting lawmakers when the blast went off. Witnesses and survivors describe bodyguards firing into the thick black smoke for up to five minutes after the attack.

US plans to train Pakistani tribes to fight Al-Qaeda, Taliban: report

Washington (AFP) - - Drawing from its experience in Iraq, the US military has developed a plan that calls for recruiting Pakistani tribal leaders to fight Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, The New York Times reported on its website.

The United States has used this tactic in Anbar province in Iraq, where the military has been able to enlist some local Sunni tribal leaders to back it in combating Al-Qaeda in Iraq and other foreign fighters.

Citing unnamed US military officials, the newspaper said Sunday the plan had been outlined in a strategy paper prepared by the staff the Special Operations Command, but has not been formally approved by the command's leaders.

However some elements of the strategy, The Times said, have already been given the green light in principle by the Pentagon and its Pakistani partners.

These include a 350-million-dollar proposal to train and equip the Pakistani Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force that currently has about 85,000 members coming mostly from border tribes.

The report came amid unrest in Swat, a scenic northwestern valley, where pro-Taliban cleric Maulana Fazlullah is leading a campaign for the imposition of harsh Sharia law in the valley.

Fazlullah is nicknamed "Mullah Radio" because he runs a pirate FM radio station that calls for a holy war on government forces.

Up to 500 Islamist fighters were believed to be holed up in the Swat valley, led by a "hardcore" of 50 mostly foreign militants, especially Uzbeks, according to the Pakistani military.

Insurgent advances in and around Swat have embarrassed the government of President Pervez Musharraf, who cited growing Islamic militancy as one of the key reasons for imposing emergency rule two weeks ago.

He has since ordered the regular army -- rather than the locally recruited paramilitary forces -- to take the lead in tackling the unrest.

In light of these developments, The Times said, some US counterterrorism experts are wondering if Anbar-style partnerships can be forged without a significant US military presence on the ground in Pakistan.

It is also unclear whether the Pakistani tribes would be willing to offer enough cooperation, the report said.

Fields of little glory: Nato begins to scale back its Afghan ambitions

By Stephen Fidler and Jon Boone, Sun., Nov. 18, 2007

Mahmoud Saikal spends his days planning Afghanistan's transformation from a war-ravaged failed state to a prosperous nation with a modern infrastructure.

If he gets his way, the country will have its first railways, linked to the networks of Europe, and the country's dusty, overcrowded capital will be transformed into one of the finest in central Asia.

But for a man who returned with high hopes to act as a government economic adviser after years abroad as an architect and then as the country's ambassador to Australia, the mood in his office is grim. The newspaper on his desk is dominated by reports on the murder of six Afghan MPs and scores of schoolchildren by the deadliest suicide attack to hit the country in the tumultuous six years since 2001.

"I used to think that devoting myself was the best way to help the country, but now I'm beginning to think that there is really no point until we have got security right first. It feels like we haven't made any progress at all in the last six years, like we're back in Taliban times."

Mr Saikhal is not alone in his sentiments: terrorist incidents have undermined many Afghans' sense of security. They have further eroded support for the government both in Kabul, where President Hamid Karzai is widely regarded as ineffectual, and in the regions where some local leaders and security forces are seen as corrupt or worse.

Afghans are not the only ones frustrated at the progress, or lack of it, in the six years and one week since Kabul was liberated from the Taliban. Western governments, which have some 50,000 troops in the country, are struggling to maintain their military commitments. Instability in neighbouring Pakistan, on which they depend heavily to get men and equipment into the country, has heightened their anxiety. Some governments are now wondering whether peace can be made with the Taliban, or at least parts of it.

"The river now appears to be running backwards," says Joanna Nathan, Kabul-based representative of the International Crisis Group, a non-governmental organisation seeking to curb conflict.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan rates 78 districts, almost one-fifth of the country, as extremely risky and therefore inaccessible to UN agencies for humanitarian work. Rates of insurgent and terrorist violence have been running 20 per cent higher, at an average of 548 incidents a month, than in 2006 and there are eight times as many suicide attacks as there were just two years ago.

Such setbacks are important. Losing Afghanistan threatens to recreate a failed state in a strategically important region, provide a haven to terrorists and drug traffickers and undermine, perhaps fatally, the credibility of the Nato alliance in its first big out-of-area operation. Some 40,000 of the foreign troops are under Nato command, the rest with a US-led anti-terrorist coalition.

Nato officials say the insurgents' terror tactics are a sign of weakness, not strength. They have turned to these methods after being shown up as a ragtag force unable to prevail in conventional military confrontations in the south and east of the country over the last two years, the argument runs. Nato thwarted a putative "Taliban offensive" in the spring of 2007. People and commerce have returned to towns such as Sangin, in the troubled province of Helmand, thanks to joint operations by Afghan and Nato troops.

Yet signs of impatience among some western governments are unmistakable. Nato, according to its own calculation, is a minimum four battalions (totalling some 4,000 soldiers) short of what it needs and the force lacks crucial equipment such as helicopters.

Meanwhile, perhaps one-quarter of Nato's troops present in Afghanistan, including those from Germany, Italy and Spain, are under strict operational restrictions. Some 50 so-called national caveats are maintained, including some that prevent military assets in the relatively peaceful north of the country from being shifted south where they are most needed. According to one senior Nato officer, the restrictions have "an insidious impact on operations".

This shortage seems unlikely to be remedied. Two nations currently providing combat troops - Canada, with 1,700 soldiers there, and the Netherlands, with 1,300 - face parliamentary debates in the coming months about whether their mandates should be renewed. Poland (950 troops), Denmark (450) and Nato partner Australia (900) - all engaged in the difficult south or east - have held or face elections that may lead their troops to be brought home.

Western officials say the solution to this shortfall lies in building the capacity of Afghanistan's own security forces. But progress has been slow. The Afghan National Army comprises fewer than 35,000 men, compared with a stated goal of 70,000 by 2010 - itself held to be insufficient by some analysts. Plagued by desertions in the early days, retention rates have improved to 45-60 per cent of recruits, depending on the unit.

But Nato governments are still falling short of their commitment to provide teams to train army units on the job. There are fewer than 30 of them, compared with a target of 100. Officials expect more commitments in coming months - it is one possible future role for Canadian forces - but as the number of such teams increases, so does the number needed, as new Afghan units are deployed.

The picture for the police is worse. An estimated 71,000 policemen are on duty, of whom 50,000 are ostensibly trained and equipped, compared with a goal of 82,000. Yet their quality is often poor - many police chiefs are illiterate - and police and justice system corruption is widely said to be undermining support for the government. Implicitly recognising past failures, the US has committed $2.5bn (£1.2bn, €1.7bn) to retrain the force, planning to put more than 2,500 advisers in police stations all over the country.

Another failure has been in counter-narcotics policy. Since the end of Taliban rule, poppy cultivation has risen to the point that Afghanistan is now estimated to be responsible for 93 per cent of the world's opium supplies. The UN Office of Drugs and Crime reported in August that opium production had increased by 34 per cent over the previous year. The growth mostly came from Helmand province, where British troops are operating. Officials talk of a vicious cycle in which the proceeds of drug trafficking sustain the insurgency.

General Sir Richard Dannatt, Britain's army chief, said in a September speech that the UK military decided against a strong eradication policy for poppy fields when moving into Helmand in 2006 because to have done so would have handed an important propaganda tool to the Taliban. But he said that over a lengthy campaign, it was necessary to "turn the tide" against drugs and he had told his commanders this summer that in 2008 "we will be judged in progress terms by this poppy harvest and we have now got to see it going down".

These difficulties are leading some western governments to suggest the west's strategy - to build confidence in elected institutions and encourage justice, reconstruction, development and better government - is too ambitious.

In the UK, a review of Afghan strategy has followed Gordon Brown's takeover as prime minister from Tony Blair in June. The outcome represents, officials say, a scaling back of Blairite ambitions to help Afghans create a "stable, prosperous and democratic future". It supports exploring, under Afghan leadership, reconciliation with members of insurgent groups.

A hint at a shift in UK attitudes may have come in Gen Dannatt's September speech, in which he said he preferred not to demonise Nato's adversaries. "There is a hard core of Islamist extremists of varied ethnic and national origin, but the great majority of the people we are engaged against are those who are fighting with the Taliban for financial, social and tribal reasons. So we must beware of tarring them all with the same brush, as I am sure that one day we will need to deal with and eventually reconcile the elected government with the majority of these people."

Statements from Dan McNeill, the US general who commands Nato forces in Afghanistan, suggest he agrees that a majority of opponents could be reconcilable with the government.

In the south, he says, a group that can broadly be identified as the Taliban contains four levels of fighters. At the top is a hard core, probably irreconcilable with the Afghan government, most of whom enjoy sanctuary outside the country. Below them, there is a brutal group of less ideological leaders, some of whom might be open to reconciliation, Most in the two levels below that - fighters and the mid- to low-level leadership - are likely to be reconcilable, he says.

In the east, he points to two organisations, one led by Jalaluddin Haqqani. "I'm not certain of the prospects of their reconciliation," he said last month. "They're hard fighters and they appear to be deep in the business of suicide bombers and improvised explosive devices." A second group is led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the warlord and former Afghan prime minister. "What they want for Afghanistan is backward-looking. It has been tried before [and] it led to destruction in this country," he said.

Apart from them, foreign fighters were on the battlefield, "some of which could correctly be called al-Qaeda".

Although the idea of reconciliation is gaining ground elsewhere, it finds little favour in the Bush administration, where one US official says the word Taliban is regarded as "radioactive". Reluctance to contemplate an accommodation with the insurgents is, moreover, not limited to Washington.

Ms Nathan of the International Crisis Group argues that the Taliban - along with other Islamist groups - does not enjoy great popular support. If support has been growing, it is due only to the incompetence of the Karzai government and opposition to the "abusive and corrupt local thugs" who control many provinces and local areas, she says.

This criticism goes to the heart of what many see as a central problem for the western military campaign in Afghanistan. The weakness of the government in Kabul, coupled with corrupt local politicians who undermine support for authority in the regions, has made for a dysfunctional relationship between the civil and military powers. This has been worsened by poor co-ordination between the military and the international civilian agencies operating inside the country.

Officials say mending this requires military objectives to be better aligned with overall strategy. Some governments think a powerful international figure may need to be appointed to do that co-ordinating job. Yet, even though few governments see any palatable alternatives to Mr Karzai, there is pessimism about the prospects for better government. Parliamentary and presidential elections are being held in 2009 and, ahead of them, intense and potentially damaging political infighting has already begun.

Top general says army is overstretched

Richard Norton-Taylor, Monday November 19, 2007 The Guardian

General Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the army, has warned that his soldiers are "devalued, angry, and suffering from Iraq fatigue", that the army is undermanned, and that operations in Iraq and Afghanistan risk "mortgaging the goodwill of our people", it emerged yesterday.

An internal Ministry of Defence report, Chief of the General Staff's Briefing Team Report (2007), states: "The tank of goodwill now runs on vapour. Many experienced staff are talking of leaving".

Dannatt adds in his own contribution to the report that the "military covenant is clearly out of kilter". He continues: "We must strive to give individuals and units ample recuperation time between operations, but I do not underestimate how difficult this will be to achieve whilst under-manned." He describes continuing delays to military inquests as a "disgrace".

The Ministry of Defence yesterday played down the report, which was leaked to the Sunday Telegraph. Officials said it was drawn up six months ago.

The views expressed in the Briefing Team reports contain the "unedited views of individual soldiers, some of which represent more widespread opinion and others isolated views", an MoD spokesman said. He added: "the feedback given by lower ranks in the army helps [the head of the army] to stay firmly in touch with life across [it]".

Commenting on the report's leak, Dannatt said: "In response to our concerns, we have had some welcome news this year on medical treatment, equipment, pay and improvements in accommodation."

The MoD points to improvements in medical care, new barracks, and better equipment to protect troops in operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Dannatt remains concerned about the problems caused by the lack of resources for an army of less than 100,000, reflected in his comments in the briefing paper. The army commanders are particularly worried about the lack of equipment and experienced soldiers available to train troops for operations in Afghanistan. They are also concerned about pay levels.

Though recruitment is holding up, a growing number of non-commissioned and middle-ranking officers are quitting early, leaving a gap in experienced personnel. Recommended rest periods between operations are being breached, hitting the infantry, skilled personnel such as engineers and communications specialists, as well as army and RAF pilots.

The concern among army chiefs is that years of underfunding are leading to a crisis. One senior officer says: "My worry is, do we fall over a cliff edge?"

Germany Rebuts Allegation of Abandoning Allies in Afghanistan

DW - The German army, the Bundeswehr, refuted accusations made in a British newspaper that its helicopters had deserted Norwegian and Afghan allies in a battle against the Taliban in order to make their dusk curfew.

In a report with the headline "For us ze war is over by tea time, ja," the Sunday, Nov. 18, edition of Britain's The Sunday Times asserted that German military pilots in Afghanistan are obliged to return to base by sunset -- no matter what.

The paper said Bundeswehr medical evacuation helicopters that were participating in an offensive against the Taliban with Norwegian and Afghan troops the pilots pulled out in the middle of the battle, forcing the Norwegians to follow suit.

"We were attacking the bad guys, then at three or four o'clock the helicopters are leaving," a Norwegian soldier told The Sunday Times. "We had to go back to base. We should have had Norwegian helicopters. At least they can fly at night."

The remaining 600 Afghan soldiers had to retreat until they could be reinforced the following day by a convoy of American Humvees.

In addition, the British paper claimed that Germany's refusal to fly at night was hindering Operation Desert Eagle, an allied offensive involving 500 NATO-led troops and 1,000 Afghan soldiers and police.

"There is no ban on night flights," a Bundeswehr spokesman told the online version of the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel. Weather conditions could potentially be a reason to ground Bundeswehr helicopters, continued the spokesman, "but then it's not just us -- the others don't fly either."

spokesman didn't have specific information regarding the battle mentioned by The Sunday Times, but said the Norwegians hadn't filed an official complaint. Instead they had thanked the German troops for their support. 

The spokesperson, however, confirmed another charge made by the paper that Bundeswehr soldiers are not permitted to travel more than two hours distance from hospitals with emergency surgery facilities.

Germany has been involved in the NATO-led ISAF mission to Afghanistan, sending some 3,000 troops since 2002. The Bundeswehr is mainly active in civilian reconstruction projects and peacekeeping in the relatively nonviolent northern region of Afghanistan. The German military has also contributed six reconnaissance jets that fly missions over the country's southern regions.

US launches justice reform programme in Afghanistan

NEW YORK, Nov 17 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The United States of America Friday announced the formation of a public-private partnership for justice reforms in Afghanistan .

The US initiative to strengthen the fragile judiciary system of Afghanistan would be formally launched by the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, next month in Washington, an official announcement said .

A novel initiative to seek the expertise of Americas legal community in building Afghanistans justice system, the partnership would be co-chaired by Thomas A. Schweich, US Coordinator for Counter- narcotics and Justice Reform in Afghanistan; and Robert C OBrien, the former US Alternate Representative to the UN .

The partnership will allow (US) firms to demonstrate their commitment to improving the justice system in Afghanistan by funding low-cost, high-impact projects promoting women's rights, access to justice, legal aid, professional development, and other important justice-related activities, the State Department said .

This is the first effort of the US to get involve in reforms and capacity building of the countrys justice system, the task of which is mainly with Italy. In July Italy had organized a conference on Rule of Law in Afghanistan, which among other nations was attended by the US too .

It is at this conference that the US had pledged $15 million in new assistance for the justice sector reforms. So far the US has given $145 million in the last five years .

The State Department said this sector is falling in financial assistance from the international community. Afghanistan is estimated to require more than $500 million in the next five years. At the Rome conference the participating nations had pledged an aid of $98 million .

The State Department said it's Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs will work with the private sector in an effort to alleviate this shortfall .

Challenging gender barriers, teen girls in Afghanistan enter the boxing ring

KABUL, Afghanistan - A group of teenage girls is taking up fisticuffs to challenge Afghanistan's gender barriers.

"Move, move, move," coach Saber Sharifi shouted as the 20-odd girls sparred recently. "Steady, watch your left shoulder."

The boxers belong to a new generation of Afghan youth, challenging stereotypes that persist five years after the fall of the Taliban. They train in a room in Kabul's main sports stadium, a venue for public executions during Taliban rule in the late 1990s.

Boxing is helping them gain confidence and self-respect, the girls say. Their goal: to be Afghanistan's first women's boxing team.

"Many people are trying to stop us from participating in sports by saying it is not good for women," said 15-year-old Shabnam, who uses only one name. "But I think if you are interested in doing something, you should avoid listening to what people think about you. Sports is a way out of violence for Afghanistan."

The girls - who also include Shabnam's sisters, Fatima, 17 and Sadaf, 14 - practise separately from boys and wear warm-up suits. Some cover their heads with scarves or bandanas.

Their effort is a brave one in this male-dominated country, where females start wearing the powder blue burqa, which covers them from head to toe, in public at puberty.

"The neighbours do not know about the girls' training yet, but we fully support them," their mother, Salima Rahimi, said.

The family saw a women's boxing match on TV one evening, she said. "I want to become like Laila Ali," Shabnam shouted, referring to boxing great Muhammad Ali's daughter. "I want to become the world's female boxing champion."

The girls practise three times a week, and Sharifi wants to hold matches by year-end. He has seen "tremendous improvement" in their skills, he said, but hopes for better equipment such as headgear, mouth protectors and quality gloves.

"If the international community is serious about helping Afghanistan transform itself, then here is the chance for someone to come forward and help these girls realize their dreams," he said. "We need to visit other teams and have other teams visit us, because if they don't get enough exposure and matches, then no amount of training in this gym is going to help.

"We don't even have a boxing ring yet," he said.

Among poppies and Taliban, Afghan pomegranate farmers see demand

By Noor Khan, The Associated Press November 19, 2007

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Farm hands place mounds of bright red pomegranates into shipping boxes stamped "Product of Afghanistan." The price and quality of the sweet fruit are up, and the farmers are happy that a new storage facility has extended their selling season.

The advances in the pomegranate trade are a sliver of good news from a region of Afghanistan known more for Taliban attacks and a thriving opium trade.

Ubaidullah Jan, a 50-year-old farmer from the Arghandab area just north of Kandahar, said the price his pomegranates command has doubled this year to about 54 cents a pound, due to the new cold storage facility and quality control programs implemented by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

"The goods we are selling with the help of USAID and being able to keep them in cold storage have brought a tremendous change in our business," Jan said, adding that his goods are sent to Dubai, Pakistan, India and Singapore.

Scarred by an almost perpetual state of conflict since 1980, Afghanistan has only one truly successful export: opium and the heroin that is made from it.

The country produced 8,200 tons of opium in 2007, up 34 percent from last year's record harvest. Farmers this year can make $2,000 on an acre of opium poppies, while wheat yields about $220.

The total value of the opium trade for Afghan farmers this year stands at $1 billion. The value of all of Afghanistan's legal exports in 2006, meanwhile, was $193 million, with animal hides and wool skins topping the list at $21 million.

Revenue from legal exports has increased an average of 28 percent annually over the last four years and will continue to expand, said Loren Owen Stoddard, director of alternative development and agriculture for USAID.

Afghanistan's fruit and vegetables in particular have potential, he said. The "perceived value" of Afghan pomegranates and other fruits is high in regional markets.

"Talk to an Indian fruit seller and he'll instinctively know that (Afghan pomegranates) are the best in the world," Stoddard said. "When we show up, the reaction is, 'Oh, these are the great Afghan products I used to buy.'"

In Kandahar, USAID is spending $6.6 million on agricultural and marketing assistance programs for producers of fresh and dried fruits and nuts.

The goal is sustained economic growth that can help reduce and eventually eliminate poppy cultivation. About 330 vineyards and orchards have been developed in Kandahar, and 51 raisin sheds have been rehabilitated. Next year, 12,500 grape vines will be planted.

Farming is challenging in Afghanistan. Pomegranate farmers in the Arghandab district abandoned their fields this month and headed toward the relative safety of Kandahar city after Taliban fighters moved into the region for several days.

USAID opened the cold storage facility in September and is trying to increase contacts with potential buyers overseas. Farmers are being taught to produce raisins away from Kandahar's dusty earth; cleaner raisins can fetch up to four times more at market.

Western aid workers dress in local outfits and travel the province to link buyers and sellers.

"War creates a lack of communication and so some of what our guys are doing is reintroducing Afghans to buyers who have changed over 30 years," Stoddard said.

The program has helped ship 690 tons of pomegranates to India, 600 tons to Pakistan and 36 tons to Dubai, mostly on military flights.

A sample 1,000-pound shipment was also sent to the United States, said Mohammad Gul, a USAID program officer in Kandahar.

The pomegranate growers say Taliban fighters -- who recruit gunmen and force some farmers into the poppy trade across Afghanistan's south -- leave them alone.

"This is a business we've inherited from our ancestors," said Hayatullah Khan. "The Taliban never say that we should grow poppy instead of pomegranates."

Khan said the success of the pomegranate project could lure other farmers back into legal crops, though the trend is currently in the opposite direction. Kandahar province in 2007 saw a 32 percent increase in the amount of land devoted to poppies.

To increase production, Afghanistan needs a better electrical grid. Only the western city of Herat, which imports power from Iran, has reliable electricity. The municipal grid in Kabul on average provides only three hours of electricity a day.

"The No. 1 challenge to agribusiness is electricity," Stoddard said. "You can't keep things cold and you can't bottle them without power."

The civilian presence in modern warfare

The military is increasingly dependent on contractors to provide essential services in Afghanistan, write Andrew Mayeda and Mike Blanchfield. The practice raises important questions about how the government can remain in charge and accountable for Canada's war efforts.

The Ottawa Citizen Monday, November 19, 2007

HOWZ-E-MADAD, Afghanistan - A rusty dumptruck pulls up to this remote, battle-scarred village and Samiullah Noory jumps out, a handgun tucked beneath his tunic.

Mr. Noory's company, Rahmat Sadat Construction, has been hired to deliver thousands of kilograms of gravel that Canadian combat engineers will use to build a security outpost for the Afghan National Army.

It's a job few Afghan companies are willing to take. Earlier this year, the Taliban killed Mr. Noory's older brother, who also worked as a contractor for NATO forces. That's when Mr. Noory, a supervisor for Rahmat Sadat, started carrying a gun to work.

"They said, 'Why do you work with the Americans, the foreigners?' " he said. "I'll be killed one day, too. But I'm not afraid of dying."

Mr. Noory's perseverance can be at least partly explained by something basic -- money. According to a CanWest News Service analysis, Rahmat Sadat has received more than $826,000 worth of business from the Canadian Forces in the past 18 months -- profitable work in a country where the average annual income is about $300. Welcome to the front line of the business of war.

In the past two decades, western governments have entrusted an increasing range of traditional military duties to civilian contractors. After the Cold War, countries, including Canada, cut their military budgets and troop levels. At the same time, the boundaries of modern warfare were rapidly changing. Armed with ever more sophisticated equipment, soldiers were deploying with greater frequency to hotspots around the world. Meanwhile, governments were increasingly outsourcing public services.

Military leaders say the use of private contractors allows soldiers to concentrate on what they do best: fighting the enemy.

"I see no reason why we should use highly trained military manpower to do what are some quite basic jobs," says British Gen. David Richards, who commanded NATO forces in Afghanistan at the height of the Taliban insurgency last year.

But the growth of the civilian contracting industry has raised some fundamental questions: Who are these contractors and to whom are they accountable? Who is responsible when they are killed or injured? Can the government depend on them to deliver services at all costs? And should Canada be awarding contracts to former Afghan warlords?

In a five-part series beginning today, CanWest News Service examines the entire mini-economy of firms that support Canada's biggest military engagement in half a century, the war in Afghanistan. In recent years, civilian contractors have become so deeply embedded in the military infrastructure that Canadian soldiers rely on them every time they eat a meal, use the washroom and switch off their lamps at night. The series will focus on contractors offering services on the ground, but will also examine companies that produce goods such as bottled water and equipment such as guns and ammunition.

At the top of the contracting hierarchy is SNC-Lavalin PAE, the Forces' prime logistics provider. Under a 10-year contract worth as much as $700 million, the company provides a range of support services, from the maintenance of non-combat vehicles to the management of the military's internal communications system at Kandahar Airfield. The company is employed under the Canadian Forces Contractor Augmentation Program, known as CANCAP.

Dalhousie University researcher David Perry, one of the few academics to study the subject, says government watchdogs in the United States have extensively reviewed civilian contracting. Some critics, however, say Canada lacks comparable oversight systems.

One of the only known audits of the CANCAP program was completed last year by the military's chief of review services (CRS). That June 2006 report found the military lacks an overall policy on the use of contractors, and has not conducted a thorough cost analysis. It found many senior officers lack the expertise to monitor quality assurance, or even audit an invoice. But the military says it has stepped up training and improved oversight of the program since the report.

The finding was echoed in a December 2006 slide show on CANCAP, released under the Access to Information Act. Prepared for the Forces' Expeditionary Command, the branch of the military that controls all overseas missions, it called for additional reporting on quality assurance.

Questions about transparency and accountability extend beyond CANCAP. The Defence Department has refused to disclose the names of contractors that have received almost $42 million on the Afghanistan file. CanWest News Service obtained the list through Access to Information, but the department blanked out all vendor names, citing a section of the law that allows the government to withhold information harmful to the "defence of Canada."

The data show the military has considerable discretion over how contracts in Afghanistan are awarded and disclosed. The $42 million in contracts are stored on an internal departmental database. Some contracts in the database have been disclosed on the department's website, but many have not. Furthermore, military commanders are not required to report all contracts to the internal database, according to department officials. Therefore, it is impossible to know how many contracts have gone unreported.

While western firms are clearly the biggest winners, the contracting boom has also created a relatively lucrative business for Afghan firms. However, in some cases, contracts appear to have been awarded to former warlords now allied with NATO.

Individuals with links to President Hamid Karzai have also forged strong commercial links with the Canadian military.

For example, the military's censored documents disclose a payment of $300,000 to rent vehicles. The company's name is blanked out. However, by cross-referencing contract numbers in publicly available databases, CanWest News Service determined that a company named "Sherzai" won the contract. The company bears the same name as Gul Agha Sherzai, a former warlord who helped Mr. Karzai rout the Taliban from Kandahar six years ago, and who served as the province's governor until 2005. Mr. Sherzai is a former mujahedeen who fought the Soviet occupation of the 1980s. He is now governor of Nangarhar province.

Sherzai, the company, received $1.14 million worth of contracts from the Forces between January 2006 and March of this year, almost $900,000 of that for transportation services. Another $240,000 was for services related to "defence" and "research and development." No other explanation for the work is available.

Since early 2006, the Canadian Forces has also awarded nine contracts worth more than $340,000 to an entity referred to in government records as "Gulalai" and "General Gulalai."

Gen. Gulalai was a southern Afghanistan warlord who also backed Mr. Karzai's efforts to win back the Kandahar region from the Taliban. Defence Department disclosures do not detail what Gen. Gulalai did for this money, listing only "professional services," "transportation" and "R&D."

During an October 2006 meeting of the Commons defence committee, NDP defence critic Dawn Black asked then-defence minister Gordon O'Connor to explain why the military was doing business with warlords.

"It's not unusual to have to deal with people you call former warlords. That's the way it is in Afghanistan," Mr. O'Connor replied. As Canada and its coalition allies expand their use of contractors, they are entrusting more high-risk work to Afghans.

In Kandahar City, the demand for extra muscle has cultivated an entire neighbourhood of Afghan guards-for-hire. The "commando district" is home to hundreds of well-armed men who once filled out the militias of regional warlords. They earn about $300 U.S. a month to provide security to firms that win contracts with NATO countries, said Rohullah Khan, a former militia commander.

Mr. Khan oversees about 250 guards who protect private convoys with an arsenal of rocket launchers, AK-47s and heavy machine-guns. During the past year, 50 of his guards have been killed in battle with the Taliban, he says. "No one," he says, "wants to do this work."

Tomorrow: War makes strange bedfellows. Tim Hortons and other businesses in Afghanistan.

[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.]