In this bulletin:

• 20 Taliban Killed in Afghanistan
• Italian Wounded in Afghanistan Dies
• Taliban hit German base in Afghanistan
• Afghanistan: Condemnation of hanging of 15-year-old boy by Taleban
• Afghan deaths up 55 per cent compared with 2006: AP analysis
• Australia to boost troops in Afghanistan
• Operation Honest Soldier forcing Taliban from their stronghold, says military
• NATO general says progress made in securing Afghanistan's main ring highway
• Al-Qaeda's Afghanistan chief says bin Laden alive
• AFGHANISTAN: Some aid vulnerable to mismanagement, corruption, say experts
• Canada Increases Support for Education in Afghanistan
• Afghan Minister Welcomes Canadian Aid for Education
• Dr. Spanta Inaugurated the JCMB Meeting
• Poor Helmand Farmers Find Themselves In Eye Of Drug Storm
• Release of 'Kite Runner' delayed over fears for young actors safety
• Canada claims success in latest Afghan offensive
• Harper hints at longer Canada mission in Afghanistan

20 Taliban Killed in Afghanistan

By NOOR KHAN

KANDAHAR Afghanistan (AP) — Afghan troops backed by NATO-led forces clashed with suspected Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan, leaving 20 militants dead, a provincial police chief said Thursday.

The authorities recovered three dead bodies of the militants alongside numerous weapons after the clash in Shah Wali Kot district in Kandahar province late Wednesday, said Kandahar police chief Sayed Agha Saqib. There were no injuries among Afghan and NATO troops.

Retreating militants took 17 bodies off the battlefield, Saqib said.

NATO officials could not immediately confirm Saqib's account, and said they were checking the report. The clash could not be independently verified due to the remoteness of the area where it took place.

In a separate incident, militants attacked a police checkpoint in Arghistan district, also in Kandahar province, wounding three officers on Wednesday, Saqib said. There were no report of militant casualties from that clash.

Violence in Afghanistan has peaked this year, with nearly 5,100 people killed in suicide bombings, gun battles, airstrikes, and roadside bombs around the country through the first nine months of the year, according to an AP count based on figures from Afghan, U.S. and NATO officials.

The number represents a 55 percent increase over the first nine months of 2006, when the AP count recorded 3,288 insurgency-related deaths. The AP count recorded 4,019 deaths in all of 2006.

Most of the violence occurred in the country's south, the center of the resurgent Taliban movementthat was ousted from power in the U.S.-led invasion in late 2001.

Italian Wounded in Afghanistan Dies

ROME (AP) — An Italian intelligence agent who was kidnapped with a colleague in Afghanistan and wounded during a rescue operation died Thursday, the Defense Ministry said.

The man had been put on a respirator after he was wounded in the NATO-led raid on Sept. 24, a few days after he and the colleague were abducted.

He died in a military hospital in Rome, the ministry said. His colleague was also wounded, although not seriously.

The death was likely to reinforce calls for the withdrawal of Italy's 2,000-strong contingent in Afghanistan.

Premier Romano Prodi has so far resisted the calls by radical leftists, who are in his ruling coalition. He has also defended his decision to stage the daring rescue operation, saying that "any other option would have been worse."

The two Italians working for the SISMI military intelligence service had been kidnapped in western Afghanistan. They were freed by Italian commandos aided by other NATO forces and aircraft as the coalition forces determined the kidnappers had started moving the hostages.

Italian special forces ambushed the convoy, sparking a gunbattle that killed at least eight of the kidnappers. NATO said the two Italians were probably injured by their Taliban kidnappers.

The two returned to Italy for treatment last week.

Taliban hit German base in Afghanistan

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 09:15:06

Taliban rebels have hit a German military base killing two policemen and destroying a remote government office in central Afghanistan.

The incident which took place late Tuesday in the Ajristan district center in Ghazni also wounded five Dutch troops who were in a clash with insurgents in the country's south, according to Ghazni police chief Ali Shah Ahmadzai.

Police reinforcements, backed by the US-led coalition, were dispatched to the remote area on Wednesday, Ahmadzai said.

This is the fourth attack on German bases in Afghanistan in the past three weeks.

Afghanistan: Condemnation of hanging of 15-year-old boy by Taleban

Posted: 03 October 2007

Amnesty International has condemned the Taleban's hanging of a 15-year-old boy, supposedly for 'spying'.

The killing, of a boy named Zainullah, occurred on 30 September, when he taken from a bazaar where he worked as a key-maker in Sangin district, Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, by Taleban fighters.

The group hanged him from an electrical utility pole with a note warning that others caught spying would suffer the same fate.

Amnesty International condemns all unlawful killings, particularly of children, and calls for all such attacks to be investigated, promptly, independently and thoroughly, and for those responsible to be brought to justice in accordance with international standards of fairness.

Article 3 Common to the four Geneva Conventions, which is binding on all parties to the armed conflict in Afghanistan, prohibits "violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds," a prohibition which applies in all circumstances.

Amnesty calls for the Afghan government to investigate the unlawful killing and for the Taleban to publicly renounce the use of illegal actions such as kidnapping and unlawful killings, including those following quasi-judicial proceedings flouting international humanitarian law.

Afghan deaths up 55 per cent compared with 2006: AP analysis

KABUL - Insurgency-related deaths in Afghanistan were 55 per cent higher in the first nine months of 2007, compared with last year, as violence since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion surpassed all previous highs, by an Associated Press analysis.

Almost 5,100 people have died in suicide bombings, gun battles, air strikes and roadside bombs around Afghanistan through the first nine months of the year, by an AP count based on figures from Afghan, U.S. and NATO officials.

The number represents a 55-per-cent increase over the first nine months of 2006, when the AP count recorded 3,288 insurgency-related deaths. The AP count recorded 4,019 deaths in all of 2006.

"Suicide attacks have risen sharply this year and roadside bomb attacks have increased. We launched more operations against the enemy this year but they have launched operations as well," said Defence Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi, explaining the rise in violence.

"They've used their maximum power this year. As well, and this is my personal view, there was an increase in the number of enemy this year," he said.

Almost 180 international soldiers have died in Afghanistan so far this year, including 27 Canadians.

The majority of deaths so far this year - 3,544, or 70 per cent of the total - have been militants killed by U.S. and NATO military action or by Afghan forces. And those numbers are likely low. The U.S.-led coalition and Afghan authorities publicize death estimates after battles but the separate NATO-led International Security Assistance Force does not.

The AP count is based on figures given by western and Afghan figures but does not purport to record all deaths in the country, many of which occur in remote locations and are never reported publicly.

Some 650 Afghan civilians have died, by the AP count - 13 per cent of the overall deaths.

That number includes 309 civilians killed by Taliban violence but also 314 killed by U.S. or NATO action, figures from western and Afghan officials show - assertions the United States and NATO sometimes dispute. Twenty-nine civilians in the count were killed during crossfires.

Azimi said Pakistan last spring expelled foreigners - such as fighters from Uzbekistan - from its tribal region, a move that has had a negative impact on Afghanistan.

"When they said that all foreigners must leave Pakistan, where did they go? They came to Afghanistan," Azimi said.

"They joined with the enemy and started fighting against Afghan forces here."

Afghanistan's security forces have also been hit hard, with more than 600 police killed already this year, said Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary, a higher figure than the AP count, which shows a total of 600 police and army soldiers killed this year.

"This is a result of a tactical change by the enemy," Bashary said.

"In the past, the enemy launched most of their attacks against international forces, but now they are carrying out ambushes and suicide attacks on both."

Afghanistan's southern provinces, the country's opium poppy-growing belt, is the most violent region in the country. The area, and particularly Helmand province, has seen a large influx of fighters this year. Helmand alone has seen 1,591 deaths, mostly militants. The province to its east, Kandahar, is the second deadliest region at 743 deaths.

June was the deadliest month, with 1,017 deaths, almost 20 per cent of the year's total so far.

Australia to boost troops in Afghanistan
Globe and Mail Update October 3, 2007 at 1:04 PM EDT

Australia will have more troops in Afghanistan than it does in Iraq by the middle of 2008 as that nation fills a gap left by the withdrawal of the Dutch military, Australian media are reporting.

Hundreds more troops will go to Afghanistan's southern Oruzgan province next year, where fighting with the Taliban has increased in recent months.

And The Australian newspaper says a slight rise in troops based in Tarin Kowt will be in place soon to do reconstruction efforts after the expected withdrawal of troops from the Netherlands.

Australia has about 970 military in Afghanistan, many based with Canadian forces in Kandahar.

Prime Minister John Howard's government has said the military commitment to Afghanistan would peak at 1000 troops in the middle of next year. Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd has declared that as prime minister he would increase the deployment.

Operation Honest Soldier forcing Taliban from their stronghold, says military

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - The Canadian military hopes it has finally chased Taliban insurgents from their stronghold with their latest offensive in Kandahar province.

Operation Sadiq Sarbaaz, or Honest Soldier, began early last week in the dangerous Panjwaii district.

It cost the life of Cpl. Nathan Hornburg, a reservist from the King's Own Calgary Regiment, who was killed in a mortar attack on the first day of the mission.

But Maj. Eric Landry says Canadians have been able to isolate insurgents in their stronghold, cutting off their freedom of movement and resupply.

He says the hope is that Taliban hardliners will be forced to leave and re-organize elsewhere, freeing those locals who were forced to take up arms for insurgents.

The Canadian military has built five police substations in the Zhari and Panjwaii districts, which will be manned around the clock by Afghan National Police, with mentoring teams of Canadian soldiers.

NATO general says progress made in securing Afghanistan's main ring highway

The Associated Press Thursday, October 4, 2007

BRUSSELS, Belgium: NATO was making progress on reconstruction projects in Afghanistan and in securing the main ring highway linking Kabul with the rest of the country, a top alliance general said Thursday.

NATO troops in the International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, had succeeded in lowering the number of Taliban militant raids on the nation's large ring road — the country's main economic lifeline, Brig. Gen. Pavel Macko said.

He did not, however, give any details or numbers for the attacks along the 2,400-kilometer (1,500-mile) road network.

"We focused on the key road network — Highway One — and key connectors of this main road," Macko told reporters via a video-link from Kabul, the Afghan capital. "We were trying to keep freedom of movement on it, I believe successfully, not only for us, but particularly for the government of Afghanistan, particularly for economic flow."

He said securing the highway had allowed the Afghan government to assess national infrastructure and determine which reconstruction projects were needed in areas that previously were hard to reach due to threats from insurgents.

The highway also has been used by opium traders to move their illicit crops from fields to selling points.

Security had been notoriously bad, especially the southern stretch between Kabul and Kandahar, that aid groups routinely suspended food shipments because of attacks on their vehicles. The highway has also been the site of numerous kidnappings, including 23 South Koreans taken hostage by militants in July.

The Afghan government, seeking to boost its influence and control in the regions, agreed with NATO last year to make securing and upgrading the ring road a priority this year. The mission was named Operation Now Ruz, or New Year in English.

Macko, a Slovak general responsible for coordinating ongoing NATO military operations, said ISAF troops had conducted "dozens" of related offensive operations around the ring road to push back Taliban forces.

He acknowledged that fighting tactics of Taliban and other insurgent forces had become more coordinated and concentrated, but said NATO forces were still able to defeat them.

"There were attempts to mount more coordinated attempts against us, but we were able to decrease their freedom of movement ... to degrade to some extent their midlevel leadership of command and control capabilities and disrupt their lines of communications and lines of supplies," Macko said.

The general said could not assess NATO's entire plan for the year, as some efforts were still ongoing.

Offensive operations would continue despite the coming winter, he said. This week, NATO forces launched a new operation — Operation Pamir — meant to keep pressure on the insurgents through the winter, when Taliban militants traditionally retreat to higher ground to regroup.

Al-Qaeda's Afghanistan chief says bin Laden alive

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Al-Qaeda's chief in Afghanistan urges Muslims around the world to come fight for the country's "independence" and insists that Osama bin Laden is alive and well, according to an audio clip released by a US-based monitoring group.

"In every corner of the world, Muslims should be concerned about Afghan Muslims and help them," Mustafa Abu al-Yazid says in the audio message on Wednesday, according to SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors Islamist websites.

"Every Muslim who has the feeling of sacrifice in his heart should come forward and fight for the independence of Afghanistan," Yazid says in Arabic in the 28-minute audio, accompanied by a video showing him in a still image.

Yazid, in the speech titled "The Truth of Belief," also claims that insurgents are scoring victories in the battlefield despite the death of top Taliban military commander Mullah Dadullah in May.

Yazid calls on Muslims to support Dadullah's successor, Mullah Mansour.

He also says that bin Laden, the Al-Qaeda terror network's chief, supervises all activities and is alive and in good health.

AFGHANISTAN: Some aid vulnerable to mismanagement, corruption, say experts

LASHKARGAH, 4 October 2007 (IRIN) - Relief operations in insecure parts of Afghanistan are highly vulnerable to waste and corruption, local officials, residents, aid officials and analysts say.

“The spending imperative, the weakness of the Afghan government, and insecurity have contributed to a high risk of corruption in ‘postwar’ Afghanistan,” stated a July 2007 report by humanitarian think-tank Overseas Development Institute (ODI).

As a result, the relief operation has turned some of its intended beneficiaries into critics.

The residents of several districts in insurgency-hit Helmand Province, southern Afghanistan, for example, have accused local officials, commanders and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) of aid mismanagement and corruption.

In one episode, relief supplies were delivered to Nad Ali District in Helmand Province in March after clashes between Taliban insurgents and NATO-led forces.

Intended for distribution to the most vulnerable local people, witnesses say that a few days later they saw a private truck loaded with aid goods heading back to the provincial capital, Lashkargah.

"Government officials and commanders take a big chunk of all aid for themselves and their relatives," said Haji Sardar Agha, a member of the provincial council in Helmand.

In the city of Herat shops sell notebooks, bags and other stationary kits marked with the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) logo. "I can provide thousands of UNICEF notebooks and bags," boasted Noorullah, a shopkeeper in Herat.

Roshan Khadivi, a spokeswoman for UNICEF in Afghanistan, said: "It's really a tragedy to see this aid, which was intended for the children of Afghanistan, ending up in markets."

But the availability of aid items in bazaars does not necessarily prove corruption, observers say.

It can be a sign of badly targeted aid - for example, where shelter is a priority but food is given, or vice versa. Recipients may exchange or sell aid in any relief operation to meet other urgent needs, aid workers say.

UNICEF’s Khadivi says the "missing link" is consistent monitoring of local NGOs and the government bodies through which UN agencies, and other international aid organisations, channel aid to inaccessible and insecure areas.

The ODI report, Corruption Perceptions and Risks in Humanitarian Assistance: An Afghanistan Case Study, commented: “Much of the post-war funding in Afghanistan has flowed through international NGOs, which have then subcontracted work to local organisations. This work is then sometimes subcontracted again. This results in a long chain of upwards accountability that is hard to monitor and offers many opportunities for corruption.”

The report lists four main risk areas: the “urgency to spend”; state capacity; procurement, construction and public works; and poor security.

In Helmand Province – much of which is under the control of the Taliban and external civilian actors have little or no presence - provincial officials acknowledge that fragile state structures are extremely vulnerable to corruption.
"Corruption is a countrywide phenomenon," said Assadullah Wafa, the governor of Helmand Province. "Unfortunately our efforts to tackle the problem effectively have been affected by unrelenting armed conflict," Wafa added.

But in dangerous areas, aid organisations have to rely especially heavily on local government and local NGOs to implement projects.

Helmand’s war-affected areas are among 78 districts deemed "extremely risky and inaccessible", according to a September 2007 report by the UN Secretary-General.

If not properly managed these so called "remote-control" humanitarian and development projects can be acutely susceptible to corruption and waste, Lorenzo Delesgues, the director of Integrity Watch, a Kabul-based think-tank, told IRIN.

"In unstable environments where you do not have access, or no capacity to really control what is being done with your money, you really create a lot of opportunities for mismanagement of aid and sometimes corruption," Delesgues said.

Some aid providers, however, say they use various strategies to ensure the effectiveness of projects run on their behalf in inaccessible areas.

"Because we recognise this is an environment which fosters theft of assets for reasons that are pretty well understood, we try to overlay multiple verification systems," said Rick Corsino, the head of the World Food Programme in Afghanistan.

The ODI report documented aid mismanagement and corruption in a protracted humanitarian project in Herat Province, 2001-2003, but also looked at the present situation in Afghanistan.

One of the main conclusions of the study was that there should be increased awareness of the risks of aid mismanagement and corruption among those delivering and receiving humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan, said Delesgues, one of the report's authors.

"There are two people to whom aid workers should be accountable: people who give the money, the taxpayers in donor countries; and the people who receive it, the beneficiaries in Afghanistan," Delesgues said.

sms/ad/ar/cb/bp

Canada Increases Support for Education in Afghanistan
Oct 04, 2007 08:42 ET

MONTREAL, QUEBEC- - The Honourable Beverley J. Oda, Minister of International Cooperation, today joined the Afghanistan Minister of Education, His Excellency Haneef Atmar, to announce that Canada's New Government is taking a leadership role to increase the access to and quality of education in Afghanistan, by providing a significant investment to Afghanistan's largest education program, the Education Quality Improvement Project (EQUIP).

"While there has been a significant leap in their school enrolment in the past few years, Afghanistan still has some of the lowest education indicators in the world - including large gender gaps and alarmingly high rates of illiteracy for women and girls," said Minister Oda. "Increasing access to education for young Afghan children, especially girls, is crucial for the future of this country, which is why our Government is pleased to be taking a leadership role with this investment today."

Canada is contributing $60 million over four years to EQUIP, which is managed by the World Bank. Canada's investment to EQUIP is the largest investment made by any donor in the world to date.

EQUIP supports activities that strengthen the capacity of schools and communities to manage teaching and learning activities. It also invests in educational facilities and human resources, while placing a special emphasis on the promotion of education for girls.

Today's announcement is part of Canada's total contribution of more than $1 billion over 10 years aimed at governance, security and development in Afghanistan. It builds on the commitment made by Prime Minister Stephen Harper last February, when he announced substantive funds to enhance the reconstruction and development process.

Afghan Minister Welcomes Canadian Aid for Education
For immediate release

Montreal – Expressing his gratitude on behalf of the Afghan people and government, His Excellency M. Haneef Atmar, Minister of Education of Afghanistan, welcomed the announcement made today in Montreal of Canada’s substantial contribution to the Afghan education sector.

The Honourable Beverley Oda, Minister of International Cooperation, joined Min. Atmar at a function sponsored by the Council on International Relations of Montreal (CORIM) to announce the Canadian Government’s $60 million investment over four years to Afghanistan largest education program, the Education Quality Improvement Project (EQUIP), managed by the World Bank.

Thanking Canadian tax-payers for their generosity and the Canadian Government for its leadership role, Min. Atmar said, “while Afghans are grateful to the men and women of the Canadian forces who serve in Afghanistan to protect people against terrorists and enable development work, the new Canadian investment will boost the Canadian profile even more, because it enables Afghans through community-based initiatives to build more than a thousand schools in all provinces, train and pay several thousand teachers, and support the development and printing of new secondary school textbooks based on the new curriculum adopted in the country.”

Also speaking at the CORIM function, Afghan Ambassador Omar Samad thanked Canadians and said, “in effect, Canada has now become the largest donor of its kind in supporting one of the key pillars that is a guarantor of a stable future for my country.”

The Afghan Education Minister also met with Hon. Maxime Bernier, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada in Ottawa, Wednesday. The two discussed various topics relating to security, international support, and progress and challenges with the benchmarks of the Afghanistan Compact.

Canada’s pledges to rebuilding efforts in Afghanistan started in 2002 and run till 2011 totaling more than $1 billion. Other Canadian aid to the Afghan education sector include funding for BRAC programs to deliver basic education, salary support through the Afghan Reconstruction Trust Fund and support for UNICEF’s literacy programs in Kandahar province.

Embassy of Afghanistan

October 4, 2007

Dr. Spanta Inaugurated the JCMB Meeting

Posted On: Oct 03, 2007

Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister, Dr. Spanta, opened the sixth meeting of the Joint Coordination and Monitoring Board (JCMB) of the Afghanistan Compact. The sixth meeting was devoted to Regional Economic Cooperation. In his opening remarks, Dr. Spanta characterized Regional Cooperation as one of the pillars of Afghanistan, foreign, security and development Strategy. He drew attention to Afghanistan’s determination to realize its potential as a land-bridge between Central Asia and South Asia and the Middle-East and the Far East. He also informed the conference of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ plan to lead the efforts in consolidating and institutionalizing Regional Cooperation. The text of the speech will soon be available on the Ministry's website.

Poor Helmand Farmers Find Themselves In Eye Of Drug Storm

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

PRAGUE, 3 October, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- With a bumper crop this year, the southern Afghan province of Helmand has become the world's largest opium-poppy-producing region. In Helmand, which is roughly twice the size of the Czech Republic, red poppy flowers carpet fields everywhere. The province is thought to have produced half of Afghanistan's 9,000 tons of opium this year. Radio Free Afghanistan's Abubakar Siddique and Salih Muhammad Salih examine poppy cultivation and drug trafficking in southwestern Afghanistan.

For most poor Afghan farmers and sharecroppers (eds: farmers who cultivate someone else's land for a price), poppy cultivation is a desperate survival strategy. Highly resilient to drought and disease, opium poppy is also 10 times more profitable than any other cash crop.

This Helmand farmer told Radio Free Afghanistan that he grows opium poppies out of economic necessity: "I am 20,000 rupees ($350) in debt and I cannot earn even 50 rupees ($1) a day, so I have to plant poppies -- because I am anxious. I know that it is a bad thing and the Holy Prophet Muhammad says that (in Arabic) 'all intoxicants are forbidden.' But we need it [to survive] and so it is fine to plant it in situation like ours."

The anxiety of Afghan farmers and the greed and ambitions of Afghan and international drug traffickers have turned Afghanistan into what some officials call a "narcostate." The UN Office on Drugs and Crime says this year's 9,000-ton Afghan poppy crop is unprecedented in the past century and can be only compared to China in the 19th century. This year's Afghan crop alone surpasses estimated global demand by 3,300 tons.

With Helmand and the surrounding southwestern Afghan provinces in the lead, opium production shot up this year despite an increase in the number of poppy-free Afghan provinces from six to 13.

Abdul Ahad Masoumi, a Helmand tribal leader, told Radio Free Afghanistan that Helmand farmers are not part of any organized drug cartel. He said they seldom engage in smuggling, but must plant poppies out of desperation:

Masoumi explained that "Over the past five years, the Afghan regime and the international community have done little to solve the problems of the people of Helmand. That left our people with little choice, and they have to plant poppies to survive."

Since the ouster of the Taliban government in 2001, the Afghan government and the international community have tried several uncoordinated and largely futile policies to combat narcotics. Although the United States is now funding the counternarcotics efforts to tune of $600 million, most efforts still concentrate on poppy eradication -- and little is being done to provide poppy farmers with alternative livelihoods.

A former Helmand governor, Muhammad Daud, said the failure to combat drugs is hindering progress in all areas. He added that poppy cultivation and the drug trade have enabled the Taliban to stage a comeback in Helmand and stalled reconstruction:

"Similar to the fact that the people of Afghanistan are the worst victims of terrorism, people in Helmand are being hounded by [the cultivation] of this evil [poppy] plant," Daud said.

Peasants and farmers in Helmand frequently mortgage or borrow from drug smugglers against future crops. While the practice guarantees food for families, it also makes it difficult for farmers to exit a vicious cycle.

Haji Mahuddin Khan is a tribal leader in Helmand. He told RFA that international drug rings are the main benefactors in Helmand, while poor peasants remain chained to poppy cultivation:

Haji Khan explains that "The farmers have never benefited from poppy cultivation. The profits are taken by those [officials] who tell farmers to engage in cultivation but then threaten their crops with eradication. The international mafia is the main benefactor, while we are being held responsible for it and portrayed as criminals."

There are indications that Afghan opium is now increasingly being processed inside the country. This year, the estimated number of laboratories processing raw opium into heroin grew from 30 to 50.

While the Taliban have always denied links to the drug trade, poppy cultivation has increased with insecurity and the spike in violence over the past three years. Enemies of the Afghan government encourage poppy cultivation and protect farmers against eradication, and they provide protection to drug smugglers in return for weapons and funding for their war effort.

Even now in the Helmand towns of Marjeh and Nade-Ali, opium bazaars operate with impunity. In the provincial capital, Lashkargah, many new villas belong to drug lords, and locals are clearly intimidated when asked to discuss these newly affluent.

Tribal leader Ali Shah Mazlumyar argues that there is a simple way to rid Helmand of poppy cultivation: "If 1/100th of the antidrug aid dollars were spent on helping poor farmers (through alternative-crops schemes), the situation would be much different -- if the government could buy their crops en masse and then sell them cheaply [on the open market]. This would be an enormous help and might solve the problem (of poppy cultivation) without the use of guns, artillery, and tanks."

Some experts have expressed similar views recently, citing the example in 2002 when Afghanistan successfully shed old banknotes and replaced them despite strong reservations within the international community.

Most experts agree that transforming a largely rural Afghan economy must be one pillar of a successful policy to combat drugs. A crackdown on drug gangs -- including jailing drug lords -- must accompany economic transformation.

Thus far, the Afghan government has failed to arrest any significant drug traffickers in Helmand or elsewhere. Most arrests have been of low-level drug couriers.

Abdul Haleem Khalid, an adviser to the Afghan Interior Ministry on counternarcotics, was unable to name a single drug baron that the government has apprehended in Helmand. But he maintained that the government is trying hard:

"We are in hot pursuit of the drug lords, and we have so far nabbed a few hundred people. We have plans to prepare a list of the major drug traffickers and put them into prison," Khalid said.

But official pronouncements might provide little solace to those in Helmand who are impatient to see their lives change for the better.

Release of 'Kite Runner' delayed over fears for young actors safety

The Associated Press Thursday, October 4, 2007

KABUL, Afghanistan: The father of a 12-year-old Afghan boy starring in "The Kite Runner" said the company producing the movie has delayed its release until both of them can leave the country, fearing for the actor's safety.

The New York Times reported Thursday that the studio distributing the movie, Paramount Vantage, was postponing the movie's release to give three of its child actors the chance to leave Kabul, out of concern they could be attacked over a culturally inflammatory rape scene.

"The Kite Runner," based on the 2003 best-selling novel by Afghan-American writer Khaled Hosseini, tells the story of two boys and the transformation of their relationship through that act of violence. The story's main character, Amir, witnesses the rape of his friend, Hassan, but does nothing to stop it.

"The Kite Runner" was originally scheduled for U.S. release in late November, and a new release date has yet to be announced.

Paramount Vantage has "promised us that they will solve whatever problem that we have now or we might have in the future," said Ahmad Jaan Mahmidzada, whose 12-year-old son Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada plays Hassan.

"They also said that they have delayed the release of the film until they take me and my son out the country," Mahmidzada told The Associated Press.

He added that the film company would gauge the reaction of people after its eventual release and then decide how to help the family afterward.

Ahmad Khan was paid US$10,000 (€7,088) to portray Hassan. But the boy told The AP last month that he was not given an advance copy of the script and that he would never have taken the role had he known Hassan was raped. His family said they found out about the scene only days before it was shot.

Mahmidzada worries the story will stir ethnic tensions because it plays on stereotypes of Afghan ethnic groups, pitting a Pashtun bully against a lower-class ethnic Hazara boy.

Pashtuns, Afghanistan's largest ethnic group, and the Hazara minority were among several ethnic-based factions that fought bitterly during the Afghan civil war in the 1990s. Thousands of Hazaras were slain as the predominantly Pashtun Taliban seized power in the mid-1990s.

Ethnic violence has subsided since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, but Afghans fear any trigger that could revive tensions. Many were angered by the 2006 Indian film "Kabul Express" that portrayed Hazara militants as brutal and thuggish.

"It is good that they want to take the child out of the country but I don't think that will solve the problem," said Hangama Anwari, the child-rights commissioner for the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.

People in Afghanistan, which has one of the highest illiteracy rates in the world, may think the rape scene actually happened, Anwari said, fearing it could spark protests.

The film's producers, Bennett Walsh and Rebecca Yeldham, said last month, they "have the utmost concern for the welfare" of the boys who were in the film.

"When we visited with all the actors and their families in Kabul earlier this year, the families addressed their concerns directly with us and said they were fine with the content of the scene, as long as we portrayed it in a sensitive manner," Walsh and Yeldham told The AP. "We made this a priority and followed their specific instructions."

Mahmidzada said company representatives told them someone would be coming to Kabul in the next two or three days to work out arrangements for their departure.

"I am happy that at least they realized our problem here and made a decision about my son," he said. "I still do not know what will happen next, but at least I am less concerned about this issue then I was in the past."

Canada claims success in latest Afghan offensive

Matthew Fisher CanWest News Service Thursday, October 04, 2007

KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan -- Canada is claiming a major victory over the Taliban with its latest offensive, called Operation Honest Soldier, even though one Canadian soldier was killed by an enemy mortar.

The Taliban "were surprised," Capt. Stephane Masson, operations co-ordinator for Joint Task Force Afghanistan, told a briefing Wednesday. "We tightened the circle and they had to fight. We saw signs of panic."

The recently completed operation aimed to seize land to establish police checkpoints at strategically significant places throughout Panjwaii, an area long infested with insurgents, about 50 kilometres west of Kandahar City.

Operation Honest Soldier involved Charlie Company, 3rd Battalion of the Quebec-based Royal 22nd (Van Doo) Regiment, tanks from the Alberta-based Lord Strathcona's Horse, as well as Afghan army and police.

Cpl. Nathan Hornburg, a reservist from Nanton, Alta., and the King's Own Calgary Regiment, who was attached to the Strathconas, died during the operation last week when he tried to repair a tank tread. Other than confirming that there were insurgent casualties, the Canadian military, as is its policy, refused to reveal a body count.

Honest Soldier was designed to rationalize Afghan police checkpoints and convert them into more easily defended police substations. Four of the stations have been completed. They were located in strategic locations near traffic arteries.

"The big conflict was last week. Since then contacts have dropped to about one a day," Masson said.

While the operation unfolded in Panjwaii, it also had an effect on the equally restive neighbouring district of Zhari. There was already "a great intelligence improvement," as a result of establishing the police substations, said Masson, an artillery officer.

While the Van Doo fought in Panjwaii and Zhari, elements of the Quebec-based 12th Armoured Regiment helped Afghan authorities with what were described as "governance issues" in the eastern town of Spin Boldak, near the Pakistan border.

Meanwhile, Ahmed "Sorkai" Zia, the 12-year old Afghan boy shot in the head by Canadian troops on a convoy on Tuesday, was doing "much better," a day after emergency surgery at NATO's hospital at the Kandahar Airfield, a military spokeswoman said.

The boy was in stable, non-life-threatening condition and had been placed in a medically induced coma to assist with his recovery, said Capt. Josee Bilodeau, adding the child would probably remain in that state for at least three days.

Sorkai's older brother, Esmatullah, died instantly when he was also shot in the head in the same incident. The brothers had been riding a motorcycle near the convoy.

The shooting was an accident and "not the result of enemy activity," the Canadian military said Tuesday. However, military police are continuing to investigate the circumstances of the shooting, including suggestions that it may have been caused by an equipment malfunction.

After several weeks of calm, the Kandahar airfield, where many Canadian and other NATO troops are based, was hit several times by rockets on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Harper hints at longer Canada mission in Afghanistan

OTTAWA (AFP) — Prime Minister Stephen Harper suggested that Canada's military mission in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, could continue beyond its ending date of February 2009.

"Can I responsibly say, with the information I have, that we will be ready to leave all at once in February 2009? I think that's hard to imagine," Harper told an unannounced press briefing.

Canada currently has 2,500 troops deployed in Afghanistan, mostly in southern Kandahar province, engaging insurgent Taliban forces. Since 2002, 71 Canadian soldiers have lost their lives in Afghanistan.

"I don't think the objective of Canada, even in the long term, can be that we will root out every single piece of resistance to the government of Afghanistan," Harper said.

"Our objective is not to fix all the problems of Afghanistan. It's to transfer a viable situation to the Afghan armed forces."

He said it would be "not responsible" for Canadian troops to pull out of Afghanistan leaving Kandahar in "potential chaos."

Canada's military mission in Afghanistan and its duration will be a key issue Harper sill address in his upcoming "Speech from the Throne" on October 16 at the opening session of parliament.

The prime minister's speech, in which he will lay out the top priorities of his minority administration, will be followed by a vote of confidence in the House of Commons.

The opposition Liberal Party and Bloc Quebecois have already come out against prolonging Canada's military mission in Afghanistan, and a third one, the leftist New Democratic Party, has even called for its immediate withdrawal.

The Canadian military contingent in Afghanistan is part of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led international force numbering approximately 40,000 troops from 37 nations that ousted the Taliban government in late 2001.

[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.]