In this bulletin:

• Suicide Blast Kills at Least 7 People in Afghanistan
• NATO soldier killed in Afghanistan, Finnish convoy hit (1st Lead)
• Karzai urges Canada not to withdraw troops in 2009
• Canada doing well in taliban war: general
• Gates warns Afghanistan is a "litmus test" for NATO
• Heavy fighting in S Afghanistan
• Taliban commander behind SKorean kidnapping killed: officials
• NATO 'on top of our game' in Afghanistan: officer
• U.S. Praises Afghan Poppy Progress, Urges More Effort
• Afghan govt rejects preconditions for Taliban talks
• A swift shift toward police training
• WFP supports Afghan farmers with local wheat purchase
• Minister's praise for battlefield medical care during visit to Afghanistan
• In Kabul, the biggest fear is crime
• In Afghanistan, trainer sees a different war
• RUBÉN ROSARIO
• AFGHANISTAN: Returnees shun specially allocated housing sites
• Northern Afghanistan: The enemy within
• Author Hosseini Returns to Afghanistan
• UN purchases local produce to feed hungry Afghans and boost farming

Suicide Blast Kills at Least 7 People in Afghanistan

Police Are Attacked In Southern Province

By John Ward Anderson Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, September 18, 2007; Page A13

KABUL, Sept. 17 -- At least seven people were killed Monday when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives-packed vest outside a government building in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province, a stronghold of the Taliban insurgency and one of the most violent regions in the country.

The attack was the latest in a string of suicide bombings in Afghanistan, where such attacks were rare until a few years ago. So far this year, there have been 103 suicide attacks, according to a new U.N. report, which said the bombings are harming "civilians' perceptions of the ability of the Afghan government to protect them."
Monday's attack apparently targeted the police chief of Nad-e Ali, a small town about 10 miles northwest of the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, according to Haji Abdul Manaf, a government official in the nearby town of Gereshk.

The incident occurred about 1 p.m. when the bomber attempted to approach the chief outside Nad-e Ali's main government building, according to a regional police official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

He said the attacker detonated his charge after being stopped by police guards at a checkpoint. Three police officers and four civilians were killed in the blast; the police chief and several others were injured.

Suicide bombings have plagued Iraq, where thousands of people have been killed in attacks on markets, mosques, buses, checkpoints, bridges and other public targets since the start of the war there. Many of the attackers are Sunni Muslims from the extremist group al-Qaeda in Iraq, and the victims are typically Shiites. Suicide bombings in Afghanistan appear to be rarely, if ever, sectarian.

According to the U.N. report released last week, Afghanistan recorded only two suicide attacks in 2003 and three in 2004. In 2005, the figured spiked to 17, and last year it ballooned to 123.

Some analysts have asserted that suicide attacks "are not 'consistent with Afghan culture' " and are the work of foreigners, the report noted.

However, it said, "the expansion of suicide assaults has compelled analysts to believe that while the practice may have begun as an imported tactic, the suicide mission has become an integral part of the Taliban's strategy."

The group is using Afghan bombers as well as bombers recruited from other countries, particularly Pakistan.

In a comprehensive analysis of attacks over the first six months of this year, the report found that 193 people, most of them civilians, had been killed in suicide attacks. Sixty-two of the fatalities were members of Afghan security forces, and 10 were from international military forces.

"Irrespective of the insurgent's intended targets, the victims of the suicide attacks have been largely civilian bystanders," the report said. "Taliban propaganda continues to communicate that the 'US' and the 'foreign invaders' are their primary target, but these claims are not supported by the data."

The report said that 25 percent of suicide attacks in 2006 targeted Afghan security forces, compared with 43 percent this year. The percentage of attacks on international targets has declined.

"This is likely to have occurred because Afghan security forces are considerably softer targets in that they are lightly armoured, easier to approach and are often more remotely deployed," the report said.

"From a military point of view, suicide attacks in Afghanistan are not terribly 'successful,' " the report concluded. "However, they may be important to sustaining the coherence of the groups employing the tactic, raising funds for their insurgent activities and generating recruits for both suicide and non-suicide operations."

Special correspondent Qudratullah Haidarzai contributed to this report.

NATO soldier killed in Afghanistan, Finnish convoy hit (1st Lead)
Sep 18, 2007, 8:57 GMT

Kabul - One NATO soldier was killed and another injured in an explosion in southern Afghanistan, while in the north a Finnish military convoy hit a roadside bomb, the military reported on Tuesday. No details of the soldier's nationality were disclosed, nor were details of Monday's incident released by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. There are thousands of NATO troops deployed to the restive south of Afghanistan, the majority of which are British, Canadians and Dutch.

No injuries were reported in Tuesday's roadside bomb in Mazar-e-Sharif in northern Afghanistan.

'We are glad that no soldiers came to any harm,' said the spokesman of the Finnish armed forces in Afghanistan, Juha Vauhkonen.

The Swedish military reported that there was at least one woman and several children near the blast, but there was no word on their condition.

One Finnish vehicle was damaged but the convoy of four was able to continue.

Sweden leads the civilian-military reconstruction in Mazar-e-Sharif, in which the Finnish soldiers participate. German forces have their largest base in Mazar-e-Sharif.

Last week, another Finnish convoy was damaged by a roadside bomb near Poli Khumr while en route from Masar-e-Sharif to Kabul. No one was wounded.

© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

Karzai urges Canada not to withdraw troops in 2009

Updated Tue. Sep. 18 2007 1:12 PM ET The Canadian Press

KABUL -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai is appealing to Canadians to continue to fight terrorism in his country.

Karzai says he is aware of the controversy in Canada about the country's role in the war being waged in Afghanistan.

But the president says Afghanistan won't be able to stand on its own by February 2009, when Canada's current combat mandate ends.

He says Afghanistan cannot afford to have Canada withdraw its roughly 2,500 troops in the country.

If left alone, Karzai says, Afghanistan will fall back into the anarchy that led the Taliban to power in the first place and made his country a haven for terrorism.

He says the presence of Canadian troops and resources are key to making not only Afghanistan, but the whole world including Canada, a safer place.

Canada doing well in taliban war: general

Matthew Fisher CanWest News Service Tuesday, September 18, 2007

KABUL - Reports that NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the Canadian military are not faring well in their war against the Taliban are wrong, says the Canadian officer who oversees military intelligence in Afghanistan.

In fact, says Brigadier-General Jim Ferron, the battlefield successes of Canada and other NATO armies could spur peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban.

"I don't accept that NATO is on its back foot," Brig.-Gen. Ferron said yesterday in his first interview with a Canadian journalist since becoming NATO's chief of intelligence in Afghanistan eight months ago. "If the statistics are properly analyzed, we are on top of our game right now."

The Taliban are by no means subdued, Brig.-Gen. Ferron acknowledged. But, he insisted, "we are taking the conflict to the insurgents and forcing the issue."

Combat operations have successfully targeted the Taliban's middle and high leadership, said the general, who is also director general of military intelligence in Ottawa. "It is one of the catalysts that could bring negotiations between the government and moderates in the Taliban."

Canada's battle group in the southern province of Kandahar has played a significant role in creating the circumstances that have caused both the Taliban and Afghan President Hamid Karzai to broach the prospect of peace talks for the first time since the Taliban launched an insurgency campaign after being deposed by U.S. forces in 2001.

Brig.-Gen. Ferron said Canadian and other NATO forces must repeatedly fight to secure areas where they have fought and won previous battles because there are not enough troops to always hold ground.

"I do not only mean NATO. I mean the Afghan National Army and Afghan police, too. We want the Afghans to be first, but the Afghan forces are not yet mature in numbers or in their level of training. This is especially true of the police. This will take time. In Afghanistan it is always about time."

While responsible for gathering military intelligence inside Afghanistan, Brig.-Gen. Ferron said it was equally important for him and his multinational staff to keep a close watch on neighbouring countries when preparing a picture for battlefield commanders of the likely challenges ahead.

"You cannot just look at Afghanistan as if it is an island. This is a regional conflict and we cannot ignore the impact or the influence of the northern "-stans" (Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan) and Iran and Pakistan," Ferron said, waving his hand towards several large maps on his office walls.

"We are always concerned about the flow of weapons and armaments from Iran, although this should not be taken out of context. Weapons are being fed into Afghanistan from Iran but we have no indication that the government of Iran is involved in this. Do weapons flow in from Pakistan? Of course, they do. So do insurgents. The tribes in the border areas do not recognize specific boundary lines."

While unwilling to be drawn into the heated political debate now taking place in Canada about whether the Canadian battle group in the Afghan south should have its current mandate extended past the spring of 2009, he said: "We view Canadian support as vital and we understand that if we do not have that support the mission cannot continue."

"What we are hoping for is an honest assessment by the media that is based on knowledge and not on rumours," he said. "Canadians must be realistic. We cannot be successful overnight ... It is all about the Canadian people understanding what we are doing here."

Gates warns Afghanistan is a "litmus test" for NATO
by Jim Mannion Tue Sep 18, 12:36 AM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned that Afghanistan is a "litmus test" for NATO and would be "a mark of shame on all of us" if the alliance falters in laying the foundations for democracy there.
Gates alluded to both Afghanistan and Iraq in a speech in Williamsburg, Virginia that argued for realism in advancing US values of democracy and freedom around the world.

He said US allies are reluctant to provide the necessary resources or put their people in the line of fire in Afghanistan "even though we agree that democracy is key to enduring stability there."

"Afghanistan is, in a very real sense, a litmus test of whether an alliance of advanced democracies can still make sacrifices and meet commitments to advance democracy," he said.

"It would be a mark of shame on all of us if an alliance built on the foundation of democratic values were to falter at the very moment that it tried to lay that foundation of democracy elsewhere -- especially in a mission that is crucial to our security," he said.

Gates did not elaborate but in the past he has pressed European allies to provide more troops and equipment to the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan to counter a resurgence of the Taliban, the militant Islamist movement toppled by US-led forces in 2001.

On Iraq, Gates reiterated the administration's arguments against a hasty withdrawal of US forces, warning that leaving Iraq and the Middle East in chaos would betray allies in the region and embolden enemies.

"To abandon an Iraq where just two years ago 12 million people quite literally risked their lives to vote for a constitutional democracy would be an offense to our interests as well as our values, a setback for the cause of freedom as well as the goal of stability," he said.

Speaking in a cradle of democracy in colonial America, Gates argued that from its earliest days US foreign policy been shaped by a struggle between realism and idealism.

He cited George Washington's decision not to support France after its revolution as well as the World War II alliance with Stalin, "one of history's true monsters."

"It is neither hypocrisy nor cynicism to believe fervently in freedom while adopting different approaches to advancing freedom at different times along the way -- including temporarily making common cause with despots to defeat greater or more urgent threats to our freedom or interests," he said.

Gates appeared to be alluding to the contradiction in US policy between a stated aim of promoting democracy in the Middle East and its support for monarchies and authoritarian regimes.

Faced with what it sees as a looming threat from Iran, the United States has shifted in recent months to strengthening military and security ties with Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Gulf states.

In Iraq, the US military is attempting to forge a separate peace with former Sunni insurgents over the resistance of a Shiite-dominated government that came to power in US-backed elections.

"We must be realists and recognize that the institutions that underpin an enduring free society can only take root over time," Gates said.

Heavy fighting in S Afghanistan

By Chris Morris BBC News, Kabul

There have been more military clashes in southern Afghanistan between Afghan and international security forces and Taleban insurgents.

It has been announced that a British soldier was killed in Helmand province on Monday.

The Afghan defence ministry says 14 Taleban were killed in two separate clashes elsewhere in the province.

Police also say that a Taleban leader who kidnapped 23 South Koreans in July has been killed in a US air strike.

There is no independent confirmation of the claim.

A British soldier serving with the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) was killed after an explosion hit his army truck in the Gereshk district of Helmand province.

The Ministry of Defence in London says he was taking part in a routine logistics convoy.

Elsewhere in Helmand, Afghan officials say nine Taleban insurgents planning an ambush were killed in an American air strike, while five others died when they attacked Afghan and US-led forces.

The latest fighting comes as the United Nations in Afghanistan is mounting a big public campaign to promote International Peace Day later this week.

The head of the UN mission here has called for a complete cessation of violence on 21 September, while the World Health Organisation and the UN Children's Fund have appealed for three days of calm.

They want to vaccinate children across the south of the country against polio.

Posters promoting International Peace Day have appeared around the capital Kabul.

But military clashes have become routine here and several thousand people have been killed during the course of this year.

Taliban commander behind SKorean kidnapping killed: officials

GHAZNI, Afghanistan (AFP) — Afghan police said Tuesday security forces had killed a Taliban commander behind the July kidnapping of 23 South Koreans, while nearly 30 other rebels were killed in new clashes.

A British soldier serving under the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan was also killed in the intensifying fight against the extremist rebels.

Taliban commander Abdullah Jan, said to have been one of the main men behind the six-week kidnapping saga, was among a dozen rebels killed when US military aircraft struck a Taliban meeting in southcentral Ghazni province, police said.

The Afghan army was confirming reports from the battlefield that Jan was dead, defence ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi said.

"A number of Taliban were killed and injured," he told AFP. "We've heard reports about Mullah Abdullah Jan but I can't confirm it at this point. Right now we are investigating."

The US-led coalition, which carried out the air raid, could only confirm that several militants were killed. Four were detained, it said.

Troops had gone to the compound because they suspected it was "providing sanctuary to anti-coalition militants," it said in a statement.

Ghazni police chief Alishah Ahmadzai said earlier that Jan, Taliban commander for the Qarabagh district where the South Koreans were abducted, was killed with another Taliban district commander and 10 other men.

The Taliban said only four of its men had died and they did not include Jan.

The commander regularly spoke to the media during the kidnapping saga in which two of the hostages were killed before the remainder were freed last month. Police said he escaped a raid on his hideout on Friday.

Days after the South Koreans were freed, security forces launched two major raids in Ghazni that killed another commander involved in the kidnapping and several fighters.

In separate clashes reported Tuesday, 15 more "terrorists" were killed in two operations in the southern province of Helmand, the defence ministry said.

The desert province produces more than half of Afghanistan's illegal opium -- 93 percent of global production -- and sees some of the worst of the Taliban's insurgency which experts say is funded in part by drugs production.

Also in Helmand, a British soldier was killed when an army truck was hit by an explosion, the Ministry of Defence in London said Tuesday.

The blast was near the town of Gereshk which last week suffered one of the deadliest attacks in the Taliban insurgency -- a suicide bombing that killed 29 people, most of them civilians but including police.

Britain has around 7,000 troops in the country, the second-highest after the United States in ISAF which works alongside the coalition to try and bring security to troubled Afghanistan.

The new death takes to 164 the number of international soldiers killed in Afghanistan this year, most of them in hostile action, according to an AFP count.

Many of the 37 nations in ISAF have admitted they are seeing the hardest fighting in decades. Some have been criticised for not sending enough troops into the battle, or imposing caveats that restrict their involvement.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates warned Monday that Afghanistan was a "litmus test" for NATO and would be "a mark of shame on all of us" if the alliance faltered in laying the foundations for democracy here.

NATO 'on top of our game' in Afghanistan: officer

Matthew Fisher CanWest News Service Monday, September 17, 2007

KABUL -- Reports that NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the Canadian military are not faring well in their war against the Taliban are wrong, says the Canadian officer who oversees military intelligence in Afghanistan.

In fact, says Brig.-Gen. Jim Ferron, the battlefield successes of Canada and other NATO armies could spur peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban.

"I don't accept that NATO is on its back foot," Ferron said Monday in his first interview with a Canadian journalist since becoming NATO's chief of intelligence in Afghanistan eight months ago.

"If the statistics are properly analyzed, we are on top of our game right now."

The Taliban are by no means subdued, Ferron acknowledged. But, he insisted, "we are taking the conflict to the insurgents and forcing the issue."

Combat operations have successfully targeted the Taliban's middle and high leadership, said the general, who is also director general of military intelligence in Ottawa.

"It is one of the catalysts that could bring negotiations between the government and moderates in the Taliban."

Canada's battle group in the southern province of Kandahar has played a significant role in creating the circumstances that have caused both the Taliban and Afghan President Hamid Karzai to broach the prospect of peace talks for the first time since the Taliban launched an insurgency campaign after being deposed by U.S. forces in 2001.

"The Canadians have the initiative in Zahri/Panjwaii [districts] and always have," Ferron said in an interview in his office in NATO's fortress-like headquarters in Kabul. "Unfortunately, Operation Medusa there last year cost Canadian lives. But it led to real advances in security."

Ferron said Canadian and other NATO forces must repeatedly fight to secure areas where they have fought and won previous battles because there are not enough troops to always hold ground.

"I do not only mean NATO. I mean the Afghan National Army and Afghan police, too. We want the Afghans to be first, but the Afghan forces are not yet mature in numbers or in their level of training. This is especially true of the police."

"This will take time. In Afghanistan it is always about time."

While responsible for gathering military intelligence inside Afghanistan, Ferron said it was equally important for him and his multinational staff to keep a close watch on neighbouring countries when preparing a picture for battlefield commanders of the likely challenges ahead.

"You cannot just look at Afghanistan as if it is an island. This is a regional conflict and we cannot ignore the impact or the influence of the northern "-stans" [Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan] and Iran and Pakistan," Ferron said, waving his hand towards several large maps on his office walls.

"We are always concerned about the flow of weapons and armaments from Iran, although this should not be taken out of context. Weapons are being fed into Afghanistan from Iran but we have no indication that the government of Iran is involved in this.

"Do weapons flow in from Pakistan? Of course, they do. So do insurgents. The tribes in the border areas do not recognize specific boundary lines."

That Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf acknowledged the problems during a recent visit to Kabul and explained some of the initiatives his government was taking to counter them was "a positive development," Ferron said.

While unwilling to be drawn into the heated political debate now taking place in Canada about whether the Canadian battle group in the Afghan south should have its current mandate extended past the spring of 2009, Ferron said: "We view Canadian support as vital and we understand that if we do not have that support the mission cannot continue."

Placing on his desk a compact disc entitled Fifty Bridges, which is a tribute to Canadian soldiers serving in Afghanistan whose bodies have been taken along Highway 401 from the Trenton, Ont., air base to Toronto for post-mortems, the general said, "Things such as this show that Canadians still support the mission and this is heartening."

The general, who joined the army in Windsor, Ont., in 1975 and has served as a tank commander in Germany and on UN peacekeeping missions in Cyprus and Bosnia, described what Canadian forces are doing in Afghanistan as "an honourable and just cause."

One of the reasons Canadians are sometimes unsure about Canada's role over here is that the Taliban have become adept at what Ferron calls "miscommunication" because, unlike NATO, it is under no obligation to tell the truth and often makes false claims that are picked up uncritically by the media.

"What we are hoping for is an honest assessment by the media that is based on knowledge and not on rumours," he said. "Canadians must be realistic. We cannot be successful overnight ... It is all about the Canadian people understanding what we are doing here."

U.S. Praises Afghan Poppy Progress, Urges More Effort

WASHINGTON, September 18, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- The United States says Afghanistan has made some gains in its fight against the cultivation of opium poppies.

But in its annual report on drug trafficking around the world, the State Department also said opium accounted for one-third of Afghanistan's economy.

And it urged Kabul to increase its efforts against poppy cultivation, which provides much of the world’s heroin supply.

Christy McCampbell, the head of the department's Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement. said the Bush administration was aware that Afghan President Hamid Karzai faced great difficulties in ending cultivation of the opium poppy and that Bush applauded Karzai's efforts in the midst of a war with a resurgent Taliban.

"Opium accounts for one-third of their economy, according to UN statistics," McCampbell told reporters. "This contributes of course to the widespread public corruption, to the damages of economic growth -- of licit economic growth, and it definitely strengthens the insurgency problems there."

North-south Divide

The report also acknowledges that poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has increased by 17 percent this year over last year. But McCampbell emphasized that this increase was, in her words, "almost exclusively" restricted to the country's southern regions bordering Pakistan, where the Taliban has more influence.

The situation in northern Afghanistan is altogether different, McCampbell said.

"There is one model of success that can be drawn by comparing the marked difference in cultivation between the northern and southern provinces," she said. "Thirteen of the northern provinces are now poppy-free. That's seven more than last year that [were] poppy-free. In the north, sufficient security has allowed for alternative development programs to take effect, and it's helped the farmers to improve their economic livelihood."
Although Afghanistan doesn't face an immediate threat of a cut in U.S. aid, McCampbell said the Bush administration still wanted it to increase its efforts against poppy cultivation, which provides much of the world’s heroin supply.

"President Bush looks to the government of Afghanistan to take further steps to combat poppy cultivation and corruption," McCampbell said. "Despite the significant gains the country has made since 2001, the country does continue to face tremendous challenges. Not addressing these challenges now could undermine security, compromise democratic legitimacy, and imperil international support for vital assistance to that country."

'Little Change' Elsewhere

Afghanistan is one of 20 major drug-transit and drug-producing countries identified in the report.

McCampbell said those were the same as in 2006. They include countries in Latin America such as Bolivia and Guatemala; Caribbean countries like Haiti and Jamaica; and East Asia nations, including Laos and Myanmar.

The report designated these countries as having "demonstrably failed" to slow the spread of illegal drugs.

In some cases, the consequence for that failure could be a reduction in the amount of U.S. aid they receive.

The report said Washington would not impose penalties on Bolivia, the world's third-leading producer of coca, because it believes the government in La Paz, like Kabul, made a good-faith effort to fight its production last year. The coca leaf is the basis for cocaine.

Also, the United States identified Venezuela and Myanmar as having failed to fight the spread of illegal drugs in 2006. It said Venezuela's government did little to keep its territory from being a transit point for narcotics, and it accused Myanmar of being Asia's largest producer of methamphetamines.

Afghan govt rejects preconditions for Taliban talks

Tue Sep 18, 2007 4:47 AM EDT137 By Hamid Shalizi

KABUL (Reuters) - The Afghan government is ready for peace talks with the Taliban, but will not accept preconditions demanded by the Islamist rebels such as the withdrawal of all foreign troops, the presidential spokesman said on Tuesday.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai repeated his call to Taliban insurgents to enter peace negotiations in a speech he made on the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

But the Taliban said they would only accept talks if all of the roughly 50,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan left first, a new constitution was accepted and a stricter interpretation of Islamic law imposed.

"The Afghan government is not open to negotiations with any preconditions, we are not going to have any preconditions," presidential spokesman Humayun Hamidzada told a news conference.

The only promise the government would give the Taliban ahead of any talks was a guarantee for the safety of rebel negotiators.

The last two years has seen a steady rise in violence across Afghanistan as the Taliban insurgency has spread from the south to many areas previously considered safe.

The expansion of Taliban areas of operations comes despite heavy losses inflicted on their fighters by the Afghan army and mostly Western forces.

Analysts say frustration with the lack of security, the slow pace of development, official corruption and anger over civilian casualties in the fighting feeds Taliban support.

An outright military victory over the Taliban is also unlikely, so the best Karzai's government and its Western backers can hope for is some form of accommodation with the Taliban that splits them from their al Qaeda allies, diplomats say.

Afghan and U.S.-led forces overthrew the Taliban government in 2001 after it refused to hand over al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

After their defeat, the Taliban regrouped in the mountains along the border with Pakistan or in large parts of Afghanistan left untouched by the small U.S.-led invasion force -- places the new Afghan government also lacked the manpower to control.

The Taliban has also adapted more sophisticated tactics imported by al Qaeda fighters from Iraq such as suicide attacks and roadside bombs meant to convince Afghans that the government and Western troops cannot bring security.

A swift shift toward police training

GRAEME SMITH From Tuesday's Globe and Mail September 18, 2007 at 4:23 AM EDT

SANGISAR, AFGHANISTAN — The night before the launch of Canada's police mentorship program, Captain Marc-André Langelier picked his way through a darkened outpost toward his students.

The young officer from Royal 22nd Regiment had been assigned to teach 10 Afghan police officers how to survive and defend their new checkpoint.

The wooden beams of the guard posts smelled of freshly cut lumber, and the Canadian troops who built the fortification watched carefully for signs of the Taliban they had chased away only days before from this cluster of villages known as Sangisar, about 40 kilometres west of Kandahar city.

Capt. Langelier ducked into the metal shipping container that serves as the local police station, a small box cramped with shadowy men and Kalashnikov rifles, silhouetted in the glow of a penlight dangling on a wall. The Afghans ushered him to a place of honour in the room, on a cushion beside the police commander, and poured him a cup of tea.

He sipped the brackish liquid hesitantly, obviously trying to be polite, doing his bit to foster a relationship that is crucial for any hope of a successful outcome in Afghanistan. Turning the ragtag police into a professional and effective force is the cornerstone of Canada's strategy.

Canadians captured this terrain last year and set up checkpoints to keep the insurgents away, but the Taliban destroyed the outposts after the Canadians handed them over to Afghan authorities. Capt. Langelier's comrades reoccupied the same ground earlier this month, and plan to stay until he and the other trainers from the Police Operational Mentoring Liaison Team have prepared the local officers to fend for themselves.

Sitting the dark, with his legs crossed awkwardly, Capt. Langelier started a conversation that would reveal how difficult that task will be.

"We will start tomorrow morning," he said. "What do you want to learn?"

The police commander, Raz Mohammed, paused before replying. Only in his mid-20s, the leathery man said he has already fought more battles than any of the Canadians. He served in a militia for a tribal warlord who ruled this part of the district before the Taliban rose to power, and for a short period after their defeat. The international community poured millions of dollars into disarming such warlords, then rearmed many of the same gunmen with the creation of the Afghan National Auxiliary Police.

"I don't know what you could teach us," Mr. Mohammed told his foreign guest.

In fact, Capt. Langelier had not prepared to teach police as he trained for Afghanistan. The creation of the POMLT was a last-minute decision, amid rising concerns about the local police, and soldiers who had been scheduled to teach the Afghan army were redirected to the new program.

Still, much of the training will be similar for police and army, Capt. Langelier said, because in southern Afghanistan the police function as paramilitary units, fighting some of the most pitched battles.

"Will this program involve running?" the police commander asked, skeptically. He reminded the Canadian that his officers are observing the daylight fasts required during the holy month of Ramadan, which means they're weak for most of the day.

"That's a point," the captain replied. "I didn't really see that." They agreed that the training would be limited to two hours, starting at 6 a.m., when the soldiers are still digesting their pre-dawn meals.

The lessons would be tactical, Capt. Langelier said, suggesting the Afghans could learn how to ration their bullets, how to move under covering fire, and how to pin down their enemies with machine guns.

"These battles are a piece of cake for us. We've been doing this for 20 years," Mr. Mohammed observed.

The truth is that Afghan police desperately need to get stronger. Hundreds of officers have died this year as the Taliban increasingly targets them as symbols of government rule who are more easily killed than the foreign troops.

The local commander said the real problem is a lack of equipment and money. "My men won't work unless they are paid properly," he said. "Two months, three months, we don't get paid."

Mr. Mohammed accused the district police chief of taking the money intended for his salaries. The police are often more circumspect about directly accusing their superiors of corruption, but news had already reached the outpost that the district chief had been fired earlier in the day. A senior Canadian military official said that whoever replaces the chief, "he can't be worse than the previous guy, let me tell you."

The next morning at 6 a.m., Capt. Langelier stood in a field near the outpost and waited for his students. They straggled in a half-hour late and showed little enthusiasm for his description of hand signals they could use to communicate in battle.

"Sir, I don't think they care about these things," said an interpreter.

"It will come," Capt. Langelier said.

A babble of arguing voices erupted.

"They're saying we've been doing this for years," the interpreter said. "I try to tell them, 'You suffer so many casualties, you must learn so you do not die.' "

"Good, good," the captain said. "Did they understand?"

The interpreter looked uncertain. "I think so," he said.

WFP supports Afghan farmers with local wheat purchase

Source: United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) Date: 18 Sep 2007

KABUL - The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today announced a US$1.1 million purchase of 4,000 metric tons of locally grown wheat in Hirat, Afghanistan, as a way of overcoming continuing security problems hampering food deliveries, while at the same time supporting poor Afghan farmers.

"Extended drought and conflict has had a devastating effect on Afghanistan's wheat crop in recent years. But this year, we have had a better harvest, and WFP can buy a significant quantity of wheat locally," said Rick Corsino, WFP Afghanistan Country Director. "WFP makes every effort to buy wheat locally or regionally wherever it can do so without disrupting markets."

"The purchase of wheat from Hirat has also been well timed," Corsino added. " Insecurity on the southern ring road means we have been unable to move food for well over two months. With seriously depleted stocks, poor and hungry people in the west of the country have been suffering."

For the first time, WFP has also purchased 9,000 tons of wheat from Iran, which will be distributed in Badghis and Ghor provinces.

The recent break in supply affected over 100,000 people in the western region, including Afghans recently deported from Iran, vulnerable men and women who carry out community work in exchange for food, and those enrolled in vocational and literacy courses under food-for-training schemes.

"When WFP can, and when a good harvest allows, it makes good sense to purchase locally grown cereals for our assistance programmes," said Tony Banbury, WFP Asia Regional Director. "This wheat purchase will bring food to vulnerable people in Afghanistan who really need our help, and WFP's payments will help local farmers recover their livelihoods – a critical step for Afghanistan."

Insecurity in many parts of Afghanistan, where WFP aims to provide food to 5.4 million Afghans in 2007, presents a major obstacle to humanitarian deliveries and continues to threaten projects.

Since June 2006, there have been 28 security incidents involving trucks carrying WFP food. The vehicles have been attacked and looted, and seven people have died. An estimated 750 tons of food has been lost.

WFP's current three-year US$378 million Afghanistan operation is currently 64 percent funded. Donors include the United States (US$116 million), the United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund-CERF (US$28.3 million, for CERF see: http://ochaonline.un.org), India (US$24.5 million), Canada (US$12.2 million), Japan (US$12.3 million), Netherlands (US$8.2 million), Switzerland (US$4.3 million), Russian Federation ($3 million), Italy (US$2.3 million), Luxembourg (US$2 million), Saudi Arabia (US$2 million), Belgium (US$1.5 million), France (US$1.3 million), and Germany (US$1.3 million ).

WFP is the world's largest humanitarian agency: on average, each year, we give food to 90 million poor people to meet their nutritional needs, including 58 million hungry children, in 80 of the world's poorest countries. WFP – We Feed People.

Minister's praise for battlefield medical care during visit to Afghanistan

Tuesday 18 September 2007 14:04 Ministry Of Defence (National)

Derek Twigg, Under Secretary of State for Defence, has flown into the UK base at Camp Bastion, southern Afghanistan, for a three day visit to the high tech field hospital that British forces have built in the middle of one of the world's most inhospitable deserts.

Doctors and medics at the field hospital use some of the most modern techniques to treat soldiers' injuries - regularly making the difference between life and death. Mr Twigg met with consultant doctors who serve on Emergency Response Teams and are on constant standby to fly out to the battlefield and give expert trauma care to injured troops.

Derek Twigg said:

"12 Mechanized Brigade has fought hard and successfully during their operational tour. Every day on the front line here in Afghanistan, our soldiers and airmen act with great courage, and the doctors and medics who treat their injuries pull out all the stops to give them the best possible care. They are all a credit to the Armed Forces, and we owe them a great deal.

"The field hospital and the Emergency Response Teams are an outstanding and an essential part of our capability in Afghanistan. I'm here to see the work our medical services do and get their advice on how to continue to improve on the excellent care we already provide on operations."

Whilst at Camp Bastion, Mr Twigg heard the sad news that a soldier from 36 Engineer Regiment had been killed during a routine logistics convoy near Gereshk, Helmand Province.

Mr Twigg said:

"I am deeply saddened by this news. My immediate thoughts and prayers are with his family, friends and comrades as they struggle to make sense of their loss."

The field hospital at Camp Bastion has cared for nearly 550 people already this year, and its specialist staff has the equipment to care for very serious injuries. It includes laboratory facilities for blood transfusion and intensive care beds which allow the doctors to provide detailed monitoring and life support for seriously injured soldiers.

After his helicopter touched down at Bastion, Mr Twigg visited UK personnel who are being cared for at the hospital and shared a meal with doctors and medics of the UK Joint Medical Group who serve there.

During his tour of the hospital, Mr Twigg was given a demonstration of its high tech equipment and was shown, new X-ray machines and blood clotting agents which give the field hospital a specialist capability to deal with complex and serious wounds.

During Mr Twigg's visit he was briefed on the progress of a number of vital reconstruction and development programmes being carried out in the Lashkar Gah and Gereshk areas. He also visited the Bost Hospital in Lashkar Gah where he met a number of Afghan staff and patients being treated there.

Mr Twigg was briefed on the current operation by Commander Regional Command (South) Major General Jacko Page, Brigadier John Lorimer, the Commander of the UK led Task Force Helmand and senior officials. He also took the opportunity to meet some soldiers from 12 Mechanized Brigade.

In Kabul, the biggest fear is crime
TheStar.com - September 18, 2007 Bruce Campion-Smith OTTAWA BUREAU CHIEF

Competition is fierce, business is poor in a city where threat of thieves overshadows Taliban

KABUL–Strolling past the carpet and jewellery stores along Chicken St., the fighting and bombings in Kandahar seem like a distant problem.

Indeed, ask a few shopkeepers who work this favoured haunt of visitors what worries them most, the Taliban and insurgents aren't mentioned.

Instead, their talk turns to everyday problems that could just as easily be heard on Yonge St. – crime and worries about the economy.

"The last year has not been good. We are afraid," said Hamid Noori, who runs the Bamyan Gallery Carpet Centre.

He complains that crime is on the upswing, especially roaming thieves who shake down people for their cash.

"It's a big problem, groups searching people for money," he said.

In his darkened shop, the accomplished salesman is quick to unfold colourful wool and silk carpets, one after another until they're stacked on the floor, all in hopes of enticing a buyer. But competition is fierce on this strip, a popular stop for visitors to Kabul, and business has not been good lately, he said.

Yet Noori blames the crime in part on the economic disparity on stark display on every street corner in the Afghan capital.

This is a city of sharp contrasts, where money pouring in from the international community has given birth to some good restaurants and one swank hotel, the Serena.

But it's like a gated community, with foreign dignitaries and diplomats emerging from their enclaves in armoured SUVs, carving through the chaotic traffic with machine-gun-toting guards hanging out the back.

But they rush past scenes of desperate poverty, small storefronts where residents try to eke out a living, past beggars on the street, many missing a limb, a testament to this country's legacy of land mines. Women in burqas holding small children stop visitors and implore, "Please sir, food for baby."

"Economic problems make that (crime) problem. People are poor," Noori tells a visitor.

But while crime and economy are their everyday concerns, shopkeepers also have a view on the insurgency in southern Afghanistan. And President Hamid Karzai's proposed solution – negotiations with the Taliban – is a response endorsed by some on the street.

"It is good. Peace is good. If government want to speak with the Taliban, we prefer that over the fighting," Noori said.

Across the street, at Enfield and Tower Guns House, Abdul Hadi and his son Hamid Fahim watch the pedestrian traffic outside their dusty shop window and express support for negotiating with insurgents.

"If they speak with the Taliban, the country not have any problem," said Fahim, 19.

But he expresses caution about the Taliban's one chief demand – the withdrawal of all foreign troops.

"I will not trust Taliban. If (foreign troops) are not here, everyone will have troubles," Fahim said.

His father says he's happy his six children are not growing up under the strict Taliban rule. But he expresses a certain nostalgia for the firm justice of that era that helped keep crime in check.

"I don't like the Taliban times. But if a person kill a guy, the Taliban would kill him," Hadi said.

Kabul has not been immune to terror attacks. But it has seen nothing on the scale of suicide bombings or roadside blasts that have terrorized Kandahar. But even here, diplomats and aid organization workers are restricted in their movements, fearing attack or kidnap attempts.

Wander a little farther and a visitor finds dissent in the carpet store operated by Muktar Subir, 19.

"That's not a good idea," he says of Karzai's overture for talks. "I don't like the Taliban."

Subir says he became friends with two Canadian soldiers during the time they were based in Kabul. Foreign troops have helped Afghanistan, he says. He doesn't want to see them gone, especially under pressure from the Taliban.

But ask Ahmed Samir about the talks with the Taliban and he shrugs. Not a care for today, said Samir, a clothing store owner who stands behind his counter framed by the bright colours of shirts for women and children.

"Business is not good," he tells a visitor.

On this day, he's more interested in making a sale than talking about insurgents.

In Afghanistan, trainer sees a different war

RUBÉN ROSARIO

Article Last Updated: 09/18/2007 12:04:57 AM CDT

"That's just unbelievable,'' Andrew Schmidt said over lunch.

Schmidt, a former Minneapolis cop, is reacting to a TV spot I saw recently where clubbers leaving a Hollywood nightspot are asked what year the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks took place.

None of the 20- and 30-somethings got the year right. But they could quickly name Brad Pitt's and Angelina Jolie's kid.

Now Schmidt, 38, knows, too - after listening to the radio while driving his son to school last week.

"I just heard that their daughter Zahara needs hip replacement surgery at 2 years of age,'' he said. "Nothing about Afghanistan."

More than a year ago, Schmidt traded pimps and gun traffickers for exchanging bullets with the Taliban. He's fighting the good fight, it seems, but in a place that is - shamefully - becoming as much an afterthought with some folks as the worst act of terrorism on American soil.

Schmidt, a member of the "secret'' army of private contractors assisting U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, is back in town for a spell. What he has to say trumps celebrity gossip anytime.

A 15-year police veteran, Schmidt teamed up eight years ago with a St. Louis-area cop and federal prosecutors to dismantle a Minneapolis-based juvenile prostitution ring that operated in 24 states and Canada.

Though he resigned from the force, he remains a staff member of the Law Enforcement Instructors Alliance, which trains cops in the U.S. and overseas on investigative techniques that include dealing with prostitution and human trafficking.

But in early 2006, Schmidt, who grew up in southwestern Minnesota, found his police career wanting and his domestic life in turmoil. The divorced father of one desperately needed to get away and take a break somewhere. Some folks might have thought Cancun. Schmidt chose Kabul and a dusty, one-room mud-brick home routinely invaded by camel spiders.

He signed on with a military security outfit that has a U.S. government contract to help establish, maintain and train Afghanistan's police force. At 70,000, it is a force roughly twice as large as the New York Police Department and about 20,000 larger than Afghanistan's national army.

He served first as a key adviser to a regional Afghan police commander. He is now assigned to a U.S. Army 7th Special Forces unit based southern Afghanistan.

The Afghan police motto should be "to protect and serve and whip the Taliban.''

"The police there are much larger than the army,'' Schmidt noted. "They are armed with AK-47s, RPGs (rocket-propelled grenade launchers) and mortars, and they do the bulk of the fighting.''

Schmidt has weathered numerous ambushes and protracted firefights against mostly Arabic and Pakistani-led Taliban insurgent forces. He describes his experience so far as "violent but satisfying.''

"I believe I am accomplishing something good - trying to make sure another World Trade Center doesn't happen again in this country,'' he said. "I also don't think about anything much else other than to make it through another day, and that's refreshing because it simplifies life.''

Part of his job is mentoring and retaining Afghan cops, particularly in the remote regions where corruption and defection are major temptations.

"These guys make $70 a month, and in the past they had not even received payment until we took over payroll,'' he said. "The (Taliban) is fueled by organized crime, which tells the cops, 'Bring your rifle, come to our side and we'll pay you $150 a month.' They figure that if they are fighting anyway, they might as well make double the money.''

Schmidt believes Afghani-stan, as well as the primary mission to go after Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida in that country, got shortchanged by the decision to invade Iraq.

"I think about how much better off Afghanistan would be right now had we not gone into Iraq,'' he said. "The problem is that this country has been blown up for 30 years. The U.S. went in, and the people thought, 'Finally someone coming in to help fix things.'

"Then, we went into Iraq. We weren't building roads" in Afghanistan, he said. "We weren't building bridges any more.''

Afghanistan remains the No. 1 producer of the poppy that provides opium and heroin, and for two good reasons - fertile lands and their remoteness, Schmidt said.

"There's not one piece of railroad track in the whole country, and it's mostly dirt roads,'' he said. "Grow wheat or another crop, it will spoil or rot before there's a chance to get it to market.''

He also now understands the great difficulty U.S. forces and others had in locating or pinning down bin Laden's whereabouts shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"It's just so mountainous and remote, you could hide a thousand bin Ladens in that country 100 miles outside of Kabul and never find them,'' Schmidt said. "There's a reason why this country has never been conquered.''

Because the U.S. combat force in Afghanistan is about 25,000, or roughly one-seventh the 169,000 in Iraq, Schmidt believes it is statistically a more dangerous place for American soldiers. Combat fatalities so far stand at 437, according to the latest Department of Defense tally. In Iraq, 3,773 have been killed in combat.

"Four deaths in a month here is like 40 a month in Iraq,'' he said.

Schmidt has developed a great affinity for the populace.

"The Afghans are great people,'' he says. "They are a hard-working, open and giving people. They want a strong, unified country, and to me, trying to help them achieve that would be an accomplishment.''

Schmidt plans to return to Minnesota after his contract expires. He would return to law enforcement "in a heartbeat'' if he finds or is offered a position that allows him to continue his passion of locking up flesh peddlers and rescuing children from prostitution.

"Internet child pornography is, no question, a terrible crime, and I'm glad that human trafficking has become a big issue,'' said Schmidt, who worked a few cases with slain St. Paul vice cop Gerald Vick and considered him a friend.

"But still, there are more of our own Minnesota girls trafficked into prostitution than there are women brought from other countries into the United States. This frustrates me. It drives me crazy. Who is going to speak for them?''

Noble thoughts, Andy. But can you name Britney Spears' two kids?

AFGHANISTAN: Returnees shun specially allocated housing sites

HERAT, 18 September 2007 (IRIN) - Only 19 out of 1,700 returning families from Iran and Pakistan have settled on land in Herat Province, western Afghanistan, allocated to them over a year ago.

Taqi and Naqi settlements, 30km west of Herat city, were allocated to the families to ease the housing problems of returning refugees, but lack of basic services - drinking water, schools, hospitals, electricity and security - has discouraged settlement.

Most repatriated families who do not have their own homes in Afghanistan live in rented houses, with relatives or in city slums.

“We cannot build a house on a piece of land given to us in an arid desert,” said Mohammad Ashraf who lives with his family in a rented house in Herat city. Other returnees echoed this view, stressing there were no jobs in the designated sites.

Over four million Afghans have been repatriated from Iran and Pakistan in the last five years, according to an October 2006 survey conducted by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). Only 41 percent of returning Afghans said they had a house in their home country.

In order to tackle the problem, in 2005 the government announced a land distribution scheme whereby the most vulnerable returnees would receive a plot of land on which to build their own house. Plots were allocated to thousands of people across the country.

“We plan to allocate land to hundreds of families in 57 locations in 29 provinces until March 2008,” Shojauddin Shoja, an adviser at the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation Affairs (MRRA), told IRIN.

A large number of beneficiaries in different parts of the country, however, point to the lack of basic services and other facilities which have prevented them from settling in the allocated sites.

Returnees in Takhar Province, northeastern Afghanistan, for example, complained about a lack of livelihood opportunities at one such site about 25km from the provincial capital, Taloqan.

In northern Balkh Province people who were expected to settle in a site about 20km from the provincial capital said high transport costs and lack of a local market meant they could not live there.

“Certainly there can be a situation where people have a house or have a piece of land, but that piece of land is not sufficient to meet their needs… and that is a major issue in this country,” said Salvatore Lombardo, a UNHCR representative in Afghanistan.

About one million Afghan returnees have received assistance to build houses through UNHCR’s shelter programme since 2002, the agency told IRIN. “It is still not enough,” conceded Lombardo.

The UNHCR is helping the Afghan authorities to implement five pilot projects in which returnee settlements will be established in five provinces where minimum services would also be provided.

Lombardo called on the Afghan government to ensure access to housing for vulnerable returnees through loans and other support programmes.

However, insecurity rather than housing is the main concern for about three million Afghan refugees still in Pakistan and Iran.

“Housing is not the decisive factor in motivating or discouraging the return of refugees… It is only one factor among several, including access to health, education and livelihoods,” Lombardo said.

kn/ad/at/ar/cb

Northern Afghanistan: The enemy within

For residents of the northern province of Takhar, there are worse things than the Taliban. From IWPR.

By Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi in Takhar for IWPR (18/09/07)

While attention focuses on fighting in southern Afghanistan, there are parts of the north where the law is made not by Kabul, but by militia commanders who use violence and intimidation to maintain their hold over the civilian population.

An IWPR investigation in the northern province in Takhar has revealed a succession of stories of abduction and brutal assault. A militia commander denied any involvement, while officials said merely that people should use legal channels to pursue their complaints - no easy route when local institutions tend to favor the strong over the weak.

At a national level, the Afghan government appears unwilling or unable to curb the :"warlords" - and some argue that it ignores the problem at its peril, as these strongmen not only rule the roost on the ground but have been allowed to permeate and influence the institutions of state.

Habib Rassoul, a resident of Takhar, cannot talk about his wife without tears of grief and rage. For the past three months, he has had no word of her.

"Commander Piram Qul kidnapped my wife while I was away in Kabul helping my sick brother," he said. "I have no idea what has happened to her. I went to every office, complained to every official, but no one will help me. They are all afraid of Piram Qul."

According to Habib, the kidnapping was intended to punish him for attending a demonstration in April against the dominance of local militia commanders in the province.

"The government is lying when it says it’s in control of the country," he said bitterly. "There is no government here, just local commanders who control our destinies. NATO and ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] are busy in the south, and they have left us in the clutches of local commanders who are more dangerous than the Taliban."

Takhar, in the far north of Afghanistan on the border with Tajikistan, receives little attention from the Kabul government or the foreign military forces in comparison with the violent and volatile southern provinces. While ISAF and the Afghan National Army fight pitched battles against the resurgent Taliban in Helmand, Kandahar, Uruzgan and other southern provinces, Takhar like other northern areas has remained relatively quiet, and has consequently been left to its own devices.

During the early Nineties when the mujahiddeen who had fought the Soviets were in control, Takhar held by Jamiat-e-Islami, one of the most powerful factions in the Northern Alliance. While Jamiat has made the transition from armed grouping to legitimate political organization, Takhar residents complain that many of the strongmen on the ground have not ceded control and are still using their influence and their guns to rule the province.

"I have been threatened with death six times by these local commanders," said Habib. "You can go to every office, from the lowliest civil servant right up to the governor, but they cannot act against the commanders because they are scared of them. We don't know where to turn."

Habib is one of hundreds of people who claim to have been victimized by "warlords" in Takhar. Most of the people interviewed for this report would not give their names and appeared to be in fear of their lives.

One man, 31 years old, held pictures of his two sons, aged eight and six. He wept as he told his story.

"Commander Piram Qul took my two sons from my home last year. He killed them, put their bodies in a sack and dumped them in the river," he said , tears pouring down his cheeks.

He claimed that the murders were retribution for his own continuing protests against local warlords.

"Piram Qul told me when he took my sons, 'This is your punishment for your propaganda against the commanders'," he said.

"I went everywhere. I wanted justice. I wanted to avenge the murder. But everyone told me just to forget it. No one listened to me."

Mullah Piram Qul was a powerful Jamiat-e-Islami commander in Takhar before the beginning of the nationwide disarmament programs that followed the ousting of the Taliban regime in late 2001. According to Piram Qul himself, he had 5,000 men under arms at the time.

Now he is a member of Afghanistan's parliament, one of nine representatives from Takhar who sit in the legislature in Kabul and help shape the country's future.

Piram Qul rejected all allegations that he is implicated in abductions and killings.

"That is a complete lie," he told IWPR. “These accusations are false. The people who are accusing me are either Taliban or have connections to the Taliban. They are just trying to cause a rift between the central government and the former commanders. They are trying to provoke the mujahiddeen to act against the government, and to weaken the regime."

Piram Qul insisted that he had no gunmen under his control, and that he had handed all his weapons over during the DDR (Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration) and DIAG (Disbandment of Illegal Armed Groups) programs.

DDR and DIAG, part of the generously-funded Afghan New Beginnings Program backed by the United Nations, sought to reduce the number of men with guns and break up the paramilitary groups they belonged to. But even the proponents of these programs admit that the lofty goals that were set initially have not been achieved.

Piram Qul was adamant, however, that he had made the transition from militia commander to parliamentarian.

"I am a representative of the people," he said. "I am with the government, and I work within the framework of the law."

Anyone with a case against him was welcome to seek legal redress, he added.

"Let them prove their charges," he said. "Nowadays we have laws, police, attorneys and courts. Accusations made outside these institutions are merely an attempt to heap blame on someone."

Takhar's provincial governor Latif Ibrahimi agreed.

"If someone makes an accusation, the government has clear procedures for doing something about it," he told IWPR. "When a crime is committed, there is the district governor, there is the chief of police, and there are courts. People should go through these channels, and the government will act in accordance with the law."

The governor denied that his administration was in any way intimidated by the commanders.

"We implement the law equally for everyone," he said. "We are not under the influence of the commanders. But we cannot punish people on the basis of accusations. The accuser has to prove his charge."

Victims say that the government is unwilling or unable to help them.

Daulat Bibi, 40, told IWPR that she was raped by 13 men working for a local commander.

"I was hospitalized for one and a half months," she said. "I went to the district governor's office, but no one listened to me. Those who raped me walk free, and the government did not even bother to arrest them. I went everywhere, but people told me, 'There is no law that can do anything against these commanders. Just forget it.'"

Human rights organizations confirm that the government does not seem capable of resisting the power of the commanders, and that people with grievances often have little recourse.

"These people are really unfortunate," said Mohammad Zahir Zafari, head of the northeastern division of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. "In the past these commanders destroyed their houses. But now the commanders get appointed as district governors, police chiefs and so on. Where are people supposed to go to defend their rights?"

Zafari's organization receives an average of four complaints a week against commanders, he said. But in most of the cases where formal charges are brought, the courts decide in favor of the commanders.

"Five months ago, the son of one of the minor commanders raped a 10-year-old boy in Bangee district," he said. "The child was injured, with a perforated bowel. But when the child's father tried to sue the commander, he had no success. The commander used his money and influence, and the whole matter was decided in his favor."

There were hundreds of such cases, he added, concluding, "It is a disaster here."

A member of the Takhar provincial council who did not want to be named said that the commanders were a law unto themselves.

"Every single former commander has created his own local government in the districts," said the councilor. "They do whatever they please, with no regard for the law. No one, including the institutions of central government, can do anything without the permission of these local commanders."

He cited an example from Takhar's Chah Ab district, where the appointment of a mayor was opposed by a local commander.

"The mayor was run out of his office immediately after he got in," he said. "The commander told him, 'I have been governing here for years, and I have the power. Anyone who wants to be appointed needs to get my permission first. Not like you.'"

There were many similar cases, added the councilor. "That's just a snapshot of the whole problem," he said. “There is a government within the government here."

Abdurrahman, a shopkeeper in Rustaq district, showed his scarred stomach as he told his tale of violence and intimidation.

"There's a former Jamiat commander who owes me 12,000 he said," he said. "He used to shop in my store. But every time I tried to bring it up with him, he threatened to kill me. I was beaten with a gun just for asking for my rights.

"When I saw that no one was paying any attention to me, I just said to hell with it. I don't know who to complain to. Wherever I turn, I still see that the only law comes from the barrel of a gun."

Nor is the problem confined to outlying districts. Mohammad Ehsan, 25, is a resident of Takhar's capital, Taloqan.

"I was engaged to Najiba, who was 20 years old," he said. "Two months after we got engaged, a commander took my fiancée by force. Now she is his wife. I have been threatened and told not to pursue my case. Neither the government nor the girl’s family will listen to me, because they are all afraid of the commander."

Political analyst Qayum Babak, the editor of Jahan-e-Nau newspaper, blames the president for allowing the militia leaders to survive and prosper.

"Everyone knows that the government of [President Hamid] Karzai has been very soft on the local commanders over the past six years, and this has encouraged them to try to regain their lost power," he said. "These commanders have taken advantage of Karzai's leniency, and have grown like a cancer. They will choke the life out of the Karzai government."

Former commanders now have positions of influence within the government, which they can use to their advantage, he said.

"They have used their positions to make laws that prevent anyone from putting them on trial," said Babak. If we look at the situation realistically, these commanders make the law, they are in the executive, and they control the provinces. So where are the poor people to turn?"

While the attention of the president and the foreign forces is directed towards the south, the commanders are extending their reach in the north, he said.

"Both the government and NATO think that the real danger is the Taliban, and that these commanders are not a threat," he said.

"But I want to tell them that these commanders will paralyze the central government. They are more dangerous than the Taliban."

Author Hosseini Returns to Afghanistan

Morning Edition, September 18, 2007 · Afghanistan saw 4 million of its refugees flood back into the country after the Taliban government fell in 2001. Some are still suffering. Others are still returning. And that prompted best selling novelist Khaled Hosseini to lend his literary celebrity to the cause. The author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns returned to Afghanistan for the first time since those novels came out. As a good will envoy for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Hosseini traveled to Kabul and the countryside around it. He speaks with Renee Montagne.

UN purchases local produce to feed hungry Afghans and boost farming

18 September 2007 – In a twin move to feed hungry Afghans and stimulate local production, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today announced the $1.1 million purchase of 4,000 metric tons of locally grown wheat in the western Herat region as a way of overcoming continuing security problems hampering deliveries from further afield.

“When WFP can, and when a good harvest allows, it makes good sense to purchase locally grown cereals for our assistance programmes,” the agency’s Asia Regional Director Tony Banbury said. “This wheat purchase will bring food to vulnerable people in Afghanistan who really need our help, and WFP’s payments will help local farmers recover their livelihoods, a critical step for Afghanistan.”

The recent break in supply affected over 100,000 people in the western region, including Afghans recently deported from Iran, vulnerable men and women who carry out community work in exchange for food, and those enrolled in vocational and literacy courses under food-for-training schemes.

“Extended drought and conflict has had a devastating effect on Afghanistan’s wheat crop in recent years. But this year, we have had a better harvest, and WFP can buy a significant quantity of wheat locally,” WFP Afghanistan Country Director Rick Corsino said. “WFP makes every effort to buy wheat locally or regionally wherever it can do so without disrupting markets.”

For the first time, WFP has also purchased 9,000 tons of wheat from Iran, which will be distributed in Badghis and Ghor provinces.

“The purchase of wheat from Herat has also been well timed,” Mr. Corsino said. “Insecurity on the southern ring road means we have been unable to move food for well over two months. With seriously depleted stocks, poor and hungry people in the west of the country have been suffering.”

Insecurity in many parts of Afghanistan, where WFP aims to provide food to 5.4 million people this year, presents a major obstacle to humanitarian deliveries and continues to threaten projects. Since June 2006, there have been 28 security incidents involving trucks carrying WFP food. The vehicles have been attacked and looted, seven people have died, and an estimated 750 tons of food has been lost.

WFP’s current three-year $378 million Afghan operation is at present 64 per cent funded.

[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.]