In this bulletin:

• Afghanistan calls Osama's comment 'ridiculous'
• Purported bin Laden message to Europe: Leave Afghanistan
• Bush could send troops into Pakistan to strike Bin Laden
• Afghanistan: Resurgent Taliban Slows Aid Projects, Reconstruction
• NATO force insufficient for Afghanistan: general
• Musharraf: U.S. Shares Blame for Pakistan and Afghanistan
• Two Danish soldiers killed in Afghanistan
• NATO force denies 14 Afghan workers killed in strike
• 'Dutch to stay in Uruzgan until end-2010'
• NATO could fail if Canada quits Afghanistan, German leader warns
• The Troubled Afghan-Pakistani Border
• Afghan mission costs up sharply, MacKay says
• Canadian general in Afghanistan: 'we are winning'
• Troops bring security to volatile Afghan district
• Afghan chieftains get ultimatum
• Separate wars in Iraq, Afghanistan
• Old Afghan pottery craft faces new hurdles

Afghanistan calls Osama's comment 'ridiculous'

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, November 30, 2007 - KABUL, Afghanistan - President Hamid Karzai dismissed as "ridiculous" a message from Osama bin Laden denouncing the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and accusing foreign troops of killing civilians, and blamed the al-Qaida chief for causing mass bloodshed in his country.

"Osama bin Laden is the main reason that terrorism befell Afghanistan after the end of the Cold War, and caused the deaths of thousands of innocent Afghans," a statement for Karzai's office said Friday.

In a recording posted on a website on Friday, bin Laden said it was unjust for the U.S. to invade Afghanistan for sheltering him after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

He said the war was "waged against the Afghans without right," and that foreign troops have not followed the "protocol of warfare," resulting in civilian deaths.

He urged Europeans to force their governments to pull their soldiers out of Afghanistan. Karzai said bin Laden "has no right to make any comments about Afghanistan" and gave Muslims all over the world a "bad name."

"Afghan people are some of the most religious people in the world and they know that Osama bin Laden's actions are not legitimate and are un-Islamic."

Purported bin Laden message to Europe: Leave Afghanistan

(CNN) -- An audio recording attributed to Osama bin Laden called on Europeans to abandon Afghanistan and accused NATO troops of killing women and children there.

The message surfaced on Al Jazeera television Thursday, three days after al Qaeda's TV production unit promised fresh communication from the world's most-wanted terrorist leader.

"In this war, you didn't respect the rules of war," the speaker says. "The majority of the victims of your bombardments were women and children. You targeted them and killed them on purpose. You knew very well that our women don't fight, but you targeted them even at weddings. Your purpose is to demoralize the mujahedeen, but this will do you no good."

A U.S. counterterrorism official told CNN an intelligence community analysis indicates the voice is that of the Saudi exile, and that the message appears to contain no specific, credible threat.

CNN could not immediately verify the authenticity of the tape. It includes references to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who took office in June, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who was elected in May. Watch what experts make of the new message »

The speaker also repeats his claim of sole responsibility for the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, which killed nearly 3,000 people. He says Afghanistan's Taliban militia, which allowed al Qaeda to operate from the territory it controlled, had no advance knowledge of the plot.

"I assure you that all the Afghans, government and people, were not at all aware of any of these events. America is well aware of this fact. Some of the Taliban ministers fell captive in their hands, they were interrogated and they told the Americans the truth," he says.

Al Jazeera ran three excerpts from the message, and the full length of the statement was not immediately known.

Bin Laden and Taliban leader Mohammed Omar escaped the U.S. invasion in 2001, and bin Laden was last thought to be hiding in the rugged mountains along the Afghan-Pakistani border.

U.S. and allied troops have spent six years battling remnants of al Qaeda and the Taliban, with about 41,000 troops from the United States, NATO and other countries taking part in the fighting. Afghanistan is the largest ground operation in NATO's nearly 60-year history.

The speaker tells the allies that the American deployment will soon be withdrawn "by the blessing of God."

"They will go back to their homelands beyond the Atlantic, and they will leave the neighbors to finish off their interests among themselves," he says.

"It is better for you to address these issues with your politicians who are begging at the doorsteps of the White House, and work hard on lifting the injustice on the oppressed. Justice is the right thing to do; injustice is suffering."

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the tape sounded like old news.

He said Afghan children are receiving medical care and vaccinations that they would not have received before the ouster of the Taliban, but "there is a lot more work to be done."

"It's going to require a sustained commitment over a period of time, and we have seen that kind of commitment from our European allies," McCormack said. He added, "I see no diminution in that level of commitment."

The last message believed to be from bin Laden, released in October, urged Islamic jihadists loyal to al Qaeda in Iraq to join forces and remain loyal to the Islamic nation.

A September statement called on followers to launch a holy war against Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who has launched a crackdown on Islamic militants in the border region since the collapse of a 2006 truce.

Bush could send troops into Pakistan to strike Bin Laden

* Pakistan terms such action ‘unacceptable’ and ‘counter-productive’

ISLAMABAD: The US would send troops into Pakistan if intelligence was received enabling a strike at Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, AFP quoted US President George W Bush as saying on Wednesday.

Pakistan angrily reacted to the US president’s remarks he made in an interview to CNN, by saying, “such concerns have been expressed on a number of occasions. We have made it clear that any such action would be unacceptable.”

Bush reaffirmed his confidence in President Musharraf’s commitment in the war against terror and also acknowledged the difficult situation in combating terrorists along rugged mountainous areas bordering Afghanistan. Bush said he is thankful to Pakistan for its key cooperation in the fight against terror, reported APP.

About Musharraf, Bush said, “He has been an absolute reliable partner in dealing with extremists and radicals, and it’s a tough situation in the remote parts of Pakistan. But there are many examples of where the Pakistanis have, in cooperation with the US, brought to justice members of Al Qaeda’s hierarchy. And I’m thankful for that.”

Troops unacceptable: Foreign Ministry spokesman Muhammad Sadiq told a private TV channel on Thursday that any direct action by US troops would be counter-productive, NNI reported.

Sadiq said that Pakistan and the US were partners in the anti-terror war and the positions of both are well defined and understood.

He said Pakistan’s own forces had carried out operations against Al Qaeda and other ‘terrorist entities’ and that they would pursue the same policy in future.

Last year, Bush caused uproar in Pakistan when he made a similar declaration.

When reminded of the declaration and asked in the interview about his current views, the US president said his stance had not changed. agencies

Afghanistan: Resurgent Taliban Slows Aid Projects, Reconstruction

By Ron Synovitz - November 30, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- The past year has been the deadliest for U.S. and NATO-led forces in Afghanistan since the Taliban regime fell in late 2001. But while the number of suicide bomb attacks and civilian deaths has risen, perhaps the most disconcerting development is that the violence has set back major reconstruction projects aimed at significantly improving the lives of millions of Afghans.

Of more than 14,000 reconstruction works under way, NATO officials have described the Kajaki hydroelectric dam in Helmand Province as the project with the most strategic and psychological significance. NATO announced in early 2007 that its key objective in the south was to secure the area around the Kajaki dam.

In March, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer even suggested that progress on security in Afghanistan in 2007 could be measured by NATO's ability to keep Taliban fighters away from Kajaki to allow workers to build a new road to transport a giant power turbine to the dam site. "When the turbine in that dam is [installed], it will give power to 2 million people and their businesses" from Helmand Province to Kandahar, de Hoop Scheffer said. “It will provide irrigation for hundreds of farmers. And it will create jobs for 2,000 people. The Taliban, the spoilers, are attacking this project every day to [try to] stop it from going forward."

By the beginning of June, when NATO declared that a combined U.S.-British assault called Operation Axe Handle had killed most Taliban fighters in the Kajaki valley or forced them to withdraw, reaching that goal still appeared possible. U.S. civilian officials working on the Kajaki project had also told RFE/RL that they hoped residents of Kandahar city would start receiving electricity from Kajaki's new turbine by early 2008.

But despite NATO's declarations of battlefield success, Taliban fighters have been able reinfiltrate the area -- causing enough havoc to delay construction of the road meant to link Kajaki to the town of Gereshk.

By late November, the road still was not complete. Without the road, workers have not been able to transport the power turbine to Kajaki -- leaving British and U.S. forces unable to claim success on that key objective of 2007.

Still, security for the reconstruction of the Kajaki dam is not the only measure by which foreign troops have failed to meet their stated objectives.

A secret White House report leaked to the “Washington Post” in November concluded that the 2007 war effort in Afghanistan had not met the strategic goals set by the U.S. military. That National Security Council document reportedly says that while U.S. and NATO-led troops have been successful in individual military battles against the Taliban, the militants still appear able to recruit large numbers of fighters. It also says that while many foreigners, especially Pakistanis, are joining the Taliban, the main source of new recruits seems to be unhappy Afghans.

“At this moment, the Taliban and insurgent groups are feeling very emboldened -- they feel a momentum behind them,” Joanna Nathan, the Kabul-based director of the International Crisis Group's Afghanistan program, told RFE/RL. “That then drives many other factors in conflict. For the most part, those involved in the fighting are joining in because of disillusionment and disenfranchisement. They are feeling left out of government or administration, or they feel that their tribal community is [being left out] and they are not being heard. They feel they haven't seen the international assistance that was offered. All these other things now feed into [the problem]. And the Taliban are very clever at working on local fissures and conflicts."

Nathan added that the Taliban's resurgence does not mean that it has the ability to capture and control cities. But its guerrilla tactics have slowed reconstruction and humanitarian projects.

"I'm really hoping now that the world is beginning to wake up to the seriousness of what is happening in Afghanistan today,” Nathan said. “We really are seeing almost half the country -- in the south and east now -- being terrorized. These are guerrillas. It's not some sort of large standing army that is controlling and administering those areas. But they are making those areas largely inaccessible to humanitarian assistance and to development -- which stops the government's outreach."

Officials in Kabul say ordinary Afghans are becoming increasingly angry about the hundreds of civilian deaths caused by NATO or U.S.-led coalition air strikes that have gone awry. Authorities say their anger makes it easier for the Taliban to recruit new fighters. On the other hand, Afghans also are put off by more than 140 suicide bombings carried out by extremists in the past year that have killed more than 200 civilians -- the worst year of suicide bombings in Afghan history.

Christine Fair, a researcher who studied suicide attacks in Afghanistan during 2007 for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, says recruitment for suicide bombers extends across the border into the tribal areas of Pakistan, and that madrassahs play a major role. “But there is a larger point that most Afghans are not familiar with," Fair said. "There are Afghans who are involved, not only in the capacity of suicide attackers, but they are also involved obviously in safe houses. They are obviously involved in the production of bombs. They are involved in getting bombers to targets. At every point of the provision of suicide attacks, an Afghan is necessary. This is something the Afghans...need to deal with."

Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said during a visit to Kabul in November that both the Taliban and foreign troops in Afghanistan are responsible for mounting civilian deaths. Arbour accused the Taliban of deliberately targeting civilians in suicide bombings -- including teachers and humanitarian workers -- in a bid to destabilize the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Arbour also said the number of civilians accidentally killed by NATO or coalition air strikes had reached "alarming levels" during 2007. "In my discussions with ISAF commanders, I am persuaded that they are well aware of the significance of this problem [of civilian casualties] and were receptive to the call that they should have methodologies that will act as preventive measures so as to diminish the civilian exposures to their activities," Arbour said.

Meanwhile, casualties in 2007 among foreign troops in Afghanistan climbed to the highest level since the collapse of the Taliban regime in 2001. More than 240 foreign soldiers were killed during the first 11 months of this year.

The NATO Secretary-General admits that one of the biggest failures of the alliance during 2007 was in the area of training and equipping Afghan government troops, who are meant to eventually take over security operations from U.S. and NATO-led forces.

"We are not doing enough as NATO allies and NATO partner nations in what should be one of our main priorities,” de Hoop Scheffer said. “And that is training and equipping the Afghan National Army."

With some NATO countries showing reluctance to increase troop deployments to Afghanistan, military commanders of the alliance now say they would like predominantly Muslim countries in North Africa and the Middle East to help train Afghan security forces.

As for reconstruction, NATO is now taking a new tack. Major General Garry Robison, the NATO-led ISAF mission's deputy commander for stability, said today that the Western military alliance is now seeking to distance itself from the reconstruction projects that it carries out.

Partly, he said, the tactic is aimed at increasing an Afghan "sense of ownership" in the work, and partly to avoid the projects being blown up by the Taliban.

Robison, who has overseen ISAF's reconstruction work for the past 12 months, said foreign aid works best when it has an "Afghan face" and responds to real local needs.

"What we're wanting to do is to help and deliver in line with local priorities,” Robison said. “And by engaging local development councils for their priorities, by engaging local employment and contractors, we try and give the community a sense of ownership."

(RFE/RL correspondent Ahto Lobjakas contributed to this report from Brussels.)

NATO force insufficient for Afghanistan: general

KABUL (AFP) — NATO-led forces in Afghanistan do not have the means to secure the country in the face of a barrage of insurgent attacks, a senior French general with the force has warned.

"The 41,OOO soldiers in ISAF are largely insufficient to ensure security," said Brigadier General Vincent Lafontaine, the chief of planning for the International Security Assistance Force deployed here under a UN mandate.

"That does not mean we are going to lose this operation, but it is going to take a lot longer for us to finish the job," Lafontaine told visiting journalists this week at ISAF headquarters in the Afghan capital.

The officer -- one of the most senior in France's 1,070-strong contingent here -- also expressed concern about the chronic shortage of transport helicopters used to move soldiers and supplies around the war-ravaged country.

The United States provides most of the helicopters, but is due to start pulling them out in early 2008.

Lafontaine said as a result, top-level NATO officials were now mulling the possibility of outsourcing logistics tasks to private helicopter companies.

NATO has long called for the 38 nations involved in ISAF to contribute more to beat the intensifying conflict.

But the high cost of the operation here -- both financial and personal, with more than 210 international soldiers killed this year alone -- has made it unpopular in several countries.

Lafontaine insisted the NATO-led force had "scored some points and put pressure" on the Taliban-led insurgents, crippling their ability to stage mass attacks involving hundreds of fighters like they did a year ago.

The extremists now were forced to resort to suicide attacks, kidnappings and roadside bombs to target convoys of Afghan and international security forces.

The number of such attacks had multiplied in recent months in and around Kabul, which had largely been spared the near-daily violence seen in southern and eastern Afghanistan.

The militants have vowed to spread their campaign of violence to the north. Indeed, the country's worst-ever suicide attack took place in northern Baghlan province on November 6, killing nearly 80 people.

An ISAF spokesman, Portuguese Brigadier General Carlos Branco, said the increased number of suicide bombings were a sign of the Taliban's "weakness".

The Taliban "do not have any real success on the ground," Branco said of the group which ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, and is now blamed for most of the 130 suicide attacks here this year.

The spokesman said the militants were "unable to take their insurgency to the next level" and so had resorted to "terrorism", the use of propaganda and outright lying about the results of their actions out of desperation.

Musharraf: U.S. Shares Blame for Pakistan and Afghanistan

Pervez Musharraf's Exclusive Interview With ABC News' Chris Cuomo

In an exclusive interview with "Good Morning America," Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf said the West must share blame for his country's current political crisis.

"If there's a failure, it's not Pakistan's failure," Musharraf responded when asked by GMA's Chris Cuomo about the political turmoil and beleaguered anti-terrorism campaigns underway in Pakistan, particularly in the country's remote tribal regions.

On his country's search for Osama bin Laden, Musharraf refused to say what he would do with if he was captured, including whether he would turn him over to the U.S. "I think the people who need to know, know it," he said. "And I don't think the media is the one who needs to know."

Musharraf faulted the U.S. for its inconsistent support over the past 30 years, saying that the U.S. turned a blind eye to terrorism until Sept. 11. "We handled the situation alone for 12 years," he said.

Musharraf insists that Pakistan has been a staunch ally or America. He described the U.S. and Pakistan's support for the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets by saying, "We launched a jihad together."

Musharraf has made a dramatic turnabout since declaring a state of emergency in Pakistan earlier this month. On Tuesday he stepped down as head of the army, a position he had held in addition to the office of the presidency since seizing power in a 1999 coup. Just yesterday he set a date to lift emergency rule by Dec. 16 and promised that "come hell or high water, elections will be held on Jan. 8."

Two Danish soldiers killed in Afghanistan

COPENHAGEN, Nov 29 (Reuters) - Two Danish soldiers were killed while fighting Taliban insurgents in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, the Danish Army Central Command said on Thursday.

The two soldiers were stationed in the Upper Gereshk Valley as part of efforts to combat the Taliban and were struck by small arms fire. The soldiers were evacuated by helicopter but were declared dead on arrival at a field hospital.

"It is with great regret that I have received the communication that two Danish soldiers from the Danish battalion in southern Afghanistan have fallen in the fight against the Taliban," Poul Kiaerskou, head of Danish Army Central Command said in a statement.

Earlier this week, Britain opened an investigation into an incident two months ago in which two Danish soldiers may have been killed by British "friendly fire". The Danish soldiers were killed on Sept. 26 in Helmand, where both British and Danish troops operate.

Denmark has about 550 soldiers in Afghanistan.

Including Thursday's casualties, six Danish soldiers have died in combat in Afghanistan. Three more were killed in 2002 in an explosion while trying to dismantle a mine. (Reporting by Kim McLaughlin; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

NATO force denies 14 Afghan workers killed in strike

KABUL: The NATO-led force in Afghanistan flatly rejected charges on Thursday that it killed 14 workers at a construction site camp, saying instead that it had hit a Taliban training camp.

Afghan government officials and the head of the Amerifa Construction Company told AFP on Wednesday that around 14 workers were killed when a bomb struck their camp in a remote part of the northeastern province of Nuristan late on Monday.

“14 construction workers have not been killed,” a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) told AFP. “The air strike was on a Taliban training camp, it was not on a road construction workers’ camp,” ISAF spokesman Lieutenant Colonel David Accetta said.

“It is entirely possible that the construction workers are also Taliban fighters. It is very possible that they are posing as construction workers or that they are construction workers during the day and Taliban fighters at night,” he said. Afp

'Dutch to stay in Uruzgan until end-2010'

Friday 30 November 2007 - Dutch troops will remain in Afghanistan until December 2010 but will then definitely leave, the Volkskrant reports on Friday.

The paper says ministers will take a formal decision to extend the Netherlands' role in the NATO mission at this afternoon's cabinet meeting.

Quoting unnamed sources, the paper says 1,400 Dutch soldiers will serve in Afghanistan from next August, some 300 fewer than are there now.

The cost of extending the mission is put at between €700m and €1bn. Most of this will not come from the defence minsitry's own budget.

Foreign minister Maxime Verhagen and defence minister Eimert van Middelkoop had both backed a four to six year extension to the mission, but army chiefs were opposed, the paper says.

News agency ANP says it will still take a further three weeks before the definite go-head is given by parliament. MPs are still to be briefed on military strategy by army chief Dick Berlijn.

And on December 7 there is a 12-hour parliamentary hearing at which aid groups, the Afghan defence minister, the governor of Uruzgan, soldiers and military officials will answer questions from MPs, ANP says.

NATO could fail if Canada quits Afghanistan, German leader warns
Peter O'Neil,  CanWest Europe Bureau  Published: Friday, November 30, 2007

BERLIN - The western alliance could collapse unless Canada remains committed to rebuilding Afghanistan and doesn't abandon efforts to convince reluctant European allies to send troops to that country's most dangerous areas, according to one of Germany's most prominent politicians. Hans-Ulrich Klose urged Canadian leaders, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper, to increase trips to Germany and other countries in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to press for a stronger effort to develop Afghanistan and fight the Taliban insurgency.

The Harper government has said it will require Parliament's endorsement on Canada's role in Afghanistan after its commitment in Kandahar, where most of Canada's 2,500 soldiers are based, expires in February 2009. Canada has been arguing that other NATO partners, including Germany, France and Italy, should rotate from relatively safe regions of Afghanistan to replace Canadians in the more dangerous Taliban-infested southern areas such as Kandahar, where Americans, Dutch, British and Poles are also located.

"There is a lot of fear that if Canada withdraws its troops, saying 'we withdrew because we didn't get enough support from others,' this is the end of NATO," said Klose, a Social Democrat member of the Bundestag - the German parliament - and vice-chairman of the Bundestag's foreign affairs committee. "NATO cannot be allowed to fail."

Germany recently increased its troop contingent to 3,500, the vast majority located in Afghanistan's relatively peaceful northern area. The country recently added to its contribution by deploying six Tornado reconnaissance jets, which stirred a huge controversy in a country that turned to pacifism after two disastrous world wars. Germany has lost 26 soldiers since its original 2002 deployment, mostly due to non-combat incidents like roadside bomb explosions.

The Troubled Afghan-Pakistani Border

Jayshree Bajoria, Council on Foreign Relations (New York) November 29, 2007

Introduction - Afghanistan shares borders with six countries, but the approximate 1500-mile-long Durand Line along Pakistan remains the most dangerous. Kabul has never recognized the line as an international border, instead claiming the Pashtun territories in Pakistan that comprise the Federally Administered Tribal Lands (FATA) and parts of North West Frontier Province along the border. Incidents of violence have increased on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in the last year. Various reports in late 2007 showed militants gaining ground inside Pakistan and their influence has now spread to areas beyond the FATA. Similarly, in Afghanistan, violence has peaked since the ouster of the Taliban six years ago with a worrisome increase in suicide attacks.

Historical Conflict - The region that is today known as Afghanistan was long torn by ethnic and tribal rivalries. It started evolving as a modern state in the early nineteenth century when the British East India Company began expanding in the northwest of British-held India. This was also the time of the “great game”—the geopolitical struggle between the British and the Russian empires. The British held the Indian subcontinent while the Russians held the Central Asian lands to the north. Their spheres of influence overlapped in Afghanistan. Britain, concerned about Russian expansion, invaded Afghanistan in 1839 and fought the First Anglo-Afghan War. This led to a decade of machinations between the British and the Russians and two more bloody wars, at the end of which in 1919, Afghanistan won its independence.

Durand Line - The Durand Line is named after British Foreign Secretary Sir Henry Mortimer Durand, who demarcated the frontier between British India and Afghanistan in 1893. The line was drawn after negotiations between the British government and Afghan King Abdur Rahman Khan, founder of modern Afghanistan. This line brought the tribal lands (now a part of Pakistan) under British control. Barnett R. Rubin, director of studies at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation, writes in Foreign Affairs that the British established a three-tiered border to separate their empire from Russia. The first frontier separated the areas of the Indian subcontinent under direct British administration from those areas under Pashtun control (today this line divides those areas administered by the Pakistani state from the FATA). The second frontier, the Durand Line, divided the Pashtun tribal areas from the territories under Afghanistan’s administration. This now forms the international border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The outer frontier, Afghanistan’s border with Russia, Iran, and China, demarcated the British sphere of influence.

The Pakistan side of the Durand Line border includes the provinces of Balochistan, the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), and the seven tribal agencies of the FATA. On the Afghan side, the frontier stretches from Nuristan province in the northeast to Nimruz in the southwest. The British devised a special legal structure called the Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR) to rule the tribal lands and this continues to be the legal regime in the FATA today.

Tribal Connections - The ongoing border frictions are due in large part to tribal allegiances that have never recognized the century-old frontier. Forty percent of Afghanistan’s population is made up of Pashtuns; in Pakistan, Pashtuns represent 15 percent to 20 percent of the country’s population. Ethnic Balochis also live on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border as well as in neighboring Iran. “People on both sides of the Durand line consider it a soft border,” says Husain Haqqani, director of Boston University’s Center for International Relations. He adds: “Pashtuns consider it their own land even though there is also a loyalty to the respective states along with a desire to freely move back and forth.”

Frederick Grare of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace writes that the Pashtun question (PDF) is “an ethnic, political and geopolitical problem.” At the time of India’s partition, Pashtuns were only given the choice of either becoming a part of India or Pakistan. Many Pashtun nationalists on both sides of the Durand Line continue to demand an independent state of Pashtunistan. In Balochistan too, several organizations demand an independent state.

Neighbor’s Interference - A report by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) coauthored by Rubin and Abubakar Siddique points out: “The long history of each state offering sanctuary to the other’s opponents has built bitterness and mistrust between the two neighbors.” Afghanistan sheltered Baloch nationalists in the 1970s while Pakistan extended refuge and training to the mujahadeen in the 1980s and then later supported the Afghani Taliban. Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, Pakistan’s then military ruler Zia ul-Haq promoted the jihad in Afghanistan, funded thousands of Islamic madrassas, armed domestic Islamist organizations, and in the process “militarized and radicalized the border region,” says the USIP report.

Experts say that underlying Pakistani actions in the region is concern about bolstering security against India. The USIP report notes Pakistan sought to support a “client regime in Afghanistan” that would be hostile to India, “giving the Pakistani military a secure border and strategic depth.” By supporting Islamist militias among the Pashtun, Pakistan’s government has tried to neutralize Baloch and Pashtun nationalism within its borders. The International Crisis group in October 2007 reported that Pakistan still supports Pashtun Islamist parties in a bid to counter Baloch and Pashtun forces. “Using Balochistan as a base of operation and sanctuary” and recruiting from its extensive madrassa network, the report says, the “Taliban and its Pakistani allies are undermining the state-building effort in Afghanistan.” Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf has repeatedly denied this.

Porous Borders - Both the Pashtuns and Balochis gain much of their income from cross-border smuggling, says the USIP paper. Thanks to the largely porous border and people from similar ethnic groups straddling both its sides, “the borderlands already have become a land bridge for the criminal (drugs) and criminalized (transit trade) economies of the region.” The transborder political and military networks between the two countries are reinforced as well as funded and armed by criminal activities such as trafficking in drugs, arms, and even people.

Afghanistan is the world’s largest cultivator and supplier of opium (93 percent of the global opiates market). According to the Afghanistan Opium Survey 2007 by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, opium cultivation in the country is no longer associated with poverty. In fact, quite the opposite. The report says opium is now closely linked to the insurgency and the Taliban are again using it to get “resources for arms, logistics and militia pay,” despite a foreign military presence.

The War on Terror - Since 9/11, “there is a large asymmetry of interests between Afghanistan and Pakistan,” according to Carnegie’s Grare. For Islamabad, Afghanistan is only one element in a larger game involving its policy toward India as well as its global standing, writes Grare. The relationship is mainly a bilateral issue for Afghanistan.

After 9/11, Pakistan allied itself with the United States in its war on terror. This created a dilemma for Pakistan, as it now had to hunt down the Taliban and the Islamic militant organizations it reportedly helped create in the first place. It also had to send its troops into the tribal lands where the Pakistani military has never been welcome. Incidents of Pakistani soldiers surrendering without a fight to militant organizations became common during 2007.

Before 9/11, especially during the Soviet presence in Afghanistan, Pakistan and U.S. policies in the border region converged; a friendly government in Afghanistan gave Islamabad strategic depth against India as well as a land bridge across Central Asia, and an open border ensured easy access to Kabul. This fit well into Washington’s strategic objective, which looked to Pakistan as a vantage ground to prevent Soviet hegemony in the region. But post-9/11, the United States wants greater controls on the border. Pakistan’s national interest now conflicts with its foreign policy and the most powerful state institution, the Pakistani military, is caught in the middle. Experts say that while the Pakistani army would like to continue its support of some of these militant groups to counter what it perceives as the security threat from India and its continued claim to Kashmir, it now has to appease the United States for strategic, military, and foreign aid. Hassan Abbas, a research fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government writes (PDF) that extremism has been rising in Pakistan’s border areas and they continue to provide sanctuary to militants who spread insurgency in Afghanistan.

The Pakistani army has shown it is not sufficiently equipped to fight insurgency in these areas. Former CFR Adjunct Senior Fellow Mahnaz Ispahani says there is some validity to the argument that the Pakistani army cannot entirely control or close the border with Afghanistan. Islamabad and the FATA regions have long followed a policy of “live and let live,” with minimal interference in one another’s affairs, but Ispahani says the United States would like to see this changed.

Looking Ahead - A classified U.S. military proposal disclosed by the New York Times outlines an intensified effort to enlist tribal leaders in the border areas of Pakistan in the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. If adopted, the proposal would “directly finance a separate tribal paramilitary force,” the newspaper says. The United States has also started a five-year $750 million assistance program in the FATA. The State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs assists the Frontier Corps, a Pakistani federal paramilitary force stationed in the NWFP and Balochistan,with financing for counternarcotics work.

To restructure the relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan, a Council Special Report, authored by Rubin, recommends recognition of an international border by the two countries and cooperative development of the tribal areas on either side. It also suggests transforming the status of the tribal areas in Pakistan and empowering the people by allowing them to participate in elections.

Ispahani says besides security and military cooperation, the two countries must focus more on economic issues. Being a landlocked country and sharing one of its longest borders with Pakistan, Afghanistan’s economy is “incredibly dependent on Pakistan” and this has moderated Afghan’s policy with its neighbor, she says. Marvin G. Weinbaum, a former Pakistan and Afghanistan analyst at the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, writes (PDF) that Pakistan’s wide-ranging exports to Afghanistan amounts to roughly $1.2 billion per year and it imports more than $ 700 million worth of goods.

Experts say tensions might ease with the new Pakistani army chief solely focused on military matters and securing the border. From 1999 to 2007, Pervez Musharraf was busy running the country in his dual role as president and leader of the military. A change in army leadership, however, by no means solves the bigger problems of limitations or the will of the army itself. Ispahani suggests in both countries, especially in Pakistan, there needs to be a greater recognition that the war against militancy is in the country’s own interests.

Afghan mission costs up sharply, MacKay says

ALAN FREEMAN, From Friday's Globe and Mail November 30, 2007

OTTAWA — The incremental cost to National Defence of the Afghan military mission is rising steeply and has reached a total of $3.1-billion from its start in 2001, according to Defence Minister Peter MacKay.

Mr. MacKay made the disclosure as he appeared before the House of Commons defence committee, which is studying supplementary spending estimates of $875-million for the department for the current fiscal year.

In May, Mr. MacKay's predecessor, Gordon O'Connor, told the Commons that the incremental cost of the mission was $2.6-billion. A spokesman for Mr. MacKay said yesterday that the extra costs are due mainly to additional tanks and force protection expenses.

Mr. MacKay and Chief of the Defence Staff General Rick Hillier insisted that progress continues to be made in Afghanistan, despite reports to the contrary by external groups such as the Senlis Council and Oxfam.

The minister questioned a recent report from the Senlis Council, which asserted that the Taliban had a permanent presence in 54 per cent of Afghanistan and now controls "vast swaths of unchallenged territory."

"Who are they?" Mr. MacKay asked of the Senlis Council, a Paris-based think tank. He questioned the rigour of the group's recent study, noting that the report has no index and no footnotes and is dealing with military matters, which he alleged are beyond the group's expertise.

Gen. Hillier insisted that the military situation has improved in recent months, declaring that the Taliban are "on the back foot" throughout southern Afghanistan thanks to the work of Canadian, British and other NATO-led soldiers.

There is a big improvement in the readiness of Afghan National Army soldiers and Afghan police, both of whom are now working beside the Canadians in Kandahar, he said.

The MPs peppered the minister with questions on issues ranging from plans to refurbish the fleet of Aurora maritime surveillance aircraft to the state of the runways at CFB Bagotville, Que.

New Democrat David Christopherson wanted to know about $10.5-million that the department is spending on non-lethal laser "dazzlers," concerned that the high-tech device could end up being dangerous like the taser. He worried that the dazzlers could end up blinding people.

Mr. MacKay said the dazzlers are designed to deter possible suicide drivers by shining laser beams at them. The idea was to have a new tool to protect troops against attacks on their convoys, especially in Afghanistan.

"They are undergoing rigorous testing," Mr. MacKay said, noting that only a few have been purchased, solely to test them.

Gen. Hillier said the dazzler is designed to fill the gap between "vigorously waving at people and shooting them." He said the dazzler would flash a strong light on the windshield of an oncoming car, prompting the driver to stop.

"It avoids us having to take a shot at them," the general said. He said the dazzlers are still being tested and, before they are purchased for use by the military, the device would be submitted to the Judge Advocate General to make sure their use conforms with the Geneva Conventions.

Canada has signed an international treaty, the Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons, which bans the use of devices if they emit a blinding light.

Mr. Christopherson said he is concerned that the military could end up using the dazzlers in Canada when it is called in to aid civil powers. Mr. MacKay said there is no thought being given to their use domestically.

Canadian general in Afghanistan: 'we are winning'
CanWest News Service , Friday, November 30, 2007

Canada is winning the war in Afghanistan and is making significant progress in rebuilding that South Asian country, says the general who commands the Canadian Forces mission in Kandahar.

But Lt.-Gen. Michel Gauthier, who heads the Canadian Expeditionary Force Command in Ottawa, warns that because Afghan insurgents are losing ground, they likely will resort to increasing the number of roadside bombs and suicide attacks in an attempt to inflict more casualties on troops.

"From a military perspective in the south of Afghanistan, in Kandahar specifically, we are winning," Lt.-Gen. Gauthier said in an interview with CanWest News Service. "We are winning where it matters most, where the people live. Where 90 per cent of the population is, we have a strong security influence in concert with our Afghan partners."

Gauthier's command, known in the Canadian Forces as CEFCOM, oversees all international military operations with its primary focus at this point being Afghanistan.

The state of the security situation in Afghanistan has been a hotly debated topic over the last several months. A recent United Nations report warned security in Afghanistan has deteriorated. In early November, Taliban forces captured three districts in western Afghanistan, undercutting NATO claims the insurgents were unable to conduct large-scale operations.

Last week the Senlis Council released a report that noted Taliban insurgents have a permanent presence in a little more than half of Afghanistan. "The insurgency now controls vast swaths of unchallenged territory including rural areas, some district centres, and important road arteries," added the report from the think-tank with operations in Kandahar.

It warned the insurgency had reached "crisis proportions" and that there will be an increase in "asymmetric warfare" techniques such as improvised explosive devices and suicide attacks.

Defence Minister Peter MacKay said the Senlis report was not credible but the study was embraced by opposition MPs on the Commons defence committee who accused the Canadian Forces of deliberately painting a positive picture of the situation in Afghanistan while ignoring the reality.

But Gauthier said it is important to understand that rebuilding Afghanistan will take time and that progress already has been made on reconstruction through the efforts of the military, its Afghan partners and various Canadian government departments.

"I'm satisfied with the progress we're making," the general said. "Rebuilding Afghanistan, given its history, is not easy."

Gauthier said the insurgents are on the run, backing away from any head-to-head clashes with coalition forces. At the same time, he said, their ability to direct operations has been disrupted. "Our expectation (of) what we will see in the coming months is the continuation of more asymmetric approaches, IED attacks and so on," said Gauthier.

But he noted better intelligence and improvements in technology are increasing the number of improvised explosive devices found before they can be detonated. "We're finding more and more in advance of a strike which is why, in part, you're seeing a reduction in Canadian casualties over the course of the last several months," he added.

"This has probably been the greatest success story," said Gauthier. "The expansion of Afghan National Army units available to work with us and the growth in their capabilities."

Troops bring security to volatile Afghan district

Updated Fri. Nov. 30 2007 - CTV.ca News Staff

Canadian Forces and the Afghan National Army have successfully completed a joint-strategic mission in the Zhari district in southern Afghanistan.

Operation Tashwish Mekawa, also known as operation "no worries," began with a surprise ground assault against insurgents on Nov. 17 at an important crossroads in the Sangsar area, located about 40 kilometres west of Kandahar City.

The goal of the mission was to drive out insurgents in order to establish a fortified compound from which security forces could control the crossroads.

Maj. Richard Moffat, commanding officer for the Canadian battle group, said the successful operation demonstrates to local Afghans that establishing security in the area is a priority.

"We're telling them right now that we're here to stay. We're here to bring security and as long as we'll be around bad guys have no chance," Moffat said.

The Zhari district is located on the north bank of the Arghandab River. The fertile river valley is located in the central part of Kandahar province and functions as the gateway to Kandahar city.

The lush farmland of grape and pomegranate orchards would have provided the Taliban with easy access to its former stronghold of Kandahar City.

The mission was the same operation where Cpl. Nicolas Raymond Beauchamp, 28, of the 5th Field Ambulance in Valcartier and Pte. Michel Levesque, 25, of 3rd Battalion, the Royal 22nd Regiment were killed.

"The night before the assault, soldiers of the 3rd Battalion, Royal 22e Régiment (3 R22eR) Battle Group and elements of two ANA kandaks (battalions) infiltrated the area around the crossroads," Lt.-Cmdr. Pierre Babinsky wrote in an article on the Department of National Defence and Canadian Forces website.

"It was during this staging phase that two Canadian soldiers and their Afghan interpreter were killed by the explosion of a roadside bomb that hit their armoured vehicle."

Seventy-three military personnel and one diplomat have died in Afghanistan since the combat mission began in 2002.

Afghan chieftains get ultimatum

At a remarkable sitdown, three Canadian officers tell tribal elders to decide which side they're on - November 30, 2007 - Mitch Potter Toronto Star

PANJWAII, Afghanistan–It was 40 unhappy Pashtoon tribal elders versus three tough-talking Canadian army officers with a rather large carrot and an even bigger stick – a stick they had never before shown.

Align with us against the Taliban, the Canadians told the chieftains, and the people of embattled Panjwaii will reap untold rewards, starting with a large stack of Ottawa-and-Washington-backed development dollars poised for the first whisper of actual security.

Remain mere observers to lawless insurgency and – here comes the stick – Panjwaii will be forgotten. Unless the elders soon seize their tribal entitlement to power and influence and take a stand, the spoils of stability will go to a more hospitable patch of Kandahar province.

Though the ultimatum came without a deadline, there was an unmistakable urgency in the Canadian message yesterday to a rare full quorum of the Panjwaii tribal council. Repeated separately by three different officers, the or-else scenario was clear. Just how deeply the warning registered with the Afghan elders, less so.

Invited to the shura by the Afghans, the Toronto Star was given a fly-on-the-wall glimpse of the political gap that the Canadians on the frontlines say they must close if the Taliban threat in Panjwaii is to be neutralized.

"I know how it has to work here. For people to survive they have to hold hands with both sides," said Maj. Patrick Robichaud, commander of the Canadian forward operating base at nearby Sperwan Ghar.

"But I'm telling you we are approaching a crossroads. We are coming to that intersection where you have to let one hand go or Panjwaii will be forgotten. There are millions of Afghanis at stake, and if we cannot attain security those millions will go elsewhere. I can't do this alone. Everyone must contribute."

Civil affairs officers Capt. Michel Laroque and his commander, Maj. Luc Saint-Jean, took turns describing the carrot. Laroque spoke of the job-bearing development dollars that would flow to all, including Taliban fighters who can be persuaded to lay down their weapons. Saint-Jean elaborated, saying: "We want to offer factories, training, equipment – things that will create employment not for 10 or 20 days, but 10 or 20 years."

But from carrot-and-stick, the conversation shifted to chicken-and-egg, revealing the tactical gap. The Canadians spoke firmly of security first, aid second. The Afghan elders begged for the reverse.

"(The elders) don't like the fighting but they are scared of the Taliban. By creating jobs first, they will have something to show as a way of standing up to the Taliban," said Haji Agha Lalai, the senior leader present by dint of his three political hats as tribal council leader, Panjwaii representative to the provincial parliament and a member of Afghanistan's reconciliation commission.

"We need this support. Everyone (the Canadians, the Afghan government, the tribal elders) has to be one team working together. Some people like the Taliban because when they ruled they established a strong, united leadership. We have to give that to the people."

The niceties of Pashtoon etiquette came with the requisite waves of tea and soda and trays of lamb and rice, which the Canadians tucked into sitting cross-legged on shallow mats in tribal custom. Some of the greybeards wore glowering expressions, some heaved frustrated sighs, others still just stared into space with looks of sheer fatigue. All, Canadians and Afghans alike, were mindful of what a rough ride Panjwaii has had – and how tenaciously the Taliban insurgency has endured – since the anti-government hotbed was pummelled by the all-out NATO assault known as Operation Medusa 15 months ago.

In side conversations yesterday with the Star, several of the elders spoke candidly of feeling trapped in the moderate middle between two warring sides. One said he felt uncomfortable speaking freely in front of the Canadians and his fellow shura members over fears the Taliban had ears in the room and would follow through on threats to punish any who openly pledged fealty to the NATO alliance.

"You tell me, how can we provide security?" asked Haji Ghulam Rasool, representative of the Noorzai clan in council, who said the foreign soldiers have an inflated sense of the tribal leaders' leverage over the local population.

"We are empty, we don't have weapons. I am a leader, but I am also really just a farmer. The authority of the tribe is weak. And until we have something in our hands to offer, plus stronger police and government to back us up, how are we supposed to act?"

The Canadians yesterday expressed hope at least in the evident revival of Panjwaii shura council meetings, which now are drawing a full house every Thursday, thanks to the personal magnetism of Haji Baran Khaksar, Panjwaii's new district leader. A trusted voice of local civilians, Khaksar was mostly quiet yesterday, taking in the Canadian message but revealing little.

In the absence of agreement on the chicken-egg debate, the summit proceeded to housekeeping matters that demonstrated how such meetings clear the air on the impact of the Canadian footprint in the region. Capt. Laroque, for example, reported back to the elders that he was able to take GPS readings of sensitive markers of religious significance in the path of local roadworks now under construction. The road plans now will bend around sites of Islamic import so as not to cause cultural damage, he promised.

Maj. Robichaud, in a final plea for help, said military operations would be stepped up in pursuit of those who plant roadside bombs throughout the region. "We need your alignment," he said. "Help us identify the bad guys so the good guys are not confused with them."

Haji Agha Lalai, the three-hat politician in charge of yesterday's shura meeting, ended his visit to Panjwaii with a tour of the causeway Canada is building across the Arghandab River. He came away impressed with the project, which is still a few weeks away from completion but already stands as precisely the sort of positive expression of the Canadian presence that the elders want to see increased.

The $600,000 concrete-and-gravel causeway will provide a vital link for area villages, particularly if the coming years of rain match 2007. Nearly 100 Afghans are involved in its construction, including 54 labourers and 20 heavy-equipment operators, said Master Warrant Officer Andre Picard, a task-force engineer in charge of the project.

"We are six weeks along and getting close to finished," said Picard. "It's really a pleasure to get Afghans involved in something that can take shape so quickly."

Separate wars in Iraq, Afghanistan

By Lawrence J. Korb and Sean E. Duggan, November 30, 2007

As members of Congress return from Thanksgiving recess next week, they will have a list of unfinished business to confront, most pressing of which will be approving funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. While there remains a great deal to debate in regard to funding the war in Iraq, no such disagreement exists in supporting the mission in Afghanistan.

Despite this fact, the Bush administration demands that Congress appropriate war funding for Iraq and Afghanistan collectively - as if they were the same war. This poses a grave dilemma. Despite some recent tactical military success in Iraq, the American people have become disillusioned with the Iraq war and elected the 110th Congress with a mandate to bring U.S. involvement to an end. The debate on conditions Congress wishes to set on the administration's supplemental funding request for Iraq has kept funds from being sent to our troops in both theaters. Consequently, the administration has begun to condemn lawmakers for their ineffectiveness. Some Pentagon leaders have called attention to the delay's effect on military readiness.

It is imperative that lawmakers keep in mind that Afghanistan is not Iraq.

Unlike Iraq, the war in Afghanistan is overwhelmingly supported by the American people, the international community and the people of Afghanistan. President Hamid Karzai's government is seen as legitimate domestically and internationally and is representative of its people. The Afghan parliament and security forces are loyal to the Afghan government rather than to any specific sectarian or ethnic group. And most important for long-term success, most Afghans support an international troop presence and reconstruction effort.

To ensure that our troops fighting in the real central front in the war on terror are properly funded and equipped, members of Congress should move to separate funding for the two wars and approve the full supplemental budget request for Afghanistan as soon as possible.

This can be done relatively easily. According to the Congressional Research Service, Afghanistan has received approximately 21 percent of the $610 billion appropriated for the total "global war on terror." Therefore, Congress should quickly approve the approximately $41 billion of the president's $196 billion supplemental war funding request that is slated for operations in Afghanistan.

This move would carry a number of advantages.

First, disbursing funds for operations in Afghanistan immediately would finance a mission beset by chronic underfunding and a lack of urgency. A renewed focus in Afghanistan would give the United States an opportunity to reverse the deteriorating security situation and bolster efforts to build the Afghan government's capacity. Releasing funding immediately would also demonstrate our continued commitment to the Afghan people, who have begun to hedge their bets against the Afghan government and the United States in favor of the Taliban and al-Qaida.

Second, once funding for Afghanistan has been dealt with, Congress can go through the lengthy debate regarding funding for the war in Iraq. With the passing of the Pentagon's $459 billion base budget this month, there is no immediate funding crisis. Should the debate drag on, the Pentagon can move funds from other Department of Defense accounts to finance operations in Iraq in the interim; in fact, the Pentagon has already approved this transfer. Shifting these funds would keep the Army and Marines in Iraq fully funded until April.

Finally, and most important, separating war funding would psychologically disaggregate the war in Afghanistan from the misbegotten war in Iraq. The hidden cost of the Iraq war has been its inexorable connection with Afghanistan in the eyes of the American people. As a result, the widespread disenchantment with the Iraq war and its overwhelming human and financial costs threaten to undermine vital military interventions throughout the world. Put simply, the sinking ship of Iraq threatens to bring the mission in Afghanistan down with it.

Lawrence J. Korb, a former assistant secretary of defense, is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and senior adviser to the Center for Defense Information. His e-mail is lkorb@americanprogress.org. Sean E. Duggan is a research assistant at the Center for American Progress.

Old Afghan pottery craft faces new hurdles

By Alix Kroeger - BBC News, Istalif, northern Afghanistan

On the main street through the village of Istalif, the scrape of the bricklayer's trowel rings off the walls opposite. In contrast, the potter's kick-wheel in the workshop above the street is almost silent.

Kick, spin, kick, spin: when Qari Aktar Mohammad hits his stride, he can turn out almost a pot a minute. He began learning the craft from his father when he was just 13, in 1992.

Istalif's tradition of making ceramics - turquoise, ochre and green for the most part - goes back at least 400 years. But in 1996, the village was razed by the Taleban after the withdrawal of the Northern Alliance fighters.

They destroyed most of the houses, burnt the rest, and gave the inhabitants an hour to leave. Some of the potters buried the tools under the floors of their houses. The tools were still there when they returned to Istalif after 2001, and the fall of the Taleban.

"The Taleban didn't want to let us work. They burned all our houses," said Qari Aktar. He and his family fled to Kabul, where they continued to make pots. But they had nowhere permanent to live, so in 2002, they returned home. "Istalif is my country," he says.

Now, there are around 60 potters' workshops operating in Istalif. But an old craft faces new hurdles.

Traditionally, kilns are fired with wood. But Afghanistan's forests are disappearing, hastened by illegal logging controlled by the warlords. Even when wood is available, the price is high.

It takes 560kg of wood to fire a kiln for the six to eight hours needed to finish a batch of pots. That costs $80 (4,000 Afghani) - a high price in a country where half the population live on less than one dollar a day.

Now, an organisation dedicated to preserving Afghanistan's cultural heritage is trying new methods. The Turquoise Mountain Foundation (TMF), based in Kabul, has built a gas kiln in Istalif.

It's part of a resource centre which is subsidised to allow potters to experiment. The gas kiln fires at higher temperatures, which makes the pots stronger, and so more suitable for export. It's also easier to control the temperature and is cheaper to operate.

But that in its turn brings problems. The glazes crack and graze at the higher temperature. So potters at the resource centre are working to reformulate the glazes, and to get rid of the lead traditionally used.

Noah Coburn says the potters need help if they are to improve the quality of their products and reach a wider market. Because of the high price of wood, Istalifi potters typically pack 800 to 1,200 pots into a kiln at a time.

They stack them, using small triangular trivets which leave three small, unglazed scars where the trivets separate the pots. But the scars are frowned on by international buyers.

"The potters know how to take away the three scars if they wanted to. The problem is that you have to put shelves in the kiln," Mr Coburn explains.

"So there are fewer pots per kiln. You get a slightly nicer pot, but one that costs four, five or six times as much. It makes it unaffordable," he says, especially to the Afghans who make up 90% of the market.

TMF is also working to improve the quality of the clay used. The raw material comes from the mountains above Istalif. A small workshop might bring down a donkey-load at a time; a bigger workshop would use a small truck.

Initially it looks like pebbles and dust. Because pottery is a family business, handed down through the generations, the work is divided up based on age and seniority.

It's the lot of the youngest son to stamp on the clay for two to four hours at a time to soften it up. It's hard work, and not the best way of mixing the clay.

At the TMF resource centre, a modified wheat grinder first reduces the clay to dust. It's then watered using the network of irrigation ditches running through the village.

"The longer the clay is kept wet, the more it breaks down, and the stronger it becomes," Noah Coburn explains.

In the final stages, it's put through a mill to knock the air out of it, then mixed with a handful of fibres from bull rushes to strengthen it.

The potters pay a small amount for clay from the resource centre, about the same as it would cost to buy from a donkey driver who goes up into the hills.

Daud, 35, is one of the Istalifi potters interested in trying new methods. Like Qari Akbar, he comes from a family of potters which fled to Kabul during the Taleban time.

"In Kabul, we burned a lot of wood to fire our kiln. It smoked a lot, which was not good for the neighbourhood. The governor didn't like us, and we couldn't continue there," he says.

He says he's happy with his work, and is interested in seeing how the gas kiln works.

The TMF is now looking at expanding its work in Istalif, creating a programme to train women in putting the designs on the pots, and possibly reviving the local tile-making industry, which had died out.

The idea would be to make tiles to sell to wealthy Middle Easterners who are commissioning mosques.

But Istalif is a conservative village, and Noah Coburn acknowledges they will have to move slowly in creating opportunities for women.

He tells the cautionary tale of another NGO which built a gas kiln in Istalif a few years ago. It, too, wanted to improve the quality of the pots by getting rid of the three scars.

Initially, villagers welcomed the plan. But when they found out that the new kiln was supposed to be used only by women, they boycotted it.

As a result, there is a fully functional gas kiln already in Istalif which has never been used.

Istalif's pots are not fine art. Many of them break easily. Some of the designs are crudely drawn.

But the ceramics made here are a part of a genuine folk tradition, one that's popular with Afghans and foreigners alike.

The hope is that by making a few small changes, a craft which was nearly destroyed by Afghanistan's wars can regenerate and prosper, eventually reaching a wider audience.

[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.]