In this bulletin:

• Afghan children brave risks for record school year
• Karzai: Militant attacks deprive 300,000 children from education
• Harsh Season Overwhelms Afghans
• Health minister resigns as parliament debates his role
• 100 children leave orphanage due to lack of facilities
• Taleban betrays commander to Pakistan over his MI6 contacts
• US dismisses Taliban assertion of 'defeat' in Afghanistan
• Pakistan unsure if missing envoy kidnapped
• NATO soldier wounded in Afghan suicide attack: ISAF
• Harper vows compromise on Afghan mission
• Kandahar pullout in 2011?
• Dion camp stands united on Afghanistan
• Germany Handed Prisoners over to a Government that Tortures
• The withdrawal of foreign troops would be a disaster for Afghanistan
• Gates, Truth and Afghanistan
• Australia and Afghanistan
• Answer to Afghanistan question more complex than adding troops
• Bring the little tough guy back
• Too soon to give up in Afghanistan

Afghan children brave risks for record school year

KABUL (Reuters) - Nearly 150 students and teachers have been killed and nearly 100 schools burnt down in Afghanistan in the last 10 months, the education ministry said on Tuesday, but more children than ever are attending classes.

Since the Taliban relaunched their insurgency two years ago, schools, teachers and students have become a target in the militants' campaign to undermine faith in the ability of pro-Western President Hamid Karzai and foreign troops to bring security.

But in the current year, some 800,000 students have enrolled bringing the total number in education to 5.7 million, the education ministry said.

The Taliban banned women from working outside the home and banned girls from attending school but there are now more girls in school than there were boys studying during that period.

"I am so happy that millions of children go to school," Karzai told a conference of education donors. But, "the basis of education is still very weak," he said.

"There are millions of children who study in tents in the rain and in some parts of the country schools do not even exist," Karzai said. "In several provinces of Afghanistan, at least 300,000 students cannot go to school."

In the past 10 months, 147 teachers and students have been killed and 98 schools burnt down, the ministry said. Fifty-two boys and five teachers were among 72 killed in a single suicide bomb attack in northern Afghanistan on Nov. 6 last year.

The ministry also warned that "the lack of access to modern Islamic education has led to boys being sent to study in unregulated madrasas that propagate hatred and violence and breed terrorism".

In a country ripped apart by 30 years of civil war, education has suffered particularly badly. Of 31 million Afghans, an estimated 11 million are illiterate.

Karzai: Militant attacks deprive 300,000 children from education

KABUL, Feb. 12 (Xinhua) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Tuesday that Taliban insurgents fighting Afghanistan government have prevented some 300,000 Afghan children from attending schools.

    "Attacks on education by the enemies of Afghanistan and the enemies of humanity have barred at least 300,000 Afghan children from going to school," Karzai told a two-day conference on "Equal Access to Quality Education for All" here in the Afghan capital.

    "We want the international community particularly our neighbor Pakistan to facilitate us to again send these children to school," he further stressed.

    Linking the future of Afghanistan to qualitative education, the Afghan leader noted that his war-torn country may need international support in re-building army and police for possibly 10 years but in the field of education for longer term.

    "If the international community wants Afghanistan to stand on its feet, it has to assist this country on long-term basis," Karzai emphasized at the conference attended by UN officials and Kabul-based diplomats.

    Around 11 million Afghans out of the country's some 30 million people are illiterate, according to Afghan education ministry officials.

    Taliban insurgents and their associated militants, according to a report of Education Ministry, have killed 147 pupils and teachers over the past 10 months and set ablaze 98 schools and educational centers mostly in the southern provinces where Taliban insurgents are active.

    Taliban outfit had banned girl schools and confined women to their houses during its six-year reign toppled by U.S.-led military invasion in late 2001.

    In today's Afghanistan, 5.7 million children, 35 percent of them girls, are attending schools, according to the ministry.

Harsh Season Overwhelms Afghans

The Washington Post, 02/12/2008 By Pamela Constable

Hopes for Progress Battered by War, Weather, Economy and Regional Tension

If all the winter woes of Afghanistan could be said to concentrate in one spot, it might be the wind-swept, frozen field on the outskirts of Kabul known as Charai Qamber.

Plastic and burlap tents are clustered on the icy terrain, each colony housing dozens of families who have fled different crises: laborers deported from Iran, longtime refugees forced out of Pakistan by camp closings, farmers from southern Helmand province whose villages were caught in fighting between Taliban insurgents and international troops.

Some families have dug trenches beneath their tents, lined with scraps of carpet, where they can keep a little warmer by sleeping around charcoal braziers. But with temperatures falling to minus 25 degrees on some recent nights -- exceptionally cold even by Afghan standards -- every night is another ordeal, filled with the sounds of rattling wind and coughing children.

"This place is not fit for human beings. If not for the fighting, we never would have come here," said Ismael Jan, 25, a villager from Helmand squatting in one tent. He said his wife and brother were killed last month when Taliban forces attacked and foreign troops retaliated with a bombing raid. Jan and his neighbors piled into a truck and drove 300 miles, hoping to find help in the capital. "Now here I am with six children, nothing to eat, and no one to defend us from thieves," he said.

Afghans are tough, resilient survivors, accustomed to harsh conditions and recurrent conflict. But this winter, the forces of war, nature, economic crisis and regional tension have converged with a vengeance on this long-suffering populace, further chilling hopes for progress and stability that had been slowly building during six years of internationally backed civilian rule after the overthrow of the Taliban, an Islamic extremist movement.

Heavy snow began falling after the new year, blocking roads across a dozen highland provinces to the west and north. Cut off from help, people and animals began to starve and freeze. By last week, the government said, more than 500 people as well as 200,000 sheep, cows and other livestock had died across the country. Provincial hospitals reported having to amputate fingers and toes of numerous frostbite victims.

The heavy toll has come despite aggressive efforts by Afghan and international relief organizations to provide food and other aid to vulnerable regions before winter set in last year. The U.N. World Food Program, for example, by November had delivered nearly 23,000 metric tons of wheat, oil, rice and other staples to the 17 most winter-affected provinces, enough to feed about 325,000 people until spring.

But as the cold and snow worsened, aid officials said, an unexpected surge in food prices greatly expanded the hunger threat. The cost of wheat flour, the most important staple, rose between 60 and 80 percent, largely because of a drop in food exports from neighboring Pakistan and Iran. Last month, U.N. officials warned that an additional 2.5 million Afghans were at risk and appealed for $77 million to feed them.

"Winters here are always severe, and we were well-prepared for this one. But the massive price increases made the conditions much worse," said Rick Corsino, Afghan country director for the World Food Program. "We calculated there were two and a half million people who before were borderline food-insecure. The price increases pushed them into being high-risk."

Afghan officials said they had also worked hard to prevent a humanitarian disaster. But they complained that lack of coordination and trust between international aid agencies and the government had delayed the relief delivery.

"The help was there, but not in time," said Abdul Matin Edrak, director of the national disaster management administration. "The agencies say they cannot send help until they assess the needs. When people start dying, only then they start to assess." Another problem, he added, is that the vast majority of Afghans are poor, so it is difficult to isolate the neediest. "When a disaster comes, everyone rushes up and says they are suffering."

While some Afghans have been trapped in remote and inaccessible areas, others have been forced to migrate in midwinter because of domestic conflict or international disputes. Both Pakistan and Iran have recently begun forcing stragglers to return home. Pakistan closed two large Afghan refugee camps near the border, and Iran began detaining and deporting Afghan laborers whose work permits had expired.

Barfaq Mahmad Gul, who worked as a laborer in Iran for five years, was arrested three months ago and driven to western Afghanistan, where the worst snowstorms and the most deaths have been reported. He and his family traveled by truck and on foot across the country to Kabul, where he hoped to find work and a place to live. But the capital is overcrowded, jobs are scarce and many residents live in heatless rooms or ruins. The Guls ended up in Charai Qamber, where they spend their days keeping warm around a charcoal tin-can fire, with no plan beyond surviving the winter.

"This is our life now," said Gul, 35, whose two small children sat beside him in the tent, barefoot and sniffling. Behind them were plastic bags of clothes and a single cooking pot, lent by the family in the next tent. "There is nothing here for us, but what choice did we have?"

About 70 families recently reached Charai Qamber from the Sangin district of Helmand. Taliban insurgents have fought fiercely to capture the region over the past year, and American and British forces have retaliated aggressively.

"Our house was bombed and my two brothers were killed," said Rahmatullah, 26, an illiterate farmer, who lifted up a thin jacket to show several half-healed shrapnel wounds. "It's much warmer where we come from, but it is too dangerous to stay. We are poor people and we do not take sides, but when the Taliban come, the foreigners bomb the whole village. It is better to freeze up here where no one will bother us."

As Rahmatullah spoke, a convoy of U.S. military vehicles arrived. Hundreds of people began emerging from their tents and hurrying toward the convoy, some pushing wheelbarrows. U.S. military officers at the scene said they had visited the tent colony several times to bring supplies, with soldiers pooling their own money to buy coal.

Armed U.S. troops repeatedly ordered everyone to fall back, and one Afghan soldier began calling out names. One by one, tent families entered the compound and emerged with a large sack of coal and smaller bags of sugar, oil, wheat and tea. They hurried past the resentful stares of those who had not been called and trundled the precious supplies back to their makeshift homes, footsteps crunching on the frozen field of the Afghan winter.

Health minister resigns as parliament debates his role

Pajhwok News Agency, 02/11/2008

KABUL - Syed Muhammad Amin Fatemi, public health minister announced his resignation in the lower house after some MPs criticized him for failing to do enough for recent snow affetees.

The ministers of public health, urban development, public works, agriculture and the head of Afghan National Disaster Management Authority (ANDMA) were summoned to Wolesi Jirga over the insufficient relief work for recent snow affected people.

The officials reported the work they had done for snow affected areas, however some MPs criticized that aid did not reach to their areas.

The health minister told media about his resignation that an MP from Ghazni province said: If I were the health minister and 500 Afghans had died, I would have resigned

The minister said: I announce my resignation right away and will present my resignation to the President today. The urban development minister was granted leave due to his visit to Japan.

ANDMA head said 654 people died and 84 wounded while over 180,000 cattle heads were lost in recent snow and road blockades. The public works minister informed MPs about the road blockades and its work for opening them.

The minister of agriculture said over 2.5 million people are suffering from food shortage. He said 54 per cent of food shortage was in rural areas while the rest was in the urban. He said they are providing aid through ANDMA and Ministry of Agriculture.

Azita Rafat, MP from Badghis province said: The aid provided to affected areas and the answer of the minister in the session were not satisfactory

She said if these ministers can not work, they should resign and let others to do the job, as problems increase day after day. The debate would continue till Sunday.

100 children leave orphanage due to lack of facilities

Pajhwok News Agency 02/11/2008cBy Sher Ahmad Haider

GHAZNI CITY - Food shortage and cold weather compelled over 100 children to run away from Ghazni province orphanage, a report claimed on Sunday.

A joint report of Public Health, Information and Culture and Justice Departments of the province said now only 45 of the 157 children remained in the centre.

The children did not have warm clothes in this cold weather and even do not have shelter in the centre, report added. Every year more than 2m afghanis being granted to the orphanage but not more than 150000 afghanis are being spent, report claimed

Presently at least 50 children including minor girls are living in two different rooms of the centre. Public Health Director Dr. Zia Gul Aspandi urged the officials for immediate support with the children.

A boy, Mustafa living in the centre said:" I came for learning something but now here is nothing which I want to learn."

A destitute 10-year girl Arzu informed condition of the centre as compared with past is very worst and due to cold weather and insufficient food stuff children flee.

However, Ghazni Social Welfare Department (SWD) official termed the report one sided and claimed it is not reality. Shafiqa Joshan, director of SWD blamed that those Ghazni officials are trying to pressurize them.

She added they have provided all those facilities what they had in centre for children, added for monitoring the duties there is another department.

Most of the children are living nearby the centre and now they have gone to their house due to winter vacation, but only those children can reside in the centre who are from remote areas or do not have homes, she concluded.

Taleban betrays commander to Pakistan over his MI6 contacts

The Scotsman, 02/12/2008 By Jerome Starkey in Kabul

A SENIOR Taleban commander was wounded and captured in a three-hour shoot-out yesterday, amid claims he was betrayed by his masters for talking to British spies.

Mansoor Dadullah was clinging to life after Pakistani commandos attacked his hideout in a remote tribal area close to the Afghan border. The insurgent was mastermind behind dozens of attacks on British troops in Afghanistan's lawless Helmand province.

But he was allegedly sacked by the extremists' spiritual leader, Mullah Omar, for negotiating with MI6. He was also blamed for losing Musa Qala, a Taleban stronghold in Helmand, which fell to British and Afghan troops last year.

Pakistani officials admitted they received an intelligence tip-off ahead of the raid. The local police chief, Saud Gohar, said: "We had reports of his presence from intelligence sources. He was hiding in a house in the village."

It is thought Mansoor may have been double-crossed as part of a deal between the hardline "neo" Taleban in Pakistan, and local security forces.

It comes less than a fortnight after a senior al-Qaeda commander, Abu Laith al-Libi, was killed by an American rocket attack in Pakistan's northern Waziristan province.

Terrorism analysts believe Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI, may have passed the United States details of Libi's whereabouts to relieve US pressure on Islamabad over insurgent activity.

Pakistan denies international claims its border is a safe haven for religious extremists, who use it to launch attacks against Nato troops in neighbouring Afghanistan. But the operation against Mansoor came a day after Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, warned that sanctuaries in the tribal areas pose a direct threat to Islamabad.

A spokesman for Pakistan's army claimed Mansoor was seized as he sneaked across the border from Afghanistan. Major- General Athar Abbas said Mansoor refused to stop at a checkpoint. He said: "Security personnel returned fire. As a result, all of them sustained injuries and all of them were captured. Dadullah (Mansoor] was arrested alive, but he is critically wounded."

Mansoor was in charge of Taleban operations across southern Afghanistan. He took over from his brother, Mullah Dadullah, who was killed by British special forces in Helmand last year.

Mansoor said in a phone interview in January that he remained a Taleban commander and had asked Mullah Omar, to dispel "rumours" of his dismissal.

He also claimed that he had met with al-Qaeda's No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, a few months ago. He said Taleban and al-Qaeda fighters in Helmand were fighting alongside each other and sharing tactics.

At least five other militants were also wounded and captured during the operation yesterday, security officials said. The arrests coincided with a rare announcement from Mullah Omar.

In a statement, published in the Afghan Islamic Press, he said: "We want legitimate relations with countries of the world and we are not a threat to anyone. "If foreign troops leave Afghanistan, that will be a victory for the people of Afghanistan."

US dismisses Taliban assertion of 'defeat' in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Washington has dismissed an assertion by fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar that the United States has been "defeated" in Afghanistan.

"He might want to come in and mention that directly to some of the NATO or American forces there," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Monday. "I am sure they would be happy to receive him," he said.

The spokesman said that far from being vanquished militarily, NATO forces were succeeding in improving life for the people of Afghanistan.

"This is a country that has a government and people who are dedicated to getting a better future for themselves and not returning to the dark past of the rule of the Taliban," he said.

His remarks came in answer to a statement Monday attributed by a Taliban spokesman to Omar that "the United States has been defeated in Afghanistan."

"They have been trapped here and are desperately trying to get other countries involved," a spokesman for the militant Islamic leader said in a telephone call from an unknown location.

Omar's statement went on to say that the United States, which led the campaign that toppled the Taliban from government in late 2001, had "invaded" and "occupied" Afghanistan.

"We're fighting to free our country," it said, adding: "We're not a threat to the world." "The world nations must compel their governments to withdraw from Afghanistan and abandon supporting the United States."

Omar has been on the run since 2001, when the United States levied a 10 million dollar bounty on his head.

Pakistan unsure if missing envoy kidnapped

By Augustine Anthony - ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani authorities said on Tuesday they didn't know whether their ambassador to Afghanistan had been kidnapped, a day after he went missing in a Pakistani tribal region plagued by bandits and militants.

Ambassador Tariq Azizuddin was on his way to Kabul from the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar when he disappeared along with his driver and bodyguard in the Khyber tribal region.

"The search is on. We have nothing to share at the stage," Foreign Office spokesman, Muhammad Sadiq, told Reuters. He refused to speculate whether the envoy had been kidnapped.

"We don't know what happened, we have no idea," Sadiq said. "There is no confirmation he has been kidnapped."

A security official said the envoy was to change cars at the border but he did not show up and was believed to have not reached the border. Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai was sure the envoy had been snatched.

"The Pakistan ambassador to Afghanistan has been kidnapped while traveling to Afghanistan," Karzai said in Kabul, during a conference on education. "I hope he is safe and I hope he will be released soon."

The historic Khyber Pass is the main road link to landlocked Afghanistan in northwestern Pakistan.

Khyber is notorious for smugglers and bandits, but unlike other parts of the tribal belt on the Afghan border it has been relatively free of the violence linked to al Qaeda and the Taliban, though militant activity has picked up in adjoining regions.

Scores of people were killed late last year in clashes between tribal militants loyal to two rival clerics in Khyber. Four Pakistani workers of the International Committee of the Red Cross went missing in the same region earlier this month. They have not been found.

Meanwhile, two technicians from the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission were kidnapped on Monday near the northwestern town of Dera Isamil Khan, police said.

"The technicians were going for some geological survey in the area when they were kidnapped at gunpoint along with their driver and five local people," Romail Akram, a senior police official in the area said.

"The local people have been released but the technicians and their driver are still missing. We don't have any idea, so far, who has done it."

The security situation in Pakistan has deteriorated markedly since mid-2007, mainly in the northwest, with militants linked to the Taliban and al Qaeda carrying out a suicide bomb campaign against security forces and politicians campaigning for an election on February 18.

More than 400 people have been killed in militant related violence since the beginning of this year alone.

NATO soldier wounded in Afghan suicide attack: ISAF

HERAT, Afghanistan (AFP) — A suicide car bomber attacked a convoy of NATO forces in western Afghanistan on Tuesday, wounding a NATO soldier, officials said.

The attacker detonated his explosives-filled vehicle near the convoy in the Delaram district of western Farah province, provincial governor Ghulam Muahidin Baluch told AFP.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) also confirmed the incident while the extremist Taliban movement claimed responsibility. "One ISAF soldier was wounded. It was a suicide car bomb attack," an ISAF spokesman told AFP.

The police spokesman for western Afghanistan, Abdul Raof Ahmadi, said the attack took place on the main highway from the southern city of Kandahar to the main western city of Herat.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, claimed responsibility for the attack in a telephone call from an unknown location. "The attack was carried out by our mujahideen," he said.

Separately, Afghan police clashed with Taliban insurgents in the same area on Monday, killing one Taliban fighter and wounding two Taliban and two policemen, said the governor.

The hardline Islamic Taliban movement was ousted from power in late 2001 by a US-led offensive but has since launched a wave of bloody attacks which has claimed thousands of lives.

Harper vows compromise on Afghan mission

BRODIE FENLON AND JANE TABER

Globe and Mail Update and Canadian Press

February 12, 2008 at 1:29 PM EST

Prime Minister Stephen Harper welcomed as “important progress” Liberal amendments to his government's motion in the House of Commons to extend the Canadian combat mission in Afghanistan to 2011.

Mr. Harper said his government will seriously consider the Liberal proposals, which include an end to combat operations in 2009 and full troop withdrawal from Kandahar in February 2011.

Mr. Harper said the Liberal commitment to a continued military presence in the country post-2009 is “really very close to the government's position” and he raised the possibility the Conservatives would introduce a new motion on the matter.

“I'd like to say just how pleased I am to see greater clarity by the Liberals on their position in Afghanistan,” Mr. Harper told reporters in French.

“The government intends to examine these proposals in greater detail ... so as to give a more wide-ranging answer and perhaps a new motion.”

The vote on the Conservative motion, based on recommendations from a panel chaired by former Liberal deputy prime minister John Manley, will be considered one of confidence in the government.

As first reported by The Globe and Mail, the Liberal caucus agreed Monday night on an amendment to the motion that offers support for a military presence in the Kandahar region of southern Afghanistan to February, 2011, but makes no mention of a combat role.

Instead, Canadian Forces would train the Afghan army and provide "defensive security" – in other words, militarily engage hostile forces only to protect themselves, civilians and development.

Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion said Canada's involvement in Afghanistan after 2009 should be viewed as a new mission with a new focus on training and reconstruction. He said it would be up to the military to decide what level of security is needed – an obvious attempt at compromise on the controversial combat question.

“We will not micro-manage the military. It is for them to determine how to implement this new mission,” Mr. Dion said. Mr. Harper later described this position as “very important.”

“We should not be asking our military to pursue a mission in a very dangerous part of the world and at the same time, ask them to telephone 24 Sussex in order to get orders every day,” the Prime Minister said.

The crux of the Liberal amendments is that any extension of the mission be approved only on the condition that NATO secures sufficient troops “to rotate into Kandahar (operational no later than February 2009) to allow Canadian troops to be deployed pursuant to the mission priorities of training and reconstruction,” the amendment states.

“We need the troops coming from NATO that will take on their shoulders their parts of the mission,” Mr. Dion said Tuesday.

The Liberal Leader said he does not want Afghanistan to be the trigger for a spring election. “You have Canadians risking their lives there. It would be good that we find a way to agree between ourselves on what we need to do, and I hope this motion will help with that,” Mr. Dion said.

“I have heard that the Prime Minister might consider a vote on Afghanistan before the budget. I hope it's not true. It cannot be true. It would be completely irresponsible.”

For his part, Mr. Harper said he has no interest in fighting an election over the Afghan issue.

“The government's objective is to seek common ground here,” he said, while adding it's still important enough to warrant a confidence vote.

The Liberal amendment, which was written in part by deputy leader Michael Ignatieff and Foreign Affairs critic Bob Rae, also says that support for the mission is contingent on NATO securing additional troops, helicopters and other equipment for southern Afghanistan. It calls for reconstruction and development aid to be increased.

Peter Van Loan, the House Leader, said Monday night that he is pleased there will be Liberal input into the Tory motion soon and that the Conservatives will study the amendments and will be "working for a way forward" on the Afghan mission.

He said the Tories are seeking an end date of 2011, adding the motion is clear on that, although the Liberals had argued that the mission was "never ending" because there was no clear end date.

Mr. Dion had insisted that he wanted the combat portion of the mission to end by February, 2009, but some in his caucus had appeared uncomfortable with that position.

There were "definitely some splits ... some louder than others," a Liberal official said. Several Liberal MPs were carefully picking their words earlier Monday when asked about their support for their Leader's position.

There were also splits in the Liberal women's caucus, according to a senior source, who said that recent meetings had become a "little bit ugly."

While the political parties thrash out the issue on Parliament Hill, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is speaking to his NATO colleagues to see if he can drum up support for 1,000 more soldiers to help the Canadian contingent in Kandahar. Canada may get some help from the French, and yesterday Mr. Harper called German Chancellor Angela Merkel to determine if Germany, which has about 3,200 soldiers performing reconstruction work in the relatively peaceful northern part of Afghanistan, might be willing to help.

"The Chancellor said she understood the debate well and said the [Manley] panel's report had been worthwhile and useful – not just for Canada," Sandra Buckler, the Prime Minister's director of communications, said in an e-mail.

It may be, however, that the Liberals will not have to deal with a vote on Afghanistan because there is growing speculation they will defeat the government on its budget on Feb. 26. The Afghan motion is not expected to be put to a vote until March.

One Ontario MP called the debate over the Afghan amendment a "moot point."

"They've [Mr. Dion and his close advisers] already made the decision to go on the budget," the MP said. "I think he has decided the path of least resistance is [to go on] the budget."

Kandahar pullout in 2011?

Tories say they plan to end mission then, opening possibility of deal with Liberals - Feb 12, 2008 04:30 AM - Allan Woods Bruce Campion Smith, Ottawa Bureau

OTTAWA–The federal Tories say they intend to end Canada's military mission in Kandahar in 2011, a concession that puts within reach a political compromise with the Liberals on Afghanistan.

That timetable emerged as a key demand last night as Liberal MPs met privately to plot their own vision of the mission.

But within minutes of that meeting ending, Conservative House Leader Peter Van Loan was talking compromise, saying that more than 2,000 Canadians troops could be withdrawn from Kandahar.

"Our objective is to end the mission in 2011," he told reporters. "We believe the mission could be completed by then."

But a government official later went further, saying: "It's our government's intention that the mission end in 2011."

While the Kandahar mission would end in 2011 it was unclear last night, however, if Canada would pull out of Afghanistan altogether or have some presence in a less volatile region.

In their motion to extend the mission unveiled last Friday, the federal Conservatives had only promised to review the mission in 2011, not end it. That led to opposition accusations that Prime Minister Stephen Harper favoured a "never-ending" mission.

Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion will present the Liberal position on the Afghan mission at a news conference this morning. He emerged from the caucus meeting saying the plan had the "strong support" of his party's MPs.

The Liberals are expected to say Canada's mission in Kandahar should be extended from 2009 until 2011, but take on a less combative stance, with soldiers refraining from actively hunting Taliban insurgents. One Liberal source said the task of offensive "search and destroy" missions would be left to other NATO allies.

Harper must make clear that Canada will leave Kandahar once this second extension to the 2005 deployment is finished, the Liberals will argue.

"In 2011 the mission is over and we need to make that clear. Otherwise, NATO and the government of Afghanistan will assume, as they did this time for February 2009, that Canada is heading for a never-ending mission," Dion told reporters before heading into caucus.

But he left the door open to staying on elsewhere in Afghanistan beyond 2011. The party's amendment to a proposed Afghanistan mission extension would see Canada remain in the dangerous southern province until the Afghan government and the international community achieve a set of development, security and military goals known as the Afghan compact.

The present Kandahar deployment is covered by a parliamentary mandate until February 2009.

The Liberal proposal will also call for a special envoy to oversee detainees transferred into Afghan custody; quarterly reports to Parliament on the state of the mission; and a special Commons committee to hear testimony from cabinet ministers involved in the file.

Last week, the Harper government introduced a motion to extend the military mission in Kandahar until at least the end of 2011, contingent on other NATO nations sending 1,000 more soldiers to fight in the region and supplying transport helicopters and aerial drones to track insurgents.

The motion envisions a reduced combat role for Canada's 2,500 soldiers as more Afghan soldiers are trained, but the government maintains that limiting soldiers to defensive operations could be suicidal in the Taliban heartland.

The Conservatives have declared that a vote on the question will be a matter of confidence, meaning that there could be an election if the two major political parties can't find common ground.

The Liberal amendment is expected to be a lengthy document that will touch on many aspects of the NATO-led mission beyond the decision to stay or go from Kandahar after 2011.

"The amendment will cover probably all of the angles we've been raising since Day 1," said Liberal defence critic Denis Coderre. Dion briefed his MPs on the wording of the amendment last night.

The Liberal leader told reporters he is eager to reach an agreement with the Tories and he sees room for negotiations around the development, reconstruction and security goals that Canada can set for the next few years, as well as the training of Afghan soldiers.

"But there's no question of having a mission without end, there's no question of (continuing to have) a combat mission that entails actively searching to engage the enemy after February 2009," he said.

The Liberal proposal will define a new "security role" for the soldiers in the Kandahar region to protect ongoing development work, one Liberal explained. Canadian soldiers would be able to go in "hot pursuit" of insurgents who posed an immediate threat, but must put an end to military missions done now to flush out insurgents from the countryside.

"If there is a chance that your security region is going to be infringed upon, then you have to take action," said Liberal MP Robert Thibault (West Nova). "But it's different than going on a vast mission trying to secure more in your territory."

There has been a dramatic decline in the number of head-on clashes with Taliban fighters over the past two years. Insurgents have instead opted for improvised explosive devices buried along routes commonly travelled by Canadian and NATO convoys.

Dion camp stands united on Afghanistan

MPs overcome divisions to accept Liberal Leader's position on role of troops

JANE TABER - From Tuesday's Globe and Mail February 12, 2008

Liberal MPs overcame divisions and united behind Stéphane Dion's position that Canadian troops should stay in Afghanistan past 2009 in a "defensive-security" role, bringing the party a step closer to a compromise with the Conservatives.

The Conservatives have introduced a motion in the House of Commons to extend the combat mission to 2011. The vote on the motion, based on recommendations from a panel chaired by former Liberal deputy prime minister John Manley, will be considered one of confidence in the government.

Last night, the Liberal caucus agreed on an amendment to the motion that offers support for a military presence in the Kandahar region of southern Afghanistan to February, 2011, but makes no mention of a combat role. Instead, a source said, Canadian Forces would train the Afghan army and provide "defensive security" - in other words, militarily engage hostile forces only to protect themselves, civilians and development.

Emerging from the two-hour debate, Mr. Dion called it a "formidable" caucus, but said the Liberals have the conviction that they are doing the right thing for Canada, Afghanistan and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. He said he will make the amendment public this morning.

The amendment, which was written in part by Liberal deputy leader Michael Ignatieff and Foreign Affairs critic Bob Rae, also says that support for the mission is contingent on NATO securing additional troops, helicopters and other equipment for southern Afghanistan. It calls for reconstruction and development aid to be increased.

Peter Van Loan, the House Leader, said last night he's pleased that there will be Liberal input into the Tory motion soon and that the Conservatives will study the amendments and will be "working for a way forward" on the Afghan mission.

He said the Tories are seeking an end date of 2011, adding the motion is clear on that, although the Liberals had argued that the mission was "never ending" because there was no clear end date.

Mr. Dion had insisted that he wanted the combat portion of the mission to end by February, 2009, but some in his caucus had appeared uncomfortable with that position.

There were "definitely some splits ... some louder than others," said a Liberal official. Several Liberal MPs were carefully picking their words earlier yesterday when asked about their support for their leader's position.

There were also splits in the Liberal women's caucus, according to a senior source, who said that recent meetings had become a "little bit ugly."

While the political parties thrash out the issue on Parliament Hill, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is speaking to his NATO colleagues to see if he can drum up support for 1,000 more troops to help the Canadian contingent in Kandahar. Canada may get some help from the French, and yesterday Mr. Harper called German Chancellor Angela Merkel to determine if Germany, which has about 3,200 soldiers performing reconstruction work in the relatively peaceful northern part of Afghanistan, might be willing to help.

"The Chancellor said she understood the debate well and said the [Manley] panel's report had been worthwhile and useful - not just for Canada," said the Prime Minister's director of communications Sandra Buckler in an e-mail.

It may be, however, that the Liberals will not have to deal with a vote on Afghanistan because there is growing speculation they will defeat the government on its budget on Feb. 26. The Afghan motion is not expected to be put to a vote until March. One Ontario MP called the debate over the Afghan amendment a "moot point."

"They've [Mr. Dion and his close advisers] already made the decision to go on the budget," said the MP. "I think he has decided the path of least resistance is [to go on] the budget."

Germany Handed Prisoners over to a Government that Tortures

Der Spiegel, 02/11/2008 By John Goetz, Marcel Rosenbach and Alexander Szandar

Germany's military, the Bundeswehr, has turned over prisoners to authorities in Afghanistan, where torture is a common practice.

Mohammed Gul, a field laborer, was working in a field west of Kandahar when Canadian soldiers picked him up. According to Gul's story, his encounter with the West marked the beginning of a six-month nightmare. He told the local human rights commission that the Canadians turned him over to Afghan security forces, and that members of the country's feared NDS intelligence agency abused him with gun barrels and tortured him with sleep deprivation and electroshocks. There were no specific charges against Gul other than the general suspicion that he supported the rebel Taliban.

Similar tales of abuse are reported by Sherin, a driver, and Abdul Wali, a tailor. They too were taken into custody by soldiers serving under the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and turned over to Afghan intelligence officials, who reportedly severely abused them. Even members of the Afghan government admit -- albeit unofficially -- that torture is common in the country's prisons.

The cases, which have been documented by the human rights organization Amnesty International (AI), put pressure on both the Afghans and the Western governments that have troops stationed in Afghanistan. The Canadian government has already reacted to the charges. Because Gul and the two other men were turned over by Canadian soldiers, Ottawa decided in November that it would no longer transfer prisoners to the Afghans.

The debate comes at an inconvenient time for the German government. The Defense Ministry believes that the Bundeswehr has detained at least 40 Afghan suspects so far. "A number of individuals detained temporarily" were "turned over to Afghan officials," admitted Deputy Defense Minister Christian Schmidt, who is a member of the conservative Christian Democrat Union (CDU). The Defense Ministry claims that it cannot provide more specific figures, "because there was no statistical documentation of all detentions starting at the beginning of the mission."

The numbers could rise significantly if the Germans expand their mission as planned. Officials are more than aware of the fact that the Germans, who went to Afghanistan to defend international and human rights, are jeopardizing precisely those same rights through their behavior.

German General Egon Ramms, a member of the NATO command responsible for ISAF, concedes that there have been "isolated cases that, under international law, certainly do not conform to our ideas." According to Amnesty International, Germany runs the "risk of becoming an accomplice to torture." Last Friday, AI issued another urgent appeal to the NATO defense ministers to terminate the practice of turning over ISAF prisoners to the Afghan authorities immediately.

Unlike the Canadians, who reached their own prisoner agreement with Kabul and introduced a "monitoring system" under which suspects detained by Canadian troops are regularly visited in Afghan prisons, the German government continues to emphasize diplomacy. Since March of last year, the German embassy in Kabul has been negotiating an agreement that would guarantee minimum standards under international law for the treatment of suspects.

But those negotiations have been unsuccessful so far. In particular, the Afghan government under President Hamid Karzai refuses to guarantee that the death penalty will not be applied to detainees turned over to the Afghans. On Jan. 23, the German embassy in Kabul notified the Foreign Office in Berlin that the differences between the two sides had "not yet been resolved to our satisfaction."

The Canadian example shows that an agreement on paper with the Afghans is no guarantee that prisoners will be properly treated. Even though an agreement was reached, prisoners were still abused.

German military officials recognized early on that even the indirect involvement of German soldiers in torture cases could have serious consequences. Shortly after the invasion of Afghanistan, the leaders of Germany's KSK special forces unit pointed out the legal ambiguities of German detainee policy and asked for clarification. In early 2002, then Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping commissioned a report clarifying the status under international law of various issues, including the transfer of prisoners to the US military.

In his report dated June 3, 2002, Michael Saalfeld, who was director of the international law division in the German Defense Ministry at the time, concluded: "There is a consensus that the transfer of detained individuals to the United States would be legally problematic." Although his comments were ignored politically, Saalfeld suffered the consequences personally when he was relieved of his responsibilities for dealing with the sensitive issue. His superior assigned the task of preparing a new report to another ministry official. That report concluded that there was no reason for the Bundeswehr not to turn over prisoners to the US military.

After that, the Bundeswehr got round the problem using a euphemistic linguistic distinction: German soldiers were not permitted to take any prisoners themselves, but they could "detain" people without "arresting" them. Since then, the Bundeswehr's deployment guidelines require that after four days, "if at all possible," the detainees be either released or turned over to the Afghan authorities.

For a long time, the decision and responsibility for detentions was left more or less up to the soldiers themselves. But this, as the Defense Ministry eventually realized, was an unsustainable situation. In April 2007, Deputy Defense Minister Peter Wichert issued an order that was meant to finally clarify the situation. Under the order, "individuals taken into custody must be promptly turned over to the relevant authorities or, if they are no longer considered a threat, released." In addition, the leader of the respective detachment was required to notify the Red Cross. Under the guideline, the "transfer to security forces of third-party nations is prohibited if there are any indications that the observance of minimum standards for human rights is not guaranteed."

The government is not prepared to put an official end to the practice of turning over prisoners to the Afghans, but Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung, a Christian Democrat, has tried to circumvent the problem. "Because of the existing accusations against Afghan security officials," say Defense Ministry officials, "the Defense Ministry reserves the right to decide on all transfers of detainees to the Afghans until further notice." In truth, the Germans have already become more careful since the Wichert directive, and have not detained any suspects in recent months during their patrols.

According to Elke Hoff, who belongs to Germany's liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) and is a member of the parliamentary defense committee, it is "simply unacceptable" that for years the German government has deployed German soldiers in Afghanistan who "are unable to rely on any clear legal guidelines."

Her Green Party counterpart, Winfried Nachtwei, takes the issue a step further. "We must follow the Canadian example immediately," says Nachtwei, "and put an end to all prisoner transfers."

The withdrawal of foreign troops would be a disaster for Afghanistan

International forces are needed to bring a stable and lasting peace, says Michael Williams – The Guardian 2.12.08

The situation in Afghanistan is less than optimal. But one cannot pretend that this is the sole result of western involvement in Afghanistan, remedied only by the immediate removal of all international forces, as Seumas Milne claims ( The war that can bring neither peace nor freedom, February 5).

I have spent nearly two years working with various allies involved in Afghanistan as an independent academic. Milne writes that Nato is losing ground against the Taliban: "And while Nato claims that 70% of incidents took place in the southern Taliban heartland, the independent Senlis Council thinktank recently estimated that the Taliban now has a permanent presence in 54% of Afghanistan."

This leads one to conclude that the Taliban are all over Afghanistan - but Milne leaves off the explicit "primarily in southern Afghanistan" that the Council tacked on to that appraisal, which backs the Nato claim. Furthermore, the Council's claim is itself highly debatable and its definition of "Taliban presence" is ill-defined. The Council is not Afghan experts and they have a specific agenda - the legalisation of the poppy - not exactly then a neutral source. And the fact that violence rages in the south is not a surprise given it is the base of the Taliban movement.

Milne leads us to believe that the ongoing violence is leading Afghans to lose faith in the west and creating a "significant broadening of the Taliban's base". This is false. In a recent survey, 85% of Afghans chose the current corrupt government of Afghanistan, against 4% in favour of the Taliban. Nearly 75% said the US arrival in Afghanistan was "mostly good" to "very good", against 92% who "somewhat oppose" and "strongly oppose" the Taliban. And 58% blame the Taliban and al-Qaida/foreign fighters for the violence, whereas only 3% blame Nato/Isaf forces. Afghans, it would seem, have a much better understanding of the complex situation on the ground than Milne, or the 62% of Brits who want troops out now.

Yes, government corruption, civilian casualties and narcotics are major problems. But this is Afghanistan, not Mayfair. Of course, people tend to give pollsters the answers they feel are expected of them; but if there was indeed widespread support for the Taliban the violence would be much worse. As for Hamid Karzai's condemnations, just last Thursday he emphasised the need for Nato to do more, not less in Afghanistan.

The Nato/Isaf campaign is not about bringing "democracy" to Afghanistan; it is about lifting Afghans out of their decades-long hell. Few in Nato would disagree with Milne that "the only real chance for peace in Afghanistan is the withdrawal of foreign forces as part of a wider political settlement" - but such a settlement does not happen overnight or without assistance. The last time the world neglected Afghanistan, its people suffered a devastating civil war and brutal Taliban rule which ultimately helped lead to 9/11. Peace does not come easy - modern Europe is build on centuries of conflict. Milne would best remember this before he advocates leaving the Afghans to not just a conflict-riddled present but a horrific future as well.

· Dr Michael Williams is head of the Transatlantic Security Programme at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies

Gates, Truth and Afghanistan

NY tImes Editorial 2.12.08 - By the Bush administration’s standards, Defense Secretary Robert Gates was remarkably candid last week: acknowledging that popular opposition in Europe to the Iraq war was making it harder to persuade European governments to send more troops or take more risks to salvage Afghanistan.

Nearly everything about President Bush’s botched war of choice in Iraq has made it much harder to win Afghanistan’s war of necessity. The fact that Mr. Gates is permitted such truth-telling is a measure of how bad things have gotten in Afghanistan and how much the United States needs more outside help.

To help beat back a resurgent Taliban, countries like Germany, France, Spain and Italy must agree to send more combat troops and lift restrictions on where and how their forces would operate — including bars on deployments to the south where the fighting is heaviest. The United States and Europe also need to come up with more cash and a better nation-building strategy. All these problems need to be addressed before the spring when a new Taliban offensive is likely.

A NATO failure would obviously be devastating for Afghanistan’s people, but it also would be dangerous for Europe, which relies on the alliance as its principal means of deterrence and defense. The intra-NATO resentments have gotten so bitter that Canada’s prime minister, Stephen Harper, has said that he will withdraw his 2,500 troops — the Canadians have suffered heavy losses — as scheduled next year, unless other members ante up another 1,000 troops.

As Mr. Gates rightly noted, Afghanistan is not Iraq. It is a war that began in response to a terrorist attack on the United States, and the fight to defeat the Taliban is fully backed by international law, the United Nations and is a solemn legal commitment of NATO.

Europe’s failures in Afghanistan go far beyond disagreements over Iraq. Many European countries are not fully prepared to fight. The size of their armies, their training, their equipment are all insufficient for 21st-century conflicts, and their citizens are deeply casualty-averse. That is not surprising since many European leaders have not told their voters why winning in Afghanistan is essential.

Mr. Gates has tried to deliver that message this week, warning Europeans that their own security from a terrorist attack depends on NATO prevailing in Afghanistan. Europe’s own leaders need to be making that case.

Mr. Gates might get further if he also acknowledged that even before NATO got involved, Washington never had enough troops in Afghanistan or a coherent strategy for stabilizing the country. That is probably too much to ask from Mr. Gates, who on Monday proved that he is still a full team player by suggesting that troop reductions in Iraq may not come down much below their presurge levels.

Having told at least one difficult truth on his way to Europe, Mr. Gates should be prepared to tell a few more when gets home. He can start by telling President Bush that a good part of the problem in Afghanistan is manufactured in Pakistan, which continues to give Al Qaeda and the Taliban sanctuary in its border regions. Mr. Bush needs a Pakistan strategy — and for that Europe can’t be blamed. Mr. Gates should also tell the president that so long as American forces are tied down in an unwinnable war in Iraq, there is little hope of winning in Afghanistan.

Australia and Afghanistan

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ASIA - February 12, 2008

To the Canadians, add the Australians. Less than a week after Prime Minister Stephen Harper, speaking from the frozen North, called for more European troops to support the NATO-led effort in Afghanistan, his plea was echoed Down Under. Defense Minister Joel Fitzgibbon told the Australian newspaper on Sunday, "Obviously if we don't get many troops in Afghanistan success is doubtful."

Mr. Fitzgibbon may be new to his job, appointed by the recently elected Labor Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, but he's quickly learning how NATO operates. The 26-member alliance took over command and control of Afghanistan's International Security Assistance Force in 2003. Since then, only four countries have engaged in the real fighting: the U.S., Britain, Canada and Australia. NATO is now trying to round up 7,000 additional troops to support the effort, but France, Germany and other European countries are resisting.

Even though Australia isn't a member of NATO, former Prime Minister John Howard was one of the first national leaders to commit troops to the alliance's effort in Afghanistan. Most of Australia's more than 1,000 troops in the country are stationed in the volatile southern provinces. To date, four Australians have died and more than 30 have been injured. Australia's embassy staff in Kabul had to be relocated after their hotel offices were bombed last month.

Mr. Rudd is no stranger to the fight. He visited Australian troops in the south-central Afghan province of Uruzgan in December, only a month after taking office. But he isn't as strong on the war on terror as was his predecessor, having committed to pulling Aussie troops out of Iraq. Unless NATO finds more troops to send to Afghanistan, Mr. Rudd is unlikely to risk his country's military on a losing fight. Europe, are you listening?

Answer to Afghanistan question more complex than adding troops

February 12, 2008 James Travers Ottawa – Toronto Star

Just weeks ago, John Manley's report was part of the Afghanistan solution. Now it's part of the problem. Instead of informing a complex debate, its pivotal recommendation is being used to force a simplistic political choice and perhaps a federal election.

To the beat of campaign drums, Stephen Harper is demanding a yes-or-no answer to a public policy question Manley panellist and former top mandarin Paul Tellier calls the most difficult in memory. Clever as ever, the Prime Minister is remanufacturing Manley's minimum condition for continuing the Kandahar mission into a vital component for Afghanistan success.

Adding 1,000 NATO troops and more air support won't fix what's wrong with this attempted rescue of a failing state. As Manley found and studies warn, unco-ordinated strategies countering the insurgency, corruption and the booming opium business aren't working and demand hurried reconsideration.

That's not happening here. Neither the government's motion to stay the course at least until 2011 nor opposition objections come close to the heart of a matter costing lives and billions. What matters most is not how long the military stays or if its primary purpose is to fight, train, or reconstruct; it's what can reasonably be achieved.

Airing awkward truths is a first step toward a meaningful response. A stalemate bringing the Taliban into peace talks is now the best military hope, war-zone development is an oxymoron and, crucially, the Afghanistan outcome turns on factors far beyond Canadian control.

Another consideration is less abstract, closer to home. Ottawa must decide if distant, perpetually troubled Afghanistan is important enough to warrant being Canada's defining defence and foreign policy priority for the foreseeable future.

None of those worries will be eased in time to shape the federal government's immediate choice. The Taliban is far from its knees, it's early days for NATO's critical mission review and policy introspection is not a Conservative trait.

All that uncertainty suggests Parliament should be doing something it usually does well – buying time. Much will change over the next year, one that includes a U.S. presidential election. NATO will have to change course and make good on commitments or accept the Afghanistan consequences. Pakistan will either stabilize or become an even more jagged piece in the neighbourhood puzzle. And more experience might just widen Conservative tunnel world vision.

Whatever happens, and beyond assuring its allies that Canada will hold the Kandahar fort for at least a year beyond next February, there's little benefit and no urgency in making what is effectively an open-ended Afghanistan commitment. Instead, the Prime Minister should add to Manley's minimum condition a few others making this country's future role contingent on coherent, co-ordinated NATO strategies, agreement on what constitutes success and a clear commitment to burden sharing.

No matter how simple this government tries to make the question, the answer to Afghanistan is more complex than finding, as NATO will at Washington's insistence, more troops and aircraft. In reducing the debate to a binary choice, the Prime Minister is losing the opportunity for Manley's report to fuel a frank debate and perhaps a political consensus.

James Travers' national affairs column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

Bring the little tough guy back

The Times, UK, 02/11/2008 By Anthony Loyd

The Taleban would hate it if the old governor of Helmand returned to his post in Afghanistan

Sher Mohammed Akhunzada, senator, warlord and former governor of Helmand, is a cheerful little chap with very small hands, eyes that are three-quarters kind and a wide smile. He is also a man regarded by Britain as so divisive to security in the southern province that Gordon Brown reputedly attempted to extract a promise from President Karzai of Afghanistan never to reinstate him. Something about this combination suggests that life as his prisoner may involve howling and pain, and that not all he says is true.

Nevertheless, over tea and sweets one recent afternoon at his house in Kabul the alleged drug lord and despot was utterly charming.

“I don't know why the British had me removed,” he told me. “I was always kind to them and things were all right in Helmand when I was governor.” Removed from his post in 2006 at Britain's behest as a precondition for the deployment of the UK's 16 Air Assault Brigade to southern Afghanistan, Akhunzada is at present launching a comeback campaign and was at the centre of last month's stinging criticism by Karzai of Britain's strategy in Helmand.

The British claim that Akhunzada, a son of one of Helmand's most prominent families and famed for fighting the Taleban, was hugely involved with drug trafficking (three years ago he was found to have nine tonnes of opium in his offices), and that his cruelty as governor promoted rather than suppressed the insurgents. But Akhunzada can do little wrong in Karzai's eyes.

Among the series of deeply accusatory remarks, Karzai said that he had regretted listening to Britain's demand for Akhunzada's removal, which he claimed had dramatically strengthened the Taleban in Helmand.

The comments appeared as ungrateful as they were undiplomatic. But they were also accurate. In a rare moment of decisiveness, the Afghan President had illustrated an unwelcome fact: removing Akhunzada has contributed to the mess in Helmand. In Akhunzada's absence, violence flared and poppy cultivation soared. Despite recent military improvements, ten of Helmand's fourteen districts remain either lawless or under Taleban control, and the poppy crop has increased by up to 40 per cent.

Akhunzada's return to Helmand's governorship, once considered an impossibility, is now being seriously considered by a number of Afghan and foreign officials against the backdrop of Britain's weakened political influence in Helmand and the imminent retirement of the province's current incumbent, Governor Wafa. And Britain could do much worse than drop its coy opposition to Akhunzada and sup with the devil once more.

“Temporarily, Akhunzada could calm the situation in Helmand,” one senior diplomat said. “He could beat the Taleban in the south [of the province], and talk to them in the north.”

The Akhunzada issue cuts to the heart of the huge dilemma challenging every Nato country struggling to stabilise Afghanistan. “Do you accept working with a big bad bastard and trade off an improvement in security against human rights abuses and drug smuggling?” one Western diplomat surmised. “Or find someone clean but without the local clout and accept a shortfall in the security situation?”

Inside Afghanistan the question carries a far greater significance than the row over Nato's reluctance to commit more troops. Besides, many experts agree that the presence of more foreign combat troops could complicate rather than improve the security situation in the conservative south.

In Helmand the British, wary of being seen to do business with a man such as Akhunzada, chose the soft option. But it has not worked out. Governor Daud replaced Akhunzada at Britain's request. With no local tribal affiliation and amidst worsening violence, he was in turn replaced by Governor Wafa. Wafa has proved utterly useless. Barely literate, famously inept, unable to unite the tribes, fight the Taleban or curb poppy cultivation, he did, however, provoke the first of the series of recent rifts between Britain and the Afghan Government in December, when he mistakenly accused two widely respected diplomats, Irish and British citizens, of colluding with the Taleban when in fact they were on a sensitive mission to set up a rehabilitation camp for a large group of Taleban fighters seeking amnesty. Karzai then expelled the two men as a “threat to national security”, poleaxing the UK's attempts to divide the Taleban by reconciliating biddable elements. So much for the soft option.

The political fallout from this and the continuing unravelling of governance in Helmand suggests that, after all, the British might be better off dealing with Akhunzada and his henchmen, at least as an interim measure. Security remains the biggest concern of Afghans and foreigners alike.

If reinstated as Helmand's governor, Akhunzada could prove an unlikely bond linking the drifting relationship between Karzai and the British. He is Karzai's choice after all, feared by the Taleban and widely supported by the dominant Alizai tribe in the province. And the main argument against him, his drug involvement, seems irrelevant when compared with the track record of many Afghan government officials and governors with whom Nato are already doing business. Afghanistan's political aristocracy is a veritable melange of warlords and narco-barons.

Besides, Britain's abysmal counter-narcotics efforts in the south are in need of a dramatic revision. Akhunzada could limit the drug boom into his own spheres of interest and divert drug profits away from the Taleban. Better the Don you know.

Britain may not have much choice in who succeeds Governor Wafa in Helmand anyway. But if it stopped being shy and got real, then it may just find that a big bad bastard in diminutive form may be just what Helmand needs.

Too soon to give up in Afghanistan

The Financial Times, UK, 02/11/2008 By Gideon Rachman

With his fancy hats and fluent English, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan cuts a dashing figure on the international stage. But, while Mr Karzai is a regular at Davos, he keeps a low profile in Afghanistan itself. Holed up in his presidential palace in Kabul, he seemed tired and evasive at a press conference there last week.

Mr Karzai’s erratic behaviour is just one reason for fearing for the future of Afghanistan. The Taliban insurgency is still raging across the country. Suicide attacks are occurring at eight times the rate they were in 2006. Diplomats in Kabul are told not to visit restaurants or markets. Last week an International Monetary Fund report portrayed the Afghan economy as based on opium and aid.

Open bickering has broken out within the international coalition that is trying to shore up Afghanistan. The Canadians, who hold the vital region around Kandahar, are threatening to withdraw their 2,500 troops unless allies send reinforcements. Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, has criticised the counterinsurgency efforts of Nato allies.

All this is having an effect on public opinion. A recent poll in Britain showed that 62 per cent of the public want British troops out of Afghanistan within the year. Commentators in right and leftwing newspapers are arguing that the fight is hopeless and that withdrawal is the best option.

There are two variants of the pessimistic case – and neither is easily dismissed. The first is that the job in Afghanistan was doable but the west messed it up. The second is that the whole idea of setting up a modern, democratic state in Afghanistan was a fantasy.

The west clearly was far too complacent about Afghanistan. In 2003 Donald Rumsfeld, then US defence secretary, proclaimed that the war was over. But by then an anti-Nato insurgency was beginning in the Afghan countryside.

General Dan McNeill, head of Nato forces in Afghanistan, pointed out recently that US counterinsurgency doctrine would point to the need for 400,000 troops in Afghanistan, rather than the 50,000 or so soldiers currently deployed. Given this disparity, the bitter arguments within Nato provoked by the search for an extra 7,000 troops seem almost beside the point. President George W. Bush has repeatedly said that “failure is not an option” in Afghanistan. But the west has arguably never been willing to commit the resources to succeed.

An even bleaker argument is that success was never an option. Speaking in Afghanistan last week Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, spoke of turning the country into a “functioning modern state”. But the new Afghan institutions supported by the west are not taking root. One international official in Kabul told me that villagers in rural Afghanistan have generally never heard of their representatives in the Afghan parliament and have little understanding of the new Afghan courts or provincial councils. They still look naturally to the tribal “shuras” for security and justice.

The pessimists say that naive western plans are falling apart when faced with the reality of Afghanistan. But the people calling for withdrawal from Afghanistan are guilty of their own form of naivety. The west tried leaving Afghanistan to its own devices after the Russians pulled out and the results were disastrous – civil war, followed by the rise of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Vague talk about pulling back and monitoring terrorist training camps from a safe distance is unrealistic. Even in neighbouring Pakistan, which has a functioning central government and a large army, it has proved impossible to eradicate al-Qaeda and the Taliban from the lawless tribal areas. Why should it be any easier, after a Nato withdrawal from the even wilder environment of Afghanistan?

The call for fresh troops is prompting inevitable talk of a “new Vietnam”. That is over the top. There have been 764 coalition deaths in Afghanistan, compared to about 58,000 Americans killed in Vietnam.

And although Nato and the US have made mistakes in Afghanistan, they are also capable of learning from their errors. American counterinsurgency operations in the east of the country – which have recently focused much more on development aid – seem to be working well. This suggests that the alliance’s long-term goal of pacifying areas and then handing security over to a retrained and well financed Afghan army is far from hopeless.

The south, where the British and the Canadians are leading the fight, is much tougher going. But the British only moved into Helmand province in 2006, so it is not surprising that fighting is still continuing.

The rise of terrorism in urban areas is demoralising for the westerners in Kabul and insecurity there sends a powerful symbolic message. But the Taliban is not capable of taking and controlling a major settlement anywhere in the country.

A recognition that Afghanistan is likely to be a wild, poor and tribalised country for many years to come should not obscure the fact that life has improved for ordinary Afghans since the fall of the Taliban. Millions of refugees have returned to the country. Schools and roads have been built. Kabul, which was a shell-scarred wreck and home to just 300,000 people in 2001, now has a population of close to 3m. Opinion polls in Afghanistan, for what they are worth, suggest that a large majority of Afghans wants a continued western presence.

It was a mistake for the west to declare victory in Afghanistan prematurely five years ago. But it would be an even bigger error to declare defeat prematurely now.

[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.]