In this bulletin:

• Bomb attack on NATO convoy kills eight Afghans: police
• Afghanistan: Ten schools torched in past three weeks
• New U.S. commander in Afghanistan vows to stabilize security
• Pakistani forces retake control of Taliban's center
• Rights group: Afghan trials unfair
• Afghans hold brief, witness-free trials for former U.S. detainees
• Afghan FM: Olympic Games must not be used as political means
• Can You Hear Me Now? Taliban Fears Cell Phones
• Afghan minister's trip to Kashmir
• Clinton promises more focus on Pakistan, Afghanistan
• 'No Redeployment of Korean Troops to Afghanistan'
• The Taliban talk the talk
• Dems Talk Afghanistan, Sans An Action Plan
• A 'different' war in Afghanistan
• Judge: Afghan Chief Must Stand Trial

Bomb attack on NATO convoy kills eight Afghans: police

Thursday, April 10, 2008

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A suicide car bomber in Afghanistan attacked a Canadian military convoy on Thursday killing eight civilians and wounding 22 people, among them three Canadian soldiers, authorities said.

There was no claim of responsibility, but the Taliban have vowed to step up their war to expel foreign troops and bring down the Western-backed government. Intermittent fighting has been picking up recently after a traditional winter lull.

Among those killed in the blast were three children of a roadside vendor, the Interior Ministry said.

Kandahar police chief Sayed Aqa Saqib initially said none of the soldiers in the NATO convoy was hurt as the bomber set off his explosives just after it had passed. But the Interior Ministry later said three Canadian soldiers were wounded.

The NATO-led force, which has 47,000 troops in Afghanistan said three soldiers were slightly wounded but did not give their nationality.

"ISAF troops immediately responded to calls for assistance, airlifting the injured to a hospital for treatment and securing the area," NATO said, referring to its International Security Assistance Force.

Saqib said eight people had been killed but the Interior Ministry said the death toll was five. NATO said it had reports of nine dead. Two policemen were wounded.

Despite the presence of about 60,000 foreign soldiers led by NATO and the U.S. military, as well as 140,000 Afghan troops and police, the Taliban have made a comeback in the past two years and more than 11,000 people have been killed in violence.

Most of the violence has been in the south and east, in ethnic Pashtun areas near the Pakistani border, but attacks have also been taking place in the north and west, which have been generally peaceful.

An armed forces spokesman in Germany said a suicide bomber attacked a German patrol in northern Afghanistan on Wednesday. None of the Germans was killed or wounded.

Afghanistan: Ten schools torched in past three weeks

KABUL, 10 April 2008 (IRIN) - Unidentified gunmen in different parts of Afghanistan have attacked at least 10 schools in the past three weeks, Ministry of Education (MoE) officials told IRIN.

Armed assailants, believed to be associated with Taliban insurgents, have torched three schools in Kunduz, two in Kandahar, and one school each in Helmand, Paktia, Khost, Wardak and Farah provinces since the new school year began on 23 March, according to the MoE.

Armed men broke into Ortablaq school in Imam Saheb District of northern Kunduz Province and cut-off the ears of a watchman before setting the school ablaze on 4 April, the Ministry of Interior said in a press release.

Apart from the torching, there have been other attacks: Kandahar Province Department of Education officials said five schools had been attacked in the same period; in another incident one teacher was reportedly killed when a school was attacked in Khost Province, south eastern Afghanistan, in late March, MoE said.

"Nearly all attacks on schools take place during the night so there are no casualties among students," said Hamid Elmi, an MoE spokesman in Kabul.

Ministry of Education statistics shown to IRIN indicate there were 2,450 "terrorist" attacks on schools from March 2006 to February 2008. In the same period 235 schoolchildren, students, teachers and other education workers were killed, and 222 wounded.

About 500 schools have remained closed due to insecurity, particularly in the volatile south where Taliban insurgency has also hindered humanitarian and development access. "Up to 300,000 students cannot go to school because of insecurity and threats," said the MoE's Elmi.

`Madrasas' not attacked

Taliban insurgents oppose female education and say the school curriculum is "un-Islamic", a charge rejected by the Afghan government and moderate Islamic scholars.

"Attacking schools, children and civilians is fundamentally against Islamic principles," Afghan President Hamid Karzai told a gathering of teachers in Kabul in March. He said insurgents were attacking schools and schoolchildren at the behest of the "enemies of Afghanistan".

On the other hand, none of Afghanistan's 336 Islamic schools or `madrasas', or their 91,000 students, have been attacked in recent years, Elmi noted.

"Though the government promotes both `madrasas' and (secular) schools, the Taliban only attack schools," Elmi said.

Most of the Taliban's senior leaders, including spiritual leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, were reportedly educated in `madrasas' in Pakistan, and `madrasas' flourished in Afghanistan during their six-year rule (1995-2001).

Record numbers at school

The school attacks intensified just as a record six million pupils went back to school. "Never before in the history of Afghanistan were six million students at school," said Elmi, adding that over 35 percent of them were female.

The unprecedented increase in the number of children at school compares well with the the situation six years ago when fewer than two million were at school, but the safety of staff and pupils has become a growing concern, officials said.

New U.S. commander in Afghanistan vows to stabilize security

KABUL, April 10 (Xinhua) -- New commander of the U.S.-led Coalition forces in Afghanistan Major General Jeffrey J. Schloesser on Thursday vowed to spare no efforts in stabilizing security to the post-Taliban nation.

    "Today we pledge to work for the progress and prosperity of Afghanistan, we pledge to support Afghan National Security Forces and Afghan security," he told audience at his first remarks after taking over the command from his predecessor General David Rodriguez.

    At the ceremony held in Bagram Air Field, the headquarters of the U.S.-led Coalition forces 50km north of Afghanistan capital Kabul, he also assured to support Afghan National Security Forces and look forward to work with Afghan people.

    Presently, more than 21,000 U.S.-led Coalition forces from 21 countries have been serving in Afghanistan to help stabilize security and development process in the war-battered country.

    More than 43,000 NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have also been deployed in Afghanistan to help ensure durable peace and security in this land.

Pakistani forces retake control of Taliban's center

Islamabad, April 10, IRNA

Pakistan-Forces
Pakistani security forces retook a center of local Taliban in the country's scenic Swat valley early Thursday a day after the militants appeared in the area after months in hiding, officials said.

Taliban offered evening prayers and had also announced to offer Friday prayers at Imam Dheri, a small village, three kilometers from Mingora, the main city in the Valley.

The early morning operation by the troops forced the militants to leave their center and move to nearby mountains, locals said.

They said the forces had also shelled areas around the Imam Dheri mosque late last night hours after the militants announced they had entered the area again.

The forces had captured the mosque when they launched a major operation in November, which resulted into the killing of up to 200 people from both sides.

The area has seen suicide bombings and bomb attacks against the army and police in different parts of the Valley.

A cleric Maulana Fazlullah, who had fought along side Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, is leading the militants in Swat valley.

Officials said the security forces established set up a permanent check post at Imam Dheri after they took over control the center of the militants to stop them from entering the area.

Locals said that local Taliban had started activities in Matta and Kabal, two major towns in the Valley after the new government in the North West Frontier Province formed a 6-member traditional Jirga or council to hold dialogue with the militants.

Witnesses said that the militants came out in vehicles and briefly patrolled the area on Wednesday.

Imam Dheri served as the headquarters of local Taliban commander Fazlullah during the clashes between the security forces and the Taliban.

Fazlullah and his followers shifted to unknown locations, while the security forces claimed to have flushed them out of their stronghold a few months back. However, alarm bells started ringing in the minds of locals, with the resumption of Taliban activities.

The spokesman for militants, Sirajuddin said Maulana Fazlullah and his supporters were ready to talk to the committee and the Jirga that was being constituted for peacefully ending the conflict in Swat.

Rights group: Afghan trials unfair

By ALISA TANG, Associated Press Writer april 10, 2008

A human rights group charged on Thursday that Afghanistan is prosecuting detainees transferred from U.S.-run prisons in arbitrary and unfair trials with little evidence.

Human Rights First lauded the Afghan government's decision to try the detainees, formerly held in the prisons at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and Bagram, Afghanistan, in a court of law. But the New York-based group said in a new report that the legal proceedings are unfairly based on little more than allegations by American officials.

"Where there is evidence of criminal activity, persons should be tried in proceedings that comport with international fair trial standards," Human Rights First said in its report. "In Afghanistan, the trials of former Bagram and Guantanamo detainees being conducted since October 2007 fall far short of this mark."

In trials that last between 30 minutes and an hour, defendants have been sentenced to prison terms ranging from three to 20 years, it said.

An Afghan official overseeing the cases said he believes the proceedings have been transparent and fair.

More than 250 Afghan prisoners have been transferred from U.S. custody in Guantanamo or the military prison at Bagram to Afghan custody. The prisoners are being held and tried at a new, U.S.-funded block of the Pul-i-Charkhi prison on the outskirts of Kabul.

The detainees are being charged under Afghan law with crimes ranging from treason to destruction of government property.

Human Rights First, which conducted its research in January and February and observed two trials, said that 65 of those detainees have been convicted "in violation of fair trial standards." Seventeen have been acquitted.

The group also examined court documents and interviewed detainees' family members, lawyers, judges and Afghan government officials.

Among the group's findings:

• During the trials, no prosecution witnesses and little or no physical evidence are presented.

• Defense lawyers are not present when a client is interrogated by the prosecution or when intelligence officials collect evidence, so defendants are unable to challenge the evidence or cross-examine witnesses.

• Lawyers are appointed to the case after the investigation is concluded and generally have only five days to review the government's evidence prior to trial.

It said 30 Afghans remain in Guantanamo. More than 600 are being held in Bagram.

"Transfers must be done responsibly," the report said.

Mohammad Ishaq Aleko, head of the independent commission set up by the Afghan Justice Ministry to oversee the detainee transfers, said the commission has studied the cases and monitored the legal proceedings from beginning to end.

"The work of the judges, prosecutors and defense lawyers has been excellent," he said. "So far the trials of these detainees have been fair."

More than 40 detainees have been acquitted and are about to be released soon, he said, noting that the current process was an improvement from prisoners being detained indefinitely, as some have been in U.S. custody.

"These detainees were being held in prison without trial," Aleko said. "At least now the prisoners know how long they are going to stay in jail."

Afghans hold brief, witness-free trials for former U.S. detainees

KABUL (International Herald Tribune) 10 April 2008: Dozens of Afghan men who were previously held by the United States at Bagram Air Base in this country and at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, are now being tried here in secretive Afghan criminal proceedings based mainly on allegations forwarded by the U.S. military.

The prisoners are being convicted and sentenced to as much as 20 years' confinement in trials that typically run between half an hour and an hour, said human rights investigators who have observed them.

One early trial was reported to have lasted barely 10 minutes, an investigator said.

The prosecutions are based in part on a security law promulgated in 1987, during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Witnesses do not appear in court and cannot be cross-examined. There are no sworn statements of their testimony.

Instead, the trials appear to be based almost entirely on terse summaries of allegations that are forwarded to the Afghan authorities by the U.S. military. Afghan security agents add whatever evidence they can, but the cases generally center on events that sometimes occurred years ago in war zones that the authorities may now be unable to reach.

"These are no-witness paper trials that deny the defendants a fundamental fair-trial right to challenge the evidence and mount a defense," said Sahr MuhammedAlly, a lawyer for the advocacy group Human Rights First who has studied the proceedings. "So any convictions you get are fundamentally flawed."

The head of the Afghan national intelligence agency, Amrullah Saleh, said his investigators did their best to develop their own evidence against the suspects. But he added that the Afghan judicial system was still crippled by problems more than six years after the fall of the Taliban.

"This is Afghanistan," he said. Referring to the trials, he added, "I am equally critical of that procedure, but who is supposed to fix it?"

Since 2002, the Bush administration has pressed dozens of foreign governments to prosecute the Guantánamo prisoners from their countries as a condition of the men's repatriation. But many of those governments - including such close U.S. allies as Britain - have objected, saying the American evidence would not hold up in their courts.

Afghanistan represents perhaps the most notable exception.

Although President Hamid Karzai refused to sign a decree law drafted with U.S. help that would have allowed Afghanistan to hold the former detainees indefinitely as "enemy combatants," the Afghan authorities have tried 82 of the prisoners since last October and referred more than 120 other cases for prosecution.

Of the prisoners who have been through the makeshift Afghan court, 65 have been convicted and 17 acquitted, according to a report on the prosecutions by Human Rights First that was to be made public Thursday. A draft copy of the report was provided to The New York Times.

U.S. officials defended their role in providing information for the Afghan trials as a legitimate way to try to contain the threats that some of the more dangerous detainees would pose if they were released outright.

"These are not prosecutions that are being done at the request or behest of the United States government," said Sandra Hodgkinson, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for detention policy. "These are prosecutions that are being done by Afghans for crimes committed on their territory by their nationals."

Hodgkinson said the United States had pressed the Afghan authorities "to conduct the trials in a fair manner" and had insisted that lawyers be provided for the prisoners after the first 10 of them were convicted without legal representation. But she did not directly reject the criticisms raised in the Human Rights First report, adding, "These trials are much more consistent with the traditional Afghan justice process than they are with ours."

Although Afghan officials said the trials were not officially secret, they have allowed only three outside observers - two human rights investigators and a representative of a local United Nations office. The human rights investigators were permitted to see two trials in February, review some trial documents, and interview judges, prosecutors and defense lawyers for the court.

General Safiullah Safi, the Afghan Army officer who runs the U.S.-built prison where the trials are held, said that permission to view the trials could be granted only by Karzai's office. But that office referred the request to Abdul Jabar Sabit, the attorney general. Sabit's office finally said he was too busy to meet with a journalist.

The human rights investigators who observed the court's operations described them as a perversion of the efforts by Afghanistan and the United States to rebuild and reform the Afghan judicial system after years of war, corruption and neglect.

"The files provided by U.S. authorities and the information in them would never have been admissible in a U.S. court or even a military commission in Guantánamo," said Jonathan Horowitz, an investigator for One World Research, a public-interest investigations firm in New York that also monitored the Afghan trials.

In an interview, one of the justices of the Afghan Supreme Court argued that while the trials might have some flaws, they represented a fair process.

"All of these trials have been prepared by our friends from the United States," said the justice, who uses the single name Rashid. "They have seen it themselves. We don't have any doubts about the trial not being fair."

Rashid added that he had complete confidence in the accuracy of the information being provided to Afghan investigators by the U.S. military.

"I'm 100 percent sure that what was done by the United States was done according to the legal system of the United States," he said. "And I am familiar with the legal system of the United States."

But one case file that was partly reproduced in the Human Rights First report underscores questions that have been raised about the procedures of the Afghan trials and the U.S. evidence with which they begin.

In a single paragraph, the U.S. "Report of Investigation" recounts that the Afghan prisoner Rais Muhammad Khan was detained by the police as he and a friend tried to cross the Afghan border in Khost on May 1, 2006. The report, which misidentifies Khan by a name his father used, Matelky, notes that he and his injured friend were suspected of having planned a suicide bombing that went awry.

"Their stories are conflicting, and the Khost Police Force believe they are directly tied to suicide attacks that were taking place during the Independence Day Parade in Khost," the report reads. It notes that Khan appeared to lie on a polygraph test when he denied involvement in suicide bombing. But it adds:

"Confessions/Admissions/Incriminating Statements: None"

"Witnesses: None"

"Physical Evidence: None"

"Photographs: None"

Also in his Afghan court file was a one-page summary of the recommendation from the U.S. military panel that reviewed his case at Bagram. It describes him as a low-level threat to U.S. and coalition forces and says he is of "low prosecution value."

He was convicted under the 1987 Afghan security law and sentenced to eight years' imprisonment.

Afghan FM: Olympic Games must not be used as political means

    KABUL, April 10 (Xinhua) -- The Afghan Foreign Ministry on Thursday said the Beijing Olympic Games represents peace and reconciliation, and it should not be used as a political matter.

    "In our opinion, Olympia is an opportunity for peace and reconciliation. We wish success for the Beijing Olympic Games and it must not be used as political means," Foreign Ministry spokesman Sultan Ahmad Baheen said at his weekly press briefing.

    Baheen also said that five athletes from Afghanistan would attend the Beijing Olympic Games to be held in August.

Can You Hear Me Now? Taliban Fears Cell Phones

Thursday , April 10, 2008 By Allison Barrie

Sometimes, simpler is better — even in war and counter terrorism. Who would have guessed that a secret weapon in the fight to defeat terrorists and insurgents would turn out to be ... the mundane cell phone?

As a general rule, insurgents worldwide don't much like the sight of a civilian holding a cell phone. All it takes is one quick phone call, and here comes the cavalry.

Rebel groups take the threat so seriously that they often seize all cell phones when they enter a village. If they miss just one, it could mean game over.

In most rural areas of Afghanistan, there are no landline phones or shortwave or any way other devices to communicate quickly. So Taliban militants, who rely on poor communication in rural areas, have recently been attacking cell phone facilities and confiscating phones, stripping locals of the chance to alert U.S. soldiers to their movements.

This provides a huge advantage to the Taliban, because it means that locals, from villagers to shepherds, cannot report their activities fast enough to have an effect.

But Taliban combat units ranging from a few dozen to a few hundred armed men are issued satellite phones, giving them a key tactical advantage.

Peacekeepers have learned that providing local citizens with a simple cell phone is an excellent tool in the fight against extremists and insurgents. An emergency number is distributed to peacekeepers that can transform a humble cell phone into a "bat phone" capable of sending an SOS to soldiers.

In North Korea, a non-governmental organization has launched a successful campaign against leadership by sneaking cheap radios into the country. For ages, only radios that receive one state-approved station have been permitted in the country. "Normal" radios have been illegal, since they could receive Chinese and South Korean programming that is not in the best interests of the North Korean government.

A plan of action similar to the underground pipeline of radios to North Korea is on the table for Afghanistan, where the U.S. military would drop cheap cell phones that could also receive radio broadcasts in Taliban-dominated areas.

U.S. psychological operations aircraft or blimps would transmit programming that these cell phones can receive — weather reports, health and farming updates, religious messages from moderate imams and local and national news.

These cell phones also would be able to dial out — but only to a 911 equivalent manned by Afghan police.

The idea is, "If you hear something or see something, let the good guys know."

Have you heard of the program in the U.S. where old cell phones are modified to call only 911 and given away to make sure people have access to help? Same idea here.

Simple, but smart. Arming civilians with cell phones could save not only the lives of locals, but the lives of our soldiers.

Afghan minister's trip to Kashmir

Altaf Hussain
BBC News, Srinagar

Afghanistan's Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak has made a one-day visit to Indian-administered Kashmir to see counter-insurgency operations.

Mr Wardak visited the headquarters of the army's 15th corps in Srinagar, where the officiating corps commander briefed him on the security situation.

More than 50,000 people have been killed since an armed uprising began against Indian rule in Kashmir in 1989.

Those killed have included militants, civilians and security personnel.

Indian authorities say a near-normal situation has been restored and that only "residual militancy" remains.

A large number of Afghan militants joined the anti-India campaign soon after the armed conflict broke out.

No evidence

Likewise, several Kashmiri militants fought alongside Afghan militants against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in early 1990s.

However, there has been no evidence of Taleban or al-Qaeda militants' presence in Kashmir.

Abdul Rahim Wardak, who is on a weeklong visit to India, is the first-ever Afghan minister to arrive in Kashmir.

He heads a six-member delegation and is also accompanied by his wife.

Mr Wardak had a meeting with his Indian counterpart, AK Antony on Tuesday.

India has ruled out any military involvement in Afghanistan, but has pledged to continue helping in reconstruction and rehabilitation.

Clinton promises more focus on Pakistan, Afghanistan

HOPEWELL TWP. Times Online 10 April 2008— In a brief interview with The Times Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton said that she would be “more open and engaged” than the Bush administration in trying to resolve problems in Pakistan and Afghanistan, two fronts in the war on terror that are frequently overshadowed by Iraq.

Clinton said President Bush gambled and lost when he put his faith in Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, who’s been criticized for not pursuing terrorists living in remote areas of his country.

“That turned out not to be a good bet,” Clinton said.

As president, Clinton said she would pressure nations in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to deliver on promises of putting troops in the region and compel tribal leaders along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border to stop harboring al-Qaida and Taliban fighters.

“I have said for some time that we took our eye off the ball when we directed resources from Afghanistan to Iraq,” Clinton said.

Asked whether she learned anything from the Senate hearings Tuesday with Gen. David Petraeus, America’s top military officer in Iraq, Clinton said, “I learned that the goalposts keep shifting.”

Reducing the bloodshed in Iraq was an initial goal of the troop surge, she said, but now that the violence has dipped, Congress is being told that troops can’t leave because the Iraqi government needs their help in battling militias.

“You just see this constant shifting rationale as to why we need to keep our troops in Iraq,” she said. “As long as George Bush is in office, nothing’s going to change.”

'No Redeployment of Korean Troops to Afghanistan'

Korean Times 10 April 2008 - South Korean officials expressed negative views Friday about the idea of redeploying forces to Afghanistan to support U.S.-led stabilizing operations in the central Asian nation.

``We've just pulled our troops out of Afghanistan. I think it will be impossible to send them again,'' a senior military source said on condition of anonymity, responding to a report that Washington wants to discuss Seoul's troops redeployment to Afghanistan with the Lee Myung-bak government.

In a congressional confirmation hearing Wednesday, Kathleen Stephens, the U.S. ambassador-designate to South Korea, expressed hope that the issue will be discussed during the upcoming summit between Presidents Lee and George W. Bush next week, Yonhap News Agency reported.

``I think this is a discussion we should have with the new government. I think we need to discuss what the needs are in Afghanistan and see how they can contribute,'' Stephens said.

She was responding to questions from Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who asked why Seoul was hesitant to send forces there despite requests from Washington to help stabilize Afghanistan, according to Yonhap.

``South Korea understands the need to have stability at its border,'' the senator said, suggesting that such an understanding should extend to security in central Asia. ``I would hope that in this new opportunity we have with you and the new president, that we will make that case.''

Last December, all South Korean non-combatant troops returned home, ending their five-year-long humanitarian operations in Afghanistan, following the death of a soldier in a suicide bomb attack and the abduction of 22 South Koreans by Taliban militants.

After the troop pullout, South Korea has been contributing to the security of the central Asian country by joining the NATO-led Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT).

PRT is an administrative unit administering international aid to Afghanistan and Iraq, consisting of civilians and military specialists who perform small construction projects or provide security for others involved in aid and reconstruction work.

A Defense Ministry official said the United States has not requested the redeployment.

``That's just remarks made by the ambassador-designate during a confirmation hearing. We haven't received any request on troop redeployment to Afghanistan from the U.S. government,'' the official said.

South Korean forces consisting of engineers and medics conducted humanitarian and rehabilitation work in Afghanistan from 2002 to 2007.

The Dongui Medical Unit was dispatched to the country in September 2002 to support the U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom aimed at toppling the Taliban regime that ruled most of the country from 1996 to 2001. The Dasan Engineering Unit was sent to the country a year later.

The operation was initiated in late 2001 after the Sept. 11 attacks and Islamic extremists refused to hand over Osama bin Laden, who the United States accused of masterminding the attacks on U.S. soil. Washington also aimed to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base for operations.

About 44,000 coalition forces from 44 nations are conducting military operations in the country under the command of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, according to reports.

The Taliban talk the talk
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI (Asia Times Online) 10 April 2008 - With the destruction of a bridge on the Indus Highway in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) region of Darra Adamkhel last weekend, the Taliban have taken another step towards choking the supplies that flood through Pakistan to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) mission in Afghanistan.

At the same time, the Taliban believe an agreement Russia concluded with NATO at its summit last week will not alleviate the situation. Moscow agreed to the transit of food and non-military cargo and "some types of non-lethal military equipment" across Russia to Afghanistan. NATO is acutely aware that the 70% of its supplies that enter Afghanistan through Pakistan are in jeopardy with the Taliban's new focus on cutting transit routes.

These developments take place as the Taliban-led battle in

Afghanistan is about to enter a new phase; for the first time since their ouster in 2001, the Taliban will scale back their tribal guerrilla warfare and concentrate on tactics used by the legendary Vietnamese commander General Vo Nguyen Giap, an approach that has already proved successful in taming the Pakistani military in the tribal areas.

"For the first time, the Taliban will have a well-coordinated strategy under which we will seize isolated military posts for a limited time, taking enemy combatants hostage, and then leaving them," "Dr Jarrah", a Taliban media spokesman, told Asia Times Online in a telephone conversation from Kunar province in Afghanistan.

"This is the second tier of General Giap's guerrilla strategy. The third tier is a conventional face-to-face war. This aims to demoralize the enemy," Jarrah explained. "We have been delayed by rainfall, but you shall see action by mid-April."

Jarrah claimed the Taliban have already launched some attacks over the past few weeks in Nooristan province, killing several American soldiers. Jarrah said retaliatory bombing only resulted in civilian casualties.

The Taliban and al-Qaeda used these tactics against the Pakistani military in the South Waziristan tribal area during 2007. This involved targeting remote military posts and forts and other installations on the fringes of towns such as Bannu. The Taliban would occupy the positions for only a few hours, long enough for them to take scores of soldiers as hostages. These would then be swapped with Taliban prisoners or used as bargaining chips for ceasefires and other demands.

The Taliban's new focus is the brainchild of several retired Pakistani military officers who are now part of the Taliban movement. They are complemented by men trained by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence's India cell to fuel the insurgency in Indian-administered Kashmir.

These "neo-Taliban" have changed the face and dynamics of the Afghan insurgency. They are particularly careful not to blindly waste manpower, as in the past. During 2008, the main center of Taliban activity will be eastern Afghanistan.

"Almost 90% of the men have been launched for this spring," a Pakistani Taliban told Asia Times Online on condition of anonymity. He is known for his professional military skills and strategic planning.

"About 10,000 fresh men have joined hands with us. Of these, half of them have been trained and launched, along with the old lot, while the other half [5,000] are getting training and will be launched in the next phase," the man said.

He continued, "Chopping off NATO's supply lines from Pakistan is the prelude of our operations and, believe me, the NATO deal with Russia for an alternative supply line is useless. To me, this is a fallacy or a political slogan to pressurize the strategically illiterate Pakistani leadership that NATO can do without Pakistan."

The strategic expert pointed out that the transit agreement was signed between Afghanistan and Pakistan because historically NWFP has always been the lifeline for southeastern Afghanistan, and nothing has changed this status. Iran is the second choice, but it is not willing to allow its territory to be used to support NATO.

Maintaining military supplies to Afghanistan this year will be a great challenge for the US, which is why Richard Boucher, the top US official for South Asia, and US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte were in Pakistan's Khyber Agency recently to try to get tribal elders on side. But because of the Taliban's threats, only three elders turned up for secret meetings.

A load of 'nonsense'
Brigadier General Carlos Branco, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, is skeptical of the Taliban's claims, calling them unrealistic and no more than propaganda.

"Every year they claim a spring offensive. What offensive are they talking about? Blowing up cell phone towers in Helmand and Kandahar [provinces] or blowing up power stations in Ghazni? This is not an offensive," Branco told Asia Times Online in a telephone interview from Kabul.

"You know much better than me this [cutting supply lines] is not true. We rely on various means of transportation; besides, we do have a lot of supplementary stocks with us. Therefore, a few attacks will never have any effect. We do have sea problems [Afghanistan is landlocked] but this claim of completely chopping off our supply lines has no base in reality. I completely deny their claim," Branco said.

Commenting on the Taliban's new strategy, Branco dismissed it as old wine in new bottles.

"The Taliban haven't had a new strategy in the past, neither will they have one in the future. They will do what they did in 2007. They avoided any confrontation with NATO or the Afghan National Army and instead they attacked district headquarters and claimed they had captured the whole district. But before the arrival of our troops, they left.

"They did indeed attack some of our forward operation bases, but their attacks were ineffective as they lack the military capability ... it makes me laugh when they try to compare their guerrilla strategy with that of General Giap's," said Branco.

"This is really nonsense. General Giap used coordinated guerrilla attacks and employing conventional tactics with a range of weaponry. The Taliban's tactics are useless. The tried to use those tactics in 2006 and suffered heavy losses. I don't think they will be able to repeat those tactics. They are not able to confront us on open ground, not even at the platoon level," Branco said.

Similarly, a United Nations representative who spoke to Asia Times Online on condition of anonymity said the tide had changed against the Taliban. He said this had been brought about by the National Solidarity Program - a rural development initiative - and with a more visible and effective presence of the army and police, especially in Paktia and Kandahar provinces.

He said governance is improving after some "inspired appointments" and that international organizations like the UN are gaining improved access in almost all areas.

Other observers, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) , see the situation differently. The ICRC said in a press release from Kabul dated April 8:

The president of the ICRC, Jakob Kellenberger, is in Afghanistan for a seven-day visit to get a first-hand look at the situation in the country. "We are extremely concerned about the worsening humanitarian situation in Afghanistan. There is growing insecurity and a clear intensification of the armed conflict, which is no longer limited to the south but has spread to the east and west," said Mr Kellenberger.

"Intensification of the conflict has forced a growing number of people from their homes. While the ICRC has stepped up its humanitarian activities in recent years, dangerous conditions often prevent it from reaching groups such as displaced persons who need protection and assistance. The harsh reality is that in large parts of Afghanistan, little development is taking place. Instead, the conflict is forcing more and more people to flee their homes. Their growing humanitarian needs and those of other vulnerable people must be met as a matter of urgency. The Afghan people deserve to live in a secure environment and have access to decent health care, safe drinking water and adequate food supplies," added Mr Kellenberger.

These are different views from different perspectives. The Taliban, NATO, the United Nations and humanitarian organizations, they each have their own agenda. Ultimately what matters is what happens on the battle field.

A new generation of neo-Taliban has emerged under Sirajuddin Haqqani (son of veteran mujahid Jalaluddin Haqqani) . They are ideologically more radical than their elders, but much more strategically attuned, having proved themselves in Indian-administered Kashmir against Indian forces a few years ago and against the Pakistani military.

Now they have to prove their claim that the summer of 2008 will be a hot one in Afghanistan.

Dems Talk Afghanistan, Sans An Action Plan

April 9, 2008

Frederick W. Kagan .

CBS - One theme that emerged clearly at the Senate hearings with General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker was the need to abandon Iraq in order to deal with the real center of the war on terror in South Asia. A series of questioners put on the airs of grand strategic sophisticates to remind Petraeus that whereas his brief includes only Iraq, theirs covers the entire world -- and from their viewpoint, the fight that matters is not the one that Petraeus and Crocker and their subordinates are winning in Iraq, but the one in the "Afghan-Pakistan border region," as it was so often called. Petraeus and Crocker pointed out repeatedly and accurately that al Qaeda's leaders themselves continually refer to Iraq as the central front in their war against us, but to no avail. The real fight, they were told each time, is in the Afghan-Pakistan border region against the real al Qaeda that the Intelligence Community says has only grown stronger. And, the general and the ambassador were lectured, keeping too many troops in Iraq was preventing the United States from prevailing in this more important fight. Let's consider this thesis in a little more detail.

To begin with, numerous senators spoke of the Afghan-Pakistan border area as though there were no border -- forces poured into Afghanistan would somehow directly affect what was going on in Pakistan or, alternatively, the real al Qaeda was on the Afghan side where U.S. troops could get at them. Speaking ethnographically, of course, there is no border -- the Durand Line that separates Afghanistan from Pakistan cuts the Pashtun nation just about in half, and the porous border has seen decades of happy smuggling. But the border is very real both to our forces and to their enemies. Our troops know that they cannot cross into Pakistan, and the enemy knows it too. That's why the bases of the "real" al Qaeda are not in Afghanistan -- American troops in Afghanistan report very few al Qaeda fighters and those they do come across are mostly operating out of Pakistani bases. The al Qaeda bases that harbor Osama bin Laden, Ayman al Zawahiri, and the other al Qaeda leaders plotting the attacks against which the Intelligence Community warns are in Pakistan -- principally Waziristan in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Chitral in the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP).

Pouring troops into Afghanistan does not address those problems. Even advocating an invasion of those areas (with or without Islamabad's consent) makes little sense -- al Qaeda works also with Kashmiri separatists, who have their own terror training bases outside of these areas, and we can be certain that the Pakistani government that supports the Kashmiri fighters will not be enthusiastic about American forces taking them out. And, even if they were, by this point we're pretty much occupying half of Pakistan. We could line a lot of soldiers up along the (20,000-foot) mountains along the border, but how does sealing the terrorists into their own base camps in Pakistan help? The problem isn't that they go into Afghanistan, but that we have no good plan for getting them out of Pakistan. That is a problem worthy of many senatorial hearings, and it would be nice if any of the advocates of losing in Iraq to fight the real enemy in South Asia had a solution to propose. It should be a sine qua non, in fact, for anyone who proposes accepting defeat in Iraq first to offer a concrete plan for doing something against the supposedly realer al Qaeda enemy in Pakistan.

Afghanistan is extremely important in its own right, of course, and if we fail in Afghanistan, then we will indeed offer al Qaeda another potential base from which to operate. Considering how well established it already is in Pakistan and how little Afghanistan -- one of the most desperately poor countries on earth -- has to offer the terrorists, it's a bit hard to see why they would relocate, but we should certainly deny them the opportunity. There are many other reasons to succeed in Afghanistan as well, moreover, including the possibility of developing a stable, democratic ally in the heart of a key region that is a producer rather than a consumer of security.

But now we must consider another set of questions: How urgently do we need to send more troops to Afghanistan, and is there really nothing else we can do? At the end of 2006, Iraq was so close to complete catastrophe that nothing short of a military surge supporting a changed military strategy had any chance of success. We were within a hair's breadth of defeat. That is not the case in Afghanistan. The Taliban insurgency has grown in strength, particularly in the south, government control remains weak, security forces are small and inadequately trained and equipped, corruption is rampant, and so on. But the situation is not deteriorating that rapidly, and relatively small additions of force -- with improved approaches -- have made a significant difference in important areas. NATO certainly needs to send significant additional forces to Afghanistan, and the United States will probably have to contribute most of them. But the urgency is nothing like what it was in Iraq in December 2006, and is driven more by the need to secure Afghan elections in 2009 than by the danger that the country is about to collapse.

To the question, "Is there really nothing we can do unless we send more troops?" the answer is unequivocally that there is something we can do. Congress can do it, in fact, and very quickly. Pass the supplemental defense appropriation that would allow development money to flow reliably to our soldiers in Afghanistan as well as Iraq. The advantage of Afghanistan's poverty (for us) is that a little money goes a long way. American soldiers have increasingly been leveraging development funds to starve the insurgency of recruits in a way similar to what has worked in Iraq (but tailored appropriately to conditions in Afghanistan). They need more money. One of the problems the British face in the south of the country is that their government does not give their soldiers development money to spend. We should find ways to help them out. Congress could do all of this with one roll-call vote in each house, and the aid would start flowing to Afghanistan faster than any additional brigades could arrive. American soldiers in Iraq often say that dollars are their best bullets -- the same is true in Afghanistan. If the congressmen who evince so much concern about Afghanistan's well-being really had the success of our effort at heart, they would stop playing political football with the supplemental and send the aid they control to our soldiers in this key front right away. The fact that they have preferred to delay the supplemental in order to threaten to force the president to withdraw forces from Iraq -- a tactic that hinders the effort in the theater they say is the most important in order to force a change of strategy in a secondary (to them) theater -- speaks volumes.

A 'different' war in Afghanistan

By Alastair Leithead
BBC News, Maiwand, Afghanistan

The summer of 2006 was a violent time in Helmand province.

Now, just 18 months after they went through some of the most intense fighting in decades, the Parachute Regiment is back in southern Afghanistan.

The 16 Air Assault Brigade has taken over Nato command in Helmand from 52 Brigade and they arrived to a different war - still dangerous but in a different way.

Then they fought for their lives, surrounded in small town centres and attacked day and night by a determined Taleban force more numerous and well armed than commanders expected.

The British forces were never supposed to be so spread out and so isolated - the few helicopters struggled to keep the outposts resupplied.

Now they have returned with four times the manpower, extra resources and are now very much on the offensive.

Fighting back

In the time since the Paras left, British troops have pushed the Taleban back, killing key commanders and taking ground.

They have built bases in the lush Helmand river valley where the insurgents used to fight from the high, mud-walled compounds and the deep irrigation ditches.

The Afghan National Army is more of a force to be reckoned with, even if the police still lag far behind, and militarily there has been progress.

The question is whether the impact of tens of thousands of Nato and Afghan troops is winning the people over and offering them the security and justice the Taleban has provided for them in the past.

Also, whether the military mission is improving life for the people of southern Afghanistan, or just ruining it with fighting and bombing.

It is also a different war. British forces are now less likely to see their enemies or engage in hand-to-hand fighting, but to be hit by roadside bombs as they move from district to district, or by a suicide bomber while out on patrol.

Commanders say this is a sign of progress - a move away from more audacious attacks - but it is bad for morale as soldiers prefer to see who they are up against.

There will be fighting but the Taleban has changed tactics, knowing the political impact back home of losing soldiers to bomb blasts and booby traps.

In Maiwand district in Kandahar province the first operation of the new deployment began.

For the past two weeks 3 Para Battlegroup have been moving into areas where the international forces have not had a significant presence, but so far they have not fired a shot.

This may have something to do with the opium poppy crop as the fields are ablaze with flowers - signalling the beginning of the labour-intensive harvest which keeps many of the Taleban foot soldiers occupied.

They are building a base for the Afghan security forces to bring security to Highway 1, the main ring road around Afghanistan which runs through the few shops and buildings in the centre of Hutal, Maiwand's district capital.

They are using the relative calm to build relationships with local leaders and work on winning people over.

But the name of Maiwand is well known by the Afghans and the military alike.

It was here in 1880 that more than 1,600 British soldiers were routed during the Second Anglo-Afghan War in one of the worst colonial defeats by an eastern army.

The fort occupied by those forces is again a fortress for British troops - the Taleban propaganda reminds people the British were driven out once before and will be again.

They forget to mention that same Afghan army was then defeated by British reinforcements a few months later.

The 3 Para commander is quick to point out they already tried - and failed - in the summer of 2006.

Judge: Afghan Chief Must Stand Trial

By LARRY NEUMEISTER

April 9, 2008

NEW YORK (AP) — An Afghan tribal chief cannot escape trial on federal drug charges just because government agents tricked him into traveling to the United States by promising he could return home, a judge ruled Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain said the U.S. government acted legally in the 2005 arrest of Bashir Noorzai, who was put on the list of Most Wanted drug kingpins before he was charged with smuggling $50 million worth of heroin into the United States with Taliban support.

Noorzai's lawyer, Ivan Stephan Fisher, said he was disappointed by the ruling. He said Noorzai was eager for his May 19 trial to begin.

"We are working now on what the hardest part of the trial is going to be — to find a jury that could be fair to an accused who is Muslim and from Afghanistan," he said.

Yusill Scribner, a spokeswoman for prosecutors, said the government had no comment.

The ruling pertained to unusual circumstances in which Noorzai helped the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks by providing information and turning over weapons and munitions to U.S. authorities, a fact the government did not contest.

The judge also noted that most of Noorzai's contacts with U.S. officials were cooperative, although he was detained for six days by the United States in 2001 at the Kandahar Airport in Afghanistan.

Noorzai, chief of the Noorzai Tribe and its more than a million members, was told by two U.S. representatives in August 2004 that he would be granted safe passage to and from the United States if he agreed to meet authorities, the judge said.

In April 2005, Noorzai and two of his associates arrived in New York City, where he was arrested after being questioned for 11 days by a Drug Enforcement Administration agent in a hotel near the World Trade Center site.

The judge noted that he was repeatedly read his Miranda rights during the questioning and he never indicated he did not understand them.

An indictment accused Noorzai and his organization of providing weapons and manpower to the Taliban between 1990 and 2004 in exchange for protection for opium crops, heroin laboratories and drug transportation routes out of the country.

In one instance in 1997, Taliban officials seized a truckload of drugs and discovered the cargo belonged to Noorzai, only to return it "with personal apologies from Mullah Mohammad Omar, the leader of the Taliban," according to the indictment.

The Taliban militia ruled Afghanistan until it was toppled by the United States in late 2001. Taliban-led militants are still operating along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border with Pakistan.

Swain said that the promises to Noorzai, "even if made by authorized officials, were not ones that by their terms negated the possibility of prosecution."

In a footnote, she wrote that constitutional entitlements to due process focus on a defendant's full opportunity to defend himself. False assurances that he would not be arrested would not compromise his ability to defend himself, she said.

[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.]