In this bulletin:

• Afghan bomb blasts claim 6 lives
• Afghans, Arabs Kidnapped in Afghanistan
• Italian soldier killed in Afghanistan: government
• Security Forces Search for Pakistani Ambassador to Afghanistan
• Security agencies interrogating Mansoor Dadullah
• Afghan, Saudi leaders vow to cement bilateral ties
• Afghan President Karzai seeks international help building madrassas, or Islamic schools
• Protestors call for Afghan journalist's release
• A strategy to save Afghanistan
• Australia Says NATO Needs New Strategy in Afghanistan
• Czech troops leave for Afghanistan on reconstruction mission
• Polish contingent to be concentrated in east Afghan province
• Albanian peacekeepers to remain in Afghanistan - defence chief
• Common ground, but no consensus on Afghanistan
• A bipartisan tone on Afghanistan
• Afghan vote may have to take place without assurance of French help
• NATO's Afghan Stumbles
• Will India again leave Afghanistan?
• Vodafone to launch mobile phone money transfer service in Afghanistan
• Al-Qaeda sets sight on the next battlefield
• Two Myths About Afghanistan
• Afghanistan To Get 'Big Brother' Cameras
• U.K. Soldiers Seize Ton of Opium, Heroin Haul in Afghanistan
• Russian state TV suggests USA involved in drug-trafficking from Afghanistan

Afghan bomb blasts claim 6 lives

KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Roadside bombings and a military operation across Afghanistan over the last two days left six people dead, five others wounded, and three detained, officials said on Wednesday.

A bomb struck an army vehicle in the Helmand province in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday morning, killing three Afghan soldiers, the Defense Ministry said in a statement. Four others were wounded.

On Tuesday, a roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan struck a vehicle carrying Afghan security guards working for the U.S. military.

Two guards were killed and another wounded, authorities said. The guards were on their way from a district in Khost province to their outpost along the country's border with Pakistan, said Arsala Jamal, the province's governor.

Mohammad Ayoub, the police chief of the province, said the guards were tribal militia members paid and equipped by the U.S. military to fight alongside coalition forces to quell Islamic militants.

In recent months, attacks have shot up against coalition and NATO-led troops in Afghanistan -- with militants often using roadside bombs to target them.

The U.S.-led coalition said an "armed assailant" was killed and three people were detained on Tuesday during a raid of compounds in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan targeting Taliban militants. The incident occurred in the Tarin Kowt district of the province.

Coalition forces killed the suspected insurgent when they traded fire in a building. One of the detained people had fired on coalition forces.

Helmand, Afghanistan's top poppy-producing region, and Uruzgan are among several provinces in southern Afghanistan where foreign troops continue to battle a resurgent Taliban. But Khost in the east has shown progress in recent months.

Once "a hotbed of lawlessness and insurgent activity," Afghan officials there have worked with a U.S.-led provincial reconstruction team to promote economic development and security, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in December.

Meanwhile, all but seven of 20 Afghans and Arabs who were kidnapped Monday from a western province have been released. A Taliban commander, Mullah Khodaidad, kidnapped the 20 after they had gone out to fish and hunt, the provincial police chief said.

Thirteen were released Tuesday after elders mediated between the government and the Taliban, an official who did not want to be named said. U.S. troops are in their sixth year in Afghanistan battling the Taliban, the Islamic militia that once ruled most of Afghanistan, and its al Qaeda allies.

Afghanistan became the first front in the "war on terrorism" that President Bush declared after al Qaeda's Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.

Afghans, Arabs Kidnapped in Afghanistan

By AMIR SHAH – KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Taliban militants kidnapped about 20 Arabs and Afghans in western Afghanistan and were holding six captive, while a suicide car bomber detonated his explosives next to a NATO convoy, wounding a soldier, officials said Tuesday.

The hostages were in the western province of Farah to hunt for rare birds when they were taken hostage by Taliban militants approximately two days ago, said Younis Rassouli, Farah's deputy provincial governor. They were robbed of their money, weapons and personal belongings, he said.

Four Afghans and two people from Qatar were still being held Tuesday, Rassouli said. The rest had been released. Abdul Rashid, a spokesman for police in western Afghanistan, said a Taliban commander named Mullah Khodaidad was behind the kidnappings.

Earlier, Farah Gov. Muhaidin Baluch said the Taliban had kidnapped 11 Pakistani construction workers, but the other officials said no Pakistanis were among the group of kidnapped Arabs and Afghans.

The suicide bomb attack in Farah province wounded one soldier and damaged a NATO vehicle, said Maj. Richelle Dowdell of NATO's International Security Assistance Force. She did not identify the nationality of the wounded soldier.

Last year the Taliban launched more than 140 suicide missions — the highest number since being ousted from power by the U.S.-led invasion of 2001.

Italian soldier killed in Afghanistan: government

ROME (AFP) — One Italian soldier was killed and another wounded Wednesday in a clash with insurgents in Afghanistan, the Italian defence ministry said in a statement.

The incident happened near Rudbar, some 60 kilometres (35 miles) from the capital Kabul, it said.

Italian troops "were engaged in civilian and military cooperation and aid to the local population" when they were "targeted with light weapons from hostile elements, to which they responded."

During the exchange, one Italian soldier died and another was slightly wounded," the defence ministry added.

It is the first fatal casualty for the 2,300-strong Italian force in Afghanistan since November 24, when one soldier was killed and three wounded in a suicide attack that also killed seven Afghan civilians and wounded seven.

Security Forces Search for Pakistani Ambassador to Afghanistan

The Washington Post- 02/12/2008 By Candace Rondeaux and Pamela Constable

ISLAMABAD - Security forces have launched a wide-ranging search for the Pakistani ambassador to Afghanistan, Pakistani government officials said Tuesday, a day after the envoy went missing in a tribal area that has recently become a hotbed of Taliban activity.

Ambassador Tariq Azizuddin was reported missing late Monday shortly after he, his driver and a security guard left the northwestern city of Peshawar en route to Kabul, the Afghan capital. His disappearance occurred within hours of the abduction of two maintenance workers for the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission and their driver near the northwestern village of Mir Ali, less than 100 miles from the Afghan border.

Pakistani government officials said they believe the two incidents were unrelated. But the ambassador's disappearance and the kidnappings, only days before this politically fragile nation's Feb. 18 parliamentary elections, heightened fears of unrest. Thousands of Pakistani troops were deployed across the nation Tuesday to provide protection at 64,000 polling stations.

Government officials declined Tuesday to say whether they believed Azizuddin, a 30-year veteran of Pakistan's Foreign Ministry, was abducted, but said security forces are searching for him in the Khyber Agency, a rugged tribal region along a highway that passes through Peshawar and crosses the famed Khyber Pass at Torkham to enter Afghanistan.

"We are trying to find the ambassador. We hope we will find him soon," said retired Brig. Iqbal Javed Cheema, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry.

Pakistani officials in Kabul said that Azizuddin had just returned to Pakistan from a conference in Tokyo and decided to drive from Islamabad back to Kabul, an all-day journey. A spokesman for the Pakistani Embassy in Kabul said officials there had tried unsuccessfully to contact Azizuddin on his cellphone hours after his departure around 10:30 a.m.

"At first we thought there was a problem with the signal because he was traveling through mountainous areas," said the spokesman, Muhammad Naeem. "At 3 p.m., we checked with the officials at Torkham, and they said he had not crossed. Then we became very worried."

Naeem also said local authorities in the Khyber tribal agency had reported that the ambassador's car had not passed through their territory. Cheema said security officials are looking for Azizuddin in an area close to Peshawar.

Pakistani news outlets reported that Azizuddin had been abducted by the Pakistani Taliban, and that they were demanding the release of Mansour Dadullah, a Taliban commander who was captured Monday by Pakistani forces in the southwestern province of Baluchistan.

Cheema said the Interior Ministry had received no such demand and rejected the suggested connection between Azizuddin's disappearance and Dadullah's capture.

Local militiamen rather than Pakistani forces patrol the tribal agencies. Several of them are virtually controlled by Taliban militants. The Khyber Agency is the most modern of the seven tribal regions, and the highway to the border is heavily traveled. But militants have been increasingly active there in the past year and are suspected to be behind the disappearance four days ago of four Pakistani workers for the International Red Cross.

A local government official from the region, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said Azizuddin's vehicle had been spotted twice near the village of Bara, close to Peshawar. The official said that the envoy's disappearance was being treated as a suspected kidnapping, but that there were few clues as to who might have carried it out.

Mohammed Sadiq, a Foreign Ministry spokesman in Islamabad, said Azizuddin had served as ambassador in Kabul for the past two years. Before that, he was chief of protocol in the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad and also served as ambassador to Bosnia-Herzegovina and as consul general in Los Angeles.

Constable reported from Kabul. Special correspondent Imtiaz Ali in Peshawar contributed to this report.

Security agencies interrogating Mansoor Dadullah

Daily Times 13 February 2008 - * Balochistan police chief says Taliban commander’s capture reflects resolve to not allow terrorists in Pakistan

QUETTA: Authorities were interrogating a top Taliban commander on Tuesday, a day after he was wounded and arrested in a shootout with security forces, police said.

Mullah Mansoor Dadullah, a leader of the insurgency against NATO and US-led forces in southern Afghanistan and brother of the Taliban’s slain military chieftain, was captured in a town near the Pak-Afghan border on Monday.

“We have handed Dadullah over to the security agencies. He is under interrogation and details will be known later,” Saud Gohar, the police chief of Balochistan, told AFP.

The army and Interior Ministry have also confirmed Dadullah’s arrest in the remote Qila Saifullah district.

Gohar said that Dadullah had narrowly evaded capture in another shootout in January that left two militants dead. “The incident took place in the same district about three weeks ago. Police flagged a car but it did not stop and the occupants opened fire,” the police chief said. “They escaped into an orchard and the exchange of fire lasted half an hour. Two of his guards were killed but Dadullah managed to flee,” he added.

No terrorists: “Since then we continued to collect information from different sources and finally, we captured him alive yesterday. Dadullah’s arrest reflects our resolve that we will not allow terrorists on our soil.”

Dadullah had succeeded his elder brother — the Talibann’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. afp

Afghan, Saudi leaders vow to cement bilateral ties

KABUL, Feb. 13 (Xinhua) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia have stressed for strengthening bilateral relations between the two Islamic states during a recent telephone conversation, a statement released by the Afghan presidential office said on Wednesday.

    In the telephone conversation on Tuesday night, the statement said, both leaders exchanged views on issues of bilateral relations, situation in Afghanistan as well as the issues in the region and Islamic world. The two leaders stressed the importance of enhancing relations between the two Muslim countries.

King Abdullah during the talks also reassured his government's continued support to the people of Afghanistan, the statement said.   

Afghan President Karzai seeks international help building madrassas, or Islamic schools

By Amir Shah ASSOCIATED PRESS February 12, 2008

KABUL, Afghanistan – Afghanistan needs more international help to build Islamic schools so fewer students will attend more radical ones outside the country, President Hamid Karzai said Tuesday.

Karzai said parents would not know what their children study in Islamic schools or madrassas outside the country – an apparent reference to neighboring Pakistan, with whom relations have been prickly.

“I wish all international communities, especially Islamic countries, would help us in constructing madrassas,” Karzai said at an education conference in the capital, Kabul. He did not specify any countries.

“Our students should be inside our country under the control of our religious scholars and clerics,” he said.

Education Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar said Afghanistan is building a “modern system of madrassas” offering a broad-based Islamic education. He said Afghan parents do not want their children studying in “hate madrassas” abroad.

About 91,000 Afghan pupils – less than 2 percent of the country's 5.8 million students – now attend 336 madrassas nationwide.

Atmar recently said that when militant violence forces Afghan schools to close, students are left with no schooling or they attend madrassas in Pakistan, where he said they would be “professionally trained as terrorists.”

A Pakistan religious affairs ministry employee said his country's madrassas were educating students well. Atmar said the Afghan government has asked international military construction teams to help build madrassas.

The U.S. military has built two educational facilities and is building five more in eastern Afghanistan called centers for educational excellence – though some Afghans would call them madrassas – said spokesman Lt. Col. David Accetta. He said the boarding schools offer a balanced curriculum that includes religious studies.

“It's not what you would expect, I think, if you called it a madrassa,” Accetta said. “A madrassa in most people's minds is a school where there is extremist religious education, and that's not what we're doing.”

Atmar said militants destroyed 98 schools and forced 590 more to close in the past year, denying over 300,000 children the opportunity to go to school. Attacks have killed 147 children and teachers in the last year.

“However, the terrorists have miserably failed to break the will of our people,” Atmar said. “Afghan parents continue to send their children to schools (and) rebuild the schools destroyed.”

Protestors call for Afghan journalist's release

Text of report by private Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press news agency

Jalalabad, 12 February: A demonstration has been staged in support of Mr [Pervez] Kambakhsh [journalist sentenced to death for blasphemy] in Jalalabad [capital of Nangarhar Province]. Dozens of people staged a demonstration in support of Pervez Kambakhsh in Jalalabad town this morning and demanded his release. The demonstration was organized by the National Solidarity Association in Jalalabad town and was attended by dozens of ordinary people.

The demonstrators marched towards the UNAMA office and demanded the release of Pervez Kambakhsh. A demonstrator told AIP: "Kambakhsh's life should be saved and they should try the likes of those who would bury people alive, burn people in containers and cut off women's breasts."

He said: "Now such gunmen walk free and Kambakhsh, who published an article written by someone else, is being tried." The demonstrators demanded the implementation of social justice throughout Afghanistan. Sayed Pervez Kambakhsh is a stu! dent of the journalism faculty in Balkh University and has been accused of downloading a blasphemous article from the internet and distributing it to his friends.

A strategy to save Afghanistan

By Paddy Ashdown - FT.com February 12 2008

The great sixth century BC military strategist Sun Tzu wrote: “Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”

With fighting in Afghanistan now entering its seventh year, no agreed international strategy, public support on both sides of the Atlantic crumbling, Nato in disarray and widening insecurity in Afghanistan, defeat is now a real possibility. The consequences for both Afghanistan and its allies would be appalling: global terrorism would have won back its old haven and created a new one over the border in a mortally weakened Pakistan; our domestic security threat would be gravely increased and a new instability would be added to the world’s most unstable region.

David Miliband, the British foreign secretary, is right – in the face of these consequences, withdrawal is not an option. But then neither is continuing as we are. So what should we do?

Some say more troops should be sent and they are certainly needed. Some say those Nato members who are not sharing the burden of the fighting should do so – and they should. Some say we need more aid – and we do. We are putting into Afghanistan one 25th the troops and one 50th of the aid per head of population that we put into Kosovo and Bosnia.

Increasing resources in Afghanistan is clearly necessary, but it is not sufficient. Even if we were to provide what was necessary, and even if everyone pulled their weight, we would still find it very difficult to turn the tide, which is now running increasingly strongly against us.

What we lack above all is a strategy that all (including, crucially, the Afghan government and the international military) can buy into. We know well enough what the objective is – to help President Hamid Karzai’s government to govern so that we can hand over the tasks we are doing, including the fighting, to them.

However, we have not yet turned this aim into a plan. Neither have we agreed a single person to head up the fractured international effort, with the authority to bash international heads together and provide the support the government of Afghanistan needs to begin winning again.

Here is the plan I assembled over the past four months, as I reluctantly considered what I would do, if I had had to do this job.

Firstly, we (the international community) have to concentrate fiercely on the necessary and not be distracted by the merely desirable. To have too many priorities is to have none.

I fixed on three priorities for the period ahead.

The first is security. We have to convince ordinary Afghans that their government can provide them with better security than the Taliban. I do not mean here just military security – it is human security that matters. That includes electricity, the rule of law, effective governance and the chance of a job in a growing economy.

What is needed to deliver this is a much closer co-operation between the military and the civilian side. It is no good soldiers winning a battle with the Taliban if the civilian reconstruction takes too long to begin to improve the lives of the people afterwards. We British have a tendency to be rather self-congratulatory about our skill at this and a bit sniffy about our US allies’ hamfistedness and clumsy use of force. But it is very foolish to underestimate the US military’s ability to learn lessons fast, just as they did after Vietnam. US counter-insurgency practice is now as good as the best – and better than any when it comes to getting the civilians in straight after the military (the UK’s department for international development please note). We also have to start looking at security from a political angle. Breaking up the Taliban by winning over the moderates is a far better route to success than bombing and body counts.

Our second priority should be governance. Until we have strengthened the mechanisms of Afghan government we cannot ask them to do more: they cannot deliver what their citizens need and neither of us will be able to persuade Afghans that Kabul is a better bet for their future than the Taliban. We should make improving governance the first, and if we can the only, priority for all future aid programmes.

Here, however, we hit a dilemma. According to its constitution, Afghanistan is a centralised state. But on the ground it is a highly decentralised one. Which end of the pipeline of governance should we start with? The answer is start at the bottom and work with the grain of the Afghan tribal structure.

The third priority, linking these two, is strengthening the rule of law, from the judiciary, to the police, to the security structures, to the penal code. Corruption is always endemic in countries emerging from war and Afghanistan, where drugs super-charge the problem, is no exception. Unless and until the rule of law is established there can be no safe democracy, no trusted government, no successful economy and no security for ordinary citizens.

We have not lost in Afghanistan. Indeed the more I looked at it, the more I could see positive things to be built on. But we will lose if we do not start doing things differently. What we need is a strategy, not a disconnected collection of unco-ordinated tactics. What we should not need is a Chinese philosopher from 26 centuries ago to tell us that.

Lord Ashdown was leader of the Liberal Democrats and high representative in Bosnia, 2002-2006. He was asked by the United Nations secretary general to be the UN’s special envoy in Afghanistan but was rejected by Mr Karzai.

Australia Says NATO Needs New Strategy in Afghanistan

NY Times, By TIM JOHNSTON Published: February 13, 2008

SYDNEY, Australia — Australia wants a major reconsideration of Western strategy in Afghanistan and will not increase its troop levels in the country until “underperforming” NATO countries shoulder their fair share of the burden, the Australian defense minister said Tuesday.

“I have to say the West isn’t pursuing a coherent strategy in Afghanistan,” the newly appointed defense minister, Joel Fitzgibbon, said by telephone.

“We want to see more done to raise the number of both the Afghan National Army troops and Afghan National Police; we want to see a better strategy on narcotics; and we want to see much more done on the civil side,” he said.

Australia, with 970 troops in Afghanistan, is the largest non-NATO contributor to the effort. Four Australian soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan and 30 have been wounded.

NATO is struggling to find more troops to share the burden in Afghanistan. The organization is looking for at least 7,000 troops to add to the 43,000 already there.

Canada, which has suffered significant losses in the war, has threatened to pull its 2,500 troops out of Afghanistan early next year unless its allies can find another 1,000 soldiers to support its mission there.

Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates has warned that the conflict could break NATO apart unless some of the nations lift restrictions on the size and nature of their deployment, which effectively keep their soldiers out of danger.

“We must not — we cannot — become a two-tiered alliance of those who are willing to fight and those who are not,” Mr. Gates said over the weekend. Mr. Fitzgibbon was asked Tuesday if he would consider raising Australia’s commitment.

“Absolutely not,” he replied. “We wouldn’t countenance increasing our numbers while those underperforming NATO nations aren’t prepared to make additional commitments.”

Czech troops leave for Afghanistan on reconstruction mission

Text of report in English by Czech national public-service news agency CTK

Bochor, North Moravia, 11 February: The first part of the Czech provincial reconstruction team (PRT) left for the Afghan province of Logar today, Czech Deputy Defence Minister Martin Bartak said. Bartak said the PRTs are one of the ways of achieving stability in the region.

"They will help to ordinary citizens, it is not a classical military mission," Bartak said before the departure of 39 Czech troops. The Czech PRT is to operate in Afghanistan minimally for three years.

After Lithuania and Hungary, the Czech Republic has become the third NATO newcomer with its own PRT.

The Czech Republic will send around 200 soldiers to Logar. The team will also include about 10 civilian experts in agriculture, construction and water management.

According to the Foreign Ministry, the work of the reconstruction teams may be complicated by bad infrastructure and lack of electricity.

The Czech Republic plans to widen its military presence in! Afghanistan this year. Along with Logar, Czechs are still to run a field hospital in Kabul.

In southern Afghanistan, a special military police unit is to be engaged in combat in the province of Hilmand. A special forces unit from Prostejov, south Moravia, one of the elite groups of the Czech military, is also ready for a new mission in Afghanistan.

Polish contingent to be concentrated in east Afghan province

Text of report in English by Polish national independent news agency PAP

Warsaw, 11 February: A Polish military contingent in Afghanistan will be responsible for the security of an eastern province, Poland's Defence Minister Bogdan Klich told a news conference here on Monday [11 February]. "The Polish contingent will be responsible for the security of a province, we will not share responsibility with other nations," Klich said.

The number of Polish troops in Afghanistan will rise from the present 1,200 to 1,600. Troops will be concentrated in one province in the east of the country in a move to increase their safety, Klich added. The minister refused to specify the site.

Klich said the ministry worked on a motion for a new directive on Polish troops' operations in Afghanistan which would be sent to the president after being examined by the government. The document will be the basis for the troops deployment, the minister explained.

Klich stressed that Polish troops would be better equipped and given more independence.

Albanian peacekeepers to remain in Afghanistan - defence chief

Text of report in English by Albanian state news agency ATA

Tirana, 11 February: Albanian Defence Minister Fatmir Mediu attended the meeting of ministers of NATO member countries and partners that participate in ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) operation, held in Vilnius (Lithuania) on Feb 7-8, 2008, the press office at the Defence Ministry made known on Monday (11 February).

The contribution of Albania to the ISAF Mission in Afghanistan was in the focus of talks Minister Mediu had with his counterparts. During the Vilnius meeting Mediu expressed maximal commitment of Albania to ISAF operation.

"The Albanian government, backed by the Albanian political class, will go on taking part with military troops in ISAF as long as NATO will be present in Afghanistan. Our platoon in Kabul is completing its 11th mission," Mediu pointed out.

According to him, "the second mission of the Albanian company has started in Herat and our country will keep participating in the sixth Czech-led mission of the joint! medical team of A3 member countries."

Common ground, but no consensus on Afghanistan
Canwest News Service Tuesday, February 12, 2008

OTTAWA - The ruling Conservatives and opposition Liberals have laid out duelling motions on the future of Canada's military mission in Afghanistan that contain differences but are not lacking common ground.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Liberal Leader Stephane Dion made conciliatory statements Tuesday about the prospect of reaching a compromise on Afghanistan. Both stressed they did not want the minority Conservative government to fall on an issue that, they say, should be above partisanship.

Technically, the Liberal motion unveiled Tuesday is an amendment to the Conservative motion introduced last week. Here's a look at the common ground and where the motions diverge:

. Both motions support the extension of the military mission in Kandahar beyond February 2009 through to February 2011 provided certain conditions are met.

. The Liberals set out a timetable that says Canada will start drawing down its troops on February 2011 and complete the withdrawal by July 1, 2011. The motion says Ottawa should immediately notify NATO that Canada will end its military presence in Kandahar as of Feb. 1, 2011.

The Conservative motion is less clear cut. It calls for the mission to continue through 2011, at which point "progress in Afghanistan, including Canada's military deployment, will be reviewed."

. The motions differ over what the troops' mandate will be after 2009. The Conservatives keep a "combat" role in the mix, the Liberals don't.

The Conservative motion says the combat mission will continue to 2011 "with increasing emphasis on training the Afghan national security forces expeditiously to take increasing responsibility for security in Kandahar and Afghanistan as a whole so that, as Afghan national security forces gain capability, Canada's combat role should be commensurately reduced."

The Liberal motion makes no mention of a "combat" role for the military beyond February 2009. It says the military mission should consist of training the Afghan security forces so they can take increasing responsibility for security in Kandahar and Afghanistan as a whole, provide security for reconstruction and development efforts in Kandahar, and continue its responsibility for the Kandahar provincial reconstruction team.

Dion told a press conference the military leaders would be free to decide operational details of how to implement those training priorities, but that offensive combat operations could not be part of the formula. Harper reacted cautiously, telling reporters he was "encouraged" the Liberal motion backs away from suggesting the government would "dictate operational decisions to military commanders on the ground."

. The two parties disagree on the size of the troop commitment from one or more other countries that should be operational in Kandahar by February 2009.

The Conservatives say Canada must secure a partner to provide a battle group of about 1,000 troops to arrive and be operational no later than February 2009.

The Liberals do not put a number on the additional troops, but Dion told reporters 1,000 additional troops are not enough. His party's motion merely says, however, that the mission will be extended on condition "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 two motions agree that extension of the mission should be contingent on the Canadian Forces on the ground in Afghanistan getting medium helicopter lift capacity and high performance unmanned drones for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance no later than February 2009.

A bipartisan tone on Afghanistan

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail - February 13, 2008 at 6:15 AM EST

The Conservatives and Liberals seem to be finding common ground on Afghanistan. Recognizing that the mission there is too important to be treated as a political football, they have made gestures of compromise. The Liberals have moved further in embracing the Manley report, but Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in yesterday's press conference, showed an uncommon graciousness, a welcome change from his usual point-scoring. The parties are close to a position that both can support, but they are not there yet.

The previous Liberal government assigned Canadian soldiers to the effort in Afghanistan in general and Kandahar in particular for two excellent reasons. They are there to help Afghans fend off the Taliban, whose actions while in power did so much to hurt so many. And by rebuilding the society and supporting an effective government (very much a work in progress), they are there to make Afghanistan less of a haven for extremists who might target other countries - including Canada - from that base. While the New Democrats and the Bloc Québécois want Canada to withdraw its soldiers, the Conservatives and Liberals recognize the imperative of acting in a way that doesn't undo the important work achieved so far, while imposing a condition of greater help from our allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Neither party appears keen to fight an election on the issue. The question of whether soldiers should engage in "combat," for instance, seems a matter more of semantics than substance; the word was barely mentioned in yesterday's proposed Liberal amendment to last week's Conservative motion.

The significant disagreement is over the deadline. The Liberal amendment calls unequivocally for the Canadian Forces to leave Kandahar by July, 2011. Although Conservative House Leader Peter Van Loan has said the "objective" is to withdraw troops by the end of 2011, the Conservative motion says only that the mission would be reviewed in 2011. It would be wise for the Liberals to adjust their position, even given that they have already adjusted considerably to embrace the Manley recommendations. It makes no tactical sense to declare now what will happen three years from now. Circumstances in Afghanistan may change markedly; Canadian soldiers in Kandahar may feel on excellent grounds in 2011 that they are part of an operation that should not be cut short. The Conservative motion offers essential flexibility. The Liberals should not balk at this.

As the parties otherwise jockey for an election that Canadians neither want nor need, it appears Mr. Harper and Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion have at least, and at last, managed to treat the Afghan file as above politics. That said, one should never underestimate the capacity of partisan interests to derail even the most promising bipartisan efforts. Given the global stakes involved here, both sides should resist any such temptation.

Afghan vote may have to take place without assurance of French help

OTTAWA - A fog of uncertainty could hover over Canadian politics for weeks as parties vote on the future of the Afghan mission and possibly even fight an election on it - without being aware of one critical detail.

It's far from certain they will know whether Canada's NATO allies will provide the 1,000 troops that the Conservatives have declared a key condition for continued involvement in Kandahar.

One of those key allies said Tuesday that it will be another seven weeks before it announces whether it will send reinforcements for Canadian troops in Kandahar.

French diplomats say they are weighing a handful of options - including sending soldiers to the volatile southern region where they would work with the Canadians.

They say French President Nicolas Sarkozy will make a decision and announce it only at an April NATO summit in Bucharest.

France's ambassador to Ottawa, Daniel Jouanneau, confirmed that the president will announce his decision in Bucharest after weighing a variety of military concerns.

"It's an ongoing reflection," Jouanneau said in a meeting with reporters as his residence. "This reflection will continue over the coming weeks and will run its course in Bucharest. "That is where President Sarkozy will announce his decision."

The French say they conveyed their message to a high-level Canadian delegation to Paris last week which included Prime Minister Stephen Harper's chief of staff Ian Brodie, his foreign policy adviser Susan Cartwright, and Canada's top soldier Rick Hillier.

Canadian officials also hope that the Americans and Poles could help supply the 1,000 Kandahar-bound troops demanded in the recent Manley report.

But in the meantime there's a parliamentary vote on the mission scheduled for March, and a confidence vote on the budget threatening to trigger an April election.

That means the parties will need to vote on the deployment, then vote on whether to bring down the government, and then perhaps campaign for several weeks bracing for a mid-election development on the Afghan file.

One government source said the uncertainty is no reason to delay a vote in Parliament. "It doesn't stop us from voting on: 'Do you want another 1,000 troops? Do you want airlift?"' he said.

He scoffed when asked whether the government could seize on the vote in Parliament to claim support for an extension, even if NATO allies never deliver the 1,000 extra troops.

"That's not politically realistic," he said. "This is not something you can play 'gotcha' with."

Whatever happens, Jouanneau stressed that France will maintain its troops in an open-ended commitment to Afghanistan.

The French have 10,000 soldiers stationed abroad - almost five times as many as Canada has in Afghanistan - in countries including Chad, Cote d'Ivoire, and in the Balkans.

They also have 1,100 soldiers training Afghan counterparts in the capital Kabul, which is far safer than the southern Kandahar region where 2,500 Canadians are stationed.

Jouanneau said a number of logistical questions would need to be answered for France to change the nature of its deployment, including: who would replace French soldiers in Kabul?

The cornerstone of Canada's Afghanistan debate now appears to be the recent blue-ribbon report from a panel headed by former Liberal cabinet minister John Manley.

Manley called for an extension of Canada's mission beyond 2009 - but only if Canada secures help from an additional 1,000 troops in Kandahar.

The Conservative government has agreed to follow that recommendation, and now France is emerging as a key player in the scramble to find those additional troops.

A report this week in the French newspaper Le Figaro suggested France is considering four options, only one of which would be to reinforce Canadian soldiers in Kandahar.

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.

Jouanneau would not discuss those options.

But he did say that France prefers to have its soldiers deployed in one area, rather than spread around the country. And he dismissed the notion that Kabul is somehow a mission of lesser importance.

He noted that France has lost 14 soldiers, and that it is protecting critical infrastructure like a hydro dam while also providing in-the-field training for Afghan troops.

"You're not doing that in a nice, warm classroom," he said. "You're in the field. You're embedded with them. A training mission also carries risk."

NATO's Afghan Stumbles

Washington Post- By Michael Gerson Wednesday, February 13, 2008; Page A19

MUNICH -- For European leftists, apparently the only thing worse than dead white men is live white men talking about death. So the Munich Conference on Security Policy -- a yearly meeting of European and American military officials and experts -- attracted a large contingent of pierced and angry protesters chanting unprintable slogans. After a few days at the conference listening to droning simultaneous translations and concentrated diplomatic blandness, I was fully prepared to join the protesters.

But there was one important moment. Defense Secretary Robert Gates delivered the latest in a series of rebukes to European nations for not sharing enough of the burden in Afghanistan. "We must not -- we cannot -- become a two-tiered alliance of those who are willing to fight and those who are not," he argued. This would "effectively destroy the alliance."

For two decades, NATO's main purpose has not been "to fight" but to earnestly debate its own role and relevance. And it does have an important role. The prospect of NATO expansion provides incentives for reform from the Balkans to Ukraine. And it seems wise to maintain a military alliance of democracies in Europe, with Russia increasingly convinced that one Cold War was not enough.

But by Gates's standard -- a willingness to share military burdens and sacrifice in a common cause -- NATO hardly exists. During the past 15 years, Europe has taken a peace dividend so massive that the slightest military exertion leaves it bent and gasping for air. And public support for the Afghan mission is shallow across Europe. More than 50 percent of Germans believe their nation should withdraw from Afghanistan. German authorities seem proud of resisting that pressure by maintaining a contribution of 3,200 troops -- a rather pathetic boast from a wealthy nation of 80 million people. Administration arm-twisting is likely to result in the contribution of few thousand additional troops by Germany and France. But no one believes this would mark a turning point in the Afghan war.

We are not merely facing another crisis of NATO as we did in the Balkans. We are facing a broad insurgency in Asia that is actively preparing for violence against the "near enemy" in Afghanistan and Pakistan -- and the "far enemy" in Europe, India and the United States.

Americans are accustomed to thinking of the Afghan war as a Taliban uprising supported from havens in Pakistan. In reality, we are seeing a broad, borderless, regional revolt in the Pashtun tribal belt, two-thirds of which lies in Pakistan. In southern Afghanistan, the Taliban is pressing to retake Kandahar and other areas. In eastern Afghanistan, the Taliban are more internationalized -- influenced by Pakistan and al-Qaeda -- and seek both to maintain the havens and take terrorist shots at Western Europe and America. In the semi-autonomous tribal regions of Pakistan, large madrassa facilities feed a radicalism with global ambitions of murder -- and radical tribal leaders put increasing pressure on settled areas.

The normal, historical response to this kind of challenge would be to pay off various tribes and turn them against each other. Pakistan has tried. The problem is that these tribes, unlike in the past, shelter a transnational threat. Terrorists and radicals exploit long-standing local grievances to gain global reach. And so our safety increasingly depends on the security and development of places such as South Waziristan and Swat -- which is the real lesson of Sept. 11.

Yet every element of our response seems hobbled. In Afghanistan, corruption has flourished, and responsible leaders are in short supply. Pakistan is unprepared to fight a counterinsurgency campaign in the tribal regions -- and seems only half convinced that one is necessary. Civilian reconstruction and military efforts in Afghanistan are uncoordinated. NATO military efforts in the south are reminiscent of Iraq a year ago -- we "clear" but cannot "hold" long enough to "build." And while it is easy for Americans to complain about the Europeans, our military is also badly overstretched.

Success in Afghanistan and Pakistan will require a long-term commitment. America will need to take a broader military role in southern Afghanistan; the Afghan military will need to be massively expanded; the Pakistani military will need to be trained, aided and motivated to fight tribal extremists. But meanwhile, the threat of terrorism germinates, sprouts and grows to ugly maturity in one of the most remote and confusing regions of the world.

Still, NATO is not on the verge of a decisive loss in Afghanistan. We are either winning slowly or losing slowly. It is just hard to tell which.

Will India again leave Afghanistan?

Ajai Shukla, Business Standard (India) New Delhi February 12, 2008

Being forced out of a country by the enemy, like India was from Afghanistan in 1996, when Taliban fighters encircled Kabul, is always a foreign policy nightmare. Just twelve years on, another evacuation from Afghanistan no longer seems impossible.

On Saturday, Washington sent out a warning that reeked of mission failure. After six years of counter-terrorism operations, a senior Bush official categorically stated that the top leaders of the Taliban's shura (council), including Mullah Omar, were living in Quetta in Pakistan; the Al Qaeda leadership, including Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, said the official, are living in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

Washington’s frankness was not directed at Pakistan alone; it was timed with the annual Munich Conference of the 26-country North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), where the US unsuccessfully prodded reluctant NATO countries to send troops into combat in southern Afghanistan. The combined armies of NATO number more than two million men in arms, but the alliance can barely muster up 26,000 soldiers in southern Afghanistan. Other than four countries - the US, the UK, Canada and Holland - the other NATO members are willing to send troops only to the relatively peaceful north of the country. The rift is growing bitter; on Sunday, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates called NATO's very future into question, saying it could not continue as a two-tiered alliance of countries that fought and others that did not.

But Europe is unmoved, and the reason is two-fold. First, there is the mistaken belief that the global policeman, America, will continue to fight the difficult battles. And secondly, there is an understandable reluctance to get embroiled in Afghanistan, where the seemingly simple issues of relief and stabilisation have been complicated by local and regional power dynamics that outsiders simply cannot influence.

Take, for example, the difficult debate among Pakistan's policymakers between those who see no option but to fight the Taliban in the areas bordering Afghanistan, and those who advocate making peace with them. Islamabad is caught in the cleft stick between getting into a bloody counter-insurgency war on the side of the unpopular Americans, on the one hand, or surrendering the tribal areas to self-avowed fundamentalists, on the other.

Until last week, Islamabad was fighting the good fight. But on Thursday, the Pakistani Army signed a cease-fire with Taliban commander Beitullah Mehsud, the man who proudly claims to control an army of suicide bombers and who Islamabad itself blames for the murder of Benazir Bhutto.

The ceasefire has immediately de-escalated the fighting in Pakistan's NWFP. That is good news for the Pakistan Army, but even better news for Afghan Taliban commanders who rely on safe havens on the Pakistani side of the border for manpower and provisions. The Afghan Taliban will gain strength and sustenance from this cease-fire; the cease-fire in North Waziristan in 2006 allowed them to launch their fiercest ever offensives in Afghanistan that year. These complex regional interlinkages make most European countries reluctant to risk their soldiers' lives in such a shifting and uncertain battlefield.

Bonn and Paris have also noted that regional powers like India, with a far more direct stake in Afghanistan, have steadfastly refused to join the fight. India has committed close to three quarters of a billion dollars in the carefully considered reconstruction of that ravaged country. But NATO’s more cautious members would have noticed that India's National Security Advisor, MK Narayanan, who addressed the Munich Conference on Sunday, spoke about the interconnect between Al Qaeda and terrorist outfits that target India - the Lashkar-e-Toiba, the Jaish-e-Mohammad, the Harkat-ul-Jehad-e-Islami - but not about sending troops to Afghanistan.

Today, New Delhi is already facing up to the possibility that Afghanistan could fall to the Taliban and, like in the late 1990s, it may have to close its embassy and pull Indian nationals out of that country. Senior foreign ministry officials have already begun totting up the gains and losses of the last six years in Afghanistan. One of the gains they focus on is the building of strong linkages with the Pashtun community, and even with the more moderate elements within the Taliban. New Delhi's flow of aid has won many friends within a country that is naturally well disposed to India. But the well understood bottom-line remains: India will evacuate from Afghanistan rather than get embroiled in battle there.

Like most members of NATO, India prefers to fight terrorism at home, rather than the go-out-and-get-'em approach that America has followed. This despite signals from extremist networks that a jehadi victory in Afghanistan would translate into a stepped up jehad in J&K. Former ISI chief, Lt General Hamid Gul, one of the architects of the Kashmir insurgency has called for a renewed push in Kashmir, which, he says, will be possible after the US leaves Afghanistan.

But for now, the US stands fast and India benefits daily from that presence. History will mock one of George W Bush's most ill-judged speeches, when he declared victory in Iraq from the flight deck of the aircraft carrier, USS Abraham Lincoln, on 1st May 2003. Later in that speech, in a statement that has already been forgotten, Bush said, "Other nations in history have fought in foreign lands and remained to occupy and exploit. Americans, following a battle, want nothing more than to return home."

India is not the only country that secretly hopes that America stays on for now in Afghanistan.

Vodafone to launch mobile phone money transfer service in Afghanistan

by Katell Abiven Tue Feb 12, 1:51 AM ET

BARCELONA, Spain (AFP) - British operator Vodafone announced Monday at the industry's annual trade show in Barcelona that it would launch a money transfer service in Afghanistan after the successful introduction of a similar initiative in Kenya.

An estimated 1.6 million people have begun using the Vodafone scheme in Kenya since its launch in March last year. In a country of 10 million mobile phone users, there are only 400 bank outlets and 600 automatic teller machines.

"This is really the early days, but when you see the low banking penetration in emerging markets, compared to rapidly growing mobile penetration, the potential is very big," said James Moberly, senior manager for payment solutions at Vodafone on the sidelines of the Mobile World Congress here.

The GSM Association, the global mobile phone industry body, estimates that about a dozen such schemes involving money transfer services are in operation throughout the world, with 10 million users.

Vodafone plans to launch cash transfer services soon in India and other African countries.

"You can send money, withdraw cash, pay your bills or your loan, and all this is within seconds," said Aleeda Fazal, head of product development at Afghan group Roshan, which is the partner for Vodafone in the troubled country.

In effect, the network operator acts as a money transfer agent for the subscriber.

The user deposits money and then sends an SMS to a person who can go to a phone shop anywhere in the country and take out the amount stipulated in the text message.

Operators win in three ways, explained a spokesman for the GSM Association, which represents 700 mobile operators.

"The operator gets a small commission, but above all it boosts customer loyalty and it increases traffic on its network", said David Pringle.

The problem, or opportunity, at the moment is that the cash transfers can only be done within a country, excluding the millions of migrant workers who send money home regularly from abroad.

The GSM Association cites figures that 200 million people work in a country that is not their own, on average sending home 2,000-3,000 dollars per year to their loved ones.

This puts the value of the international money transfer market at about 250 billion dollars, with India, China and Mexico the biggest destinations for cash.

International money transfers are long, complicated and are also limited by the lack of banking infrastructure in many developing countries.

With a view to promoting the idea of cross-border money transfers via mobile phones, the GSM Association launched last year a pilot programme with 19 operators in 100 countries and involving Mastercard and international transfer specialist Western Union.

If a solution can be found, the GSM estimates that the flow of funds could increase by four-fold by 2012, reaching 1,000 billion dollars.

Al-Qaeda sets sight on the next battlefield

REVOLT IN PAKISTAN'S TRIBAL AREAS, Part 2  - By Syed Saleem Shahzad
Asia Times Online / February 12, 2008

PESHAWAR, North-West Frontier Province - Despite last week's ceasefire agreement between the Pakistani security forces and the Pakistani Taliban in the tribal areas, it is clear that a major regional battle between al-Qaeda and the Western coalition is still pending, starting in Pakistan.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, during a visit to Germany on Sunday, did not mince his words in saying that al-Qaeda and Taliban forces in Pakistan's northwest frontier region pose a direct threat to the Islamabad government. The remaining issue is who strikes first, and against whom.

"Undoubtedly, we are under observation, especially those who live in the cities," says a Pakistani and a member of al-Qaeda's shura (council) who spoke to this correspondent in Peshawar.

"We can sense a big operation is being planned against us in Pakistan's cities, but perhaps the security agencies will not get the chance to strike first," says the man, speaking under the nom de plume of Abu Haris.

"Pakistan's fears are not without basis. After Lal Masjid [Red Mosque operation in Islamabad last year in which the radical mosque was stormed], Sheikh [Osama bin Laden] personally appointed an amir [chief] for Pakistan for khuruj [revolt]. The decision got the approval of the shura and then an organization was set up in various Pakistani cities," the al-Qaeda member says.

"They were given resources and recently a new amir was appointed [the change was due to some unavoidable circumstances]. However, the greatest shock [for us] was in Karachi, where members of Jundullah [Army of God - a militant organization that targets the Pakistan state] were arrested. But we will recover and the arrests did not expose the identities of others as we have worked a lot to plug loopholes in our organization," Abu Haris says. (See Shootout echoes across Pakistan Asia Times Online, January 31, 2007.)

He says different people have different tasks and although the cells do meet together in the Waziristan tribal areas, they are not aware of each other's locations or precise tasks and operations.

Abu Haris believes this approach has saved the organization from being penetrated by intelligence agencies, which is why the rate of arrests of al-Qaeda members has dwindled in recent months.

Abu Haris is assigned by al-Qaeda to Pakistan, which means the cities, not the tribal areas. He says al-Qaeda has not only revived the structure that was destroyed after the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, but has greatly expanded its work.

Largely known as an Arab organization, al-Qaeda has now absorbed thousands of former members of Pakistani jihadi organizations, given them representation in the shura and delegated them operations in Pakistan.

Abu Haris is an example of this. He was a member of the banned Lashkar-i-Toiba, which concentrated its operations on Kashmir, but he is now a member of al-Qaeda's shura and in charge of a cell operating in the Peshawar Valley.

"The nature of operations and policies is different in Afghanistan, entirely different from those in the tribal areas, and now we have a completely different approach in Pakistani cities," Abu Haris said.

The post-ceasefire suicide bombing in the town of Charsadda in North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) at the weekend illustrates this. At least 25 people were killed and more than 40 injured in an attack on a rally of the Awami National Party - a secular, ethnic Pashtun group - ahead of national elections scheduled for February 18.

The addition of former jihadis, who were trained by Pakistani intelligence to fight in Indian-held Kashmir, and some retired Pakistani army officers to al-Qaeda's ranks has brought about a major change in the group's operational approach.

Al-Qaeda began to concentrate more on strategic matters and an intelligence and review committee was formed. This is run by Pakistanis based in Pakistani cities. One of their tasks is to cull media sources for items on issues ranging from United States and European Union policy to matters concerning al-Qaeda. They then prepare summary papers and analysis which is passed on to members of the shura and high command.

For instance, recently the committee analyzed the issue of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, which has been much in the spotlight amid Western fears of it falling into militant hands. There has even been talk of the US trying to take control of it. However, the al-Qaeda assessment was that staff at the nuclear facilities was "patriotic, clean and better Muslims than the military leadership" and that any intervention by the Americans would be strongly resisted.

Al-Qaeda's shura makes all decisions, including the religious and strategic assessment of any project, for instance the decision to stage a khuruj was approved by Bin Laden last year.

The shura discussed the religious justification of khuruj and after long debate agreed it was essential for Pakistan. The religious requirements to launch khuruj include the appointment of an "amir of khuruj".

According to sharia law, khuruj against rulers can only be launched when the chances of success are good.

"It [khuruj] will be different from isolated attacks, rather it will be collective actions of revolt throughout Pakistani cities. This is what khuruj is by strategy and according to the demands of sharia," Abu Haris said.

All the same, al-Qaeda is aware it doesn't have the following such as the Iranian revolution had in 1979 when the Shah was swept out of power. Al-Qaeda's strength in urban centers is estimated at not much more than a few thousand.

All the same, Abu Haris is confident. "Just a few steps would be enough to break the binding forces of the country, and then it will fall into our hands," he says. "For instance, there are two major [oil] refineries in the country. If we were to blow them, the country would face a severe energy crisis. Everything would come to a halt and riots would erupt. There are already so many divisions in the country that the riots would bring it to the verge of collapse.

"The Pakistani army would be incapable of containing this. The 1965 war [with India] is evidence. Pakistan opened up a front in Indian Kashmir and in retaliation the Indians went for large-scale war ... the fact is that the Pakistani army was demoralized and desertions were rampant.

"We assess that any large-scale operation would break the army and Pakistan, and this would be a blessing for us. Of course, the Indians would take advantage of the situation and that's why we have a plan to immediately spread this war to the whole region, including India and Afghanistan," Abu Haris explains, basing his arguments on information from al-Qaeda's intelligence and review committee.

Pakistan in peril? Pakistan and al-Qaeda have had an informal agreement that al-Qaeda will not be targeted if it respects the sanctity of Pakistan. Certainly, the Pakistani security forces - mostly under US duress - have launched many operations in the tribal areas, but the militants have generally responded by only fighting against the security forces.

However, the recent arrests in Karachi stunned General Headquarters in Rawalpindi as they came to appreciate the full extent of al-Qaeda's plans for sabotage in the cities.

Pakistani intelligence agencies were aware to some extent of the problem of militancy, but preferred not to tackle it head-on lest it explode in their faces.

Another incident also jolted the Pakistani army. Intelligence had been reporting for the past year of the presence of militants in Dara Adam Khail, in NWFP, but the army ignored the warnings. However, when militants seized the strategic Peshawar-Kohat tunnel, which cut off NWFP from the rest of the country, and with it military supplies, the army was shocked.

Retired Brigadier Mehmood Shah, a former secretary of FATA (the Federally Administered Tribal Areas) , commented to a national TV network, "I don't think that ordinary Taliban are behind such a sophisticated military strategy, which cuts off military supply lines. Only national armies can plan such operations. I think there is some external hand behind that operation."

However, this assessment ignores developments. The forms of militancy have changed. It is nothing like the tribal rebellion against British India when guerrilla war meant firing on military convoys from behind rocks. The touch of the military brains (see Military brains plot Pakistan's downfall Asia Times Online, September 26, 2007) has brought sophistication to the militancy.

In addition to mainstream al-Qaeda, the Pakistani Taliban and the Afghan Taliban, many unnamed militant groups operate with different agendas, and they are little-know to Pakistani intelligence.

Many analysts believe Pakistan has undergone a major shift in its policies in the tribal areas and that last week's ceasefire is a manifestation of this.

"It is an illusion to think Pakistan has changed its policies. American pressure is so immense that Pakistan just would not dare to change its policies. They will definitely come after us, but this time we will not give them the chance of first strike," Abu Haris says.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief.

Two Myths About Afghanistan

The Washington Post, 02/11/2008 By Ann Marlowe

As Western leaders and Congress debate NATO's responsibilities in Afghanistan, it's time to dissolve two great American illusions about Afghanistan.

The first is that Hamid Karzai is a good president who looks after American interests. The second is that the situation in Afghanistan is going from bad to worse. Both of these unchallenged "facts" are dangerous errors.

Karzai manages by panic, with massive corruption and an absence of vision. It's a tribute to the Afghan people's energy and U.S.-implemented economic regulations and reforms that Afghanistan's gross domestic product has more than doubled since the invasion. But Karzai has sought to derail grass-roots efforts at building democracy and to stifle Afghanistan's nascent civil society, repeatedly siding with fundamentalists against progressives.

Consider his silence at the death sentence recently given to a college student for reprinting an article critical of Islam; Sibghatullah Mojaddedi, the speaker of the upper house of parliament, which initially endorsed the sentence, is close to Karzai.

It's an American illusion that Karzai is Afghanistan's bulwark against the Taliban or ethnic strife. The reverse is more likely. On Aug. 20, 1998, the day the United States sent cruise missiles to kill Osama bin Laden, Karzai told The Post that "there were many wonderful people in the Taliban." Yes, Karzai fought the Taliban -- for a month in 2001, when we insisted. But his main interest is in winning reelection, so he has to pander to the worst elements among his Pashtun compatriots. Voting in 2004 followed ethnic patterns. Karzai won 55 percent of the vote but didn't draw a majority from any non-Pashtun group. Karzai's support among Pashtuns and non-Pashtuns alike is much lower today than in 2004. He can't afford to antagonize any Pashtuns, and while most Pashtuns aren't Taliban, all of the Taliban are Pashtuns. So he spent much of the fall offering to negotiate with Taliban chief Mohammad Omar and the vicious warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

Today, most Afghans are living in the best conditions they have ever known, slowly growing their country out of poverty. Most of the north and west is peaceful. Much of the east is, too, except some areas that are very undeveloped and very remote or directly border Pakistan's lawless tribal belt. American estimates for the 14 provinces and 158 districts of Regional Command East show that 58 percent of the kinetic activity there last year (direct fire, indirect fire and detonations of improvised explosive devices) occurred in three provinces (Konar, Paktika and Ghazni). Fifty-two percent occurred in 12 of the 158 districts, and about 75 percent took place in 30 of the districts.

The American war in Afghanistan is not a shooting war; most of our casualties are the result of IEDs, which insurgents use because they can't capture and hold territory, or prevail in firefights with American troops or the Afghan National Army (ANA). The numbers are not what many might think: In 2007, there were 89 suicide bombings and 94 car bombings..

Col. Martin Schweitzer, commander of the coalition forces in six provinces in Regional Command East, told me that the ANA has not lost an engagement with the Taliban since last April. Fewer than 300 U.S. soldiers have been killed in action in Afghanistan since the invasion six years ago. We lost 83 soldiers plus two military civilians to hostile causes in 2007, when 24,000 to 27,000 personnel were in country. In 2006, 98 died. The decrease in deaths in action last year is even more significant when you consider the danger our troops were exposed to. American strategy has evolved from concentrating forces in large forward operating bases to building up provincial reconstruction teams in province capitals to establishing combat outposts in district centers (county seats) this past year.

In 2007, the Army's counterinsurgency strategy of stationing platoons in district centers and delivering quick infrastructure aid started to produce visible results for ordinary Afghans in the east. Not all areas in the Pashtun belt are equal -- Khost, for instance, is thriving, while Ghazni is still very poor -- but security is improving. When Schweitzer took command early last year, 20 of the 85 districts were "green," or on the side of the Afghan government. By year-end, 58 were classified as "green."

I saw this as an embedded reporter in Ghazni province in November. The young captain in charge of Four Corners, once the "worst neighborhood" in Ghazni, told me that in the spring of 2007 his base had taken fire twice a week, but as of late November it hadn't been rocketed in 60 days.

One reason may be Ghazni's new roads. Roads are development magic, and the U.S. Army is building them like crazy. In Ghazni alone, 10 roads have been funded at a cost of $5 million, and an 11th is in the approval process. Freight truck traffic along Highway 1, which runs from Kabul through Ghazni City to southern Zabol province, more than quadrupled in 2007.

In March, the Army paved a seven-kilometer stretch near Four Corners. This road, nicknamed "Route Rebel," used to be the second worst in Afghanistan for IEDs, which kill far more Afghan civilians and police than they do coalition troops. Daily traffic on "Route Rebel" has gone from 20 to 200 cars. There hadn't been any roadside bombs in eight months when I visited in late November -- it's much harder to plant them on asphalt.

Considering where it started, Afghanistan isn't doing too badly. It would be doing much better with a courageous, inspired president committed to honest and transparent government.

Ann Marlowe, a freelance writer, was embedded with U.S. forces twice in 2007. She has visited Afghanistan nine times since 2002.

Afghanistan To Get 'Big Brother' Cameras

Wired News 02/12/2008By Sharon Weinberger

Afghanistan may have a literacy rate of 28.1 percent, a lack of paved roads, and a crumbling infrastructure. But the U.S. Army has an ambitious plan to install a nation-wide network of cameras to monitor security, reports Government Security News:

The U.S. Government is contemplating a massive video surveillance project for the country of Afghanistan that would establish surveillance over all major thoroughfares in Kabul, the capital city, as well as all U.S. and multinational camps, traffic circles and Afghan ministry compounds.

The surveillance apparatus would provide a 24/7 command and control system that would be enable authorities to track personnel and identify vehicles with the use of license plate recognition systems.

After initiating the surveillance capability in Kabul, the plan calls for the construction of a fiber optic ring throughout Afghanistan which would allow for the extension of the monitoring capability across the country.

U.K. Soldiers Seize Ton of Opium, Heroin Haul in Afghanistan

Feb. 12 (Bloomberg) -- British and Afghan troops seized a ton of opium and 20 kilograms (44 pounds) of heroin powder as part of an effort to cut off funding for Taliban insurgents.

The bust, made north of the town of Sagin in the southern Helmand province, came after soldiers fought with a ``large number'' of insurgents, who tried to protect the drug lab with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades, the U.K.'s Ministry of Defence said today in an e-mailed statement.

Afghanistan produces 90 percent of the world's opium, and is set for a near-record crop in 2008 that will add at least $100 million to the militant Islamist movement's war chest, the United Nations said Feb. 6.

``We know that drug production is closely linked to insurgent activity,'' Lieutenant Colonel Simon Millar said in a statement from Helmand. ``Not only does it hold the local Afghan people down under oppression, but it directly funds the violence that, together with the government of Afghanistan, we are committed to stop.''

The fighting and seizure took place three days ago, the ministry said. The British and the Afghan army suffered no casualties.

Russian state TV suggests USA involved in drug-trafficking from Afghanistan

Source: Channel One TV, Mo! scow, in Russian 1800 gmt 10 Feb 08

Russian state-controlled Channel One TV has broadcast a report containing allegations that US forces are involved in drug-trafficking from Afghanistan to Europe. It also highlighted the problem of drug abuse in the British army.

The channel's weekly news roundup "Voskresnoye Vremya" on 10 February noted that, according to the UN, the amount of opium being produced in Afghanistan has more than doubled since the coalition troops entered the country.

The report went on to show former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair visiting the country at an unspecified time. It said that he had met almost 800 British troops during the visit. "This is either a coincidence or the working of cruel fate, but this is the exact number of soldiers that the British army loses each year because of drug abuse. This is more than the total combat losses of the royal army in Iraq and Afghanistan," the correspondent noted.

The report then featured an extract from a BBC news website! story saying that the British army loses a whole battalion of troops a year because of drug abuse (Research revealed that the story was published on 14 December 2007).

The report went on to look at the wider problem of how to reverse the trend of increasing opium production in Afghanistan.

[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.]