In this bulletin:

• Afghan suicide blast kills 15 civilians
• Twenty-six Taliban killed in Afghanistan
• US Marines move into Taliban-held area of Afghanistan
• Karzai says religion misused to "kill and harm"
• Afghan intel: Karzai was warned of assassination plot
• Afghan troops take to Kabul's streets after attack on Karzai
• Afghan parliament slams security forces over ceremony attack
• Rice says Afghanistan will find, try would-be assassins
• Moscow condemns attempt on Afghan President Hamid Karzai
• New Afghan UN envoy gets strong US backing
• U.N.'s Envoy To Afghanistan Sees Threats To Progress
• Afghans to take over Kabul security despite attack: UN envoy
• UN envoy seeks new Afghan aid strategy
• British PM: NATO's Afghan mission in trouble
• ‘Italy to stay in Afghanistan’
• Iran trying to destabilize Karzai Government: US
• Turkmenistan, Afghanistan sign energy, transport deals
• Drugs for guns: how the Afghan heroin trade is fuelling the Taliban insurgency
• We are not losing Afghanistan
  Our man in Kabul?
• Afghanistan: joined-up thinking
• Govt-Taliban talks collapse
• Missing female staff of international organization found dead in Afghan north
• 77 Afghan nationals handed over to Kabul
• Pakistan, Iran clear hurdles in IPI gas line

Afghan suicide blast kills 15 civilians

JALALABAD, Afghanistan (AFP) — A suicide blast tore through an anti-drugs meeting of officials and villagers in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing 15 people, a witness and a NATO force told AFP.

The insurgent Taliban movement said one of its fighters carried out the suicide bombing in the small town of Khogyani in the eastern province of Nangarhar.

In the immediate aftermath of the powerful blast, Afghan officials would not say how many people were killed and who they were.

But the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which had troops in the area, said its initial information was that 15 Afghans were dead and 14 wounded. It had earlier said 25 Afghans were hurt.

A man who witnessed the attack told AFP at the main hospital in the city of Jalalabad, 25 kilometres (15 miles) from Khogyani, that the meeting was being held in the open in front of the district headquarters.

"Locals were sitting on the ground as the district authorities, district police chief, district governor and others were talking to them, saying they should not grow opium," the shaken man said, refusing to give his name.

"I saw a young boy who was carrying white papers wandering around the crowd, pretending he was applying for something at the district headquarters. "All of a sudden I saw a big, red flame from among the crowd where the boy was standing and a big explosion followed."

Once the smoke cleared, the area was covered in blood and flesh, said the witness, aged in his late 30s. "People were running and some were screaming. I don't remember much. My head is spinning... I don't know how I drove all the way up here," he said, adding he had brought wounded friends to the hospital.

A doctor at the hospital first told AFP five bodies and nine wounded had been admitted. Hospital authorities said later they needed time to tally the total number dead and wounded.

ISAF said none of its soldiers were harmed. The troops on the ground had reported that insurgents first opened fire with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades, Major Martin O'Donnell told AFP.

"It appears that when that happened, people went for cover. They (the attackers) snuck a suicide bomber in in the midst of the confusion."

A man claiming to be a Taliban commander for the region named Qari Sajad told an AFP reporter by telephone that the suicide bombing was carried out by a Taliban militant.

The Taliban, who were in government between 1996 and 2001, have been behind a wave of suicide attacks across Afghanistan as part of an insurgency against the government and its international allies.

The unrest routinely steps up over spring and there has been a surge in violence in the past weeks.

On Sunday the insurgents staged one of their most audacious attacks yet, opening fire on a stage where the country's most senior figures -- including President Hamid Karzai and several ambassadors -- had gathered for a military parade.

Three Afghans, one of them a parliamentarian, were killed and three of the attackers were gunned down. Most of the unrest is however in southern Afghanistan.

US Marines who deployed in March to reinforce ISAF in the volatile south launched their first major operation Monday, moving into a Taliban stronghold in the southern province of Helmand with help from British troops based there.

The operation was to "enhance security" in the district of Garmser, ISAF said in a statement. Garmser in southern Helmand is an area of difficult desert terrain that extends down to the Pakistan border across which Taliban reinforcements and weapons are said to arrive to enter the growing insurgency.

Twenty-six Taliban killed in Afghanistan

KABUL (AFP) — Around 26 Taliban have been killed in military action in Afghanistan, officials said Monday, including a dozen when troops repelled a mass attack on several US and Afghan bases.

Australia meanwhile announced earlier it had lost a soldier in a Taliban attack in the southern province of Uruzgan on Sunday. The country is one of about 40 with troops in Afghanistan to fight back the extremist Taliban.

Between 30 and 40 insurgents attacked five bases in the eastern province of Kunar on Sunday with artillery, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, the US-led coalition said in a statement.

The military forces responded, including with military aircraft, and a dozen insurgents were killed and a dozen more wounded, it said.

Another six rebels were killed Monday when security forces fought back a Taliban attack on a coalition and Afghan army convoy in the central province of Ghazni, provincial government spokesman Zia Wali Zadran told AFP.

Six more were killed and 18 wounded in a military operation in a different area of the same province late Sunday, Zadran said.

The coalition also announced that two insurgents were killed in the eastern province of Nangarhar on Sunday when international and Afghan troops fought back after being attacked during an operation.

A member of the Afghan security forces was also killed, it said in a statement. Four suspected insurgents were arrested. The operation was to track down a man involved in suicide attacks.

Militants had also attacked a high-profile military parade in Kabul Sunday, missing President Hamid Karzai but killing a tribal chief and a parliamentarian. A 10-year-old boy was also killed.

Authorities said Monday that investigations were continuing into the daring attack and people rounded up afterwards were being questioned.

US Marines move into Taliban-held area of Afghanistan

Associated Press Writer (04.29.08) - U.S. Marines exchanged gunfire with militants Tuesday after pouring into a Taliban-held town in southern Afghanistan in the first major American operation in the region in years.

Several hundred Marines, many of them veterans of the conflict in Iraq, pushed into the town of Garmser in pre-dawn light in an operation to drive out the insurgents, stretching NATO's presence into an area littered with opium poppy fields and classified as Taliban territory.

U.S. commanders say Taliban fighters were expecting an assault and planted homemade bombs in response. The British have a small base on the town's edge but Garmser's main marketplace is closed because of the Taliban threat.

Marines moved into town by helicopter and Humvee for Tuesday's assault in the southern province of Helmand, the first major task undertaken by the 2,300 Marines in the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which arrived last month from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, for a seven-month deployment. Another 1,200 Marines arrived to train Afghan police.

Maj. Tom Clinton, the American commander at Forward Operating Base Dwyer, a British outpost 10 miles west of Garmser, said militants and Marines exchanged fire in two parts of Garmser on Tuesday. There was no immediate word on casualties.

"We haven't seen anybody who isn't carrying a gun," Clinton said of the mostly deserted town. "They're trying to figure out what we're doing. They're shooting at us, letting us know they're there."

Clinton, 36, of Swampscott, Mass., said Marines had also found bomb-making material and rockets in town. He said he was worried about the possibility of attacks using homemade bombs.

The Marines' mission is the first carried out by U.S. forces this far south in Helmand province in years. An operation late last year to take back the Taliban-held town of Musa Qala on the north end of Helmand involved U.S., British and Afghan forces.

Helmand province is the world's largest opium poppy growing region and has been a flash point of the increasingly violent insurgency in the last two years. British troops — who are responsible for Helmand — have faced fierce battles on the north end of Helmand.

Most U.S. troops operate in the east, along the border with Pakistan, but Britain, with 7,500 troops, and Canada, with 2,500 troops in neighboring Kandahar province, have not had enough manpower to tame the south.

More than 8,000 people died in insurgency-related violence last year. Militants set off more than 140 suicide bombs. Taliban fighters have been increasingly relying on roadside bombs and suicide attacks after being routed in force-to-force battles in the past.

The Marines had prepared on Monday by cleaning weapons and handing out grenades. The leader of one of the three companies involved — Charlie Company commander Capt. John Moder — said his men were ready.

"The feeling in general is optimistic, excited," said Moder, 34, of North Kingstown, Rhode Island. "They've been training for this deployment the last nine months. We've got veteran leaders."

Many of the men in the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit served in 2006 and 2007 in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province in western Iraq. The vast region was once the stronghold of al-Qaida in Iraq before the militants were pushed out in early 2007.

Moder said that experience would affect how his men fight in Afghanistan. "These guys saw a lot of progress in Ramadi, so they understand it's not just kinetic (fighting) but it's reconstruction and economic development."

But on the initial assault, Moder said his men were prepared to face mines and homemade bombs and "anybody that wants to fight us."

One Marine in Charlie Company, Cpl. Matt Gregorio, 26, from Boston, alluded to the fact the Marines had been in Afghanistan for six weeks without carrying out any missions. He said the mood was "anxious, excited."

"We've been waiting a while to get this going," he said.

Karzai says religion misused to "kill and harm"

Tue Apr 29, 2008 11:06am BST

KUWAIT (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who escaped an assassination attempt this week, said on Tuesday that religion was being misused to "kill and harm" and Muslim countries needed to join forces to fight extremism.

"We have an enemy within. Some of us misuse the name of our religion to kill and bring harm and destruction instead of be educated," Karzai told an Islamic economic forum in Kuwait City.

"We have to focus our efforts... to fight the enemy which is extremism that prevents us from developing, stains our image and destroys our life."

Karzai's comments came after he escaped unhurt from Sunday's attack by Taliban fighters who fired guns and rockets at a parade near the presidential palace in Kabul. Three people were killed -- a parliamentarian, the head of a minority group and a 10-year-old child -- and 10 were wounded, officials said.

Afghan intel: Karzai was warned of assassination plot

By FISNIK ABRASHI – KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — President Hamid Karzai was warned of a weekend assassination plot against him, Afghanistan's intelligence chief said Tuesday, while admitting failings by security services.

Meanwhile, a suicide attack killed 15 people in an eastern province, a NATO spokesman said. Amrullah Saleh told Parliament the plot to kill Karzai was hatched last month and the gunmen had rented the hotel room they opened fire from 45 days before the attack.

Karzai and other dignitaries escaped unharmed from Sunday's assault during a ceremony in Kabul marking Afghanistan's victory over the Soviet occupation of the country in the 1980s. Three other people, including a lawmaker, died.

Three of the attackers were also killed in a gunbattle with security forces after the assault, Karzai's government said, but the Taliban said three other insurgents got away.

"We had technical information ... that this work would happen," Saleh told a National Assembly session broadcast live on national television. "We passed this information to the national security (adviser) and to the president of Afghanistan."

Despite stringent measures by security services to protect the event, "the result is that we failed," Saleh said. He refused to give further details about the plot during an open session.

An Afghan intelligence official has said about 100 people were rounded up for questioning after the attack. Some of those questioned have since been freed, officials say. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Saleh, Defense Minister Abdur Rahim Wardak and Interior Minister Zarar Ahmad Moqbel were summoned to explain to lawmakers what happened Sunday. Daud Sultanzoy, a lawmaker, demanded all three security officials resign — although there was no immediate sign that would happen.

The attack in the Afghan capital underscored the fragile grip of Karzai's government in the face of Taliban insurgents. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday said the attack showed Karzai's administration is under a strong threat.

Afghanistan has "determined enemies who will do anything to disrupt the democratic progress that the Afghan people have made," Rice said.

Sunday's lapse brought questions about the readiness of Karzai's government to follow up on its demand for Afghan police and the army to take greater control of security. U.S. and NATO-led troops provide security in much of the country now.

But the White House said it was unfair to criticize Afghan security forces because insurgents had been able to stage an attack.

"When it comes to dealing with terrorists like the Taliban or al-Qaida, they just have to have even ... a little bit of an impact for everyone to say that they had a big victory," White House press secretary Dana Perino said.

The attack was sure to bring a sense of unease in Kabul, which has been spared the worst of the violence as fighting escalated between the Taliban and international troops.

A suicide attack in the volatile eastern part of the country killed 15 people and wounded 25, a NATO spokesman said.

Maj. Martin O'Donnell said there were NATO troops in the area of the attack in Khogyani district of Nangahar province but there were no alliance casualties.

He said the militants opened up with small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades before a suicide bomber blew himself up among a crowd that was taking cover.

"If the goal was ISAF they failed," O'Donnell said of Tuesday's violence. He speaks for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. "But if the goal was to injure and kill Afghans they succeeded."

Alliance medics were treating the wounded, he said. Abdul Mohammed, chief of police criminal investigations in Nangahar, said the bomb went off in front of the office of the district chief who was among those hurt.

He said the attack left 12 dead and 38 wounded. It was not immediately possible to reconcile the differing casualty tolls. Militants launched more than 140 suicide attacks last year, spearheading their violent campaign against the elected government of Karzai and Western forces that support it.

Violence has intensified since the Islamist militia's ouster from power in a U.S.-led invasion in 2001, killing a record 8,000 people last year, according to the U.N. More than 1,000 people, mostly militants, have died in insurgency-related violence so far this year, according to an Associated Press tally of figures from Afghan and Western officials.

In the past two days, Afghan and foreign troops have killed at least 23 insurgents and wounded 20 others in ground battles and airstrikes in the south and east of Afghanistan, officials said.

Afghan troops take to Kabul's streets after attack on Karzai

By AMIR SHAH – KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghan soldiers took up positions Monday in districts of the capital where government officials and foreigners live, while security officers hunted for suspects in the attempted assassination of President Hamid Karzai.

About 100 people were rounded up for questioning about the attack that killed three people and wounded eight during a government celebration Sunday, an Afghan intelligence official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to journalists.

The Defense Ministry spokesman, Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi, confirmed people had been detained but didn't say how many. He said some of those questioned had already been freed.

The ability of militants to get close enough to fire rockets and automatic rifles at a grandstand holding Karzai and foreign dignitaries underscored the fragility of Afghanistan's government as it fights the former ruling Taliban movement and allied insurgents.

"The terrorist threat is real, it is deadly, and defeating this enemy has to be a top priority of the United States, of the Afghan government, of the Iraqi government, and the NATO alliance," White House press secretary Dana Perino said Monday.

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said the attack demonstrated again that the Taliban "will use the most extreme violence to oppose Afghanistan's freedom and democratic development."

The Taliban claimed its fighters staged the assault. Three of the attackers were killed, Karzai's government said, but the Taliban said three other insurgents got away.

The U.N. Security Council strongly condemned the attack, saying no terrorist act can reverse the path toward peace and democracy in Afghanistan.

The council said the Taliban's claim of responsibility "underlined the need to bring perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of this reprehensible act of terrorism to justice."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the attack showed Karzai's administration is under a strong threat.

Afghanistan has "determined enemies who will do anything to disrupt the democratic progress that the Afghan people have made," Rice said after meeting with the new United Nations envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide of Norway. Eide had no comment about the attack.

Sunday's lapse brought questions about the readiness of Karzai's government to follow up on its demand for the expanding Afghan police and army to take greater control of security. U.S. and NATO-led troops provide security in much of the country now.

But the White House defended efforts by Afghan forces. "I think that they need to be praised for what they've been able to accomplish so far, and they need to be helped, in order to get to where they need to be," Perino said. "And we're committed to being there. ... They've accomplished a lot."

Perino also said it was unfair to criticize Afghan security forces because insurgents had been able to stage an attack.

"When it comes to dealing with terrorists like the Taliban or al-Qaida, they just have to have even a semblance — it has to look like they had a little bit of an impact for everyone to say that they had a big victory," she said. "Look, we have to be right every single time in order to prevent terrorist attacks. It is damn hard work."

Noting Karzai and Bush talk every other week, Perino predicted they would soon discuss the attack.

The assassination attempt came during a live broadcast of a ceremony marking the Afghan victory over the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. That was sure to bring a sense of unease in Kabul, which has been spared the worst of the violence as fighting escalated between the Taliban and international troops.

In a series of battles Sunday and Monday, Afghan and foreign troops supported by airstrikes killed at least 23 militants and wounded 20, officials said. No casualties were reported for the Afghan and international forces.

One of the biggest fights came in eastern Afghanistan, where U.S. and Afghan troops fought off coordinated insurgent attacks Monday, leaving a dozen militants dead and a dozen more wounded, the U.S. military said in a statement.

A joint force also clashed with militants in the Qarabagh district of Ghazni province Monday, killing six Taliban fighters dead and wounding eight, said Zia Wali, a spokesman for the provincial governor.

In southwestern Nimroz province, U.S.-led coalition and Afghan troops killed several militants during a clash in Khash Rod district, the statement said.

The troops were targeting a militant involved in the movement of weapons and fighters in the area, the statement said. The troops detained 14 other suspected militants during the raid, it said.

More than 1,000 people, mostly militants, have been killed in insurgency-related violence in Afghanistan this year, according to an Associated Press tally of figures from Afghan and Western officials. About 8,000 died last year.

Afghan parliament slams security forces over ceremony attack

Text of report by Afghan independent Tolo TV, on 28 April

[Presenter] MPs call for the summoning of the ministers of defence and interior, and the head of the National Security Directorate.

The MPs' comments come after the ceremony held to celebrate the 16th anniversary of the Afghan mojahedin victory in Kabul was disrupted by insurgents yesterday. A number of MPs say security officials of the country should have resigned before being questioned by parliament. My colleague Nurollah Rahmani has more details.

[Correspondent] Some MPs urged their colleagues to leave aside personal, regional and language links, personal interests and only observe the national interests of the country.

According to the MPs, yesterday's incident harmed the prestige and honour of the Afghans.

[Abdol Jabar Shalgari, MP for Ghazni Province, in Pashto] These ministers and generals are shameless. We should first decide. Is our blood so cheap? [last indistinct sentence omitted]

[Khalid Pashtun, MP for Kandahar Province, in Pashto, first indistinct sentence omitted] We make excuse and tell the nation that it is a very ordinary issue and we are not interested in it. No matter if people are killed and security is disrupted.

[Mawlawi Abdol Aziz, MP for Badakhshan Province] An award for cowardice has been given to a very few people throughout human history. It is good that the parliament of Afghanistan has decided to give awards of cowardice to these three officials [ministers of defence and interior, and the head of the National Security Directorate], so that their names are recorded in history.

[Daud Sultanzoi, MP for Ghazni Province] The president, who is the commander-in-chief of Afghanistan's armed forces, simply escapes when the nation of Afghanistan witnesses the celebration of a great day. I do not want to speak about security procedures, Mr Chairman. We should speak about the leadership. The Afghan nation needs a brave, strong and inspiring leadership.

[Mohammad Yunos Qanuni, parliamentary speaker] It was a real tragedy. It cast doubt o ver the honour and prestige of the government and people of Afghanistan. The weakness and incompetence of security forces could clearly be felt.

[Correspondent] Almost all MPs asked for summoning of the ministers of defence and interior, and the head of the National Security Directorate. They said yesterday's incident was a shameful incident for the leadership of the government of Afghanistan, especially for security officials. They believe the people of Afghanistan and the world witnessed the true level of capability of the government of Afghanistan and security officials.

In the end, the meeting decided that the ministers of defence and interior affairs, and the head of the National Security Directorate should attend the general meeting of parliament tomorrow.

Rice says Afghanistan will find, try would-be assassins

By ANNE GEARAN - AP Diplomatic Writer 28 Apr 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice praised Afghan President Hamid Karzai as a strong leader Monday, following an assassination attempt that highlighted the threats to the U.S.-backed government more than six years after the fall of the Taliban.

"What it underscores for me is that Afghanistan has ... determined enemies who will do anything to disrupt the democratic progress that the Afghan people have made," Rice said following a meeting with the newly named United Nations envoy to Afghanistan.

"President Karzai is a strong leader and he has responded, I think, in a strong fashion to this," Rice said. "They will certainly find the perpetrators and they will bring them to justice."

The attack Sunday during an outdoor ceremony in Kabul killed three people, wounded eight and sent Karzai and foreign ambassadors scurrying for cover. The Taliban claimed responsibility but said additional attackers were involved.

"Thankfully, President Karzai was not harmed," White House press secretary Dana Perino said Monday.

"The terrorist threat is real, it is deadly, and defeating this enemy has to be a top priority of the United States, of the Afghan government, of the Iraqi government and the NATO alliance," Perino said.

The strike launched so close to Karzai was a serious security lapse at a time when the Afghan police and army are expanding and the government is demanding greater control of security, still provided in much of the country by U.S. and NATO-led forces.

Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi, a spokesman for the defense ministry, said authorities were investigating who could have helped the assailants. U.N. envoy Kai Eide did not address the attack during a brief appearance before cameras.

The career Norwegian diplomat was appointed to help coordinate international civilian development efforts by working with the Afghan government and NATO's military mission. He took on the job after Karzai unexpectedly rejected former British politician Lord Paddy Ashdown for the role.

"We do have the confidence of the president of Afghanistan and his support," Eide said.

Moscow condemns attempt on Afghan President Hamid Karzai

Text of report in English by Russian state news agency ITAR-TASS

Moscow, 28 April: The attempt on President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai is resolutely condemned in Moscow, Russian Foreign Ministry officials said on Monday.

"This terrorist act testifies to the uninterrupted activity of extremist forces seeking to disrupt the normalization process in Afghanistan," the ministry said.

"Russia is certain that the Afghan authorities will be able to attain stabilization of the military-political and socio-economic situation in the country," the Foreign Ministry officials noted. "The Russian Federation intends also in the future to support efforts of the government of Afghanistan and the international community to make the IRA a sovereign, peaceful and democratic state," they said.

One person died and 11 were injured as fire was opened by the Taleban on April 27 at a meeting in Kabul with the participation of the country's President Hamid Karzai, members of the cabinet, military and foreign diplomats. Karzai appea! red after the attack on state television to reassure citizens that he was all right.

"Today, the enemies of Afghanistan, the enemies of Afghanistan's security and progress tried to disrupt the ceremony and cause disorder and terror," Karzai said. "Fortunately, Afghanistan's military forces surrounded them quickly and arrested some of the suspects," he added.

The Taleban, which claimed responsibility for the attack, said three of its fighters were killed. British ambassador Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles was standing on the front row of the dais alongside the US envoy to Kabul. "It was coming to the end of the 21-gun salute. I saw an explosion and a puff of dust to the left of the parade and then heard the crackle of small arms fire from all directions," he told Reuters. "After some hesitation, my bodyguard frog-marched me away," he noted.

New Afghan UN envoy gets strong US backing

Reuters, Tuesday, 29 April 2008

The new United Nations envoy to Afghanistan won strong US support as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pledged to work with the veteran diplomat in coordinating help for the turbulent country.

Kai Eide, on a visit to Washington in his first month on the job, said he believed he also had the support of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who had vetoed an earlier attempt to fill the post.

"We have no more important mission together than to help the Afghan people to find security, development and ultimately prosperity and peace within their newly democratic state," Rice told Eide.

The Norwegian diplomat said in a speech to a Washington think tank that along with backing from the United States and the wider international community, "I feel that I have the strong confidence of the Afghan leadership and the president."

Eide moved to Kabul last month, charged with improving coordination of international civilian and military activities and cooperation with the Afghan government.

"It is important to demonstrate that project Afghanistan is not a security project. It's a political project and has to be co-ordinated as such," Eide said at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

More than seven years after US-led troops ousted the Taliban for refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden, a Taliban insurgency in the South and East remains tenacious despite the presence of more than 50,000 US and Nato troops.

A Taliban assassination attempt against Karzai on Sunday "demonstrates clearly that the security environment is challenging" said Eide, adding that such attacks by the rebels were an "expression of being on the defensive."

"There is a significant level of crime, yes, but I do believe that the security situation is not worsening," he said.

Eide said he wanted to improve coordination between civilian bodies and the US and Nato military forces, overcome bureaucratic bottlenecks among organisations working in Afghanistan and pursue the "Afghanisation" of aid to use local resources and develop Afghan expertise in projects.

"We have to spend the resources we have better than we do today," he said, criticizing duplication of work, pricey outside consultants and aid projects tied to contracts from donor states.

Eide listed reform priorities including cleaning up the police and justice system, improving governance and building up the neglected agriculture sector in agrarian Afghanistan.

Ahead of a key Afghan aid conference in Paris in June, he said he aimed to seek more resources and to enlist new potential donors "across the board."

"I would in particular appeal to countries who have not so far been among the important donors to contribute significantly more in the past," he told Reuters.

Eide, a former UN envoy in the Balkans, is known as an effective diplomat with experience in nation-building and dealing with Nato.

He was chosen for the post after Karzai vetoed British politician Paddy Ashdown's appointment following media speculation about the extent of his powers and possible influence over the government.

U.N.'s Envoy To Afghanistan Sees Threats To Progress

By Karen DeYoung, Washington Post, Tuesday, April 29, 2008

A fragmented international effort and weak government in Kabul have combined to endanger everything that has been accomplished in Afghanistan since the ouster of the Taliban nearly seven years ago, the new U.N. envoy to Afghanistan said yesterday.

Norwegian diplomat Kai Eide said he sees "some hopeful signs" after his first visit to Afghanistan and talks with European and U.S. leaders. But he said the overall effort remains "under-resourced" and uncoordinated.

"I think there is a growing recognition that it is urgent," Eide said. "We all see that if we don't bring a basis of good government and rule of law" to Afghanistan, progress on the military and development front will be unsustainable, he said.

The post Eide took over last month had been vacant since the end of last year. Afghan President Hamid Karzai rejected Paddy Ashdown -- the British politician initially selected for the job of coordinating among international military and civilian activities and the Afghan government -- on the grounds that he would exercise too much influence over Kabul's decision-making.

In an interview, and in a speech here yesterday at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Eide emphasized the need to let Afghans make their own decisions.

"I profoundly believe that it is their country and they know it better than we ever will," he said.

While there has been progress in health and education services, he said, police training, government capacity-building and agriculture still need more resources.

Efforts by individual donors duplicate each other or overlap, and too many aid projects are tied to purchases and decision-making in the West.

U.S. and NATO forces have scored tactical victories against a resurgent Taliban but have failed to prevent the Pakistan-based extremists from expanding their hold over rural areas.

Opium poppy cultivation, which finances both the Taliban and corrupt Afghan officials, has increased in some areas as violence and drought have diminished food supplies.

Security in many areas remains problematic, even without major combat; Karzai himself narrowly escaped a Taliban attack in Kabul on Sunday that killed three people.

The Bush administration has made little headway in persuading NATO governments to increase the number of combat troops they contribute to the international force in Afghanistan.

Eide, while agreeing that security must be improved, said he also expects donor governments to expand and make better use of economic and development assistance, and better coordinate their efforts in line with an Afghan development plan that is to be presented at an international conference in Paris in June.

Despite its long skepticism of U.N. involvement in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush administration has become eager in recent years to increase the international profile in both countries.

Eide's Washington visit has been given high priority, including a daytime meeting and dinner with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday and a White House visit with President Bush today.

"It is a tough job," Rice said of Eide's mission. "We understand that."

Afghans to take over Kabul security despite attack: UN envoy

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Afghanistan's national army will take over the security of Kabul as scheduled this autumn despite a brazen attack by suspected Taliban militants at the heart of the Afghan capital, the special UN envoy to the insurgency-wracked nation said Monday.

"The ANA (Afghan National Army) takeover of Kabul is supposed to happen in autumn this year and I expect that to take place according to the schedule they have outlined," said envoy Kai Eide of Norway, who took over about a month ago.

The training of the national army, numbering more than 64,000 soldiers and scheduled to grow to 80,000 by the end of this year, was "not going badly at all" ahead of shouldering its new responsibility, he said.

The upcoming takeover "is an important step in the right direction," Eide said at a Washington forum when asked whether Sunday's attack at a top military parade in central Kabul -- seen also as an assassination attempt on Afghan President Hamid Karzai -- had cast doubt on the Afghans' role in assuming security responsibility.

The New York Times on Monday described the attack as "a moment of national embarrassment" for the Karzai government, which had been pressing to take over responsibility for Kabul's security from foreign troops.

The insurgent Taliban movement said it carried out the attack, in which three Afghans were killed, to show it had the power to strike even the nation's biggest annual military parade.

The event was supposed to showcase the Afghan army's growing strength after getting new training and equipment, mainly from the United States.

The UN Security Council, which last month unanimously agreed to extend the mandate of the UN mission in Afghanistan known as UNAMA until March 2009, on Monday strongly condemned the raid and stressed the need to bring those behind "this reprehensible act of terrorism" to justice.

Eide said while the attack underscored the fragile security situation in Afghanistan, where some 70,000 international soldiers from around 40 countries are serving, "the security situation is not worsening" as claimed by some groups.

"For those who say that the security situation is constantly becoming more difficult, I dont think (so). ... The major part of the country is relatively stable," he said.

Some groups suspected local security forces might have been linked to the attack, as has been suggested in the previous most dramatic attack in Kabul -- the Taliban's storming of a five-star hotel in January.

Eide, a former ambassador to NATO, had left the hotel seconds before the January attack, carried out by men in police uniform which left at least eight people dead, including three foreign nationals.

Following recent peace talks between Afghanistan's neighbor Pakistan and Taliban fighters, Eide said any such reconciliation in Afghanistan should not compromise freedom and security.

The reconciliation process, which must be politically driven, "cannot be a replacement for military engagement but must be based on the position of strength," he said. "The two must go hand-in-hand."

The UN envoy also said he had received commitments from European nations to pools their resources to help bolster the Afghan police force. "I think there is a growing recognition in European Union member states that there is a need for a greater EU involvement in that effort," he said.

The 40-nation International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan led by NATO has around 43,000 soldiers battling insurgents led by the Taliban, who were ousted by US-led forces in late 2001.

UN envoy seeks new Afghan aid strategy

Special representative to hold talks in Ottawa with Bernier, MacKay

April 29, 2008 - Allan Woods – Toronto Star

OTTAWA–Canada will be asked to revamp its Afghan aid strategy when a top United Nations envoy arrives in Ottawa for two days of high-level meetings with government officials.

Kai Eide, the special representative of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, will meet with Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier and Defence Minister Peter MacKay tomorrow and Thursday. The new envoy's first North American visit also includes meetings with U.S. President George W. Bush as Washington prepares to boost its presence in southern Afghanistan.

A spokesperson for Eide, a former Norwegian diplomat, said he plans to tackle head-on the expectation that he can "turn the situation around" in Afghanistan by tapping Canada, the U.S. and other countries to re-examine the way it provides support to President Hamid Karzai's government.

"He (Eide) is going to be knocking on your Canadian foreign minister's door and asking what I call the Janet Jackson question: `What have you done for me lately?'" Aleem Siddique told the Star from Kabul. "He'll be asking what the Canadians can be doing differently to meet some of these expectations that have been placed on his shoulders."

At NATO meetings in Bucharest this month, the international community pledged to start transferring increasing control of the country to the Afghan government and security forces, and set out a series of secret targets dealing with troop levels, financial assistance, security and the judicial system that are intended to refocus and better co-ordinate the mission.

Canada is also setting its own targets to define success in Kandahar province and allow Canadian soldiers to withdraw from the country in 2011. The targets come just after Parliament voted to extend the Afghan mission past 2009 and shift efforts from counterinsurgency to training and development.

Part of that strategy involves freeing up some of the $100 million it spends annually on Afghanistan for quick-response projects or large-scale investments easily identified as Canadian. Former Liberal cabinet minister John Manley made such a suggestion earlier this year and International Development Minister Bev Oda confirmed plans are underway for a landmark Canadian aid project in Kandahar. Aid groups are warning that the new Canadian aid strategy could inflame Afghans wary of foreign involvement in their country.

British PM: NATO's Afghan mission in trouble

LONDON, April 29 (Xinhua) -- British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told his allies that NATO's mission in Afghanistan was "critically" short of key troops and equipment, the Daily Telegraph reported on Tuesday.

    Brown has repeatedly tried to persuade allies including France and Germany to bear more military burden in Afghanistan, but the daily said his efforts had largely failed.

    The newspaper said according to a "confidential Foreign and Commonwealth Office paper" it obtained, there was a catalog of problems and weaknesses in Western attempts to stabilize the country.

    The three-page document, which summarized the British view of Afghanistan, was drawn up at Brown's request to be distributed to Western allies.

    In a list of "critical areas to fill," the document said NATO would still need three infantry battalions, more helicopters, more aircraft and more training teams to help the Afghan army.

    It also raised concerns about the situation after November this year, when more than 2,300 U.S. Marines are to be withdrawn from the south, where British forces are based.

    Brown has also identified policing and justice as vital to the survival of democracy in Afghanistan, but the document admitted that efforts to train and support Afghan police were going badly.

    Britain has 7,800 troops in Afghanistan as part of a 47,000-strong NATO deployment to fight Taliban-backed insurgents and bolster the elected Afghan government.

‘Italy to stay in Afghanistan’

Daily Times 29 April 2008 - ROME: Italian troops will stay in Afghanistan despite the change of government in Rome, the incoming foreign minister said in an interview published Monday.

“It’s not time to pull out,” Franco Frattini told the Corriere della Sera. “The attack on Hamid Karzai shows once again that Italy and its partners not only cannot withdraw from Afghanistan but also that they should pursue the UN and NATO goals” of democratising the country and fighting the Taliban, he said. President Karzai escaped Sunday after militants attacked a military parade with rockets and gunfire, leaving three people dead including an MP and a 10-year-old boy who was killed apparently in return fire.

Italy has some 2,500 troops in Afghanistan, stationed in the relatively calm western province of Herat and the capital Kabul. Italian soldiers do not take part in military operations against the Taliban in the south of the country. Media magnate Silvio Berlusconi is to return to lead a centre-right government in Italy after his convincing win in Italy’s general elections two weeks ago. afp

Iran trying to destabilize Karzai Government: US

NEW YORK: A top Bush Administration official said that Iran is trying to destabilize the Karzai Government by supplying lethal arms to the Taliban and said that Tehran should stop shipping arms to them.

Iran seeks to destabilize the Karzai government in Afghanistan by sending lethal assistance to the Taliban, once Iran’s enemy," Jeffrey Feltman, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Near Eastern Affairs, said during a Congressional hearing. The hearing on "Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions" was convened by Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services and International Security. This is for the second time in about a fortnight, that a senior Bush Administration official has charged Iran for such a thing, which Tehran has denied in the past. We want Iran to realize that they must stop funding Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad; they must stop shipping arms to the Taliban," Feltman said.

Testifying before the Congressional committee, Patricia McNerney, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Non-proliferation said Iran presents a profound threat to US national security interests. The radical regime in Tehran threatens regional and international security through its pursuit of technologies that would give it a nuclear weapons capability, obviously its support of terrorist groups and militants in Iraq and Afghanistan, its expansive regional ambitions, and its lack of respect for human rights and civil society," he said. "Their shipping arms to the Taliban, to Iraqi insurgents, their destabilizing influence through Hamas and other organizations, again, all of that is important to a broader dialogue," he said.

Feltman said: "Through its malign influence, Tehran undermines the elected government of Iraq and endangers our soldiers and diplomats by providing lethal support to Iraqi militants." He said: "The president has made clear that Iran has a choice to make. It can choose to live in peace with its neighbors, enjoying strong economic and religious and cultural ties, or it can continue to arm, fund, and train illegal militant groups which are terrorizing the Iraqi people and in fact, turning them against Iran."

Turkmenistan, Afghanistan sign energy, transport deals

KABUL (AFP) 29 April 2008 - Turkmenistan and Afghanistan signed agreements on energy, transport and culture Monday, days after agreeing with Pakistan and India to push forward a multi-billion-dollar gas pipeline.

Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai watched their ministers sign the deals and then inked their own on cementing bilateral ties.

The agreements signed in Kabul Monday pave the way for Turkmen help in providing power-poor Afghanistan with fuel and energy and cooperation in the areas of transport and culture.

Karzai said he and Berdymukhamedov discussed the extension of a Turkmen railway line through Afghanistan as well as the gas pipeline.

The four nations involved in the gas project signed in Islamabad last week an accord to take forward years-old plans to build the pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan and India, an official told AFP.

It envisages that work will start in 2010 and be completed five years later, mines ministry spokesman Kohzman Ulumi said.

If implemented, the project would bring cash-strapped Afghanistan more than 200 million dollars in annual revenue as well as the right to consume up to 500 billion cubic metres of gas from the pipeline, he said.

The war-torn country would also be able to use the pipeline to export any of its own gas it may be able to tap in the future, Ulumi said.

"It's a very major project. Afghanistan will benefit from it significantly."

The pipeline is expected to travel from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan's western province of Herat and the southern province of Kandahar -- one of the most Taliban-troubled regions here -- and on into Pakistan.

Berdymukhamedov also condemned a weekend attack on Karzai, adding that Afghanistan's moves towards freedom and democracy were unstoppable.

A host of nations have condemned Sunday's attack in which Taliban extremists were able to open fire on a stage seating Afghanistan's top leaders as well as the most senior international figures in the country.

Three Afghans, including a parliamentarian, were killed, as were three of the attackers.

"We are very happy that there was no harm to his excellency the president and wish him long life," the Turkmen leader said.

"We are confident that no obstacle would stop our brother country Afghanistan's march towards freedom and democracy."

Drugs for guns: how the Afghan heroin trade is fuelling the Taliban insurgency

By Jerome Starkey in Kunduz, Tuesday, 29 April 2008 – The Independent

The heroin flooding Britain's streets is threatening the lives of UK troops in Afghanistan, an Independent investigation can reveal.

Russian gangsters who smuggle drugs into Britain are buying cheap heroin from Afghanistan and paying for it with guns. Smugglers told The Independent how Russian arms dealers meet Taliban drug lords at a bazaar near the old Afghan-Soviet border, deep in Tajikistan's desert. The bazaar exists solely to trade Afghan drugs for Russian guns – and sometimes a bit of sex on the side.

The drugs are destined for Britain's streets. The guns go straight to the Taliban front line. The weapons on sale include machine guns, sniper rifles and anti-aircraft weapons like the ones used in the attempt to assassinate the Afghan President Hamid Karzai last weekend.

"We never sell the drugs for money," boasted one of the smugglers. "We exchange them for ammunition and Kalashnikovs."

The drugs come mostly from Helmand, where most of Britain's 7,800 troops are based. The opium grown there is turned into heroin at factories inside Afghanistan, sold into Tajikistan and smuggled to Europe. The guns are broken down into parts, smuggled back into Afghanistan and delivered to the Taliban. One kilogram of heroin can buy about 30 AK-47 assault rifles at the bazaar.

Nato claims the Taliban get between 40 and 60 per cent of their income from drugs. The smugglers' claims suggest the real cost could be far higher.

The smugglers described a bleak village with no homes, hidden in the desert near the border. Inside open-air courtyards up to 300 shopkeepers sit in small booths. They act as agents of the Russian mafia who supply the guns and spirit the drugs away. The Afghans are agents of corrupt officials in their government, said a mid-level lieutenant Daoud.

Around them lurk Tajik prostitutes, selling themselves for a few scraps of surplus heroin. "They will do anything. They just want some heroin and we always have some spare," said another smuggler.

We interviewed three smugglers in the lawless border areas north and east of Kunduz, a city in northern Afghanistan, as well as a Taliban go-between who was visiting from Helmand.

Speaking from his headquarters in Kunduz province, Daoud said Afghan smugglers lug sacks of grade-A heroin across the river Oxus, which marks the Tajik border. They drive pick-ups as far as they can, take motorbikes where the cars can't go, and finish the journey on foot. "We leave early in the evening and get there around 9am the next day," he said. "There aren't even any tracks because we never ride the motorbikes to the same place twice."

The heroin is harvested from opium farms across Afghanistan and taken to factories in the remote Pamir mountains in the Badakhshan region, where it is turned into heroin. It takes about 15kg of opium to make 1kg of heroin, said Daoud. From Badakhshan it is brought west to Kunduz, for the trip to Tajikistan. The weapons follow similar routes, but in the opposite direction, south and east to the fighting.

"We are like a company," said Daoud. "We have some big sponsors who support us in the government."

A kilogram of the best Afghan heroin is worth £600 in Afghanistan. It is worth twice as much at the bazaar in Tajikistan. But rather than take cash, they take weapon parts, because they double their value in Afghanistan. An AK-47 assault rifle costs £50 at the bazaar. It is worth up to £100 in northern Afghanistan, and even more in the south and east where demand for guns is higher, because of the fighting.

The Taliban go-between said fighters in Helmand expect to get six AK-47s for 1kg of good quality heroin, a similar number of rocket-propelled grenades or a dozen boxes of ammunition.

British special forces have arrested or killed drugs smugglers linked to the insurgency, alongside a secretive unit of the Afghan army called 333, but the bulk of the International Security Assistance Force is handicapped by its mandate which does not include counter-narcotics operations, unless they can be linked to the insurgency.

The smugglers claimed they are "untouchable" because their bosses include cabinet-level officials in the government. British officials suspect senior government insiders are involved in the drugs trade, but they have struggled to get the support from Mr Karzai, or the evidence, to arrest them.

Opium production has soared since 2001. The head of British-led efforts to crack down on the crop, David Belgrove, said: "This proves what we and the rest of the international community have been saying. There's clear evidence that the drugs trade fuels the insurgency."

The commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, the US general, Dan McNeill, pledged to take his mandate to the limit to target drug traffickers. But so far, the smugglers insist they are not feeling the pinch.

Violence last year reached record highs, and the Taliban have launched two attacks in Kabul this year. "The heroin is what lets us fight," said the Taliban go-between.

We're Not Losing Afghanistan

GLOBAL VIEW - By BRET STEPHENS Online.wsj.com April 29, 2008

Elaborate security preparations on the eve of Afghanistan's Independence Day nearly kept me from making my flight out of Kabul on Saturday. But they did little to stop insurgents from nearly assassinating President Hamid Karzai, Sadat-like, from his review stand on a military parade ground the very next day.

Are we "losing Afghanistan," as people like John Kerry seem to think? Sunday's attack illustrates a point, made to me by Brig. Gen. Mark Milley of the 101st Airborne Division, that "security is perception" – meaning that not only must the streets be safe, but people must believe them to be so. By that token, a spike in suicide bombings and kidnappings suggests Afghanistan is considerably less secure today than it was three or four years ago. It also suggests Afghanistan's ostensible weakening can be used as a political alibi to accelerate troop withdrawals from Iraq.

But after a week spent shuttling between Kabul, Kandahar and Nangarhar province (in sight of Tora Bora), I found the notion of "losing Afghanistan" to be, at a minimum, overblown. Afghanistan has 34 provinces. Twenty-nine of them are more or less at peace, more or less better off than they were six years ago, and more or less governed by someone their own people can live with.

That leaves five provinces that are the country's belt of real insecurity. Together with the adjacent provinces in Pakistan, these form what is sometimes called Pashtunistan, in reference to the ethnic group from which the Taliban sprang. In many ways it's another country. But even here the evidence that it is being "lost" is slight.

Take Musa Qala, a town in Helmand Province that the British effectively ceded to insurgents in late 2006, after which it became the Afghan version of Fallujah. In December, NATO and Afghan forces retook the town, but not before flipping a former Taliban governor, Mullah Abdul Salaam, to their side. Mullah Salaam was rewarded by becoming district chief in Musa Qala, where he routinely denounces his former comrades as un-Islamic while providing intelligence to NATO forces.

Mullah Salaam's story is not unique. If anything, it shows that the term "Taliban" ill suits the current insurgency. This consists of Taliban remnants loyal to Mullah Mohammed Omar in Pakistan; foreign jihadists; four or five disaffected tribal warlords; and peasant fighters whose loyalties are often up for sale.

Overall, this group amounts to maybe 10,000 fighters. It draws its strength less from religious zeal than from its ties to heroin smugglers, making it more akin to Colombia's narcoterrorist FARC than to Iraq's Mahdi Army. As a military force, it is no match for the 70,000 foreign troops and a comparable number of increasingly effective Afghan soldiers.

"It used to be a Taliban trademark that they wanted to stand and fight," says Maj. Gen. Robert Cone. "Now we're seeing more asymmetric attacks." In other words, the increase in terrorism is a sign of the insurgency's weakness, not its strength. Last year's killing of Mullah Dadullah, sometimes described as "the backbone of the Taliban," has also had its effect, including what one Western official describes as "the promotion of mid-level leaders at odds with al Qaeda."

This isn't to say that the insurgency is close to being defeated, especially not when its safe havens across the border have been all but blessed by the new, less confrontational Pakistani government. But it does mean the insurgency can be tamed, a thought that ought to comfort Gen. David Petraeus as he assumes command of both the Iraqi and Afghan theaters. Not only that, it can be tamed in roughly the same way.

Broadly speaking, this means two things. First, soldiers need to get out of their garrisons. "We're so close to being [in Afghanistan] but we're really not," observes Lt. Col. Jesse Edwards at the Kandahar airbase. That comment doesn't apply to servicemen like Timothy Altizer of Princeton, W. Va., a Navy medic I met Friday as he and his company of Marines were about to deploy to their forward operating bases. But life at the airbase – where Pizza Hut delivers and there is nary an Afghan in sight – is as far removed from Afghan realities as Park Avenue is from the Bronx.

The second piece is to win over the tribes. In the northeastern city of Jalabad, I witnessed a meeting of 30 or so tribal elders, a provincial governor named Gul Agha Sherzai and Henrietta Ford, the capable administrator of USAID. Mr. Sherzai's reputation for corruption is nearly as outsized as his gold watch, and his province, Nangarhar, was until recently a major source of terrorism and poppies. But now the poppy crop has been reduced by 80% and violence is way down. Both achievements have been purchased by a combination of astute counterinsurgency, firm governance and a huge influx of development money for schools, roads and medical clinics.

Whether this formula will work equally well in places like Helmand and Kandahar remains to be seen. But it's a useful reminder that things really are getting better in Afghanistan, even if the headlines suggest otherwise.

Our man in Kabul?

Richard Norton-Taylor, April 28, 2008

The Guardian - "Rebellion," wrote Lawrence of Arabia, "must have a sophisticated alien enemy in the form of a disciplined army too small to fulfil the doctrine of acreage ... in order to dominate the whole area effectively." He added: "Rebellions can be made up of 2% in the striking force, and 98% passively sympathetic."

It is quite clear that no one in Whitehall, let alone other Nato governments, heeded Lawrence's essay on the Science of Guerilla Warfare when they deployed a few thousand troops to southern Afghanistan in an attempt to defeat the Taliban. The troops may be sophisticated and disciplined, but there were, and remain, far too few of them to conduct the kind of operations initially demanded of them.

British military commanders are now getting the message that you cannot fight a counter-insurgency campaign by force alone. "The population is the prize," said Brigadier Andrew MacKay, commander of the British infantry brigade just returned from a six-month deployment in Helmand province.

He went so far as to suggest that Nato troops were now enjoying the "passive consent" of the population. The Taliban, meanwhile, continues to intimidate the population. And knowing it cannot win a conventional fighting war, it turns to roadside explosive devices and suicide bombers.

But, as ever in Afghanistan, the conflict is not so simple to characterise as that. The Taliban's strike force, to pursue Lawrence's point, may amount to even less than 2% of the population. And more and more Taliban fighters might be persuaded, with the prospect of greater stability and economic development, to give up their weapons, or at least give up firing them at Nato troops.

The British talk about "reconciliation" and "outreach". The trouble, they say, is Hamid Karzai. Afghan's president is up for re-election next year. He is described as being increasingly erratic and deals with corrupt warlords and opium dealers whose support he claims he needs. He wants to control any approach to the Taliban. He seems deeply suspicious of any move the British and other foreign powers make, even though they are supposed to be in his country's best interests.

The British and others will not, of course, criticise the man publicly feted as Afghanistan's democratically-elected leader. But more and more fingers are pointing at Karzai as being part of the problem rather than the solution.

Afghanistan: joined-up thinking

Britain needs to connect its military and reconstruction roles in Afghanistan - From The Times, April 29, 2008

The arrival of 3,500 US Marines in Helmand province of Afghanistan will be welcomed widely, not least by the 7,800 British troops stationed there, who, along with their Canadian allies, have borne the brunt of the fight against the Taleban. In military terms, that struggle has been a broadly encouraging one with UK Forces inflicting a far higher level of attrition on their foes than they have been forced to receive in return. The notion of an exclusively military solution to this conflict is, however, one that is at odds with Afghanistan's history. The best that arms can do is create the opportunity for reconstruction, which will allow this country to take its first steps towards modernity. Without some advance of this form, this mission will never end.

As we report today, the coming of the Americans offers Britain a chance to think again about its strategy in southern Afghanistan. Contrary to some of the stereotypes initially made in Iraq, it is the United States Army, radically reshaped by General David Petraeus and his associate, General Dan MacNeill, that has been notably successful at combining offensive operations on the ground with the building of roads, schools and hospitals that win the hearts and minds of the local population. In Helmand, by contrast, Britain has been impressive on the battlefield but the track record on the humanitarian front has been patchy. Although General MacNeill, the overall commander in Afghanistan, is too diplomatic to put it so bluntly, there are lessons that Britain should learn from the way in which the US military conducts business.

Much of this happened because Britain has sharply divided its efforts between the Ministry of Defence for warfare and the Department for International Development (DfID), which assumes charge of the humanitarian dimension. This is a division that works less well in practice than it might in theory. Culturally, DfID remains much happier at organising aid schemes in Africa than it is at dovetailing with the military in what is in essence a warzone.

Outsourcing this operation can only work smoothly if DfID comes to regard itself as a direct arm of British foreign policy and not a semi-detached entity more content in the company of worthy NGOs than squaddies. As this deficiency will not be remedied overnight, the military itself, like the American Army, will have to become more forcefully involved in the reconstruction endeavour.

If it can do that then, with the assistance of the marines, it should be possible to make the sort of progress in Helmand that has been witnessed in eastern Afghanistan. With the decision of Nicolas Sarkozy to deepen French commitment to this cause, Nato's credibility in this region, which had started to appear very fragile earlier in the year, can be reasserted. In one important respect, nonetheless, it is important that US thinking is recast on British lines rather than vica versa. Some in the American military have pressed for poppy fields to be sprayed as soon as possible. While this is in one sense understandable in sentiment, such an approach executed before Afghans have seen any social and economic benefits from the Nato intervention would be counter-productive. There is a real chance to do good in Helmand. The battle is being won, but we are a long way from securing the peace.

Govt-Taliban talks collapse

By Mushtaq Yusufzai, Tuesday, April 29, 2008 – The News Int.

PESHAWAR: The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) on Monday announced that their peace talks with the government had failed after the latter “refused” to withdraw troops from the tribal areas and Swat Valley.

Talking to The News from an undisclosed location, Maulvi Omar said, “The Jirga returned empty-handed as the government was not ready to accept our major demand of withdrawal of the Army from the tribal areas, Darra Adamkhel and Swat.”

“We will have no option but to restart attacks on security forces and government installations if we are challenged anywhere,” Omar said while quoting his leader Baitullah Mahsud as telling the Jirga members.

He said a six-member Jirga comprising tribal elders from South and North Waziristan met Baitullah Mahsud on Monday and informed him about the refusal of the government to withdraw troops.

“We did not expect this. The Jirga members were also unhappy with what had happened and complained that some invisible hands in Pakistan’s intelligence as well as US officials were involved in creating hurdles for them to restore peace in the troubled tribal regions and Swat,” Omar claimed.

According to Omar, all major issues were almost resolved with the government through dialogue and they were about to sign a peace accord as the Jirga was working to select venue and date for the signing ceremony.

He said they had not set any deadline for troops’ withdrawal but it was one of their major demands. He claimed the government had earlier accepted their four most important demands including an end to military operations, withdrawal of the army from tribal areas, Swat and the gun-manufacturing town of Darra Adamkhel, abolition of all roadside checkpoints, release of all the people held during military actions and compensation to the people affected by the military operations.

But Omar complained all of a sudden the government changed its mind and declined to pull out the troops. “The government proved it was not independent in making decisions,” the militants’ spokesman alleged, adding that they informed all their colleagues and commanders in the seven tribal regions as well as 24 settled districts of the NWFP about the suspension of their talks and possible outcome.

He claimed that the US pressure on the government had derailed the peace process for which only the government would be held responsible. He said they advised their fighters and commanders to be careful and show strong reaction if they were challenged.

“We reserve the right to self-defence and are ready for talks with the government anytime and anywhere so that peace could be restored to our areas,” Omar said. The TTP’s spokesman said he did not understand as to why the ANP-led NWFP government was giving so importance to the release of Maulana Sufi Muhammad, chief of defunct TNSM, as it would play no role in easing the tension that gripped tribal areas and Swat.

“Sufi and his men had never fired a single shot, then how his release could solve the conflict,” Omar asked. Earlier on Saturday, Pakistan Army choppers dropped pamphlets, saying all the roads linking the Mahsud-inhabited areas with rest of the country had been opened and the tribes people were asked to return to their homes as the area had been cleaned of militants.

This had generated hopes among the Mahsud tribes people displaced by operations and badly suffered in fierce clashes between the Mahsud-led militants and security forces in January. But it seems all their hopes vanished as peace was once again threatened with failure of crucial talks between the two powerful warring factions.

Major General Athar Abbas, military spokesman and Director General Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), when reached on phone, said he had no information about peace talks between the government and militants but said the military would do whatever was directed by the government.

“The troops are deployed on their assigned positions in Fata and Swat and would stay there till further orders of the government,” explained Gen Abbas. Meanwhile, tribal militants in the Mohmand Agency Monday threatened to attack security forces if roadside checkpoints were not removed within three days.

Also, they threatened to carry out an armed operation against criminals, including car-lifters, killers, kidnappers, etc, if they did not leave the militant-controlled Mohmand region within three days.

Maulvi Omar Khalid, militants’ commander in Mohmand Agency, called The News and warned to attack security forces and government installations if what he termed ‘unnecessary’ roadside checkpoints manned by the personnel of paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) and Khasadars were not removed.

“We will wait for three days and then our fighters would have no other option, but to target the security forces and government installations,” Khalid said. He said unlike other tribal regions, the soldiers deployed at roadside checkpoints in Mohmand Agency often misbehaved with people and wasted their time in the name of search.

He also gave a three-day deadline to criminals and anti-social elements hiding in Mohmand to leave the agency or face the consequences. “Currently around 600 criminals are hiding in Mohmand Agency, half of them coming from the adjoining districts like Charsadda, Peshawar, Mardan and Nowshera,” he said.

Omar Khalid, 35, said he led his armed fighters in their ‘operation’ against kidnappers and criminals in Michni area of Yekka Ghund tehsil of Mohmand Agency where he claimed kidnappers were living. According to Omar, 11 criminals were shot dead and 15 of their houses were demolished during the operation. He also proudly acknowledged the public execution of an alleged kidnapper, Noor Shasham, for killing one of their militants, Shahid, who belonged to Kohat.

Missing female staff of international organization found dead in Afghan north

Text of report by privately-owned Afghan Arzu TV on 28 April

[Presenter] The dead body of a lady, who worked for an international organization, has been founded in Mazar-e Sharif. My colleague has more details.

[Reporter] Balkh security officials have discovered the dead body of Ziba, a lady who used to work for the FINCA Afghanistan non-profit microfinance organization [and an affiliate of the Foundation for International Community Assistance (FINCA International)] office in Mazar-e Sharif. Ziba went missing in Mazar-e Sharif on 17 February. Initial reports said that she could have been kidnapped by the insurgents.

[Salauddin Sultan, chief of the Balkh crimes branch speaking] As a result of our security officials' vigilance, we discovered the dead body of this lady. Her dead body was found from a well in the Khairkha area of Mazar-e Sharif. According to our reports, she was working for a microfinance office. She could have been killed because of the loans she had given to people.

We have handed her dead body over to the hospital and an investigation is under way.

77 Afghan nationals handed over to Kabul

Tuesday, April 29, 2008 - QUETTA: Pakistan authorities on Monday released 77 Afghan prisoners from the district jail of Khuzdar and handed them over to Afghan border authorities at the Pak-Afghan Chaman border, police sources told APP. The law-enforcement agencies had arrested these people from various parts of Balochistan for having entered into Pakistan without legal documents. They were tried and sentenced under the Foreign Act by the court and were handed over to the Afghan authorities after completion of their sentence and payment of fines.

Pakistan, Iran clear hurdles in IPI gas line

By Mariana Baabar, Tuesday, April 29, 2008 – The News Int. (Pakistan)

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and Iran on Monday cleared all hurdles over the proposed $7.5 billion IPI gas pipeline and announced that an agreement would be signed soon in Tehran. The foreign ministers of both the countries are to meet soon to fix the date for signing the deal.

A go-ahead to the long-awaited project was given at a meeting between the visiting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and President Pervez Musharraf here on Monday. Later, Ahmadinejad also called on Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani who hosted a lunch in his honour. Both Musharraf and Ahmadinejad held a one-on-one meeting before the delegation level talks.

Despite stiff opposition from the United States which discouraged Pakistan from finalising the gas deal with Iran, Pakistan views the project as economical to meet its growing energy demands. Iran has also offered supply of 1,100MW of electricity to overcome Pakistan’s energy shortfall.

It was also agreed that mechanisms of the Joint Investment Company (JIC) and the Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) to meet the target of $1 billion annual trade would be worked out soon.

Ahmadinejad is the first head of state of a foreign country to visit Pakistan after the formation of the PDA government and the first Iranian president to visit Pakistan in the last six years. He made a brief four-hour stopover on his way to Sri Lanka.

According to the foreign office spokesman, both the presidents decided that the agreement on the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline project, termed the friendship pipeline, would be signed soon.

Ahmadinejad welcomed the proposal for inclusion of China in the project. In his meeting with the prime minister, it was once again emphasised that signing of the IPI gas pipeline agreement would add a new dimension to the cooperation between Pakistan and Iran in the energy sector.

The talks between President Pervez Musharraf and President Ahmadinejad covered a wide-range of subjects, including bilateral matters of mutual interest and regional and global issues of importance.

The two presidents agreed that the bonds of history, faith, culture and geography that bind the two countries should help in optimising bilateral, economic, trade and commercial relations.

Among the regional subjects, the situation in Afghanistan figured prominently. “There was a complete convergence of views between the two presidents that peace and security in Afghanistan was not only important for Pakistan and Iran but also for the progress of the entire region. They also emphasised the need for more dialogue and creation of an enabling environment to counter terrorism more effectively. They were of the view that trilateral — Pakistan-Afghanistan-Iran — foreign ministers dialogue was very helpful,” said the spokesman in a statement.

The situation in the Middle East and Iraq also came under discussion. The two sides believed that the situation in Iraq could be resolved through peaceful dialogue by all the stakeholders. In the context of Pak-India relations, Iran expressed its support for the Indo-Pak composite dialogue and hoped it would lead to peaceful resolution of the issues between Pakistan and India.

In the meeting with Prime Minister Gilani, President Ahmadinejad offered his condolences on the martyrdom of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto. The prime minister thanked him and the people of Iran for the support and sympathy they had extended to the people of Pakistan during their national tragedy.

Foreign Minister Shah Mehmud Qureshi told reporters that the talks were positive and covered all aspects of relationship between the two countries. “The two leaders said the Iran-Pakistan-India (gas pipeline) project will promote peace and friendship,” Qureshi said, adding the foreign ministers of Iran and Pakistan had been asked to fix a mutually convenient date for signing the bilateral agreement on the pipeline.

Qureshi said Musharraf and Ahmadinejad expressed satisfaction over the resolution of all issues that had delayed a final agreement on the pipeline and hoped that the project will help meet the future energy needs of Pakistan.

He said Iran also responded positively to a Pakistani proposal for a gas pipeline passing through its territory along the Karakoram highway to provide gas to China to help meet its growing industrial needs.

Asked about Pakistan’s stance on Iran’s controversial nuclear programme, Qureshi said: “We support Iran’s use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes under International Atomic Energy Agency guidelines.”

The Iranian delegation also included Foreign Minister Monouchehr Mottaki, Commerce Minister Mir Kazemi, Vice President Esfandyar Rahim Mashai’e, Sr Advisor to President Mojtaba Hashemi and Ambassador Mashallah Shakeri. Minister for Foreign Affairs Shah Mehmud Qureshi, Minister for Water and Power Raja Pervaiz Ashraf (minister-in-waiting) and other senior officials also attended the meeting.

[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.]