In this bulletin:

• Blast Strikes Afghan Governor Convoy
• Top Taliban commander arrested in Pakistan: officials
• Top Taliban commander killed in Pak
• Taliban only fighting to expel foreigners - Omar
• Mullah accidently blows up self, sons
• US warns failure in Afghanistan is a threat to Europe
• Miliband urges NATO not to abandon Afghanistan
• Norway shuts Embassyover threat
• Canada views progress in French talks on Afghanistan
• Canadians 'winning' in Kandahar, general says
• Tories won't budge on Afghan withdrawal date
• Stay the course or face ‘dire consequences,’ Afghanistan ambassador warns
• Afghan mission must change or fail: Rae
• Dion's ploy will get soldiers killed
• The 'stay but don't fight' Stéphane Dion just doesn't get Afghanistan
• Spy planes pick up Taliban with English accents
• US Charges Six September 11 suspects, Seeks Death Penalty
• S. Korea to Send Medical Staff to Afghanistan

Blast Strikes Afghan Governor Convoy

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, (AFP) — A bomb struck the convoy of the governor of Afghanistan's volatile southern Kandahar province Monday, wounding three policemen but leaving the top official unhurt, his office said.

Elsewhere, an Afghan cleric, two of his sons and two other men died when a bomb they were preparing exploded, while NATO troops separately shot and killed a civilian in a car that came too close to a patrol, officials said.

Governor Asadullah Khalid's convoy was struck as he was travelling outside Kandahar city to a meeting, his office said in a statement. Two suspects were detained.

The statement did not say who may have been behind the attack in the province, a hotbed for extremist insurgents.

Roadside and suicide bombings are a hallmark of the insurgency led by the Taliban, who were in government between 1996 and 2001.

The cleric, his sons and two associates were killed in southern Helmand province late Sunday when a landmine they were apparently about to set on a road exploded in their compound, police said.

The mullah's wife was critically wounded in the blast and a daughter was hurt, provincial police chief General Mohammad Hussein Andiwal told AFP.

Police saw the bodies of the cleric and his two sons, both under 15 years old, he said. Other people in the compound said the bodies of two other men who were killed had been removed before police arrived, he said.

The group was likely associated with the Taliban, he added. The extremist militants are particularly active in Helmand province, where they are said to be tied up with opium and heroin traffickers.

In Farah province, further to the west, troops with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force shot and killed Sunday an Afghan man in a vehicle that did not heed warnings to move away from an ISAF convoy.

The troops had fired a warning shot at the ground, the force said in a statement. They were later told by police that the bullet had wounded the driver and killed a passenger.

Afghan police told AFP the passenger was a 24-year-old Afghan civilian man.

ISAF soldiers do not let vehicles too close to their patrols and convoys in fear of suicide car bomb attacks.

The Taliban insurgency was its deadliest last year and saw near-daily attacks. More than 6,000 people were killed, most of them rebels but also hundreds of civilians.

Top Taliban commander arrested in Pakistan: officials

Quetta (AFP) - Pakistani forces captured and wounded a top Taliban commander Monday, while Islamabad's ambassador to Afghanistan was feared abducted in a troubled tribal border region, officials said.

The incidents highlighted the continuing instability in nuclear-armed Pakistan -- a key ally in the US-led "war on terror" -- with crucial parliamentary elections just one week away.

The senior Taliban commander, Mullah Mansoor Dadullah, and at least five other rebels were seized in Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan province, bordering Afghanistan, officials said.

Dadullah, the brother of the Islamist militia's slain military chief in Afghanistan, had been in charge of operations against NATO and US-led troops in the southern Afghan province of Helmand.

"He is in the custody of the security agencies along with five accomplices. They are all injured," chief Pakistani military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told AFP.

"They were intercepted and chased by security forces at a Frontier Constabulary post near the Afghan border."

A military statement said Dadullah and his men were "trying to enter Pakistan" across the border.

Baluchistan police chief Saud Gohar said Dadullah was hiding in a house in the village of Gowal Ismail Zai and wounded after he "resisted when our men launched an operation" early on Monday morning.

One of the Taliban commander's guards was killed, he said.

In Kabul, Afghan defence ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi welcomed the news of Dadullah's capture but would not comment further.

A senior Afghan official suggested the capture was linked to a dispute between Dadullah and the Taliban's central command.

Dadullah had succeeded his elder brother -- the Taliban's overall military commander Mullah Dadullah -- who was killed in a joint Afghan-NATO operation in southern Afghanistan in May 2007.

The Taliban said in late December that they had sacked Mansoor Dadullah because he disobeyed orders. But a spokesman for the commander denied that he was fired, leading to speculation about infighting among the rebels.

The alleged sacking came as media reports emerged that British intelligence agents were involved in talks with senior Taliban in Helmand, although it was never clear who they might have been.

There was no immediate confirmation of the arrest from the Taliban.

Zabihullah Mujahed, a Taliban spokesman, said Mansoor Dadullah was one of five Taliban who were freed in May last year in exchange for a kidnapped Italian journalist, Daniele Mastrogiacomo.

News of Dadullah's capture comes a day after US Defence Secretary Robert Gates warned that Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants in the country's border regions posed a direct threat to the Islamabad government.

Pakistan on Saturday dismissed an unnamed senior US official's assertion that Taliban leader Mullah Omar and Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden were operating from regions along the Afghan border.

In the latest incident to rock the border region, the Pakistani envoy to Kabul, Tariq Azizuddin, went missing with his driver in the tribal district of Khyber on Monday, officials said.

The Pakistani embassy in Kabul said it last had contact with the ambassador at around 11:30 am (0630 GMT) and was trying to find out what had happened.

"We know that he was coming from (the northwestern Pakistani city of) Peshawar to Kabul and we lost contact with him. We are trying our best to find out what happened," spokesman Naheem Khan told AFP.

State television, quoting the foreign office, said he was feared abducted.

The chief administrative official in Khyber, Rasool Khan Wazir, said security forces had seen the envoy's car driven at speed through a checkpost with "local people sitting in the front seat".

The main road between Pakistan and Afghanistan was closed for search operations, television channels said.

Top Taliban commander killed in Pak

Press Trust of India - Monday, February 11, 2008 (Islamabad)

Pakistani security forces on Monday killed a top Taliban commander and captured four other militants in an operation in Balochistan province bordering Afghanistan.

Mullah Mansoor Dadullah, brother of slain Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah, was killed in Qila Saifullah district in Balochistan province, TV channels said quoting official sources.

Four other Taliban commanders were captured, they said. Dadullah had succeeded Mullah Dadullah, who was killed in an Afghan and NATO operation in southern Afghanistan in May last year.

There were reports last month that Mansoor Dadullah has been thrown out of the Taliban by its supreme commander Mullah Omar, but a spokesman for Dadullah denied the reports.

A senior army official said Dadullah died of his wounds while being flown to a hospital.

Dadullah's death comes amid growing Western pressure on Pakistan to crack down on Islamic militants. He rose in the militia's ranks as an important commander in southern Afghanistan after his brother was killed.

Mullah Dadullah was the highest-ranking Taliban commander killed since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

Taliban only fighting to expel foreigners - Omar

KABUL, Feb 11 (Reuters) - Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar said on Monday the hardline Islamist movement was not a threat to the world and was only fighting to eject foreign troops from Afghanistan.

The reclusive Afghan Taliban leader said he was making the remarks in response to statements by U.S. officials, who have warned Afghanistan could again become a failed state and an al Qaeda haven if the fight against the Taliban is lost.

"We want legitimate relations with countries of the world and we are not a threat to anyone," said a statement signed by Omar and published by the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press.

"America portrays the Taliban as a threat to countries of the world and, with such propaganda, wants to use the countries and governments of the world in pursuit of its own interests.

"If foreign troops leave Afghanistan, that will be a victory for the people of Afghanistan," he said.

U.S. and British ministers are pressing reluctant NATO allies to send more troops to Afghanistan, especially the volatile south, to quell the Taliban insurgency relaunched two years ago.

More than 6,000 people were killed in fighting in Afghanistan last year, nearly 2,000 of them civilians.

While the Taliban have suffered heavy casualties every time they have fought international troops, their strategy of guerrilla attacks, suicide and roadside bombs is aimed at sapping foreign governments' political will to sustain the war.

"It would ... be better if the people of the world put pressure on their governments to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan and give the people of Afghanistan the right to establish a government based on their own will," Omar said.

U.S.-led and Afghan forces toppled the Taliban government in late 2001 after Omar refused to hand over al Qaeda leaders behind the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

A U.S. official last week said Omar was directing Taliban operations in Afghanistan from the Pakistani city of Quetta, a charge the Pakistan government strongly denies.

In a separate development on Monday, Pakistani security forces wounded and captured prominent Taliban commander Mullah Mansour Dadullah as he crossed the border into Pakistan.

Omar removed Dadullah from command of Taliban militants in the southern province of Helmand after the regional commander had been involved in failed negotiations to enter the Afghan government's reconciliation process, diplomats said.

NATO forces in Afghanistan say they are making progress against the Taliban and have had a number of successes targeting Taliban leaders and bringing Afghan forces increasingly to the fore in consolidating security.

But frustration with poor security, the slow pace of development and official corruption is turning public opinion against the pro-Western government of President Hamid Karzai. (Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Mullah accidently blows up self, sons

From correspondents in Kandahar – MHS

February 11, 2008 06:07pm - A LANDMINE blew up in the home of a religious cleric in southern Afghanistan, killing the mullah, two of his sons and two other men who had been preparing an attack, police said today.

The cleric's wife was critically wounded in the blast in their compound in the southern province of Helmand late yesterday, and a daughter was hurt, provincial police chief General Mohammad Hussein Andiwal said.

The bodies of the mullah and his two sons, both under 15 years old, remained at the site of the blast, he said.

Other people in the compound said two other men were killed but their bodies had been removed before police arrived, he said.

The group was likely associated with the Taliban, he said. The extremist militants are particular active in Helmand province, where they are said to be tied up with opium and heroin traffickers.

An insurgency by the Taliban, who were in government between 1996 and 2001, was its deadliest last year with more than 6,000 people killed, most of them rebels but including hundreds of civilians.

Taliban suicide and roadside bombings are generally aimed at Afghan and international soldiers but kill more civilians.

US warns failure in Afghanistan is a threat to Europe

MUNICH, Germany (AFP) — US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has warned that the failure of the international force in Afghanistan would increase the security threat to Europe.

Gates also renewed criticism of some European allies, telling the annual Munich Conference on Security Policy that disputes within NATO over troops in Afghanistan risked turning it into a "two tier" alliance of some countries ready to fight and others refusing.

"Instability and conflict abroad have the potential to spread and strike directly at the hearts of our nations," he told the conference Sunday.

"But I am concerned that many people on this continent may not comprehend the magnitude of the direct threat to European security," he told the forum, where ministers and top officials from around the world also discussed Kosovo's looming independence and Russia's relations with the West.

"For the United States, September 11 was a galvanizing event -- one that opened the American public's eyes to dangers from distant lands."

Afghanistan's Taliban militia, who had provided safe haven to Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network, were ousted from power in 2001 by a US-led invasion after the suicide plane attacks on the United States.

But international forces and the Afghan army have been confronted by a renewed Taliban insurgency, notably in the south of the country where the international force has seen heavy fighting.

Gates warned that success for the Taliban would be a huge morale boost for Islamic extremism worldwide, and said a reticent European public should remember this.

"The threat posed by violent Islamic extremism is real -- and it is not going away," he said. Europeans knew "all too well" about the Madrid bombings that killed 191 people in March 2004 and the attacks in London that left 56 dead in July 2005, he said, but further from the spotlight there had been "multiple smaller attacks" in cities from Glasgow to Istanbul.

"Numerous cells and plots have been disrupted in recent years as well -- many of them seeking large-scale death and destruction."

Gates said loosely organised international Islamic extremism was "built on the illusion of success."

"After all, about the only thing they have accomplished recently is the death of thousands of innocent Muslims while trying to create discord across the Middle East. So far they have failed.

"What would happen if the false success they proclaim became real success? If they triumphed in Iraq or Afghanistan, or managed to topple the government of Pakistan? Or a major Middle Eastern government?"

The task confronting the US and Europe is to fracture and destroy Islamic extremism and deflate its ideology, and the best opportunity to do that is in Afghanistan, he said.

Gates pressed his message earlier this week at a NATO defence ministers meeting in Lithuania, where he urged European allies to send combat troops to southern Afghanistan.

The UN-mandated International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, led by NATO, has grown from 16,000 to 43,000 troops over the past two years, but commanders have called for more soldiers particularly in the south.

"We are not losing. We are just not winning fast enough," NATO supreme commander, General Bantz Craddock, said on the sidelines of the conference, calling for an extra 1,500-3,000 troops.

With the public in many European countries increasingly against deployments in combat zones, many governments have refused to send troops to Afghanistan's frontline in the south.

"We must not -- we cannot -- become a two-tiered alliance of those who are willing to fight and those who are not," warned Gates.

Other risks from around the world were also highlighted at the two-day Munich conference.

Kosovo's looming unilateral declaration of independence, which is expected in days and has been backed by the European Union and the United States, would "open a Pandora's box" in Europe, Russia's First deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov warned.

"We want to stay in the international law framework and we don't want to create a precedent" that could destabilise Europe, Ivanov told the conference, warning that the European Union might also have to recognise the self-proclaimed Turkish republic of northern Cyprus.

Talking about Russia's increasingly tense relations with Europe and the United States, Ivanov said his country did not want confrontation but it wants "to occupy an appropriate place in world politics and commitment to maintain our national interests."

Later Sunday, Gates arrived in Baghdad on an announced Iraq visit.

Miliband urges NATO not to abandon Afghanistan

LONDON, Feb 11 (Reuters) - Afghanistan could degenerate into a "failed state" if NATO were to pull out troops and abandon efforts to stabilise the country, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said on Monday.

Miliband, who visited Afghanistan last week with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said "immense challenges" remained there and it was vital that Britain meet its commitments and some other NATO members increased theirs.

"It would help precipitate even more dangerous insecurity in Afghanistan (if the international community pulled out)," Miliband told BBC radio. If more effort is not made, Afghanistan risks becoming a "failed state", he added.

"I think it's important that the pressure is kept up," he said. "But I also think it's important that we emphasise to people that troops alone are not going to be the answer, it has to be the building up of a decent society in Afghanistan that is able to cater for its own affairs."

American-led forces toppled the Taliban government in 2001, but Taliban rebels launched an insurgency two years ago whose success has led Washington to call on its allies to send more troops to Afghanistan.

France has indicated a willingness to send more troops, but Germany has been adamant it cannot do more.

Britain, the second largest contributor to the 43,000-strong ISAF international peace force, is feeling intense pressure as its 7,000 soldiers -- based mostly in southern Helmand province -- battle increasingly fierce resistance and casualties rise.

"We do need the whole of the international community, including European countries, to step up," Miliband said. "There are a range of ways in which the international community needs to make its presence felt."

Norway shuts Embassyover threat

By BJOERN H. AMLAND – OSLO, Norway (AP) — Norway closed its embassy in the Afghan capital because of terror threats Sunday, nearly a month after a Norwegian journalist was among eight people killed in a suicide attack on a luxury hotel in Kabul.

The Nordic nation, which recently said it would send more troops to the NATO force in Afghanistan, has been singled out at least twice as a potential target by al-Qaida.

"The embassy has been closed down today due to terror threats," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Kristin Melsom said. She would not describe the threats and said it was too early to say how long the embassy would be closed.

A reporter for the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet was among those killed when militants with suicide vests, grenades and AK-47 rifles attacked the Serena hotel in Kabul on Jan. 15. Norway's foreign minister was in the hotel at the time, but he was unhurt and later said he did not think the attack was aimed at him.

Nevertheless, the attack likely led Norway to review the threat level against its interests in Afghanistan, said Arne Strand, an Afghanistan expert at the Christian Michelsen Institute in Bergen, Norway's second biggest city.

"The fact that the embassy has been closed indicates that the threat this time has been aimed more directly at Norway," he told The Associated Press.

In a security document dated Jan. 20, Afghanistan's Interior Ministry listed 15 locations — including Norway's embassy — that could be targeted by militants.

"According to detective reports, the enemies plan to launch a series of suicide attacks, explosions and harmful activities in Kabul city," said the report obtained by The Associated Press. "The enemies' first plan is to target some more vulnerable infrastructures of Kabul city."

The embassies of Sweden, Belgium, India, Turkey, Finland and Indonesia were also listed. Government offices and three well-known Kabul hotels, including the Serena, were also said to be possible targets.

Al-Qaida has singled out Norway at least twice in past years among nations that should be targeted because of its participation in the NATO-led coalition in Afghanistan and a previous deployment in Iraq.

The founder of the al-Qaida-linked Iraqi extremist group Ansar al-Islam, Kurdish leader Mullah Krekar, is a refugee in Norway but was declared a threat to national security in 2005 and ordered deported. He has not yet been expelled.

Norway was also among the Western countries threatened by extremists during the uproar over Danish caricature of Islam's Prophet Muhammad in early 2006 because a Norwegian newspaper reprinted the drawings.

On Friday, Norwegian Defense Minister Anne-Grete Strom-Erichsen said Norway will add 200 extra troops to its 500 soldiers in Afghanistan with the deployment of special forces and helicopters in March.

Strand noted that in addition to its NATO troops, Norway recently raised anti-corruption efforts on the agenda of its Afghanistan assistance program.

"I think that is the right thing to do, but it is also risky as important Afghan figures might feel their power threatened. As a result they may turn to terror threats as retaliation," Strand said.

Canada views progress in French talks on Afghanistan

MONTREAL (AFP) — Canada and France have made progress in talks on logistical issues linked to deploying French reinforcements in southern Afghanistan, Canadian Defense Minister Peter MacKay has said.

Canada has told NATO it would withdraw its 2,500 troops from Afghanistan at the start of 2009 unless NATO sends 1,000 extra troops as well as helicopters to back the Canadians in volatile Kandahar province.

Mackay met last week with his NATO counterparts during talks in Lithuania, and Ottawa has sent a top delegation to Paris to discuss the issue.

"With respect to the French, we had further discussions around what I describe as logistical matters," Mackay told CBC television Sunday.

"I would say that these talks have progressed and we should know fairly soon."

He also criticized the opposition Liberal Party which has suggested that Canadian troops could stay in Afghanistan beyond February 2009, provided they were not involved in any fighting.

MacKay said the position taken by Liberal leader Stephane Dion was "not realistic."

"You can't have it both ways. He's really trying to suggest that we can be between the issue of combat and training, and that's simply not the case given the conditions that exist in Kandahar province.

"To suggest that we can somehow train without having that capability, that capacity, to be with them, is pure folly."

The government's proposal to extend the Canadian mission in Afghanistan until the end of 2011, providing NATO supplies extra forces, is set to go to a confidence vote before the end of March.

If it is defeated the ruling minority conservative government led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper could fall, leading to snap polls.

The Liberal Party was set to unveil on Monday amendments to the government's proposal.

Canadians 'winning' in Kandahar, general says

Detailed assessment by top commander shows decrease in ambushes in key districts

GRAEME SMITH - February 11, 2008 KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN -- Secret military statistics show that Taliban attacks have decreased in Kandahar's core districts in the past year, illustrating the success of Canada's new strategy of pulling back its troops into the heart of the province, a top military commander says.

Insurgent ambushes have fallen in four of Kandahar's 17 districts as the latest rotation of troops has focused on protecting the vital zone around the provincial capital, said Lieutenant-General Michel Gauthier, although he did not give specific numbers.

The assertion that Canadian forces have created a bright spot amid the darkening security picture in southern Afghanistan represents the military's first detailed response to several academic reports in recent months that have described NATO as losing the war.

Gen. Gauthier, commander of all Canadian forces overseas, invited reporters for an unusually open discussion in Kandahar during the weekend, taking questions for nearly an hour in an attempt to show that his troops are making progress.

"In relation to where we're focused, I think we are winning," he said.

Geographic focus was a key part of the general's assessment. While saying that security has improved in the districts of Panjwai, Zhari, Spin Boldak and Kandahar city, he repeatedly declined to comment about the provincial situation as a whole.

Canada assumed the lead responsibility for Kandahar's security at the beginning of 2006, patrolling to the furthest reaches of the province, but it proved a bigger task than military planners had expected.

Hundreds of Taliban fighters pushed against the western edge of Kandahar city that summer, forcing the Canadians to devote their entire combat strength to a bloody defence of the city.

The Canadians had regained sufficient control of the districts around the city by the spring of 2007 that commanders proudly announced they had resumed patrols across much of the province's 55,000 square kilometres.

But control of the central districts once again looked shaky by the summer of 2007, as Taliban overran police outposts, and Gen. Gauthier said with the latest rotation of soldiers, mostly from Quebec, the decision was made in August to focus on a few central areas.

That decision was partly aimed at "managing risk" of casualties among the Canadian troops, he said, but was also intended to protect the districts where 75 per cent of the province's population lives.

"Afghans will be better off, in those areas where we're focused," Gen. Gauthier said. "You can only do so much with the troops that you have. You've got to make those tough decisions. You've got to take Kandahar and bite it off, one bite at a time, and that's effectively what we've done here."

In places just beyond the Canadians' zone of control, the Taliban have established a parallel court system, enforced curfews, and mounted road checkpoints.

But Gen. Gauthier described his troops in a dilemma similar to that faced by a hospital triage nurse, deciding which patients require the most urgent attention: "You have to prioritize," he said.

Gen. Gauthier has served as the guiding hand behind the Afghan mission for the past two years, leading Canadian Expeditionary Force Command. Previously the head of military intelligence, and now making his 20th visit to Afghanistan, he described himself as one of the officers who can speak with the most authority on Canada's military progress.

But his optimism contradicts the prevailing view of Kandahar's security.

Canadian Major-General Marc Lessard, the new commander of North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces in the south, said last week that violent incidents in the six southern provinces have increased 50 per cent in the past year.

Among those southern provinces, Kandahar does not enjoy a reputation for better security. In fact, it stood out in a private consultant's report as Afghanistan's most violent province in 2007.

Vigilant Strategic Services Afghanistan (VSSA) counted 1,120 violent incidents in Kandahar during the past year, compared with 363 in neighbouring Helmand province and 105 in Uruzgan province during the same period.

Kandahar continues to be exceptionally troublesome this year, as the VSSA numbers for the first four weeks of 2008 showed a greater number of insurgent-related attacks in Kandahar - 43 incidents - than in any other province.

Along with looking at the level of violence, Gen. Gauthier also suggested that his troops have carved out a foothold for reconstruction and development in Kandahar. But a journalist pointed out that many aid agencies have withdrawn their non-essential staff from Kandahar in recent weeks, fearing a rise in Taliban activity.

"Right," the commander replied. "And I suppose we need to find a way to deal with the perception issue, because it's all about perception."

He did concede that the Canadians were mistaken in their reliance on hastily trained Afghan police. The Afghan National Auxiliary Police (ANAP) were given 10 days' training and assigned to outposts in Panjwai district after Canadian soldiers cleared insurgents from the area last winter.

"There was an expectation that ... that would contribute positively to the security environment, and it didn't," Gen. Gauthier said. "For the most part, it didn't."

The most recent rotation of Canadian troops has recaptured the outposts lost by ANAP last year. The new Afghan forces guarding those positions have a stronger system of Canadian mentors, he said, and it's unlikely that the Taliban will retake the outposts when the heaviest part of the fighting season starts in late May.

"Now, we have police in the same places," Gen. Gauthier said. "They're there, and they haven't come under serious attack, and the question will be, where are they in the May-to-September time frame?"

This year will likely see a decrease in violence in the districts where Canadian forces are concentrated, he added. He did not make predictions about the rest of Kandahar province.

"There is a finish line somewhere down the road," he said. "We are moving toward that finish line."

Tories won't budge on Afghan withdrawal date

BRODIE FENLON, Globe and Mail Update and Canadian Press February 11, 2008

OTTAWA — The Harper government says it won't tie the hands of future parliaments by specifying a concrete date for the withdrawal of troops from combat operations in Afghanistan.

Government House Leader Peter Van Loan made clear in Question Period Monday that the Conservatives will not change their confidence motion on the extension of Canada's Afghan mission to mollify critics who accuse the government of committing the country to an “endless war.”

Liberal deputy leader Michael Ignatieff demanded to know what happens to Canadian troops in Kandahar after 2011. The Conservative motion says only that there will be a “review” of the situation.

“When the government speaks of extending Canada's combat role to 2011, is this a withdrawal date or a renewal date?” Mr. Ignatieff asked. “Which is it ... a limited mission or an endless war?”

Mr. Van Loan said that while the government's objective is to train and transition responsibility for the security of the country to the Afghan national army, it won't commit now to any firm withdrawal date.

“We're not going to tie the hands of a future parliament,” he said. “What we have to decide in this Parliament now is what we do until 2011. Do you stop the mission in Afghanistan or do you want the troops pulled out now?”

NDP Leader Jack Layton cast the debate as a stark choice between war and peace. “There are two paths in front of us,” he told MPs. “One is to prolong the war. The other is to begin to build a path toward peace.”

Mr. Van Loan said there would be no peace or security in Afghanistan without a continued military intervention. “We're prepared to make that military commitment,” he said.

The debate over the confidence motion, which could bring down the government if it fails in the House of Commons, is far from over. Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion is scheduled to brief his caucus at 7 p.m. EST on a point-by-point response to the Conservative motion.

“In essence it will be a new motion,” one Liberal source told Canadian Press. “There are so many things wrong with the current motion that basically we'll just present our version.”

The Liberals want to end the combat aspect of the mission, but both parties say they want to speed training of Afghan army and police forces, and refocus aid and reconstruction efforts.

The Liberal version will keep some of the wording used by the Conservatives. Liberal party strategists insist they're open to compromise with Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who missed Question Period Monday because he was reportedly in conversation with NATO allies about securing more troops and equipment to bolster the Canadian mission.

One of the calls Mr. Harper made Monday was to Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany.

A spokeswoman said Mr. Harper outlined the Manley panel recommendations and the confidence motion now before Parliament.

“The chancellor said she understood the debate well and said the panel's report had been worthwhile and useful — not just for Canada,” Sandra Buckler said in an e-mail to journalists.

“(The) leaders agreed on the importance of the mission in Afghanistan for NATO and agreed to remain in touch and work together in the weeks leading up to the NATO summit in Bucharest.”

Meanwhile, a news report suggests a French offer of more troops for Afghanistan may not be what the Harper government is hoping for.

The French newspaper Le Figaro said France is considering four options, only one of which would be to reinforce Canadian soldiers in the volatile Kandahar region.

The other options are said to include:

• Moving into Helmand province west of Kandahar.

• Boosting troop levels in more stable Kabul.

• Teaming French special forces with US. troops in the country.

Mr. Harper has said he will follow the main recommendations of the Manley report and continue the combat mission in Kandahar only if NATO provides 1,000 more troops.

French officials have strongly suggested they won't be able to provide that many soldiers and, so far, no one else has come forward.

France currently has about 2,000 soldiers based in Kabul, and another 200 maintaining six aircraft at Kandahar Air Field.

The Conservative motion also calls for a “revamping” of Canada's aid and reconstruction efforts, placing priority on direct, immediate aid.

But it also leaves the door open to further extension of the mission, saying only that Canada's military deployment would be “reviewed” in 2011.

The Conservatives suggest the Liberals are split on Canada's future role in Afghanistan, and maintain they are merely “managing a Liberal mission.”

Stay the course or face ‘dire consequences,’ Afghanistan ambassador warns

(Canadian Press 02.10.08) TORONTO - As a fierce political debate rages in Ottawa over the length of Canada's military mission to Afghanistan, the country's ambassador on Sunday called on Canadians to stay the course, and warned of potentially drastic results if international forces leave too soon.

In an interview with The Canadian Press, Omar Samad stressed that the security provided by Canadian and foreign troops is essential to rebuilding a country ravaged by decades of war and neutralizing the threat posed by terrorism.

"Look at what happened when the world was not present in Afghanistan," Samad said. "The consequences of that are so important that we should not repeat the same error."

Samad's comments followed a speech in which he talked about the political vacuum left behind when the Soviets ended their decade-long occupation of the country in 1989 and the world "abandoned Afghanistan."

The void, he said, was filled by Islamic extremists - many of whom were trained at religious schools in neighbouring Pakistan - ultimately giving rise to a civil war in which the repressive Taliban government came to power and provided safe haven to al-Qaida terrorists.

While Afghans have made great strides in reclaiming their country and rebuilding their devastated institutions, the situation remains precarious, and a Taliban resurgence a real threat.

A premature withdrawal by international forces, whose presence most Afghans approve, would surely have "dire consequences" and could easily lead to a failed state that again poses a threat to global security, he said.

Samad offered no suggestions on how long Canadian soldiers should stay but pleaded for both patience and understanding.

"Study the case very carefully. See why Afghanistan matters not only to Canada's government but also to the international community at large," he said.

Canada should be guided by the "very balanced" report produced late last month for the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper by John Manley.

The report called on Ottawa to commit to staying in the Asian country indefinitely provided that NATO contributes more troops and more equipment.

In response, the Harper Conservatives introduced a resolution in the Commons to allow Canadian troops stay on fighting in Kandahar until at least the end of 2011 and essentially dared the Opposition to support it or face an election.

The Liberals want Canada to end its combat role by 2009 but stay on in Afghanistan for redevelopment purposes, while the New Democrats and the Bloc Quebecois oppose any extension of the mission beyond 2009.

Speaking to another issue that has bedevilled the Harper government, Samad said Afghanistan will investigate allegations that Taliban prisoners handed over to Afghan authorities by Canadian soldiers were tortured.

But he said the controversy should be laid to rest and prisoner transfers resume.

"It's an issue that we hope has reached its end as we hear that our institutions and our government is doing everything possible to assure Canada and other countries there will be no detainee problems," Samad said.

"We are going to look into the allegations to see what happened and what to do."

Samad said that an agreement between Ottawa and Kabul over detainee transfers "stands."

Canada stopped the transfers in November after Canadian diplomats discovered a clear case of abuse in the jails of the National Directorate for Security in Kandahar.

On Friday, Afghanistan Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak assured Canada that the handover could resume without the fear of torture.

Afghan mission must change or fail: Rae

Updated Mon. Feb. 11 2008 8:48 AM ET - CTV.ca News Staff

Canada's mission in Afghanistan must shift its focus to training and development if it is to be a success, says Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae.

Rae, who hopes to win a seat as an MP in the riding of Toronto Centre, said Canada's military focus simply isn't working.

"What we want to do is change the focus so the focus is really on training, so the focus is really on the reconstruction of the country, and it has to be on realism. We have to get real about how difficult this mission is and how it's not being shared in NATO," Rae told CTV's Canada AM.

His comments follow Defence Minister Peter MacKay's recent meetings with NATO defence ministers in Vilnius, Lithuania.

During the meetings MacKay pushed for more troops to help in the south of Afghanistan. A recent report by a panel headed by John Manley said Canada should only stay past the February 2009 deadline if NATO sends 1,000 more troops to help in the region.

During the Lithuania meetings, France suggested it will send more troops to the south. But Rae said it's about more than just boosting troop numbers.

"I think our position has been very consistent and that is to say we believe Canada's overall engagement in Afghanistan has to stay," Rae said. "We have to remain committed to the Afghan compact which goes to 2011, but we think the focus on counterinsurgency for Canada as the focus to stay there, is wrong."

Rae said Canada needs to push NATO to consider a rotation system, where different countries would equally share the combat burden on a scheduled rotation, and that Canada's combat role must shift to one of support and development.

The federal Liberals will be meeting Monday night to discuss their strategy ahead of debates in the House of Commons on the Afghanistan issue.

On Monday, MacKay said that the mission does involve a major focus on redevelopment, support and training, but the military role is an essential component.

He said he brought a "crystal clear" message to NATO defence ministers that more help is needed, and France was one of several countries that indicated they will step up. Poland offered to send helicopters, he said.

The Liberal proposal is simply not responsible, MacKay said, noting that the Manley report underlined the importance of Canada maintaining a military presence.

"If we're going to be training in Kandahar province there's going to be an element of combat. It's simply not realistic to say were going to be there and unwilling to engage. We'd be sitting ducks. It's irresponsible, quite frankly," MacKay told Canada AM, speaking from Halifax.  

After France indicated its willingness to help, members of the prime minister's staff and the Department of National Defence travelled to Paris to meet with French officials as a follow-up to MacKay's prior discussions with French Defence Minister Herve Morin.

MacKay returned to Canada on Sunday from a corresponding meeting with U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates and his other foreign counterparts in Vilnius, Lithuania.

While in Vilnius, Gates' offered a stern warning to members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, most of whom have not contributed any of their combined 3 million troops to the Afghanistan effort, that NATO could become a "two-tier" organization if more countries don't share the burden.

MacKay said the meeting was "informative and realistic."

"We had an opportunity talk openly about the transformation of NATO, which is ongoing," MacKay told CTV's Question Period on Sunday.

"There is concern, of course, that we have what's been deemed by some to be a two-tier NATO evolving.

"We're hoping other countries will join the (Regional Command South) countries (in southern Afghanistan), and we'll be able to operate in a more fulsome way, which is the way the alliance was initially set up."

MacKay said he made it "very clear" that the Canadian government intends to adopt the recommendations of the Manley Report.

"We have certain contingencies that we're looking for," he said. "Equipment mainly, and of course the commitment of 1,000 troops.

"We reached out to a number of countries, NATO allies and non-NATO allies. And we're looking at the full spectrum--yes, the issue of military commitments and troops, but we're there doing humanitarian work, we're there doing diplomatic work. It's the whole of government, whole of NATO approach that we need to enhance," MacKay said.

Dion's ploy will get soldiers killed

February 11, 2008 Rosie DiManno – Toronto Star

Number of Canadian troops killed in combat in Afghanistan last year: 0.

This would be the combat component of the mission that Liberal leader Stéphane Dion wants ended by next February and upon which he seems prepared to trigger a national election that Canadians don't want.

Number of Canadian troops killed by improvised explosive devises in Afghanistan in 2007: 12. Number of Canadian troops killed by roadside bombs and land mines in 2007: 11.

The last Canadian casualty in conventional combat – died fighting – came during the latter stages of Operation Medusa, four servicemen perishing during a ground offensive on Sept. 3, 2006.

Since that time, there have been deaths in rollovers, helicopter crashes, suicide bombings and accidents but none from aggressively engaging the enemy.

If Liberals are trying to spare Canadian lives – by venturing passively, ducking into calmer territory and promoting reconstruction in the absence of a secure environment – an anti-combat insistence is utterly without merit.

But it might get Canadian troops killed. An enemy that knows troops won't fight back, can't fight back because of political handcuffs slapped on half a world away, is an enemy given a blood-embossed invitation to attack at will.

An enemy that knows – as the neo-Taliban command indisputably does – how undermining a rash of killings would be in the midst of a federal election here, would predictably target Canadian troops with renewed vigour. It serves their purpose if an alarmed electorate casts ballots in favour of the get-somewhat-out party. This is as stupid, tactically, as giving the Taliban an exact withdrawal date.

Rather than seek a political accommodation with the Tories on Afghanistan – by respecting the proposals contained in an Afghanistan report authored by the foreign policy savant who was once Liberal deputy prime minister – Dion prefers insurgency tactics of his own. And the odds are just as strong that he'd lose anyway, few convinced that a campaign fought on the back of Afghanistan would deliver the Liberals anything better than a minority, if that; more likely a leadership review that would send Dion back to the party marginalia he richly deserves.

Canadians are dying in Afghanistan precisely because they are doing what Dion and his hard-core rump want: They are training Afghan troops. They are protecting aid projects. They are leaving the security of Kandahar Air Field in reconnaissance patrols and resupply convoys and to attend Shuras. They are showing a presence that does not, for the most part, involve chasing down enemy combatants.

Indeed, they would prefer to engage and attack because fighting a conventional battle is their forte – the Taliban has never come away from such a confrontation other than defeated. That's why they stopped doing it.

Unless Dion wants Canadian troops to stay exclusively in barracks – an insupportable option because they would accomplish nothing, certainly not the Liberal preferred approach of furthering reconstruction efforts and humanitarian intervention – his intransigence on the mission's combat portion is without sense. And even someone with no military smarts should realize that.

There is no safe distance in Afghanistan. Troops doing Dion's bidding, the anachronistic peacekeeping model that can only have a chance at succeeding if security is minimally established, still need to get outside the bubble. And they will be killed because insurgents attack convoys, seed roads with explosive devices and continue recruiting suicide bombers.

John Manley's call for more troops from NATO allies as an absolute proviso will happen, even if ultimately it falls upon Americans to dispatch a battalion cavalry to Kandahar. The U.S. has reawakened to the urgency of Afghanistan.

But what the Liberals are doing out of sophistry and political self-absorption will get your sons and daughters killed.

The 'stay but don't fight' Stéphane Dion just doesn't get Afghanistan

MARCUS GEE - From Friday's Globe and Mail - February 8, 2008 Commentary

So let's get this straight: Stéphane Dion wants Canadian troops to stay in
Afghanistan, but he doesn't want them to fight. The Liberal Leader says
Canadians must end their combat role when the current mission runs out a
year from now and stick to safer tasks such a delivering aid and keeping the
peace.

That, he no doubt hopes, will play well on Main Street. Polls show that many
Canadians are skeptical about, if not outright hostile to, our military
mission in Afghanistan. When asked, they usually say they would like our men
and women to venture abroad as peacekeepers, not warriors.

Fair enough. But what would happen if Canadian troops did what Mr. Dion
suggests and stayed in a war zone without engaging in combat? Say the
Taliban fired on an aid convoy escorted by Canadian forces. They could
probably shoot back -- even United Nations peacekeepers can reply when under
fire -- but they would be barred from pursuing them to their hideouts. That
would be combat. Instead, they would have to scurry back to their base and
call on the British or Americans to risk their lives chasing down the enemy.

How would the Canadians in Afghanistan feel about that? How would the rest
of us back home feel? Many Canadians are angry at the Germans, Italians and
other NATO allies for hanging back while our troops take bullets in
Afghanistan's dangerous south. How can we condemn them for that if we are
proposing to do the same thing next year?

Or say the Canadians were trying to rebuild clinics and schools in a remote
village and the Taliban kept burning them down, as they routinely do now?
The Canadians might be able to surround and defend some of them. But you
can't put armed soldiers at every one-room schoolhouse. To stop the attacks,
someone would have to discourage the Taliban's predation.

At the very least, they would have to garrison the village and fight back
when it came under attack. But again, that would be prohibited combat. The
Canadians would have to abandon the village and its inhabitants: the old
people who used the clinic, the young girls who went to the school, the
village leaders they promised to support. How would that sit with Mr. Dion's
conscience?

Saying you want to deliver aid without engaging in combat sounds fine on
Parliament Hill, but you can't deliver aid without security. And to maintain
security, you sometimes have to engage in combat with those who are trying
to shatter it.

The whole point of the NATO mission in Afghanistan is to support the
democratically elected Afghan government against the Taliban. To survive and
win support, the government of President Hamid Karzai has to show that it's
in control of the country and improving life for its people. To do that, the
government and its Western backers have to get out into the country and
deliver the goods: better roads, new schools, shops with food in them,
streets that are safe to travel. And to do that, they have to resist Taliban
efforts to wreck the whole effort by burning schools, blocking aid,
intimidating villagers - and killing so many Western soldiers that they will
go home or retreat to their bases.

And that -- let's be clear -- is what Mr. Dion is proposing: a retreat.
Without the ability to engage in combat when needed, Canadian soldiers would
be reduced to impotence - gentle shepherds in a countryside overrun with
wolves. In southern Afghanistan at least, they could not possibly keep on
with the job of aid and reconstruction that Mr. Dion wants them to do, at
least not without calling on allies to protect them. It is like asking cops
to prevent muggings without arresting muggers.

As John Manley's report on Afghanistan put it, "fostering development, and
improving governance, cannot proceed without security." And, he added, you
can't ask Canadians to revert to peacekeeping when there is not yet any
peace to keep.

On his visit to Afghanistan last month, Mr. Dion insisted that Canadian
soldiers could still help reconstruct Afghanistan after dropping fighting
from their repertoire. "The only difference is that you don't pro-actively
be in a situation to engage the enemy." Every private in Kandahar knows
that's nonsense. So does every Taliban fighter wandering the dry hills
around Kandahar. Why doesn't Stéphane Dion?

Spy planes pick up Taliban with English accents

Scotsman (UK) / February 11, 2008 - Afghanistan: Islamic leaders in the UK expressed surprise today at reports that RAF spy planes in Afghanistan have detected Taliban fighters speaking in British accents.

Surveillance planes in Helmand province recently picked up militants speaking in English with Midlands and Yorkshire accents.

US Charges Six September 11 suspects, Seeks Death Penalty

By VOA News / 11 February 2008 - The U.S. government has announced murder and war crimes charges against six suspects in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the United States.

A U.S. military prosecutor said military officials want the six tried together and are seeking the death penalty for all six. A military judge will now review the evidence and recommend whether to move forward with a trial.

They suspects include the alleged mastermind of the attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. They are being held at the U.S. military detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and would be tried in the military tribunal system.

Brigadier General Thomas Hartmann told reporters at the Pentagon Monday that the charges include conspiracy, murder in violation of the law of war and material support for terrorism.

The September 11 attacks killed nearly three-thousand people when hijackers crashed fully loaded jetliners into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon outside Washington. Another hijacked plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.

The Bush administration recently acknowledged that interrogators used waterboarding, which simulates drowning, on Mohammed and two other detainees - and said investigators obtained vital information using the technique. Critics allege waterboarding amounts to torture. Hartmann said it is up to the military judge to decide what evidence could be used.

The United States has faced harsh international criticism for its detention facility at Guantanamo, where terror suspects have been held for years since the 2001 attacks, most without charge.

S. Korea to Send Medical Staff to Afghanistan

via The Korea Times / February 11, 2008 - South Korea will this week dispatch an advance contingent of mostly civilian medical staff to Afghanistan to help with reconstruction efforts in the war-wracked nation, the foreign ministry said Monday.

"The advance contigent, composed of the head of the Afghan Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) and some medical staff, will be sent to the country in the middle of this month," said ministry spokesman Cho Hee-yong.

In December, South Korea decided to dispatch a civilian-led PRT to continue its contribution to the U.S.-led efforts to stabilize the country instead of withdrawing all of its troops.

Composed of about 30 civilian medical staff, vocational training experts and government officials, the team will be sent in several groups by May, according to the ministry.

South Korea sent hundreds of troops to Afghanistan in late 2001 after the U.S. ousted the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban regime, following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the U.S. Despite a U.S. request, the Seoul government did not extend the stay of about 50 medics of the Dongui unit and 150 engineers of the Dasan unit in the central Asian state.

"The PRT will take over the mission carried by Donggui unit at a hospital in Bagram," Cho said. The dispatch was originally planned for last month but delayed since a need to "increase security staff" was raised, he added. (Yonhap)

[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.]