In this bulletin:

• Blasts kill 8 in Afghanistan
• Afghan civilians suffer in battle for their security
• Afghan Parliament Speaker Leads Walkout Over Bomb Probe
• U.S. officials differ on Afghan war
• Italy to remain in Afghanistan, but Prodi says long-term strategy needed
• Defence secretary hits back at admiral's criticism
• Afghan FM meets Canadian delegation
• MacKay urges nation to back Afghan mission
• Afghans don’t have option of ignoring Iranian neighbours
• MPs seek cost of private contractors
• Russia jumps into Waziristan?
• Strings attached to Sharif's return
• Legal education in Afghanistan
• Burn unit seeing too many young victims
• Al-Qaeda kingpin: I trained 9/11 hijackers
• AFGHAN PLAYERS TRAIN WITH ENGLAND

Blasts kill 8 in Afghanistan

KABUL, Nov 26 (Reuters) - A roadside bomb and a landmine left over from a previous conflict went off in Afghanistan on Monday killing eight people, including four Afghan soldiers, officials said.

The landmine blast happened south of the capital Kabul, killing four civilians travelling in a car, a police official said.

The soldiers were killed when an improvised device hit their vehicle hours later in the southeastern province of Paktia, a provincial spokesman said.

After nearly more than 30 years of war, Afghanistan is littered with about 100,000 mines that kill or wound around 60 people every month, the United Nations estimates.

Taliban insurgents fighting to overthrow the pro-Western Afghan government also continue to plant some mines, but prefer to use roadside and suicide bombs.

Violence has surged in Afghanistan this year with more clashes, roadside bombs, suicide attacks and casualties as compared to 2006 and Afghan analysts say next year is expected to be more violent. (Reporting by Hamid Shalizi and Elyas Wahdat, editing by Sayed Salahuddin and Sanjeev Miglani)

Afghan civilians suffer in battle for their security

Tom Hyland, The Age, November 25, 2007

Tens of thousands of civilians have fled their homes to escape the fighting in southern Afghanistan, where Australian and Dutch forces are claiming early success in what has been Australia's most costly operation in the conflict.

The risk to civilians was highlighted by Friday's clash that claimed the life of Private Luke Worsley, the third Australian be killed in Afghanistan since last month.

Three civilians - two women and a child - also were killed when Australian troops attacked what the Australian Defence Force said was a Taliban bomb-making compound.

The ADF said it was impossible to say if they were killed by Taliban or Australian fire.

On Friday Air Chief Marshall Angus Houston said that, despite the loss of Private Worsley, the outcome of the fight was "very good from our point of view" because of the number of Taliban killed and captured.

Claims of success in the clash, and the wider operation it was linked to, hinge on the ability of Afghan Government forces to stabilise areas won by foreign troops, and allow internal refugees to return home.

The numbers of displaced people is growing daily, according to an expert with US think tank the Brookings Institution, Khalid Koster.

He said the official figure of 129,000 massively understated the problem. It did not include at least 20,000 families - about 100,000 people - forced to flee their homes in southern Afghanistan in recent months.

A report last week by IRIN, a UN-backed news service, said about 80,000 people had been displaced this year in three southern provinces, including Oruzgan, where the Australians are based.

Trying to restore security to a country one third of which the UN rates as "extremely risky" has been a key aim of the operation in which Australian troops have been involved for the past month.

Operation Spin Ghar (White Mountain) is the largest coalition operation ever staged in Oruzgan. Launched on October 25 by Australian, Dutch, British, US and Afghan forces, it aims to clear insurgents from the Baluchi Valley, a key Taliban supply and infiltration route.

SAS Sergeant Matthew Locke was shot dead on the first day of the operation. Eight days later Sergeant Michael Lyddiard was badly wounded when a roadside bomb he was trying to defuse exploded.

Two weeks before the operation began, Trooper David Pearce was killed when his armoured vehicle hit a landmine.

Friday's attack was not part of Operation Spin Ghar, but it was based on intelligence collected during it. The main Australian task in the operation has been to build three security posts for Afghan Government forces at the northern end of the valley.

The ADF has given no briefings on the operation, but spokesman Brigadier Andrew Nikolic, speaking before Private Worsley's death, told The Sunday Age "good results are coming out of it".

The Dutch Defence Ministry said major parts of the operation were complete. Taliban fighters fled before allied troops moved in, the operation went according to plan with few civilian casualties, and gains were being consolidated, the ministry said.

The Dutch statements stressed the role of Afghan forces in securing the area and referred to the fear among civilians that the Taliban would return.

The ADF hopes Afghan armed forces, based in new security posts, will be able to hinder the Taliban and build confidence among local people.

But analysts question whether they will be able to fill the new security space.

The Taliban, funded by a booming opium trade and Middle Eastern money, pays its fighters three times what the Afghan army does, according to Hekmat Karzai, the head of an Afghan think tank, and Julian Lindley-French of the Netherlands Defence Academy.

Writing in The Afghanistan Times, they warned that ordinary Afghans saw little sign of progress in the work of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force that includes Australian troops.

They said a "yawning gap" between what NATO regarded as success and the reality on the ground "is in danger of becoming an exercise in political and bureaucratic self-delusion".

Afghan Parliament Speaker Leads Walkout Over Bomb Probe

November 26, 2007 - KABUL (AFP)--Afghanistan's parliament speaker and about 80 lawmakers staged a walkout Monday, accusing some government officials of not cooperating with a probe into the nation's worst suicide bombing.

The speaker, Younis Qanooni, told AFP the protest was also aimed at the government's failure to suspend officials after the Nov. 6 bombing that killed nearly 80 people, including six parliamentarians and 59 children.

Parliament had called for the suspension of seven officials, including the governor and security officials of the northern province of Baghlan where the bombing occurred as children welcomed visiting lawmakers.

"The lower house insisted that seven officials be suspended until the investigation is over," Qanooni said.

But, he added, "they are all working and the provincial governor refuses to meet the parliamentary investigation team and answer questions. Unless the decision of representatives of people are met, I am not attending the sessions."

Critics have accused provincial authorities of not providing sufficient security, while there have also been allegations the attack was not part of a Taliban-led insurgency but instead had other motives.

The extremists have denied responsibility, as they have for other incidents with a high civilian toll.

There are also claims most of the children died when the parliamentarians' bodyguards opened fire after the bombing.

The walk-out was the largest in parliament, and the first headed by Qanooni - a key figure in the opposition to President Hamid Karzai and who has led the assembly in several clashes with the government.

About 50 MPs remained after the walk-out, accusing Qanooni of trying to use the parliament for his own political purposes.

The assembly has a theoretical strength of 249, including the six who were killed, but they are rarely all there at the same time.

U.S. officials differ on Afghan war

Published: Nov. 25, 2007 at 8:47 AM

WASHINGTON, Nov. 25 (UPI) -- U.S. military and intelligence officials differ sharply on whether progress is being made in the war in Afghanistan, The Washington Post reported Sunday.

Military officials stress U.S. and NATO forces have seen significant combat successes against a resurgence of Taliban fighters, the Post reported.

Intelligence officials, however, have concluded goals set by the White House for 2007 have not been met. The assessment this month by the National Security Council concluded progress in security, governance and the economy continue to lag in Afghanistan, the Post reported.

Intelligence officials are also uneasy about an increase in opium poppy cultivation financing the Taliban and signs of weakness in President Hamid Karzai's government, the Post said.

The differing views also reflect internal disagreements about Iraq, the Post reported, noting while the U.S. military lauds tactical successes, intelligence officials worry about strategic failure.

Italy to remain in Afghanistan, but Prodi says long-term strategy needed

The Associated Press - Sunday, November 25, 2007

ROME: Premier Romano Prodi repeated Sunday that Italy will not withdraw troops from Afghanistan following the death of an Italian soldier — but said officials must reflect on a long-term political strategy for Italy's future presence there, reports said.

Prodi faced fresh calls from radical leftists in his coalition to withdraw Italy's 2,000-strong contingent following the death Saturday of Marshall Daniele Paladini. A suicide bomber targeting Italian soldiers building a bridge killed Paladini and six Afghans and wounded three other Italian soldiers.

"We're staying, but all the countries that remain need to reflect on the long-term strategy for the country," the Apcom news agency quoted Prodi as saying during a visit to Abu Dhabi.

"It's not a problem that started yesterday, but a problem that we've been working on for some time," he said. "Regardless, our solidarity with the mission is not up for discussion."

The three wounded soldiers returned to Italy on Sunday morning; Paladini's remains were expected later Sunday or Monday, news reports said.

Defence secretary hits back at admiral's criticism

Peter Walker and agencies, Friday November 23, 2007 Guardian Unlimited

The defence secretary, Des Browne, hit back today at former defence chiefs who accused the government of treating the armed forces "with contempt", as a war of words over the issue became increasingly personal.

In the House of Lords yesterday, five former chiefs of the defence staff lined up to condemn what they claimed were in effect budget cuts on the military, some of them also attacking Gordon Brown individually for a perceived lack of interest in the armed forces.

The prime minister also entered the fray today, insisting he had "enormous respect" for the armed forces, who were financed and equipped adequately, he said.

This morning, the defence chief at the time of the 2003 Iraq invasion, Admiral Lord Boyce, said Gordon Brown had treated troops "with contempt" by making Browne combine his defence portfolio with the job of Scottish secretary.

In a robust defence of the government's record, Browne insisted today that this made no difference to his effectiveness.

"Tell me what it is that a secretary of state for defence should be doing that I am not doing. Then we can have a discussion about the reality of this," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Following devolution, Browne said, the time required for the Scottish secretary's post was now much reduced, and "comes out of what was my private life, my family's life or my constituents' time".

No serving members of the forces had raised the issue during 11 trips to Iraq and Afghanistan, he stressed.

Browne also took issue with "the personalisation of these issues" through the attacks on the prime minister, expressing "regret" at this.

"The people this matters to most will not thank us if this descends into some argument about personalities," he said.

Asked about the row in Kampala, where he is attending a Commonwealth summit, the prime minister said that the government had increased defence spending "every year".

"There will always be a debate about resources in the armed forces. The question is, are you doing the right thing by our armed forces and are you doing the right thing by the public services?" Brown said.

In a coordinated offensive in the Lords yesterday, Boyce and four other former incumbents of the defence chief role - Lord Guthrie, Lord Craig, Lord Bramall and Lord Inge - condemned current defence spending and questioned the prime minister's general commitment to the armed forces.

Brown was "the most unsympathetic chancellor of the exchequer as far as defence was concerned and was the only senior cabinet minister who avoided coming to the Ministry of Defence to be briefed by our staff about our problems", said Guthrie, who was chief of the defence staff from 1997 to 2001.

Boyce argued that claims of increased spending were "smoke and mirrors" and that reduced funds had left "blood on the floor" at the Ministry of Defence.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast this morning, he repeated his belief that budget levels were putting soldiers' lives in jeopardy, criticising in particular Browne's dual role.

"When you have got people who have been killed and maimed in the service of their government, and you put at the head of the shop someone who is part-time, that sends a very bad message," he said.

"And that is the message I get back from our soldiers, our sailors and our airmen. They feel insulted. They feel that he is treating them with contempt."

The shadow defence secretary, Liam Fox, said today he supported this view. "One of Gordon Brown's first acts was to give us a part-time defence secretary, who is having to spend time fighting both the SNP and the Taliban," he sad. "This is an insult to the men and women of our armed forces."

Boyce accepted that troops in Iraq and Afghanistan were "finally" getting the sort of equipment they needed, but said that those about to go on tours of duty were not receiving proper training due to budget shortages.

Browne conceded that there was an issue over training, but argued that this was "a function of success" in that the new equipment was being sent out to troops on active service so quickly.

He also dismissed Boyce's claims that the scale of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan meant that defence budgets were in effect falling, saying that the UK had "the second highest defence budget in the world in real terms".

"We are exceeded only by the United States of America, and there is a scale of expenditure in defence which we could never match in the United States," he said.

"It is correct and accepted that the recent [spending] settlement will see an increase of £7.7bn over the next three years."

Browne also took issue with suggestions that operations in Afghanistan and Iraq were being funded from the standard MoD budget, saying that the money was actually being drawn from reserves.

"He's just fundamentally wrong about that, and, with respect to Lord Boyce, that may well be a function of the fact that he is not day-to-day involved in these issues as I am."

Afghan FM meets Canadian delegation

Posted On MFA site: Nov 24, 2007

Afghan Foreign Minister Dr. Spanta received the visiting high level Canadian delegation. The delegation has been appointed by the Canadian PM to recommend policy options for Canada’s role in Afghanistan beyond 2009, when the current mission of Canada is expired.

From the outset, Afghan FM stated the need for providing a complete picture of Afghanistan and the multi-dimensional role of Canada in the process of stabilization, reconstruction and democratization of Afghanistan to Canadian public opinion. He then went to highlight some of the remarkable changes that Afghanistan has seen since the collapse of the Taliban’s regime.

By drawing attention to Afghanistan’s remaining challenges (terrorism, narcotics and weak state institutions) Dr. Spanta called upon Canada to remain fully engaged with Afghanistan in order to protect and build upon its vital well-appreciated efforts in Afghanistan.   Dr. Spanta also described the level of engagement and commitment of the international community as critical for the peace and stability of Afghanistan, the region and the world at large. 

MacKay urges nation to back Afghan mission

By NICKI THOMAS, SUN MEDIA

EDMONTON -- Waning support for the mission in Afghanistan is a weapon in the hands of the Taliban, said Defence Minister Peter MacKay during a stop in Edmonton yesterday.

"The Taliban are very intelligent -- they read newspapers, they go on the Internet. When they see Canadian resolve weaken, that's when they up their effort," MacKay said.

MacKay was the keynote speaker at a symposium organized by the Edmonton United Services Institute, a group of serving and retired military officers.

He called on Canadians to stay the course in Afghanistan and recognized Edmonton as a source of support for troops.

"I think there's a growing wave of appreciation across the country but certainly in a community like Edmonton where there are so many military personnel living and breathing right here in the city, there's probably a more profound understanding of the sacrifices that it takes (and) the family support that's necessary," he said.

"I think those who live in close proximity to military bases really have a greater depth of understanding of what it takes to be in the Canadian military today."

An Angus-Reid survey released in late August suggested support for the mission had fallen, with 49% of Canadians considering the military operations in Afghanistan as futile. About 22% of Canadians considered the NATO mission a success, while 29% weren't sure. Support for the mission hasn't waned, said MacKay. It ebbs and flows, especially when there are casualties, he said.

Since 2002, 73 Canadian soldiers have died in Afghanistan. Of those, 29 occurred in 2007.

Fellow-speaker Dr. Robert Huebert, associate director of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, said if Canada continues the mission in Afghanistan, there will be more loss of life.

When asked whether there will be another decade of IED attacks -- the kind of weapons used in roadside bombings -- Huebert answered, "absolutely."

The purpose of Canada's mission is to help the people of Afghanistan and to ensure the security of our nation, he said.

Afghans don’t have option of ignoring Iranian neighbours

By SCOTT TAYLOR On Target, Mon. Nov 26

LAST THURSDAY there was a small news item out of New York insinuating that Afghanistan was snubbing Canada by voting against one of our proposed resolutions at the United Nations. While this minor event failed to create much of a stir in the national media, it certainly served to illustrate both the naivety and imperialistic arrogance with which Canada approaches our mission in Afghanistan.

First, a little background on the political posturing that transpired at the UN. For the past five years Canadian diplomats have been pushing to censure Iran for human rights violations. This initiative was sparked by the 2003 death of Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi while she was in custody in Tehran. The Iranians pushed back, not only asking why they were being singled out, but also publishing a 70-page document detailing recent human rights abuses in Canada.

No doubt they made the most of such things as extrajudicial execution of natives in Saskatchewan and British Columbia and the Tasering of a confused airline passenger. When this finger-pointing came to a climax, the Iranians tabled a "no action" motion on Canada’s censure. In this first round, Afghanistan took Iran’s side and very nearly turned the tables. The Iranian "no action" was defeated by a tally of just 79 to 78. The Canadian censure was subsequently approved by a vote of 72 to 50 (with an additional 31 countries choosing to abstain). Afghanistan, however, once more openly chose to vote in favour of the Iranians. The very cheek of the so-called democratically elected independent Afghanistan government choosing to oppose our initiative caused our diplomats to harrumph and cry foul.

The numbers were trotted out and regurgitated by equally incensed Canadian journalists. The fact that we are contributing 2,500 troops through February 2009 (and debating an extension to 2011); the fact that to date 73 soldiers, a diplomat and a civilian have been killed and another 570 soldiers have been wounded and injured; and the fact we’ve committed up to $1.2 billion toward the reconstruction of Afghanistan were presented as being significant enough to warrant absolute obedience from our Afghan benefactors. This pious attitude was best summed up by Steven Edwards at the National Post: "One interpretation of Afghanistan’s view is that the government of President Hamid Karzai cares more about its relations with Iran than with Canada, despite Canada’s massive commitment to Afghan deconstruction and the cost in Canadian lives."

Lost in Edward’s text is the fact that Karzai would be wise to pay attention to Iranian sentiments and sensibilities. Poised along Afghanistan’s western border, Iran — a nation of 80 million souls with its oil-exporting economy exploding at $100 per barrel — plays one hell of a bigger role on the future of Afghanistan than Canada ever will. Although the Afghans still don’t have much in the way of legitimate commercial activity, Iran is still their major trading partner. About 20 per cent of Afghanistan’s ethnic mosaic is of Persian descent and the lingua franca of the Kabul government is Dari (a variant of the Persian Farsi).

Both countries are Islamic republics and, most importantly, Iran continues to provide sanctuary for up to three million Afghan refugees who have fled across the border in successive waves during the near-continuous conflict over the past 30 years. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has in the past threatened to push these Afghan refuge-seekers back into the new U.S.-created "utopian democracy" of Karzai’s Afghanistan. Anyone familiar with the circumstances knows what impact three million more unemployed, homeless former refugees would have on the fragile reconstruction underway in Afghanistan, and it is easy to understand why Karzai is keen to placate Ahmadinejad.

Add to this the fact that there are a number of Canadians running around screaming about Afghan human-rights abuses and suddenly the Afghan decision to vote in favour of Iran is not so puzzling. From the Afghan perspective we need to remember Canada is just one of the 37 nations contributing foreign troops to the security operation. In terms of firepower, manpower and equipment, the U.S. mercenary corporation Blackwater alone plays a far larger role than our entire military contingent. Our promised civil-aid package is nowhere near the largest donation and amounts to peanuts compared to their illicit drug trade.

While we debate in Parliament the end date of our commitment to Afghanistan, there is no such discussion among Iranian leaders because they don’t have the option of walking away from the problem.

Karzai appeasing Iran? Go figure.

MPs seek cost of private contractors

Opposition critics demand details of spending in Afghanistan
The Ottawa Citizen , Monday, November 26, 2007

Opposition MPs are pushing the Harper government to disclose more details on expanding use of private contractors in Afghanistan.

The federal government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years to hire contractors to assist the Afghanistan mission in various roles, from protecting military installations to providing logistical support.

But opposition critics say the government has not adequately explained how this money is being spent, and who is receiving it.

"This is a government that ran on the whole issue of transparency and accountability and, in fact, they've gone in the exact opposite direction," said NDP defence critic Dawn Black, who intends to press the matter at the Commons committee on national defence.

For their part, military officials once again defended their decision not to disclose the names of vendors who have received nearly $42 million worth of contracts in Afghanistan. The contracts are listed in an internal database obtained through the Access to Information Act, but the Defence Department's access branch has blanked out the vendors' names.

The military says disclosing the names of the contractors could lead the Taliban to target them and their families.

In question period this week, Bloc Québécois defence critic Claude Bachand called on Defence Minister Peter MacKay to release the entire list of contracts. Departments are required to disclose the basic details of contracts worth more than $10,000, but only some of the contracts on the internal database are listed on the Defence Department's website.

"It's quite possible this money has been misappropriated for another purpose," said Mr. Bachand.

But Mr. MacKay brushed off the concerns, saying his department has "a very strict process in terms of who complies with the contracting process." The minister's office later declined a request for an interview.

A CanWest News Service analysis has determined that some of the contracts have been awarded to former warlords with close ties to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, a practice that troubles some opposition MPs.

"I understand the politics of war. The more you get people on your side, the less they will shoot at you," said Liberal defence critic Denis Coderre. "At the same time, you have to be careful who you're dealing with."

Mr. Coderre wants the defence and foreign affairs departments to explain why they have hired private-security contractors, and what steps are being taken to check the backgrounds of such contractors. Last year, Foreign Affairs spent the bulk of its $35.2-million "protection services" budget, earmarked for its missions around the globe, on private firms.

Meanwhile, the military revealed this week that Afghan private security guards do more than police the perimeter of Canadian military installations in Kandahar province.

Private security contractors primarily provide "perimeter security" at locations such as the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) base in Kandahar, said Defence Department spokesman Maj. Vance White.

"The Canadian Forces does not use any private security contractors to conduct offensive operations," Maj. White said in an e-mail. "Using private security contractors for specific tasks permits Canadian Forces personnel to focus their efforts on those duties where they bring the greatest value to the mission."

More broadly, opposition MPs say the government needs to clarify the legal status of private contractors in Afghanistan. Maj. White said a requirement to obey "all applicable Afghan laws and regulations" is written into the private security contracts.

Russia jumps into Waziristan?
Daily Times (Pak. 11.26.07) editorial

A report from Afghanistan says that Afghan troops caught a man wearing a burqa and 1000 pounds of explosives meant to be used against the American and NATO forces in the country. Andre Vladimirovich Bataloff, a 27-year-old man from Siberia “with a flowing red beard, pasty skin and piercing blue eyes” insisted he was a religious student who travelled to Pakistan last year to learn more about his “new faith”. In fact he had first penetrated into (or sent into) Iran from where he crossed into Pakistan and moved to the Al Qaeda stronghold, North Waziristan, There he spent a year living and studying in a small mosque in Mir Ali. In Pakistan everyone knows that the Islamic Jihad Union, a terrorist group led by militants from Uzbekistan, operates a training camp in Mir Ali.

There have been reports from Swat that foreigners with their faces covered and not speaking Pushto were among the terrorists that started the beheadings in the valley. In the last encounter around Mir Ali in North Waziristan, there were 50 foreigners among the 200 militants killed by Pakistani troops. Most of them were identified as Uzbeks, Tajiks and Arabs. Russia has lately adopted an aggressive anti-US stance, and if it is fishing in the troubled waters of Afghanistan and Pakistan’s Tribal Areas, the battle lines will have to redrawn. It will be Kremlin’s payback for what Washington did when the Soviet army was in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Unfortunately, this will have a negative effect on the politics of Pakistan, bringing the crisis of Pakistan’s security to the fore at a time when the country is moving towards elections.

Strings attached to Sharif's return
By Syed Saleem Shahzad – Asia Times 11.27.07

KARACHI - There was a day when former premier Nawaz Sharif was part of Pakistan's ruling military oligarchy. He tried to be independent and a strongman, and consequently was removed from power in a bloodless coup by now President General Pervez Musharraf on October 12, 1999.

However, after serving a year in jail and then going into exile in Saudi Arabia to avoid charges of treason and hijacking, he has once again dealt with the military and finalized a deal with the director general of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Lieutenant 

General Nadeem Taj, in Saudi Arabia. As a result, they both returned to Pakistan - on flights half an hour apart - on Sunday.

Sharif returned to the country two months ago, but was hustled straight back onto a plane to Saudi Arabia. This time there was no such drama as the circumstances have changed.

According to Asia Times Online contacts, a retired military brigadier and the publisher of a large media group were involved in backroom negotiations between the military, Sharif and Saudi Arabia which resulted in him being given the go-ahead to return to Pakistan provided "he did not make trouble".

Musharraf is expected to be sworn in as a civilian president this week, which means he will step down as chief of the army staff in preparation for national elections in January.

According to the contacts, following the elections, Shabaz Sharif, the younger brother of Nawaz, has been earmarked to lead a unity government comprising liberal democratic forces, but under the umbrella of the military.

Initially, former premier Benazir Bhutto had been chosen for this job and she, too, returned from exile, only to fall out with the United States-inspired plan and Musharraf himself.

It is not yet clear what part Nawaz Sharif, considered a conservative and traditionalist and an acceptable face for Pakistan's religious forces, will play in this new political dispensation.

Just a day before his return, two devastating suicide attacks killed at least 16 people in the garrison town of Rawalpindi adjoining Islamabad. One attacker targeted a vehicle carrying ISI personnel, the other a gate at the military's general headquarters (GHQ).

The attacks serve as a strong hint to the Pakistani army to reverse its intervention in the Taliban's fight against foreign forces in Afghanistan. The attacks, impeccable sources at GHQ reveal, were based on precise intelligence. However, the sources refused to name the victims or their ranks.

Mounting US pressure has forced Pakistan this year to do more in the fight against Taliban and al-Qaeda forces in the country, leading to head-on confrontation. As a result, Pakistan's channels of communication with militants have been choked and the situation is reaching a point of no return in the battle between the Pakistani Taliban and the Pakistani army.

The deal with Sharif has both internal and external aspects. The Pakistani military is concerned that the "war on terror" is spilling far too much into the country. The Pakistani Taliban already have a strong presence in the tribal areas and in North-West Frontier Province.

Pakistan's leading security think-tank, the National Defense University, has floated the idea that Afghanistan and Pakistan could be prevented from falling into the clutches of extremism by North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces withdrawing from Afghanistan and being replaced by troops from the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC).

Ironically, four Muslim countries with the strongest armies in the OIC are non-Arab - Pakistan, Turkey, Indonesia and Bangladesh. If a decision is taken to send in the OIC, these four countries would be at the helm.

With the insurgency in Afghanistan spiraling out of control with every passing day, Washington is giving an ear to this suggestion. But the biggest problem would be for Muslim countries to find leaders to speak to the insurgents in a spirit of mutual trust.

Otherwise, OIC forces could be just as much of a problem as NATO's. For instance, if the militants declare the troops infidels, it would only add to the hopelessness of the situation.

Apparently, the deal brokered by Saudi Arabia to allow Nawaz Sharif back into Pakistan aims to bring his brother Shabaz into the spotlight. Nawaz Sharif had personal interactions with Osama bin Laden ( The pawns who pay as powers play, Asia Times Online, June 22, 2005) many times when both were planning to dislodge Bhutto's government in the late 1980s.

In Pakistan's charged environment, anything is worth a try, including this old wine in a new bottle - it's worked before.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief.

Legal education in Afghanistan
26 Nov 2007, 0000 hrs IST , Pragya Kaushika , TNN

Quadir Amiryar, advisor, higher education, government of Afghanistan, and a senior professor at a law college, was recently in India for a conference on legal education of SAARC countries. Amiryar speaks to Pragya Kaushika on the status of legal education in his country

With teachers from Afghanistan coming to India for training in legal education, do you think the level of education has improved?

I believe Afghanistan needs to improve a lot in terms of specialised education like legal education, which requires that professors at the law faculty must interact with their counterparts in other countries, especially democracies like India. As such, future lawyers should have a broader perspective while dealing with a sensitive country like Afghanistan.

Do you feel that the changes taking place in the legal education system are revolutionary?

I think the changes are evolutionary. For the first time in the history of Afghanistan, we managed to publish a law journal of the law faculty called, 'Journal of Law in Political Science.' The law is still in the process of becoming free from government. India is the greatest democracy and both educationists and students of Afghanistan have a lot to learn from this country. It is encouraging that the government in Afghanistan is not interfering in the higher education system.

How many law faculties does Afghanistan have at present?

Presently, there are five main law faculties in Afghanistan - Law faculty of Kabul, Law faculty of Mazar, Law faculty of Herat, Law faculty of Nangarhar and Law faculty of Al Biruni. Also, we are keen to collaborate with other universities across the world to raise the standard of legal education.

After witnessing 35 years of civil war, where do you see Afghanistan, as an educational hub today?

The situation was a major setback for the country. Either the people abandoned it or were forced to leave certain parts of it. Even educational institutions were destroyed. So now we are starting from scratch and need all the support from democratic countries in making Afghanistan a prosperous and a free country.

What is the status of the legal system in Afghanistan?

We have a law association to take care of the judiciary. When a law is to be passed in Afghanistan, it is drafted by advocates, submitted to the Congress and then goes to the President. When legislation approves it, the law executive implements it. In all, it still needs a lot of improvement and freedom.

Any proposals to make the judiciary more independent?

We will soon be forming our own Bar Association like India, whose members will be elected in a democratic way. The ministry of justice in collaboration with the International Bar Association along with faculties of law in the country, is working on its by-laws. Lawyers will be expected to sit for the bar examinations which has never happened in Afghanistan. The bar shall come into existence by February.

Burn unit seeing too many young victims
CanWest News Service Sunday, November 25, 2007

HERAT, Afghanistan -- The new building is only six weeks old, but already the burn unit in Herat is firmly ensconced with the dizzying smell of antiseptic and charred human flesh.

A customs holdup is keeping a French medical shipment from reaching Herat, meaning the unit has been short of morphine and codeine for weeks. A single gruesome scream is heard from a side room as nurses change a woman's bandages. Other patients occasionally cry out "Allah" as they stare up at the ceiling.

Beside a sunny window in the women's section lies Afsana, 16, who says she was burned when kerosene splashed out of a lamp she was passing to her sister-in-law. Her burns are so deep they have damaged her nerve endings.

"I don't have any pain," Afsana insists in a weak whisper to her mother and the doctor. A respiratory infection, a complication from the burns, hampers her speech.

She has been in the unit for almost a week, and the doctors didn't think the beautiful teenager would survive this long given the extent of her injuries. They also don't believe that Afsana is telling the truth about what happened, and in fact she set herself on fire - a shameful but not uncommon act among young women in Afghan society.

Why do they suspect a self-inflicted burn? Because Afsana is scorched all over her legs, torso and neck - more than 60 per cent of her body is affected. The watchful burn unit staff presume that the wider the area of burns, the more likely that it was on purpose.

"People are not literate and they cannot imagine what will happen if they burn themselves," said Dr. Ghafar Bawar, a Canadian citizen who has lived in Ottawa for more than a decade, who has recently returned to his home country of Afghanistan to work as a plastic and reconstructive surgery consultant at the unit.

"When an accident happens, they try to stop it," Bawar said. "In self-inflicted burns, a high percentage of the body surface area is affected. When it is more than 40 per cent of body surface area burnt . . . it's usually self-inflicted."

Herat in western Afghanistan has the only dedicated burn unit in the country, in part because this is where the need is the greatest. Setting oneself on fire, or self-immolation, is the preferred method of suicide for the women of Afghanistan under age 20 - it's increasingly seen in Kandahar in the south, but it's especially common in Herat.

This year alone the Herat unit has seen about 70 cases of women setting themselves alight. Some burns at the unit are genuine accidents, but self-inflicted burns make up about 20 per cent of the cases the unit doctors see.

A burn unit at the Herat Regional Hospital has been up and running for four years but just last month the new building opened. It was an international effort - constructed with U.S. government dollars, furnished by Italians and operated and supplied by the French organization HumaniTerra. The Afghan government pays some of the staff salaries.

The new facility is clean and bright, with three storeys and three dozen beds, and is a significant improvement over older, cramped facilities where doctors did their operations in the washing room. The unit has locking doors that prevent relatives from walking in anytime, and eating or smoking around a patient's open wounds as they visit.

But the new pleasant surroundings can't soothe the worst human suffering.

The doctors don't yet know Afsana's circumstances. But self-immolation is commonly seen among girls and women who have a forced engagement to a man they don't want to marry, or have married into a family where they are beaten or intimated - by their husband or in-laws.

Across the country almost three in five Afghan girls are married before the legal age of 16, according to statistics from the ministry of women's affairs and women's organizations. And between 60 and 80 percent of all marriages are believed to be "forced" - a term that covers a range of practices including marrying off girls to repay debts, or to resolve conflicts between families, according to the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission.

"The accessibility of fuel or petrol, the high incidence of women suffering post-traumatic stress and the apparent lack of alternatives are some of the causes which drive these women to commit this violent and excruciatingly painful act," said a recent report from medica mondiale, a German-based international non-governmental organization.

"Research also illustrated a casual link with Iran. Some of the females who had committed this act, had either lived previously in Iran or their husband had lived or worked there. Self-immolation in Iran accounts for 25-40 per cent of all forms of suicides."

Iran has a culture of suicide by burning, it is somewhat "idealized," said the medica mondiale report. Fleeing the war in Afghanistan, many of the Afghan women lived in Iran for years as refugees before being deported back to their home country. On the Afghan side of the border, there is more poverty and fewer rights for women than they are accustom to.

It is the burn unit that keeps Bawar in Afghanistan. Two years ago he came to Afghanistan to visit family, and realized there was a great demand for reconstructive surgeons.

"In Canada the patients are being taken care of properly so there is not a big need. But here in Afghanistan, there is the need."

Bawar had been trained as a physician and surgeon in the capital Kabul, and also received some plastic surgery training from an American surgeon.

He had to flee Afghanistan with his family in 1992 as the vicious civil war underway became unbearable. He went first to Dubai for three years and then brought his family to Canada.

Bawar has never been able to work as a doctor in Canada, even though he has passed his exams, looked for residency placements and worked in medical-related jobs, including as the first-aid coordinator for JDS Uniphase.

He has now been working in Herat since January. Back in Canada, Bawar's wife is a daycare operator. Two sons are away at university in the U.S., another attends the University of Ottawa and his daughter is in Grade 10.

It is tough to be away from them all. "But they know the importance of being here. And they are happy I am doing something for the people who need me."

And Bawar and his colleagues are now noticing a new trend in Herat. Men are following the women and setting themselves on fire. There have been eight cases in the last year when previously there had been virtually none.

Lying in a hospital bed with much of his body swaddled in bandages, electrician Abas Ramazan, 23, said he set himself on fire because he had no wife and no prospects.

"Nobody gives me any work," Ramazan said. "My family said, 'why don't you work?' "
Ramazan said he tried to set himself on fire using just matches but his brother told him it would work better if he used petrol. The suggestion was effective. After being in the hospital for several days, Ramazan has begged the doctors to kill him.

One medical staffer at the unit, Ebrahim Mohammadi, has his own theory about why men are now turning to self-immolation.

"After 28 years of war in Afghanistan, so many people have so many psychological problems." Calgary Herald

Al-Qaeda kingpin: I trained 9/11 hijackers

From his Turkish jail, a senior terrorist claims a key role in atrocities around the worldInsight:

The Sunday Times, Chris Gourlay and Jonathan Calvert November 25, 2007

IN a small windowless cell lit by a single light bulb, Louai al-Sakka sits isolated from the world and fellow inmates for 24 hours a day.

His concrete box is in the bowels of Kandira, a high-security F-type prison 60 miles east of Istanbul, which was built to house Turkey’s most dangerous criminals.

The prison has been criticised by human rights groups such as Amnesty International. The guards control everything, including the cell’s light switch.

Sakka’s only visitor is Osman Karahan, a lawyer who shares his fervent support for militant Islamic jihad.

Since being convicted as an Al-Qaeda bomb plotter last year, Sakka has decided to reveal his alleged role in some of the key plots of recent years, providing a potential insight into the unanswered questions surrounding them. His story is also one of a globetrotting terrorist in an organisation that is truly multinational.

He is an enigma and, despite his involvement in three terrorist outrages involving British citizens, he is virtually unknown in this country.

By his own account he is a senior Al-Qaeda operative who was at the forefront of the insurgency in Iraq, took part in the beheading of Briton Kenneth Bigley and helped train the 9/11 bombers. He has been jailed in connection with the bombing of the British consulate in Istanbul.

Certainly, the intelligence services have shown a keen interest in the 34-year-old Syrian who says he was in Iraq alongside Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the notorious insurgent who was killed last year in a United States air-strike.

But, as with many things in the world of Al-Qaeda, there might be smoke and mirrors. Some experts believe that Sakka could be overstating his importance to the group, possibly to lay a false track for western agencies investigating his terrorist colleagues.

Over the past three weeks The Sunday Times has conducted a series of interviews with Sakka through his lawyer. We were given a number of documents including a memoir in Arabic of his life.

So who is the mysterious Al-Qaeda operative in the concrete cell and what do his claims tell us about the terrorist network and his role within it?

He was travelling under the Turkish name Erkan Ozer – one of his 16 false identities – when he was arrested in the southeastern town of Diyarbakir in August 2005. His downfall was as a result of a nighttime explosion that caused a fire in his apartment a week earlier. When fire-fighters reached the blaze they found a do-it-yourself bomb factory with vats of hydrogen, bags of aluminium powder and 6kg of plastic explosives.

Sakka had been planning to sink Israeli cruise ships off the Turkish coast using motorised dinghies. Despite having plastic surgery to disguise his face, he was easily identified by the Turkish authorities.

Police later discovered documents linking him to the Istanbul suicide bombings that killed at least 27 people after trucks exploded outside the British consulate, the HSBC bank and two synagogues. The court indictment described him as “a senior member of the Al-Qaeda terrorist organisation tasked with special high-level missions”. It said he had met Osama Bin Laden, who had told him to organise attacks in Turkey.

But was this all? Last week his lawyer claimed his scope was much wider. “He was the nnumber one networker for Al-Qaeda in Europe, Iran, Turkey and Syria,” Karahan said.

According to the documents provided by Karahan, Sakka grew up in the ancient city of Aleppo, Syria, the son of a wealthy factory owner, and followed in his father’s footsteps by becoming the general manager of a company that sold one of Syria’s most popular washing-up liquids. But he was drawn to the Islamic cause from a young age, according to his memoir.

His politics were shaped by the conflict between President Hafez al-Assad, the former Syrian dictator, and the Muslim Brotherhood, an underground Islamic group. When Sakka was nine, Assad quelled an uprising by the brotherhood in the town of Hama by killing an estimated 10,000 people.

“Like any other Muslim boy he was deeply affected by these events,” says his memoir.

When the Bosnian war opened a new front for jihadists in the early 1990s, Sakka left his job and headed for the conflict. He stayed in Turkey initially and established the “mujaheddin service office”, which provided medical support for Bosnia and later the two Chechen wars.

It soon became clear that more than medical help was needed. Sakka set up intensive physical training programmes in the Yalova mountain resort area, near Istanbul, to prepare the scores of young men heading for the conflicts. The memoir claims the volunteers came from Europe, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, the Gulf, North Africa and South America.

The Chechens needed trained fighters. Sakka was telephoned by Ibn al-Khattab, the late militia leader controlling the foreign fighters against the Russians. Khattab requested that Sakka’s trainees should be sent on to Afghanistan for military training because “conditions are tough”.

This brought Sakka into contact with Abu Zubaydah, a high-ranking Al-Qaeda member, who ran a large terrorist training camp near the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Sakka was later to be sentenced in ab-sentia for involvement in the foiled Jordanian millennium bomb attacks in 2000 along with Zubaydah.

One of Sakka’s chief roles was to organise passports and visas for the volunteers to make their way to Afghanistan through Pakistan. His ability to keep providing high-quality forged papers made Turkey a main hub for Al-Qaeda movements, his lawyer says. The young men came to Turkey pretending to be on holiday and Sakka’s false papers allowed them to “disappear” overseas.

Turkish intelligence were aware of unusual militant Islamic activity in the Yalova mountains, where Sakka had set up his camps. But they posed no threat to Turkey at the time.

But a bigger plot was developing. In late 1999, Karahan says,a group of four young Saudi students went to Turkey to prepare for fighting in Chechnya. “They wanted to be good Muslims and join the jihad during their holidays,” he said.

They had begun a path that was to end with the September 11 attacks on America in 2001. They were: Ahmed and Hamza al-Ghamdi who hijacked the plane that crashed into the south tower of the World Trade Center; their companion Saeed al-Ghamdi whose plane crashed in a Pennsylvanian field; and Nawaf al-Hazmi who died in the Pentagon crash.

They undertook Sakka’s physical training programme in the mountains and later were joined by two of the other would-be hijackers: Majed Moqed, who also perished in the Pentagon crash, and Satam al-Suqami, who was in the first plane that hit the north tower.

Moqed and Suqami had been hand-picked by Al-Qaeda leaders in Saudi Arabia specifically for the twin towers operation, Sakka says, and were en route to Afghanistan. Sakka persuaded the other four to go to Afghanistan after plans to travel to Chechnya were aborted because of problems crossing the border. “Sakka [told Zubaydah] he liked the four men and recommended them,” said Karahan.

Before leaving, all six received intensive training together, forming a cell led by Suqami, which was similar to the Hamburg group run by Mohammed Atta, another ringleader in the 9/11 attacks.

At one point, Sakka claims the entire group were arrested by police in Yalova after their presence raised suspicions. They were interrogated for a day but eventually released because there was no evidence of wrongdoing.

Some of Sakka’s account is corroborated by the US government’s 9/11 Commission. It

found evidence that four of the hijackers – whom Sakka says he trained – had initially intended to go to Chechnya from Turkey but the border into Georgia was closed. Sakka had prepared fake visas for the group’s travel to Pakistan and arranged their flights from Istanbul’s Ataturk airport. The group of four went to the al-Farouq camp near Kandahar and the other two to Khaldan, near Kabul, an elite camp for Al-Qaeda fighters.

When Moqed and Suqami returned to Turkey, Sakka employed his skills as a forger to scrub out the Pakistani visa stamps from their passports. This would help the Arab men enter the United States without attracting suspicion that they had been to a training camp.

Sakka’s lawyer said: “Just like there is money laundering, there is also terrorist laundering and Turkey was the centre of this.”

According to Sakka, Nawaf al-Hazmi was a veteran operative who went on to pilot the plane that hit the Pentagon. Although this is at odds with the official account, which says the plane was flown by another hijacker, it is plausible and might answer one of the mysteries of 9/11.

The Pentagon plane performed a complex spiral dive into its target. Yet the pilot attributed with flying the plane “could not fly at all” according to his flight instructors in America. Hazmi, on the other hand, had mixed reviews from his instructors but they did remark on how “adept” he was on his first flight.

Paul Thompson, author and 9/11 researcher, said Sakka’s account was credible. “I think there is a lot more about the history of the hijackers that needs to be found out and Sakka’s claim may resume the debate about just how much was known about them before 9/11,” he said.

Sakka’s mountain trainees, meanwhile, had spread out to a number of countries where they carried out terrorist attacks. He claims this is why he was charged with a string of crimes committed by his associates. He was given a 15-year sentence in Jordan for the millennium bomb attacks, the death penalty for an an assassination attempt on Syria’s military intelligence chief and has been charged in Saudi Arabia for an explosives plot.

In effect, he had become a free-lance operative aiding a series of groups without necessarily agreeing with their targets. His links with Al-Qaeda, however, remained strong after the 9/11 attacks.

His lawyer says the Al-Qaeda leadership valued a number of his skills. “But most important,” he added, “was that Sakka was incredibly secretive. Al-Qaeda tested him many times, but he never once revealed a secret.”

The US invasion of Afghani-stan in late 2001 threw many of the Al-Qaeda camps into disarray. Many of the group’s fighters are thought to have fled across the border to seek safety in Iran.

According to Sakka’s account, one of those fighters was Zar-qawi. The precise movements of the Jordanian, who is thought to have been wounded fighting alongside the Taliban in Afghani-stan, have always been a matter of speculation.

Sakka’s initial role in the insurgency was to help foreign fighters enter Iraq. He took his family to live in Falluja, which was emerging as the hub of the foreign fighters’ resistance to the occupying forces.

He later told a court: “We held out for 70 days. They destroyed vast quarters of the city. It wouldn’t have been possible for them to enter before doing so. We ran out of ammunition and had to pull out.”

A month before the fall of Falluja, Sakka claims that he was part of the group that killed Kenneth Bigley, the British hostage. He describes himself as the “diplomat” who negotiated on behalf of the insurgents and says he presided over the court that resolved to execute him. He says Bigley’s body is buried in Falluja with his passport and confession video.

Today Sakka remains a controversial figure. The British Foreign Office says it has interviewed Sakka in jail about the Bigley murder. He provided a map of where Bigley was buried but the Foreign Office says they could not find the body. In Turkey, police sources claim Sakka may have become clinically insane or perhaps be an egoma-niac who has overstated his role.

The Sunday Times has spoken to a number of Al-Qaeda experts who say that many elements of his story ring true, but they are impossible to verify conclusively. Evan Kohlmann, an investigator for the 9/11 Finding Answers Foundation, said: “When [Sakka] was in Falluja there were several high-ranking Turkish guys there. It is also true that for a number of conflicts that Al-Qaeda has been involved in, Turkey is a very important through stop and a lot of fighters have travelled through there with the assistance of local people.”

Gordon Brown’s plans to double the detention period for terror suspects face further opposition with a report showing that America needs just 48 hours to file charges in Al-Qaeda cases.

The report by Justice, the human rights group, will say this week that Brown’s plans to extend precharge detention to 56 days are untenable.

It says: “No western democracy faces a greater threat of terrorism than the US. Despite this, the proven ability of US law enforcement to charge suspects in complex terror plots within 48 hours of arrest without resort to exceptional measures shows that UK proposals to extend precharge detention are both unjustified and unnecessary.”

The report emphasises the importance of FBI phone tap evidence and Brown is considering whether such intercept evidence should be allowed in Britain.

Eric Metcalfe, the Justice report’s author, said: “From Guantanamo Bay to rendition to torture, the US has done a lot of things badly wrong in the fight against terrorism.

“But in the rush to extend precharge detention here in the UK, we sometimes overlook what they are doing right.”

AN Islamic radio station has been broadcasting good-luck messages to some of Britain’s most dangerous terrorists.

Wellwishers were urged by extremist websites to use Radio Ramadan to send their messages of support to inmates at Belmarsh high-security prison in southeast London, including Abu Hamza al-Masri, the cleric serving seven years for inciting murder, and the failed 21/7 London bombers.

One extremist website, Islambase.co.uk, said in a forum that the “brothers in Belmarsh” had access to radios and listened to the station every night. A posting on the forum read: “The messages have been received in Belmarsh.”

Tariq Abbasi, who was responsible for the station, confirmed that messages were aired for inmates. He had a licence issued by Ofcom to broadcast from the Greenwich Islamic Centre in Plumstead during Ramadan, which ended six weeks ago.

AFGHAN PLAYERS TRAIN WITH ENGLAND

The six members of the Afghanistan senior quad who are currently playing Premier League cricket in Sri Lanka have been practising with the touring England side.

The Afghans took part in a three-hour net session at the Max Cricket Academy, as England prepare for the first Test in Kandy, starting on December 1. Afghanistan’s coach Taj Malik reports, “The players are very happy the way they were treated by England’s players, Kevin Pietersen especially.  It was a very good experience for Afghan players.”

[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.]