In this bulletin:

• Afghanistan wary of Pakistan-Taliban 'peace deal'
• Peace talks on Pakistan border could impact Afghan war, envoy says
• Canada wants close working relationship with Pakistan
• US to heighten Afghan role?
• TAPI gas deal reached
• India formally joins Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan gas pipeline project
• Indian abducted in Afghanistan safe, says Govt
• Afghan assembly wants tax lifted on food imports
• Canada wants Kabul to have greater say in using aid
• Will Pakistan's militants lay down arms?
• To Sideline Taliban, Afghan Agency Extends Government’s Reach
• Ottawa on the hook for harm to Afghans
• German spy agency rapped over Afghan email monitoring
• Afghan spying row rocks Germany
• Germany says 'no protest from Kabul' over eavesdropping
• Cutting the tall poppies
• The warlord along NATO's key supply route
• Battle of the belly buttons on Afghan television

Afghanistan wary of Pakistan-Taliban 'peace deal'

KABUL (AFP) — Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta said that any peace deal between Pakistan and Taliban fighters would only fail and terrorism should instead be tackled globally.

The United States has also expressed concern about a possible deal after representatives of both sides said Wednesday the new government in Islamabad had drafted an agreement with rebels along the Afghan border.

"We believe that any efforts by any country in our region to have a separate peace deal with international terrorism, such efforts will fail," Spanta told reporters.

"Past experiences have proved that such efforts will only result in those who make such efforts becoming the victims," he said.

A peace deal between Pakistan and pro-Taliban tribes in the semi-autonomous tribal regions of North Waziristan in September 2006 was criticised in Kabul, where officials said it resulted in an increase in attacks in Afghanistan.

That deal was broken after Pakistani troops stormed Islamabad's Red Mosque to evict militants, leaving 100 dead. Spanta said the countries needed to work together with their international partners in a "clear, continued and coordinated fight against terrorism."

"Finding a peaceful way to decrease terrorism in all countries, not only in one place, is an issue that all sides should act upon," he said.

Islamabad launched talks with the Taliban soon after a new government was formed following elections in February, amid concerns that President Pervez Musharraf's military approach was spawning more violence.

The aim is to transform a month-long lull in a wave of suicide bombings into a permanent peace with the Taliban, who have fought the government since Islamabad joined the US-led "war on terror" in 2001.

Peace talks on Pakistan border could impact Afghan war, envoy says

Canwest News Service Thursday, April 24, 2008

OTTAWA - Canada's ambassador to Kabul says a new Pakistani peace overture to militants in a volatile region on the Pakistan-Afghan border is cause for concern because it could affect the war in Afghanistan.

Ambassador Arif Lalani was responding Thursday to reports the Pakistan government is in talks with leaders in the Taliban-controlled Waziristan region with an eye to pulling Pakistani troops out of the area and freeing some militants currently in custody in Pakistan. The prospect of a peace pact has raised concerns the area will become a safe haven where militants can regroup and intensify their attacks in Afghanistan.

"It's clear that there is going to be concern about what happens on this side of the border with those negotiations, and I think the Pakistanis are certainly aware of that concern," Lalani told reporters in a tele-conference call from Kabul.

"I'm concerned that what happens on one side of the border is going to impact the other side. And I think what we want to do is have both countries understand that it's a shared border and that they have to take into account what might be the potential impact on the other side of the border as they take care of things that are domestic."

Previous peace accords in the Waziristan region - where Pakistan has 30,000 troops - were followed by a temporary decline in violence in some parts of Pakistan but an increase in attacks against NATO forces in Afghanistan.

This time, according to Reuters News Agency, the talks are with elders of the ethnic Pashtun tribes who inhabit the area and not with the militants, as was the case in earlier accords.

The new coalition government, which is led by the late Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party, has not announced the peace initiative.

Lalani said he has no personal knowledge of the negotiations. He said, however, a Canadian-led effort to engage senior Pakistani and Afghan officials in discussion on what concrete actions can be taken to make the border more secure but accessible is well under way.

"We are talking to both sides about it, and we're quite encouraged that after the (Pakistan) election, with the new government we are moving with a lot of intensity," Lalani said.

He said Canada hopes to enlist the support of its G-8 partners for the initiative in the coming months.

Canada wants close working relationship with Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Canadian Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier phoned his Pakistani counterpart on Thursday to express Canada’s desire to work closely with Pakistan in areas of mutual interest.

Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told Bernier Pakistan wanted to build a strong relationship with Canada through deepening co-operation, and emphasised the importance of expanding trade, economic and investment ties.

Qureshi said the fight against extremism and terrorism was in Pakistan’s national interest, stressing the importance of a multi-pronged approach combining political, socio-economic development and security measures. The two foreign ministers also discussed Afghanistan.

Qureshi underlined Pakistan’s interest in peace and stability in Afghanistan and her commitment to work with international partners in this regard.

Talking to Canadian Parliamentarian Wajid Ali Khan at the Foreign Office on Thursday, Qureshi said that war on terrorism was in Pakistan’s own interest.

He said the coalition government had reached consensus on the adoption of a balanced, comprehensive, multi-pronged approach to fighting terror. Wajid Khan emphasised the importance Canada attached to relations with Pakistan and its readiness to support the new government socio-economically. staff report

US to heighten Afghan role?

The Christian Science Monitor, 04/24/2008 By Gordon Lubold

Pentagon weighs taking over NATO's combat mission in the south to better fight Taliban.

Washington - The Pentagon is considering whether it should push to change the NATO mission in volatile southern Afghanistan to give the US greater control in the fight against a growing Taliban threat.

The move is one of many being assessed as fears rise that the collective effort of NATO forces there lacks coherence. The Taliban's comeback over the past two years has been marked by a spike in suicide bombings and other violence – at the same time that critics say the complex command structure governing NATO and US forces has stifled combat and reconstruction efforts.

American officials see a possible answer in modeling the southern region after the east, which falls under NATO but is led by a subordinate US command and viewed as relatively successful.

The issue is not a new one, but has been overshadowed by the need for more forces in Afghanistan. With new commitments by some allies in place, the focus now is on creating more workable relationships on the ground – without conjuring images of "American bullying," as one retired US officer puts it, among allies whose commitments already hang by a slender thread.

All discussion is in "incubation," says a Pentagon official with firsthand knowledge of the situation, and a decision is still some months away.

"This is the sausage being made," says the official, who like others quoted in this article asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the discussions.

Support for change comes from outside the military as well. "I think there is a strong rationale for making that command and control much more efficient," Seth Jones, a political scientist at the Rand Corp., told a House panel this month. "We have multiple US chains of command that go through European Command, Central Command, Special Operations Command," he said. "I think there are a range of options on the table about making that arrangement more efficient."

NATO took over what was a security-and-stabilization effort, but is now confronting a combat mission in some of the country's most dangerous provinces. The size of the 61,000-member force, about half of which is American, with the rest from 39 countries, remains a major challenge for commanders. Also of concern is their view that troops as well as provincial reconstruction teams can be more responsive to their countries' domestic concerns than to the commanders under whom they technically fall.

But a particularly thorny issue is the frequent rotations of commands. The southern sector rotates a new subordinate coalition command every nine months. The current Canadian commander, for example, will be replaced by a Dutch counterpart by the end of the year. The frequency of change allow the Taliban to exploit the seams of those transitions, critics say.

In contrast, the Americans cast the US-led eastern sector as successful, in part because of the longer tours – 12 to 15 months or more.

"You get American soldiers and their leaders who establish, maintain, and exploit relationships with the terrain, the indigenous people, and their leadership and their enemy to a fare-thee-well," says Gen. Dan McNeill, senior NATO commander based in Kabul.

"Each time you get a change in nationality in one of these commands, the Afghans as well as the international force have to make adjustments," says General McNeill, who believes the overall strategy in Afghanistan is working and that the larger command structure is succeeding. But he acknowledges that the frequency of rotations in the south is "probably not the most helpful."

Many others believe the overall command needs overhaul. "I have to believe that all my instincts and experience tells me that it ain't working well," says one senior American officer with intimate knowledge of the mission.

But requesting that the coalition forces in the south essentially expand on their commitment by extending their forces is not seen as a simple change.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, typically quick to address issues as they arise, has so far been reluctant to make changes, following the advice of the Pentagon's Joint Staff earlier this year. On Wednesday, Gates said there are always efforts under way to make sure the mission is as effective as possible, but didn't hint at a new approach anytime soon.

"There's been a lot of discussion in this building about whether we have the best possible command arrangements in Afghanistan," he said. "I've made no decisions."

Meanwhile, Afghanistan is as much a political mission as it is a combat and reconstruction one, say military commanders and analysts. The coalition there is in many ways as important as the mission itself, and is a test of the overall NATO alliance, military commanders and analysts say

"The fact that we have problems with some allies is in no way an indication that we have problems with all the allies," says Anthony Cordesman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington. "We couldn't have done what we could without them."

Many coalition forces are watching the US closely to gauge the extent of its commitment to the Afghanistan mission. The nomination of Gen. David Petraeus, an expert in counterinsurgency and now the top commander in Iraq, to lead US Central Command could mean a new emphasis on what Afghanistan needs.

Gates has indicated he will send more US forces to Afghanistan some time in 2009, something that depends partly on how many troops are brought home from Iraq. But there is discussion of sending a division headquarters and or an additional brigade there.

At the same time, discussion is ongoing about other options for improving the effectiveness of the command structure, in addition to the US assuming more responsibility in the south. Some Pentagon officials believe that the head of the NATO coalition in Afghanistan, a four-star general, should be "dual-hatted." In addition to reporting to the NATO leadership in Brussels, he should also have a direct link to Washington.

Supporters of this plan believe Washington's direct input would help to bring more unity of effort to the mission. Another, perhaps more politically palatable, option is to add a new American three-star general to oversee all American forces. That commander would serve as a deputy to the NATO commander but would also answer directly to Washington.

David Barno, who retired from the Army after serving as the senior NATO commander in Afghanistan, testified before the same House panel that the loss of the senior US commander who had directly answered to Washington hurts the mission. Now, the senior NATO commander only answers directly to NATO.

"I think [it is] a disturbing trend again, given the importance of this mission," he said. Any of these changes would require approval of the NATO alliance.

Other senior military veterans would like to see "tactical areas of responsibility" drawn that would allow the various forces to "own their own battle space." This would allow them to operate as independently as possible from one another unencumbered by the political reluctance of one country or the military bureaucracy of another.

But if the next administration is to eschew the go-it-alone strategy, the US must find a way to create coalitions that rise above the sum of their parts, analysts say. Working with other countries on what amount to basic organizational issues is ultimately the answer, says one retired officer.

"If the nature of future conflict is going to be a coalition, and we have enough recent examples to show that we put troops at risk if we greatly encumber command and control," says one retired officer. "Then you have to come up with a solution to this."

TAPI gas deal reached

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, April 25 (UPI) -- India has joined Pakistan and Afghanistan in the $7.6 billion, 1,043-mile pipeline project to transport natural gas from Turkmenistan.

The three countries signed the framework agreement with the Central Asian republic in Islamabad for the laying of the 56-inch-diameter TAPI pipeline, whose original cost in 2004 was estimated at half the current estimate, by 2015.

Pakistani Petroleum Minister Khwaja Asif said, "We believe it is still economically viable for the four countries even after the escalation in cost," the Press Trust of India reported.

The Asian Development Bank is providing financial backing, the report said. The cost overrun results mostly from sharp increases in steel prices and construction costs.

The gas will come from Turkmenistan's Daulatabad fields. It will be piped to Herat and Kandahar in Afghanistan, Multan in Pakistan and to Fazilka on the India-Pakistan border, the report said. The project is designed to supply 3.2 billion cubic feet of gas per day.

India formally joins Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan gas pipeline project
04.25.08

MUMBAI (Thomson Financial) - India has been formally admitted as a member of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project at a steering committee meeting in Islamabad on April 23-24, where a framework agreement to facilitate implementation of the project was signed by the oil and gas ministers of the four countries, an Indian government statement said.

The 1,680 km TAPI pipeline, which will supply 90 million standard cubic metres (mmscmd) of gas a day, will be executed by a consortium, the statement said.

Afghanistan will use about 5.0 mmscmd during the first and second year and 14 mmscmd from the third year onwards, with the rest of the gas being equally shared by India and Pakistan, the statement said.

The gas will be supplied from Douletabad and other fields in Turkmenistan and the principle of unobstructed transit of natural gas, in accordance with international norms, will be followed, the statement said.

The safety and security of the pipeline and related infrastructure will be provided by the concerned governments in their respective territories and transport tariff will be based on the cost of service method, the statement said.

Indian abducted in Afghanistan safe, says Govt

IANS / April 25, 2008 - NEW DELHI: Indian national Mohammed Nayeem who was kidnapped from the Afghanistan province of Herat four days ago is safe, official sources said on Friday.

"As of this morning he is safe," a senior official of the Ministry of External Affairs said.

"We are trying our best to get him released and this is the information we have about his safety," the official said.

Nayeem, who works for Dubai-based HEB International Logistics, was kidnapped on Monday evening. No group has so far claimed responsibility.

Nayeem was abducted less than a fortnight after a suicide bomber blew himself up next to an Indian road crew in Afghanistan, killing two Indian workers and their Afghan driver on April 12.

India has already announced its decision to send more security personnel to Afghanistan to guard Indian installations and ensure the safety of Indians working there.

While announcing the decision, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee had on Wednesday also made it clear that India would not "succumb" to pressure from any quarters to withdraw from the strife-torn country.

The kidnapping of Nayeem is the latest in a series of incidents targeted at around 4,000 Indians working in Afghanistan on various projects.

The Taliban militia is suspected to be behind most of these attacks on Indians as they don't want New Delhi to build the strategic Zaranj-Delaram road link that seeks to reduce Afghanistan's dependence on Pakistan for overland access to Central Asia and provide an alternative route for Indian goods to that country.

India has pledged $850 million for a number of developmental projects in Afghanistan - a gateway to the energy-rich Central Asia.

Afghan assembly wants tax lifted on food imports

KABUL, April 24 (Reuters) - Faced with rising food prices that have seen protesters take to the streets, Afghanistan's lower house of parliament on Thursday demanded the removal of all taxes on food imports.

In an special session, parliament said the government had not done enough to curb soaring prices or act against hoarding by some traders, the house said.

Landlocked Afghanistan is one of the world's poorest countries with half its 25 million people living below the poverty line. The government taxes virtually all food imports to some degree.

"In the session, it was decided that the government should exempt food commodities from taxes," parliament said in a statement. The decision needs to be approved by the upper house of parliament and the president for it to come into force.

Wheat prices in Afghanistan have risen by an average of 60 percent over the last year with certain areas seeing a rise of up to 80 percent, the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) said.

The U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates Afghanistan's total wheat import needs in 2007/08 at 550,000 tonnes, including 100,000 tonnes of food aid.

The FAO said it has tentatively estimated Afghanistan's total output of cereals in 2007 at more than 4.6 million tonnes -- above average and well above the relatively poor harvest of 2006 when it came in at 3.9 million tonnes.

But despite the high price of wheat, profits from planting opium poppies are still much higher so there is little immediate incentive for farmers to switch crops.

Afghanistan produces 93 percent of the world's opium which is processed to make heroin and exported across the world.

President Hamid Karzai's government has allocated $50 million to buy food from neighbouring countries, an official said, blaming the rise in world food prices for the accompanying increases in Afghanistan.

Canada wants Kabul to have greater say in using aid

KABUL: Underlining coordination among donor countries and institutions, Canada has stressed international aid to Afghanistan needs to be more focussed, effective and accountable to yield better results "This accountability is owed to both the Afghan people and to our own citizens ...this point is absolutely critical," Canadian Minister of International Cooperation Beverley J. Oda said here the other day.

Delivering a keynote address at an international aid conference that brought together donors from around the world, she said their strong representation spoke volumes for their collective commitment to working in an integrated fashion. "As donors, we have an obligation not just to support development projects, but also to work hand-in-hand. We must combine our efforts in a way that maximises resources, reduces overlap and avoids distorting priorities," the visiting minister added.

One of the most effective ways of achieving that objective, J. Oda believed, was to ensure the Karzai-led government was in the driver’s seat, leading its own development agenda. While citing the Afghan government’s National Solidarity Programme as prime example, she said the programme was setting up a network of thousands of elected village councils that were designing, implementing and administering their own projects.

Canada wanted donor countries to drive forward development and reconstruction in the areas where they are well established and best placed to do so, she continued. The process required making real progress on targeted local objectives in keeping with the Afghanistan Compact and National Development Strategy, the minister maintained.

In terms of aid effectiveness, she pointed out that strengthening, monitoring and evaluation functions were another key concern. "We can and must do a better job of building up mechanisms to better inform policy-making and budget decisions, and to keep track of progress and results achieved."

Will Pakistan's militants lay down arms?
BY M Ilyas Khan - BBC News, Karachi

When Pakistan's new Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gillani made his inaugural address to parliament last month he said his government was "ready to talk to all those people who give up arms and are ready to embrace peace".

Now the country's most feared militant commander, Baitullah Mehsud, has called a truce with the government amid reports of an impending peace deal.

The truce call came shortly after the government released from prison a prominent pro-Taleban cleric who has led insurgencies in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Baitullah Mehsud heads a loose grouping of tribal militants called the Pakistani Taleban Movement.

He had been formally charged by the previous government with the murder of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto who was killed in a suicide attack in December.

Observers feel that these developments signify confidence building measures ahead of a rapprochement between Taleban militants and the new democratic government led by Ms Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples' Party.

In the past, when President Pervez Musharraf was the dominant political force, his governments signed a number of peace agreements with the militants but they only helped them to regroup and to carve out a sanctuary in Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal areas, along the border with Afghanistan.

From here, they have been staging attacks against Western troops inside Afghanistan to the west, and have also extended their activities eastwards into Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

The presence of Western troops in Afghanistan, and the image of the Gen Musharraf as a military dictator promoting US interests in the region, served as useful propaganda for the militants.

But President Musharraf is now a civilian and has lost much of his power after the heavy defeat of his allies in the 18 February elections. The new government feels it is time for a change of tactics.

And the Western powers that earlier insisted on a military solution to the problem are now readjusting their priorities to this new political reality.

"It is important to negotiate with the tribes to end violence, to end suicide bombings and to end the plotting and planning that happens (in the tribal areas)," the US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher said on Wednesday.

Earlier in the week, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Britain supported "reconciliation with those who are willing to reconcile". However, both emphasised the importance of enforcing what has been agreed upon.

In the previous agreements, the government failed to enforce clauses requiring militants to expel foreign fighters, including al-Qaeda leaders and activists, and stop cross-border attacks in Afghanistan.

But the present government has indicated that it not only wants the militants to meet those demands, but also to dismantle the parallel administration they have set up in parts of North and South Waziristan districts.

Although these are ambitious targets, many Pakistani analysts believe this can be done. "The militants were able to destabilise parts of Afghanistan because there was anarchy," says former security chief of the Pakistani tribal areas, Brig Mehmood Shah.

"In Pakistan there was no anarchy, but they succeeded because President Musharraf lacked credibility."

Brig Shah believes the new democratic government will be able to shift the pressure of public opinion against militants. "The people of NWFP have faced the brunt of militants' attacks and they have now elected a government that believes in the separation of religion from politics, an important tribal custom."

Brig Shah says the government also intends to evolve a mechanism to ensure the tribes dismantle training camps in their areas. "This will dampen cross-border raids," he says. But at what cost?

Financially, this policy will require massive development aid on both sides of the border, and quickly too, says Fazal Rahim Marwat who teaches Pakistan studies at Peshawar University.

"Any solution to the problem of militancy will involve dismantling of the war economy that has sustained warriors on both sides of the border for more than two decades," he says.

In terms of strategic advantage, the cost may be as high or as low as Pakistan's need for a strategic depth in Afghanistan against arch-rival India, says a senior administration official based in NWFP, requesting anonymity.

"Establishing peace in tribal areas will mean an end to our strategic influence in Afghanistan. What is the quid pro quo?" he asks.

When the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan in 1988, the Islamic warriors who had fought them moved to the divided state of Kashmir and started a 15-year-long insurgency in the part controlled by India.

After 9/11, as Islamic militants shifted back to the Afghan border, the Pakistani authorities gradually pulled the plug on the Kashmiri militant groups, and bringing government support to their activities to a complete halt in January 2006.

Latest reports of a rapprochement with tribal militants come days after a public gathering of Kashmiri militant organisations in the Pakistan-administered Kashmir - their first in two years. Many say this could not have happened without a nod from the government.

It could well be a sign that the government is looking for ways to persuade the Kashmir militants to change their ways, while hoping that India will offer concessions in a territorial dispute that has dogged both countries ever since the British left the sub-continent more than 60 years ago.

To Sideline Taliban, Afghan Agency Extends Government’s Reach

By CARLOTTA GALL, NY Times 4.24.08

MAIDAN WARDAK, Afghanistan — When Taliban showed up last year in this province just south of Kabul, the capital, and started kidnapping aid workers, it caused real alarm. The main highway from the Taliban strongholds in the south runs through here, and Wardak Province is considered the gateway to Kabul.

A new government agency quickly conducted a survey and found broad distrust of the police chief and other local officials in the province. On closer inspection, only 400 men policed the whole province, but the government was paying for 1,100. The difference was lining the pockets of local officials.

Soon, the police chief was removed, and Afghan and NATO security forces routed some of the Taliban. Nearly six months later, distrustful villagers who once tolerated or even supported the insurgents have come forward to work with the government, officials say.

The turnabout here in Wardak remains tentative. But local governance like the effort here has become one of the most pressing issues in Afghanistan, Afghans, Western diplomats and NATO and American military officials say, and one that could determine the outcome of the still uncertain war in Afghanistan.

Local governance is the buzzword on everyone’s lips, one Afghan development official said, shorthand for extending the government’s presence in the provinces, making it perform better and provide much needed public services. The lack of it is souring Afghans and diplomats on the government of President Hamid Karzai and raising real concerns about its ability to battle the Taliban insurgents who feed on local dissatisfaction.

“We noticed a growing gap between the people and the government,” said Jelani Popal, who leads the new directorate charged with improving governance. “The Taliban filled that gap with the growing insurgency. And the government was not represented well by district governors.”

For Mr. Popal’s agency, the Independent Directorate of Local Governance, Wardak has been a pilot project. But it is just the first of 34 provinces that need to be addressed, at least half of which have security problems. The United Nations has reported that about 20 percent of districts — 78 districts of 376 in the country — remain off limits to its workers because of insecurity and the insurgency. Government officials are unable to go to 36 districts.

Mr. Popal plans to work on 11 priority provinces over the next 18 months, starting with a few critical ones ringing Kabul, where the Taliban inroads and the breakdown of government are the most threatening.

Rather than try to tackle the most unstable provinces in the south, he is looking at a number of the poorest provinces in central and northern Afghanistan, which are showing early signs of insurgency or lawlessness.

“Absolute poverty can create the situation for insurgency to take root,” he said. “We have to take care of it now.”

Prodded by the reformers in his cabinet, and some foreign officials, Mr. Karzai resurrected the agency Mr. Popal leads to oversee the appointments and performance of 34 provincial governors, city mayors and hundreds of district administrators.

Well financed by foreign donors, it has become the great hope of many in Kabul as a way to improve the government’s standing in outlying areas. One Western diplomat described it as the “single most important move” by Mr. Karzai last year.

An experienced manager of development projects, Mr. Popal founded the Afghan Development Association, one of Afghanistan’s best-run nonprofit groups, and directed it for 20 years before joining Mr. Karzai’s government as deputy finance minister.

He says that in the six years since the fall of the Taliban, the government and foreign aid programs have concentrated on reconstruction but otherwise ignored the needs of local people. “They never paid attention to relations of the people with the government,” he said.

This alienation existed all over the country, he said, but had a disastrous effect in many of the provinces in the south and east, where the Taliban were quick to fill the vacuum.

Mr. Popal’s instructions from the president were to take “all the elements of good governance” — accountability, transparency, efficient public services — to the provinces and “bring the decision-making as close as possible to the people,” he said.

With presidential elections next year, Mr. Karzai is looking ahead to his own re-election, and several officials familiar with the directorate suggested that it was part of a strategy to deliver the vote for him. Mr. Popal acknowledged that part of his job was also to ensure that the governors were loyal to the president.

Budgets, salaries, training and logistical support for the provincial governments will go through the new directorate, which reports directly to the president, Mr. Popal said.

One immediate benefit has been to streamline decision-making. For the governors and provincial officials, they now have an office dedicated to their affairs, even if it already seems overloaded. “Before, we were like the sixth finger of the Interior Ministry,” said Abdul Jabar Naeemi, governor of Wardak Province.

The turning point in Wardak came when the government began to deliver on its promises, Mr. Popal said. “The Taliban, when they say something, they do it,” he explained in an interview in February. “They threaten to kill people, and they do it. But when we say we will protect you, we often do not.”

So he made sure the government supplied equipment and cars, increased salaries and paid them on time to the police and district officials to improve security. “We put the government in a very strong position,” he said. His agency also removed several mullahs preaching antigovernment sermons, he said.

Nevertheless, the Taliban still had the edge, he said. People remained “indifferent” to the government, so to engage them, he started to form district councils with representatives from every sizable village.

In Wardak, the task was to resolve routine issues but also to work on how to keep the Taliban out. An early plan to arm the community representatives has been abandoned, Mr. Popal said.

“If the community is organized and not indifferent to the government, then they can make it very difficult for the Taliban to come,” he said.

Yet the plan has not been well received with the elders of the province, who, with Taliban all around, were reluctant to be seen to be working with the government, one provincial official said. So far only four districts have held council meetings, he said.

After nearly six months of work, Mr. Popal describes Wardak as “much, much better.” But nongovernmental organizations say they have not noticed much change, their staff members are still threatened and they are having difficulty monitoring their development projects.

But Mr. Popal maintains that, despite their advances, the Taliban are far from popular. “People don’t want the Taliban, this is fact. But the government should provide more,” he said. “The main problem is the way we are fighting the Taliban.”

He continued: “We should fight with better governance and better intelligence. We have to empower communities to better defend themselves, not with weapons but with organization.”

Ottawa on the hook for harm to Afghans

Tom Blackwell, National Post  Published: Thursday, April 24, 2008

The incidents range from accidental shooting deaths of civilians to deadly friendly fire mishaps, vehicle crashes and even lost cellphones.

The federal government has paid out tens of thousands of dollars in compensation to Afghans who have been hurt, killed or had property wrecked by Canadian troops in the past two years, internal documents obtained by the National Post indicate.

The list of reparations paid by the middle of last year includes five cases of civilians injured or killed at the hands of Canadian troops and three friendly-fire deaths of Afghan soldiers or police.

Compensation for deaths ranged from about $2,000 to almost $9,000, according to Justice Department claims reports, obtained under the Access to Information Act but censored of much personal and other information. None of the claims dealt with damage from air strikes called in by Canadian troops.

"Compensation claims are taken seriously," said Sarah Cavanagh, a National Defence Department spokeswoman. "Each request is fully and expeditiously investigated."

Yet the papers underline a highly charged issue for the NATO mission in Afghanistan: the usually inadvertent but often inflammatory collateral damage inflicted by the foreign forces on an already shattered population.

The claims released by the government represent just the "tip of the iceberg" of civilian casualties triggered by the Canadian Forces' actions, argues Norine MacDonald, a Canadian lawyer who heads the Senlis Council think-tank and has lived most of the past three years in Kandahar City.

Many civilian injuries or deaths during fighting against the Taliban are effectively ignored by the Canadians or simply unknown to them because the government has no system for tracking such casualties, Ms. MacDonald said. Only when an Afghan is sophisticated enough to make a claim is compensation considered, she said, an approach she calls "chintzy" for a mission that is spending $1-billion a year.

"There are uncounted numbers of civilian casualties that are never dealt with," Ms. MacDonald said. "It's like, 'We'll only pay if we're put in a corner, we'll only pay the smallest amount possible.' ... There is a lot of hostility about the deaths. There is a lot of hostility about [the Canadian] response, or lack of response."

Omar Samad, Afghanistan's ambassador to Canada, said he would not comment on this country's efforts at redress, but said more could be done by NATO generally to lessen harm to civilians. "We understand that when there is damage inflicted, it is not intentional and is not part of policy," he said. "[But] there are cases where it can be avoided."

Canada signed an agreement with the Afghan government in 2005 waiving any liability for damage it caused there. However, it has made a number of " ex-gratia" payments, compensation for "benevolent" reasons that are not an admission of legal liability, Ms. Cavanagh said.

The Justice Department, whose lawyers handle the claims, released brief reports to the National Post on 33 cases finalized in the two years that ended last October, with payouts totalling $89,000.

The largest involved an episode in August, 2006, in which Canadian troops fired on an unmarked truckload of Afghan National Police officers wearing plainclothes. Their vehicle had approached a Canadian convoy at high speed in Zhari district west of Kandahar city, even after the Canadians warned them repeatedly to stop, army representatives said at the time.

Families of the two Afghan officers killed received payments of just under $9,000, the documents indicate. Each of the four injured survivors received either $1,800 or $4,400. An average Afghan earns about $300 a year.

Four days earlier, an Afghan boy riding on a motorcycle that had ignored signals for it to stop had been shot and killed by Canadian Forces in Kandahar City. His family received just under $2,000, according to the claim report, which describes the incident as an "ROE (rules-of-engagement) escalation."

In two separate incidents in September and December, three Afghan civilians were hit by ricochets after Canadian soldiers fired warning shots at people approaching their positions, despite warnings to stop. At least one died. Their compensation ranged from $1,120 to $1,981, the documents show.

Relatives of an Afghan National Army soldier killed inadvertently in February, 2007, during an ambush of Canadian troops received $8,500 in reparation, one of the claims documents indicates.

Almost $8,000 in compensation was paid out for an incident in May, 2006, when a Canadian vehicle carrying an unnamed Afghan was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. Many of the claims were for much less tragic incidents. In two cases, for instance, cell-phones were confiscated temporarily by Canadian troops, then lost.

German spy agency rapped over Afghan email monitoring

BERLIN (AFP) — Germany's foreign intelligence service came under fire Thursday after it emerged that the agency illicitly monitored emails between an Afghan minister and a journalist.

A parliamentary commission (PKG) investigating the activities of the secret services sharply criticised the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) and its chief Ernst Urlau, saying the affair had undermined faith in the agency.

"The trust between the PKG and the leadership of the BND has been violated by this," it said, calling the espionage "a grave breach of basic rights".

The story broke last week, when Urlau apologised to the journalist for the German news weekly Der Spiegel, Susanne Koelbl, whose emails were read by BND agents from June to November 2006.

It only emerged Thursday that it was not the reporter but the Afghan official, identified Thursday by Der Spiegel as Economy Minister Mohammad Amin Farhang, who was the target of the operation.

It was unclear why the BND had set its sights on Farhang, who has a German passport and lived for several years in Germany. The magazine said Farhang had been a secret source for several of its articles in recent years and that it had asked his permission before revealing his name.

The parliamentary commission said it was unacceptable that Urlau had not informed the German government or the commission about the case. But it stopped short of recommending his resignation.

The commission also criticised the fact that the BND's top officials themselves had only learned of the case one year after the operation, a violation of an internal policy requiring official clearance.

Der Spiegel called the case "a grave encroachment on press freedom" and threatened to take legal action against the BND.

A deputy from Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative party, Hans-Peter Uhl, said a draft law would be drawn up in the coming months to rein in the BND by bolstering parliament's powers to monitor the agency.

Meanwhile the daily Berliner Zeitung said the BND had spied on other German journalists in Afghanistan.

A former Afghanistan correspondent for ZDF public television, Ulrich Tilgner, told the paper that a German diplomat had warned him he was being monitored due to his contacts with the kidnappers of a German engineer who has since been released.

The BND denied the allegation. The agency has come in for criticism frequently in recent years and has been the target of several parliamentary probes.

In 2006, deputies investigated spying by the BND on German journalists as part of an attempt to determine the sources of leaks by agency staff to the press.

The same year, a commission was created to investigate allegations that the German secret services assisted the CIA during the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, which the government at the time, led by chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, had strongly opposed.

And this month, the BND admitted it was aware that German police officers had been secretly training Libyan security forces but had failed to notify the government .

Afghan spying row rocks Germany

Germany's foreign intelligence service, the BND, could face legal action over claims it spied on a German journalist and an Afghan minister. German news magazine, Der Spiegel, said the BND had apologised to journalist Suzanne Koelbl for monitoring e-mails to the Afghan trade minister in 2006.

But the magazine says it is still considering legal action. The minister, Amin Farhang, says the BND has endangered his life. The agency has not commented publicly on the case.

Mr Farhang told Germany's Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung daily: "This absurd lie that I was a kind of double agent has put my life and my family in great danger."

A German parliamentary committee investigating the affair condemned the fact that BND chief Ernst Uhrlau had not informed the government or the committee about the case. But it stopped short of calling for his resignation.

The BND is alleged to have installed Trojan spyware on the Afghan minister's computer hard disk in 2006.

The parliamentary committee, which met on Thursday, accused the BND of "a grave breach of basic rights" in its monitoring of the journalist, and said "the trust between the PKG (parliamentary committee) and the BND leadership has been undermined".

Germany says 'no protest from Kabul' over eavesdropping

Apr 25, 2008, 10:58 GMT - M&C - Berlin - Amid claims that Germany's BND foreign intelligence service bugged Afghan Trade and Industry Minister Amin Farhang, Berlin said Friday it had not received any protest from the Afghan government.

Farhang himself was quoted Friday in a newspaper, the Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung, voicing outrage that the BND had monitored his e-mails. He said he was 'disappointed' that neither the German government nor the BND had apologized to him personally.

The BND or Federal Intelligence Service did voice regret this week that it had read mails from German journalists who contacted Farhang. This was slammed in the German media as interference with freedom of the press.

Government spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm said Friday that Germany changed its regulations in 2007 to ensure that surveillance with foreign-policy implications could not be initiated by lower-level intelligence officials.

Wilhelm confirmed reports that BND staff had been transferred or disciplined at the demand of Chancellor Angela Merkel. He added that an inquiry panel was studying what had happened in the department concerned at the BND.

The Foreign Ministry in Berlin said relations with Kabul remained 'close and trusting.' Spokesman Martin Jaeger said Kabul had not made any official request for an explanation, nor had the German ambassador to Kabul been summoned to discuss the issue.

He did not directly confirm the bugging, saying only that Berlin had 'noted' Farhang's account in media reports.

The BND admits it read e-mail messages by a German journalist reporting on Afghanistan for Der Spiegel news magazine. Those messages were apparently picked up during surveillance of Farhang's computer.

Ernst Uhrlau, the president of the BND, gave details in closed session this week to a parliamentary committee.

Uhrlau earlier informed the journalist, Susanne Koelbl, who has long reported on the region for the well-known weekly, that she had been monitored during the course of 2006.

Der Spiegel said it was considering legal action on the grounds of Germany's stringent laws governing freedom of the press.

Cutting the tall poppies

The Sydney Morning Herald, 04/24/2008 By Amin Saikal

Tough and costly decisions need to be made to ease the hardship of the Afghan people and end the humiliation of the narco-state's international allies, argues Amin Saikal.

The policy approach pursued by the United States and its allies towards transforming Afghanistan into a stable and secure state has provided the Taliban ample opportunity to reorganise and reinvent themselves.

The Taliban militia have now become a serious challenge, hampering the efforts to rebuild Afghanistan and preventing an early exit of foreign forces from the country. Several factors have proved critical.

First, the US and its allies have failed from the start to deploy enough forces to capitalise on their initial successes. The US originally deployed about 10,000 troops and supported the deployment of another 5000-strong force, made up of troops from its NATO allies, in the form of the International Assistance Security Force. This was against the better judgment of several seasoned scholars and Afghanistan observers, who recommended a force of at least 50,000 troops as necessary not only to secure Kabul but to safeguard other important cities.

The primary focus of the US forces was to hunt down al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders. For this purpose, Washington also armed and financed several existing local power holders and their militias, which operated independently of the Afghan Government, and over which the US could not ensure control in the medium to long term. In the meantime, the international security force was mandated only to provide security for Kabul and the Karzai Government.

These forces proved to be inadequate. It left the field wide open for many sub-national actors, including local chieftains, drug traffickers and powerful poppy growers to re-emerge on the Afghan scene. Most important, it provided a valuable opportunity for the Taliban and their Pakistani backers to re-establish themselves in the provinces along the Pakistani border. With the US forces spread thinly by the turn of 2004, the Taliban were in a position to enhance their military operations, preventing US forces from consolidating a hold, especially in the Taliban heartland in the provinces of Kandahar, Helmand and Uruzgan.

Afghanistan has continued to suffer from poor governance. From the start, the Karzai leadership and its international backers, especially the US, were seductively lured by the ideal of centralised power and authority within a strong presidential framework.

Despite warnings by informed scholars against adopting a strong presidential system of governance as totally inappropriate for a war-torn state with myriad social divisions, they failed to attend to the fact that such a system typically produces only one winner, and many disgruntled losers intent on challenging or undermining the position of the victor.

A presidential system can also result in the concentration of too much formal power in the hands of the winner, leading to personalised politics in which access to the president becomes a prize over which lesser politicians fight viciously.

The result has been the growing isolation of Hamid Karzai from the public, and construction of a dysfunctional and corrupt government. Senior governmental positions have been filled not on the basis of merit, but on family, tribal, ethnic and factional connections. Afghanistan does have a parliament which, although far from perfect, has nonetheless provided a venue for a range of voices to be heard. But the executive branch of the Government has seen no compelling reason to co-ordinate its functions with the legislative branch.

Given Afghanistan's historical experience as a weak state with a strong society, what the country has required is a more inclusive, parliamentary system of government and strong emphasis on legitimate local government structures to give ordinary Afghans a sense of connectedness to the political system. The political system has increasingly cracked under the weight of the burdens it is expected to carry. This has generated a massive political and administrative vacuum, which the Taliban and their supporters have skilfully exploited against the Karzai Government and its supporting foreign forces.

Meanwhile, the US and its allies have not made sufficient investment in Afghanistan's reconstruction. Washington initially shunned the idea of a Marshall Plan, arguing that there was no need for such a scheme because a small amount of money could go a long way in a country like Afghanistan. A report by the Agency Co-ordinating Body for Afghan Relief says that of the more than $20 billion promised by international donors between January 2002 and January 2008, $9 billion still has to be delivered. Of the amount distributed, 40 per cent was returned to the donor countries in consultancy fees and expatriate pay, with most of the remaining funds being spent on United Nations and non-governmental organisations and foreign contractors and subcontractors.

The report makes it clear that while the US military spends $100 million a day, the amount of aid spent by all donors combined has been just $7 million a day since 2001.

The result has been far less investment in the country's reconstruction per head of the population than has been the case with three concurrently disrupted states: Bosnia, Kosovo and East Timor.

In addition, the US tied its intervention in Afghanistan from the start to the wider war on terrorism and the critical role that Pakistan could play on both of these fronts, with two important consequences. The first is that the US efforts have been focused on Afghanistan with the overriding goal of winning the war on terrorism, which in itself has grown as elusive as its targets. The second is that nuclear-armed Pakistan, the original source and sponsor of Muslim extremism, has been allowed to get away with making as little structural adjustment in its approach to Afghanistan as possible.

The military regime of Pervez Musharraf, which has only recently been subjected to a limited degree of civilian limitation, has heavily dwelt on its status as the US's closest partner in the war on terrorism and its elevation from 2005 as one of the US's main non-NATO allies to press for what it deems desirable in support of its interests rather than what the US wants. While being showered with considerable US economic and military assistance, amounting to more than $10 billion by 2007, it has not found it imperative to do whatever it takes to deny the Taliban sanctuaries and logistic support from Pakistan. If anything, its policies have contributed substantially to the growth of the Taliban in Pakistan's border areas with Afghanistan, undermining any efforts on the part of the US and NATO to enhance Pakistan-Afghanistan border security.

The Karzai Government and its international backers have failed to develop a culturally relevant national ideology of state building, capable of countering the effect of the Taliban's reliance on Islam as an ideology of resistance and salvation.

While Islam is enshrined as the religion of state in the new Afghan constitution, the Government has largely pursued a strategy of promoting secular politics and tolerating the kind of social and cultural practices that have left it vulnerable to the accusation of behaving at the behest of occupying powers.

The Taliban's puritanical deployment of Islam as an ideology of renewal and resistance has increasingly proved effective.

This, together with the Taliban's offer of religious rewards in the hereafter and higher pay than the average salary of $US50-70 a month paid by the Government, has led many disgruntled Afghans to become, if not active supporters, at least sympathetic to the Taliban.

As the Karzai Government has failed to consolidate itself as a reliable or trustworthy partner, the US and its allies have also remained divided in their approach and commitment, robbing them of the necessary capacity to forge a common strategy.

Whereas Washington has continued to pledge an open-ended commitment to Afghanistan as part of its war on terrorism strategy, most of its allies have treated their involvement in Afghanistan as a short-term measure and also as a way of avoiding participation in the Iraq fiasco.

While the US has publicly insisted on its determination to eliminate the Taliban and al-Qaeda leaderships, many of its European allies and the United Nations have increasingly wanted to focus on an approach that could enable them to disentangle themselves from Afghanistan as soon as possible.

NATO members continue to disagree over their approach, depth and length of involvement and the degree to which they co-ordinate with the Afghan Government and among themselves. They have remained dumbstruck not only over how to differentiate between "core" Taliban and "non-core" Taliban as well as between the "old" Taliban and the "new", but also on how to stem the tide of opium production, which made the country the largest producer in the world last year.

Afghanistan has become a narco-state, which means that even if the Taliban are eliminated, the country will still be in the grip of a narco-economy. Proceeds from opium, heroin and drug trafficking have become a main source not only for funding the operations of the Taliban and other private militias, but also enriching many government officials. The Afghan Government and outside actors have not devised a common approach to tackle the problem.

Even at the Bucharest summit of NATO and other countries on Afghanistan this month, the participants remained divided on how to deal with the drug problem. The call by the Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, for a decisive approach to the drug issue produced little result.

All this has been extremely comforting to the Taliban leadership and their supporters. They have grown convinced that despite its public rhetoric, NATO will not and can not afford to endure the burdens of Afghanistan indefinitely.

The fact is that the Taliban are not the best trained, equipped and led force. The movement is largely made up of self-styled but poorly trained, fed and clothed jihadists, with no big power behind them. They have made a comeback to fill the vacuum created by the political and strategic failures of the Karzai Government and its foreign allies.

A more appropriate strategy for dealing successfully with the Taliban is to close the Afghan Government's and NATO's vulnerabilities and to delegitimise the religious extremism and non-religious causes on which the Taliban draw. Such a strategy must aim at creating an appropriate and effective system of governance, providing human security and accelerating the process of economic rebuilding from which most Afghans, not just a tiny minority, could benefit, adopting a national ideology of state building that is culturally relevant, pursuing a common approach to resolving the drug problem systematically but humanly, enhancing the security conditions along the border with Pakistan, and pressing Pakistan to abandon its ambitions towards Afghanistan.

These issues form the heart of the Afghan conflict, and require costly and, in some cases, painful policy actions. Should the Afghan Government and its allies fail to move in this direction, the conditions can only favour the Taliban's continued insurgency at the cost of more violence and hardship for the Afghan people and humiliation for the country's international allies.

Amin Saikal is professor of political science and director of the Australian National University's centre for Arab and Islamic studies (Middle East and Central Asia), and author of Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival).

The warlord along NATO's key supply route

Despite many entreaties, he won't align with Taliban. For NATO troops, his independence is no small matter - SAEED SHAH From Friday's Globe and Mail - April 25, 2008 at 5:32 AM EDT

BARA, PAKISTAN — An Islamist warlord whose fighters are overrunning Pakistan's famous Khyber Pass area may now be the only force stopping the Taliban from swooping in to cut off this key supply route for NATO in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Mangal Bagh, who leads a group called Lashkar-i-Islam, said in an interview that he has rebuffed an offer from Pakistan's Taliban to join them. Although he voiced his disdain for the United States, his independence is likely to be significant for NATO troops fighting in Afghanistan.

Khyber agency is a 2,500-square-kilometre district that is part of Pakistan's tribal belt, and truckloads of food, equipment and fuel for NATO troops wind through it daily to the bustling border at Torkham. Last week, fighting between Mr. Bagh's men and a pocket of resistance around the town of Jamrut closed the Pak-Afghan highway for several days.

Mr. Bagh's stronghold, the market town of Bara, is a 30-minute drive from the city-centre of the provincial capital, Peshawar. An escort of his heavily armed followers is needed to reach his fortified compound in the surrounding countryside.

"I'm not the ruler of Khyber, I'm the servant," said Mr. Bagh, who had an unexpectedly gentle manner, as he relaxed with his Kalashnikov-toting men, drinking tea. "My aim is to finish all social evils."

There have been repeated entreaties to combine forces from the Pakistani Taliban, who run other parts of the country's wild northwestern border terrain, known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. A traditional jirga, a meeting of elders, was held between Lashkar-i-Islam and the Taliban about 40 days ago.

"I told them that what I am doing is enough. It is the right direction. There is no need to join you," he said. "The Taliban consists of religious scholars. We are fighters for Islam - laypeople. We don't have any religious figures in our organization."

However, he said that the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan was "wrong" and that U.S. soldiers must leave. "While the Americans are in Afghanistan, there is no way to bring peace and prosperity, over there and here," Mr. Bagh said. "We do not want to kill Americans, we just want to make them Muslims."

Locals said that Mr. Bagh would not allow Taliban fighters to cross into Khyber. If they ever got into the area, the Taliban could readily choke the Pakistan-Afghan highway. They showed intent last month with the bombing of fuel trucks waiting at Torkham to cross into Afghanistan.

In contrast to the Taliban, Lashkar-i-Islam is against kidnapping and suicide bombings. Rather than the international jihad of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, Mr. Bagh's message is more an austere one, that "vices" must end.

Mr. Bagh's group has used its muscle to free some victims from the kidnap gangs that operate in Khyber. But he is violently opposed to worshipping at shrines, a popular tradition that he regards as un-Islamic. Last month, a brutal attack by his men on a shrine in Shaikhan, a settlement near Bara, left 12 villagers dead.

His stand has led to accusations that he has some association with the Pakistani authorities or the country's notorious Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

A senior member of Lashkar-i-Islam, Mistry-Sahib, denied any connection with the Pakistani state.

"We don't want to fight the government; it is our country. We just want peace in our area. We have no connection with the government because their policies are not right," he said.

The state seems to have withdrawn from Bara and much of Khyber agency, and it has taken no recent action to rein in Mr. Bagh. In the town of Bara, the local government office was padlocked and no soldiers or police officers were visible on the streets. Lashkar-i-Islam has, it seems, become the de facto police, with its fighters motoring around in four-wheel-drive vehicles with blue flashing lights.

A local politician, who decline to be identified, said: "If we finish Mangal Bagh, the Taliban will come in. He's a better alternative. At least he will never pick up his gun against Pakistan."

In Bara, there were no women on the streets. The Lashkar-i-Islam's harsh strictures, delivered through a pirate radio station, appear to have driven them indoors. In the market, local people praised Mr. Bagh for cracking down on crime, though it would take a brave person to criticize him openly. Praying five times a day at the mosque is now mandatory. But it is a source of pride for Mr. Bagh that he has left Bara's small but conspicuous Sikh community alone.

One Sikh in Bara market, Sant Singh, said: "Conditions are good. When there is the azaan [Islamic call to prayer], people leave their shops open and go to the mosque. There is no theft here any more."

Mr. Bagh belongs to the Afridi tribe, the largest in the Khyber agency, which has a population of about 550,000 and is considered the most developed part of FATA. He said his writ ran over almost the whole of Khyber.

Others suggested that while he has Bara and its surrounding area, his command elsewhere in Khyber is less certain. The fighting in Jamrut, a town famous for its trade in contraband, resulted in an uneasy stalemate between his fighters and the local strongmen, the Kukikhel tribe.

Mr. Bagh, known now as the Emir, said that he has more than 10,000 men under his command and could call upon as many as 120,000 - more than the number of Pakistan army soldiers stationed in the whole of the tribal area. The 35-year-old has built an empire in just three years from humble origins. He used to drive a bus.

Ominously for the rest of Pakistan, Mr. Bagh suggested that his movement could branch out of Khyber. "Islam is for everyone. We could go to other places where there are social evils. We want peace and Islam everywhere. Our organization is not confined to this area."

Battle of the belly buttons on Afghan television

By Jerome Starkey in Kabul, Friday, 25 April 2008

Love affairs, foreign gods and ladies' belly-buttons are at the centre of a row threatening Afghanistan's free press.

Broadcasters are locked in a battle with the country's Information Minister, after two television stations ignored ultimatums to stop showing Indian soap operas.

The government is trying to ban Indian serials – must-see TV for millions of ordinary Afghans – on the grounds that they are un-Islamic, because they show couples courting, women cheating and too much female flesh. They also show characters worshipping Hindu gods.

Some Islamic clerics have threatened to blow up TV antennae if the shows are not pulled. But the country's most popular broadcaster, Tolo TV, has defied government threats to shut down the shows, and they have accused officials of attacking the media in a manner reminiscent of the Taliban, which used tanks to destroy TV sets.

The Ministry of Information and Culture has delivered three ultimatums ordering broadcasters to stop showing the programmes, but twice they have had to extend the deadlines after Tolo, which brought Afghanistan its own version of Pop Idol, and a smaller station, Afghan TV, refused to cave in to their demands.

The broadcasters now have until Tuesday to take the shows off the air. In its most recent statement, the ministry said: "Tolo and Afghan TV are informed for the last time to stop broadcasting certain serials as soon as possible. Otherwise, they will be referred to legal and judicial authorities."

"These serials have become an icon for free speech," said Tolo's director Jahid Mohseni. "This is a stand that we have to make."

He rejected claims that the government's opposition was based on protecting Islam. "It has got nothing to do with Islam," he added. "It is about using Islam as a dogma to attack people. The Taliban did pretty much the same thing."

Afghanistan's National Union of Journalists reacted yesterday by launching an advertising campaign to highlight what they described as government-sponsored "threats to democracy".

The union's president, Abdul Hamim Mobarez, said: "We are defending free speech and democracy in our country. There is nothing against our religion in these shows. We strongly believe these actions will endanger our democracy."

Broadcasters invariably blur female characters' shoulders, backs and mid-rifts whenever their saris are too revealing.

Tolo insists the ban is illegal under the country's constitution, which enshrines free speech, and they point to viewing figures of more than 11 million as proof the shows do not offend Afghan culture. They say freedom of speech is facing a "crisis".

The Minister of Information and Culture, Abdul Karim Khurram, named five soaps he wanted banned last week, after consulting the influential Ulemma Council of Islamic scholars. President Hamid Karzai has since sided with the mullahs declaring there are too many foreign shows.

[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.]