In this bulletin:

• Nine policemen killed in Afghan attacks: officials
• Two Dutch soldiers killed in Afghanistan
• Afghanistan is long-term - Browne
• President Hamid Karzai Meets Stephane Dion, Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada
• Finds Karzai amenable to a non-combat role
• Liberal leader Dion looks for non-combat roles for Canada in Afghanistan
• Dion meets with Karzai in Afghanistan
• MacKay praises ‘enormous' contribution
• Are we losing Afghanistan?
• Soldier loved his job on Afghan mission
• Women earn respect in Afghanistan
• The mysterious Afghan warlord trusted to spread peace in a divided province
• Medieval Kabul rises from ashes after 30 years of war
• BBC responds to criticism from the Afghan Ministry of Defence

Nine policemen killed in Afghan attacks: officials

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) — Nine police officers were killed Sunday in a suicide bombing and a separate Taliban raid on a police post in troubled southern Afghanistan, officials said.

Eight policemen died after dozens of Taliban militants stormed a police post in Kandahar province's Maywand district, which has been known as a Taliban stronghold for years, police official Sadullah Khan told AFP.

After killing the officers, who were manning a checkpost on a key road, the rebels took two vehicles and several weapons before retreating, Khan added. "Eight policemen were martyred. This was a big loss," he said.

Khan blamed the attack on remnants of the Taliban, who are behind an increasingly bloody insurgency aimed at toppling the US-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.

Separately, a suicide bomber blew himself up near the home of a senior police official in a southern Afghanistan town on Sunday, killing a policeman and injuring at least six others, officials said.

The bomber, who was carrying explosives strapped to his body, tried to enter the house in Lashkargah, the capital of the Taliban-dominated Helmand province, a police commander said.

"He was stopped by our policemen present there. When they stopped him, he (the bomber) exploded himself and martyred one policeman," said provincial police chief Mohammad Hussein Andiwal.

Four policemen and two children were injured in the blast, he said.

In Kabul, interior ministry spokesman, Zemarai Bashary, confirmed the incident. He said the Taliban bomber exploded his bomb "in the arms of our brave policeman who grabbed him before he could reach his target."

The bomber's apparent aim was the senior police official, who was at the time receiving dozens of guests on his return from the Hajj pilgrimage, Bashary said.

The Taliban have carried out more than 140 such bombings in the past 13 months.

Hundreds of people, most of them civilians, were killed in those attacks, the deadliest of them being in early November in the northern province of Baghlan in which 80 people were killed.

In other violence, Afghan army troops backed by members of the NATO-led force killed three Taliban rebels, including a regional commander, during a firefight in Kandahar on Saturday, said the province's governor Asadullah Khalid.

Three other rebels were killed in a similar gunbattle Saturday in Zhari district, another Taliban-troubled area in Kandahar, the Afghan defence ministry said in a statement.

Two Dutch soldiers killed in Afghanistan

AMSTERDAM, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Two Dutch soldiers have been killed fighting insurgents in Afghanistan as part of the international force there, the Dutch chief of staff said on Sunday.

The soldiers were killed in separate incidents on Saturday in the Deh Rawod area of southern Afghanistan and two Afghan soldiers also died in the fighting, Defence Chief of Staff Dick Berlijn said in a statement.

The deaths bring the total number of Dutch soldiers killed in Afghanistan to 14, according to information on the Defence Ministry's Web site. Deh Rawod is seen as a stronghold of support for the Taliban Islamist insurgents.

Dutch and Afghan forces are undertaking an operation to look at the possibility of refugees returning to the Deh Rawod area, Berlijn said. Several hundred Dutch and Afghan forces are involved in this operation, he said.
More than 1,600 Dutch soldiers are serving in Afghanistan as part of the NATO-led force.

Afghanistan is long-term - Browne

Britain could be engaged in Afghanistan for decades, Defence Secretary Des Browne has indicated.

His comments were the most explicit sign yet from the Government that the UK's commitments in the war-torn country may last more than 20 years.

Asked when troops would be pulled out of Afghanistan, Mr Browne told The People newspaper: "We cannot risk it again becoming an ungoverned training haven for terrorists who threaten the UK."

He continued: "But there is only so much our forces can achieve. The job can only be completed by the international community working with the Afghan government and its army.

"It is a commitment which could last decades, although it will reduce over time."

While military figures in Afghanistan have previously suggested that the efforts there will take decades, ministers have only stressed the "long-term" nature of the commitment.

On a visit to Kabul last month, Prime Minister Gordon Brown pledged support over "the next few years", taken as a sign that troops could remain for a decade.

An MoD spokeswoman stressed that the UK's role in Afghanistan would evolve over time.

"The British government's commitment to Afghanistan is long term and it's not just a military commitment," she said.

"Previously it was a failed state and it's going to be a long-term commitment to make sure it's a stable country."

President Hamid Karzai Meets Stephane Dion, Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada

Date of Release: 12 January 2008

Arg, Kabul – His Excellency Hamid Karzai, President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, thanked the people, parliament and government of Canada for their steadfast support of the Afghan people, and for playing a leadership role in providing a wide range of assistances, especially in the security and development sectors, to Afghanistan.

He told the leadership of the Liberal Party that Afghans will never forget the brave Canadians who have given their lives or sustained injuries for the noble cause of helping build a more secure and prosperous life for millions of Afghans.

President Hamid Karzai also emphasized the need to maintain the momentum that has been created in the South, in particular in Kandahar, to solidify the gains and provide consistency and continuity for the population as well as the government.

The president said Afghanistan will respect whatever decision Canada will take with regard to its future role in Afghanistan. However he maintained that the events of September 11 serves us well in reminding ourselves that not fighting terrorism head-on can have disastrous consequences for  Afghanistan, the region and the world at large.

Office of the Spokesman to the President

Finds Karzai amenable to a non-combat role

January 13, 2008 - Bruce Campion-Smith , Ottawa Bureau Chief – Toronto Star

OTTAWA–Afghan President Hamid Karzai will "welcome" whatever role Canada plays in rebuilding his troubled country even if it's not a combat mission, Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion said after meeting Karzai in Kabul.

And Dion, making his first trip to visit troops in Afghanistan, told the Star it's apparent Canada has many roles it might play to help the Afghans once its combat duties end in a year.

"We support the mission; we want to change the mission," Dion said in a phone interview from Kabul.

The Liberal leader said the first priority for his quick trip – kept secret because of security concerns – was "to pay tribute to our troops and all Canadians who are showing so much dedication and courage to help the people of Afghanistan.

But with Parliament set to debate the future of Canada's Afghan mission in coming months, Dion – who has called for an end to the combat role – said he was also keen to learn more about other ways Canada might contribute.

Possibilities include "reconstruction, development, water management and also training of the Afghan troops, their police and their justice system."

He was joined by Liberal deputy leader Michael Ignatieff on the brief visit, which began yesterday morning with a meeting with Karzai.

The Afghan president expressed his gratitude for the presence of the more than 2,000 Canadian soldiers serving in the Kandahar region, Dion said. And Karzai drove home his request that Canadian troops remain in the troubled southern region – considered the most dangerous area of the country – until stability is achieved.

"Obviously they would prefer that ... we will continue the combat mission but they are not short of ideas about what Canada may do if it's not," Dion said.

Afghan officials said whatever future role Canada might play "they will welcome our contribution even if it's not a combat mission," Dion said.

In a statement, he and Ignatieff said they shared Karzai's concerns about the "effectiveness" of air and artillery strikes that have caused civilian casualties and sparked local anger.

As well, they said they pressed their call for a NATO-wide solution that ensures that detainees don't get transferred into a situation where they could face torture.

While Liberal MPs have made forays to Kabul and Kandahar, this trip marks Dion's first visit.

It comes as a panel headed by former Liberal minister John Manley prepares to report its recommendations for the future of the mission to Prime Minister Stephen Harper by the end of this month.

In a submission to that panel, the Liberal party said Canada's combat mission in Kandahar should end in February 2009 but left the door open for maintaining a military presence elsewhere in the war-torn country, perhaps as trainers for Afghan military and police.

As well, the Liberal policy paper urged a greater focus on diplomatic and development efforts.

With the political debate set to heat up, Dion said it was vital that he assess the situation firsthand. "There is nothing like seeing something with your eyes and your ears in order to figure out the information and what we need to be a strong partner and friend of Afghanistan," he said.

Dion was coy when asked whether he thought NDP Leader Jack Layton – who wants CanadianC troops withdrawn from Afghanistan – should make the same trip.

"I intend to become prime minister of this country. I have responsibilities to carry and one of those responsibilities is Afghanistan, which is a major part of our help abroad now," he said.

And he pointedly noted that to draw up a new role for Canada while sitting isolated in Ottawa "would not work.

"It's been clearly explained to us that the projects that are working the best are the ones that are bottom up, starting in the communities," he said.

Dion spent a busy day meeting with ambassadors of other nations as well as Afghan authorities. He said it's clear more must be done to pressure Pakistan to tighten its border with Afghanistan to intercept insurgents taking safe haven there after attacking allied troops.

Liberal leader Dion looks for non-combat roles for Canada in Afghanistan

KABUL - Canada should be looking at aid projects and other non-combat roles in Afghanistan when its current commitment expires next year, Liberal Leader Stephane Dion told President Hamid Karzai on Saturday.

Dion, accompanied by deputy Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, met with Karzai in the Afghan capital to discuss the future of Canada's role in the war-torn country.

Canada has about 2,500 troops stationed in the southern Kandahar province, a hotbed of the Taliban insurgency against the Karzai government and its western backers.

Their current mandate expires in February 2009, which could force NATO's International Security Assistance Force to rotate troops from other countries into the province - a job for which few other countries have shown enthusiasm.

Canada is expected to decide later this year whether to continue the combat mission, an option favoured by the minority Conservative government.

But Dion and Ignatieff, reflecting the feelings of the opposition parties and much of the Canadian public, told the Afghan leader that they believe Canada's combat role should not be renewed.

However, they told Karzai that the party still supports diplomatic and development efforts, as well as a possible continued military presence in the country, they added.

No word was available on how Karzai reacted to that position, although Dion said the Afghan leader did thank Canada for its current contributions during the talks.

"The Liberal Party of Canada is very proud of the contributions our men and women in uniform have made to try to bring peace and stability to this region," Dion said in a statement later issued on the Liberal party website.

However, the statement confirmed that both he and Ignatieff had told Karzai that Canada's role should change.

"We are not afraid of the risks," Dion told reports in Kabul. "But we want to sure that we have a balanced mission after 2009 that will be optimally helpful for the people of Afghanistan.

"We are convinced . . . that we will have plenty of things to do (in Afghanistan) that will involve, yes, to take risks. But anywhere we will go - whether Darfur or Haiti - there are always risks."

In Ottawa, the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper scoffed at Dion's visit.

"It has taken more than a year after becoming Liberal leader for Stephane Dion to finally find Afghanistan on the map," Helena Guergis, secretary of state for foreign affairs, said in a statement Saturday.

"The irony of Dion and Iggy being in a war zone and being protected by the same troops who protect Afghan women and children is palpable," Guergis said.

"I think he should apologize to our troops while he is touring the PRT (Provincial Reconstruction Team) in safety because the same reason he needs bodyguards is why our troops need to stay to protect democracy, women and children," she added.

Seventy-six members of the Canadian military have died in Afghanistan since the mission began in 2002, more than 30 of them in the last year alone as the insurgency has turned increasingly bloody.

Ignatieff called the meeting with Karzai extremely productive and said he hoped it was "the first of many more to come."

The two men also discussed with Karzai the controversial issue of air and artillery strikes in counter-insurgency operations, according to the Liberal statement. Karzai has criticized the sometimes heavy civilian casualty tolls such strikes have had in the past.

Dion and Ignatieff also "expressed their commitment to Canada calling for an immediate NATO-wide solution that ensures that detainees are not transferred into a situation where they could face torture," the statement said. It did not elaborate.

Human rights groups, who are fighting to stop the transfer of Canadian-captured Taliban fighters to Afghan authorities, say Corrections Canada officers in Afghanistan are witnessing abuse daily in the form of prisoners being shackled 24 hours a day.

Afghanistan has a patchwork of prisons run by different ministries, including the notorious NDS intelligence service, which is a legal entity unto itself and reports only to Karzai. Depending upon the alleged offence, prisoners can end up in secretive NDS facilities - or in regular jails operated by the Ministry of Justice.

-With files from The Canadian Press

Dion meets with Karzai in Afghanistan

Allison Lampert,  Canwest News Service  Published: Saturday, January 12, 2008

KABUL -- Liberal party leader Stephane Dion and deputy leader Michael Ignatieff met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai Saturday, in a fact-finding mission to set long-term goals for Canada's mission in Afghanistan.

"We're here to see what needs to be done after 2009," Mr. Ignatieff said. That's when Canada's combat role in Afghanistan's volatile Kandahar province is scheduled to end, and the Liberals don't want an extension.

Speaking to reporters at the Canadian embassy in Kabul, Mr. Dion wouldn't say whether Mr. Karzai was disappointed over the Liberal plan to end Canada's military offensive in February, 2009.

The president has been very thankful for everything Canadians are doing," Mr. Dion said, during his first trip to Afghanistan as Liberal leader. "Obviously, all our interlocutors would like Canada to be more involved in everything."

Earlier this week, the Liberals formally outlined their plan to a government-appointed panel now debating the future of the Afghan mission. On Christmas Day, Tory Defense Minister Peter MacKay said he supports extending Canada's combat role in Afghanistan until 2011.

Parliament is to vote on whether to extend the mission, following recommendations brought forth by the panel headed by former Liberal deputy prime minister John Manley.

Although Mr. Ignatieff previously had been a vocal proponent of Canada's military role in Kandahar -- to the point of voting in 2006 to extend the mission by two years - - he echoed the Liberal party line: Canadian soldiers would be able to use force to protect themselves and construction projects undertaken by Canada in Afghanistan, but they would no longer be able to go on the offensive against insurgents.

"If you are under attack you can defend yourself," Mr. Dion said. Mr. Ignatieff added: "We understand you can't do development without the security."

Although Mr. Dion supports Canada's mentoring of Afghan security forces "including soldiers and police" such training projects would have to be radically altered under the Liberal plan. Currently, Canadian mentors regularly go on joint combat missions with Afghan National Army soldiers.

Without the artillery and close air support provided by coalition allies, including Canada, Afghan army commanders have said they'd have a difficult time carrying out such offensive missions on their own. And NATO allies are hard pressed to find other countries willing to take over the heavy lifting shouldered by Canadian soldiers in Kandahar.

Mr. Ignatieff said Canada would continue to have soldiers protecting projects undertaken by its provincial reconstruction team in Kandahar. Reducing Canada's military commitment would free up resources to invest in further construction projects and improved water management.

"The party envisages (having) a balanced portfolio," said Mr. Ignatieff, who refrained from criticizing the government's current handling of the war. Mr. Dion couldn't say how the Liberal plan would affect troop size on the ground. Canada now has about 2,500 soldiers in Afghanistan, mostly in Kandahar province.

Despite differences in opinion over the handling of the war, Mr. Dion said he also wanted to use the visit to "pay tribute" to efforts by Canadian soldiers and development workers in the country.

Besides meeting with Mr. Karzai, the two opposition leaders sat down with several Afghan ministers Saturday, discussing issues ranging from development to drug eradication efforts. Mr. Dion doesn't yet have a clear stance on how to address the exploding growth in opium cultivation in war-torn southern provinces like Helmand and Kandahar.

While Mr. Dion said the Liberals were "willing to look at" the proposed solution of using Afghanistan's poppy crop for medical-grade morphine, he said he was told by Afghan ministers that the government wouldn't be able to regulate such a plan.

Also on Saturday, a gathering of Afghan governors in Kabul discussed how to improve poppy eradication efforts in the country. Zalmi Afzali, a spokesperson for the minister of counter-narcotics, said the government intended destroy a larger volume of poppy in 2008. "The eradication is going to happen," he said. "It's going to be far more effective this year." Montreal Gazette

MacKay praises ‘enormous' contribution
THE CANADIAN PRESS, January 13, 2008

KELOWNA, B.C. — Defence Minister Peter MacKay says Canada's contribution to Afghanistan has been “enormous” but it's sometimes difficult to convince Canadians of that.

“Six years ago, Afghanistan was the biggest incubator of terrorism in the world, and human rights did not exist there,” Mr. MacKay told the crowd at a fundraising dinner for local MP Ron Cannan at a Kelowna hotel.

“Now, girls are in school and women are able to vote, and there are in fact more women represented in the Afghan government than in Canada's Parliament.”

He said Canada is one of only seven countries with a presence in the dangerous southern region of Afghanistan, and he remains hopeful other leading nations will join the peacekeeping efforts.

“What we want to see is Afghanistan build the capacity to maintain its own security.”

Citing how much respect and gratitude Canada has gained among the international community for its role as a peacekeeper, MacKay said one of the biggest challenges is convincing Canadians of the mission's importance.

MacKay said Canadians have a tradition of coming to the aid of countries in crisis and a unique cultural ability to relate to people around the world.

“Afghanistan is multicultural, too, like Canada,” he added.

The defence minister had high praise for Canada's soldiers, describing them as “our best citizens,” and said his government would continue to work toward properly funding and equipping the military.

Are we losing Afghanistan?

Part two: On the trail of the Taliban
Eyewitness by Nick Meo in Helmand Province – Sunday Herald

SERGEANT DAVID Baxter, a tall, bearded gunner from Glasgow, was describing life in the forward operating base (FOB) - nicknamed "Incoming" - when the machine gun fire started. It was the third Taliban attack of the day. The noise was a few hundred yards off with no rounds whipping overhead, so even though he was standing out in the open, albeit inside the base's perimeter, Baxter hardly batted an eyelid. Instead, he just muttered something about the Afghan army soldiers shooting at stray dogs. Then the crump of mortars started, much closer this time, and the siren to take cover went off while the gun battle at the Afghan army's position rose to an angry crescendo.

The bunker, a 50-yard sprint across open ground, was full of laughing gunners pulling on body armour and helmets after their lazy afternoon under a winter sun had been rudely interrupted.

"Welcome to Incoming," Baxter grinned as a couple of Royal Marines sprinted into the bunker and crashed into its occupants. At a trestle table, young women soldiers spoke urgently into radios. Scruffy marines joked about "Terry" Taliban - the British soldier's half-affectionate nickname for his enemy. They reckon Terry is a pretty hopeless soldier, returning again and again to the same firing positions where he is routinely killed. Nor is he very good at handling his weapons or planning his attacks. But he is ballsy, and the young men of Incoming respect him for that. It is a uniquely British moniker, like something cooked up by Viz magazine, and a subversive echo of the Vietnam war's "Charlie" that only the British soldier's cheerful sense of subversive black humour could have come up with.

A few weeks earlier, the Taliban mortar crews had managed to hit inside FOB Incoming, but their aim was wild today. No bombs landed within the towering perimeter walls constructed from massive plastic containers full of dirt. Most of the rounds seemed to be outgoing, fired from the marines' own mortar pits.

Chatting idly in the bunker while the battle raged outside, the British soldiers explained that they had recently shot a number of Taliban out in the fields where the fire was coming from. Since then the accurate mortar fire had ended. They revealed - with some satisfaction - their theory that they had got the Taliban's mortar crews.

Most of the soldiers were in their 20s or younger, with accents from the poorer parts of the north of England and Wales predominating. They didn't look conventionally military, with a profusion of unkempt beards, sideburns, and scraggly moustaches, which they are allowed to grow on the FOBs but must shave off when they go back to the main base.

The FOB is one of a couple of dozen the British have constructed along the Helmand river at strategic points, looking like the kind of outposts once held by the Foreign Legion. The MoD does not want the Taliban to know the real name of the FOB, so the soldiers - who face more daily mortar fire and machine gun attacks than almost anywhere else in Helmand - nicknamed it Incoming.

Marine Simon Vaughan, from Newport in south Wales, said: "It's pretty tough here. It's cold at night, the living conditions are basic, and the Taliban attack every day. But you join up hoping to fight a war like this. Nobody here wants to be anywhere else."

The soldiers serving in Incoming spend much of their downtime swapping stories. Lance-Corporal Kearan Varley said: "The atmosphere here is so blasé it is unreal. They hardly flinch when mortars come in. At lunchtime on the day I arrived the Taliban launched a big attack and Mitch, the cook, ran out of the kitchen with his gun and went up on the parapet, blazing away still wearing his apron. Where else would you see something like that?"

Like the British military in any campaign, Incoming has its mix of characters and not all of them British. A giant Fijian refueller joked about the cold. At home before joining the army he had never seen snow or imagined what -10˚C at night was like. A small detachment of Gurkha engineers were busy every day extending and repairing the FOB's fortifications, which would have presented a pretty respectable challenge to a besieging army in the Middle Ages.

They had taken over a half-derelict Afghan building and turned it into a little corner of Nepal, complete with national flag, a DVD player with a pile of Bollywood movies, and plenty of milky chai. Afghanistan, with its insurgents, brigands, and dangers, reminded them of home with its Maoist revolutionaries and bitter political problems.

For the British troops, living conditions are rudimentary. The grub is plentiful but basic. Entertainment consists of a giant screen and DVD player in a tent where Steven Seagal movies play endlessly. Hours and hours of duty consist of staring into the dark looking for the Taliban or manning the parapet with a machine gun waiting for the guerrillas to open fire.

The FOB was deliberately set up as a Taliban magnet. On one side is a desert across which British supply convoys can cautiously travel. On the other are poppy fields, trees and deserted villages leading down to the "green zone" of dense vegetation along the Helmand river where the Taliban move around and where the attacks come from.

The FOB controls an approach to the vital town of Sangin. Many of the roving jihadis who want to fight the British are drawn to it. Mostly their attacks are hurried and ineffective. The Royal Marines and soldiers are often fired at but rarely hit, and most of the casualties so far have been minor ones from shrapnel. Its defenders know the risk they are taking in Britain's most high-intensity conflict since Korea 50 years ago. On Christmas Eve at a nearby FOB a young marine ran over an anti-tank mine, losing both of his legs and an arm.

A nurse at Camp Bastion, the sprawling British base in the desert, described having to deal with such a terrible casualty. "The worst thing was thinking about his family, who had been looking forward to Christmas. Then they would have to deal with his injuries," she said. Body armour and battlefield surgery means casualties who would have been deaths in previous conflicts can survive in Helmand, but are often maimed.

Landmines are the biggest threat. The Taliban sneak up to the FOB approach roads and bury them at night, hoping the British will run over them on patrol.

The young soldiers and marines constantly head out of their bases to attack the Taliban and keep their enemy off balance. A few days after the mortar attack, a party of marines were chatting at 8pm before leaving Incoming on a night patrol to the green zone to hunt their enemy. Sitting on the cold ground in the dark with faces blackened and weapons ready, they joked together like a group of Boy Scouts preparing to head out on a lark. In the distance, unexplained flares occasionally lit up the horizon, while overhead mysterious aircraft and drones circled under a sky full of bright stars. The camp was almost pitch black. Lights are banned to make it harder for the enemy to aim mortars at night.

Hours after the patrol left, the dull thump of distant gunfire sounded from the green zone, the noise of the British rifles. The higher-pitched crack of the Taliban's AK-47s was not heard.

As well as fighting their own war in the fields around the FOB, the British are trying to win local hearts and minds as part of a counter-insurgency campaign. Major Adrian Morely, a bearded and cheerful Royal Marine who looked as if he had stepped out of a Victorian expeditionary force, said that, between defending the FOB by day and leading patrols by night, he was attempting to rebuild a bridge and get an irrigation scheme going for farmers, who are deeply suspicious of foreigners, especially foreign soldiers.

The British believe they are slowly prevailing against the Taliban, who they killed in large numbers last year and drove out of key positions, including the strategic town of Musa Qala to the north. But they think that only by winning over the population will they bring stability to Helmand and one day manage to extract themselves from the province.

Not that political matters are of much interest to the enlisted men here. Few of them seem to take much interest in why Britain is in Helmand or the rights and wrongs of the conflict. Where American soldiers will give a lecture about bringing democracy or fighting terrorism, most British soldiers will look uncomfortable and explain with a shrug that they are doing their jobs.

Some soldiers do question what Britain is doing in Afghanistan. "It costs a fortune for us to be here and we don't seem to be really achieving anything," one squaddie said. "When we leave in a few years' time, this place will simply go back to its usual state of mayhem."

Others believe stabilising Afghanistan is worthwhile, and necessary to defeat international terrorism. For most, it is a chance to do some real soldiering against an enemy who is prepared to stand up and fight. Veterans of Iraq enthuse about Afghanistan, a man's war compared with the urban terrorism of roadside bombs and hit-and-run mortar attacks they had to contend with in Basra.

War in Helmand tests everybody in Britain's 7000-strong force. And they know it could continue to do so for years or even decades to come.

Soldier loved his job on Afghan mission
Sun, January 13, 2008 - CP

GATINEAU, QUE. -- Family and friends gathered at a private funeral yesterday in Gatineau, Que., to remember a soldier killed late last month in Afghanistan.

About 300 people mourned gunner Jonathan Dion at the military ceremony that included a 12-gun salute.

A soldier walked over to Dion's mother, Lise Marcil, and kissed her on each cheek before handing her the Canadian flag that had been draped on the casket and folded by pallbearers. Marcil walked towards her son's casket as it was being placed in the hearse, gently placed her right hand on it and cried before lowering her forehead to the casket for a moment.

She then released a white dove that flew over the hearse, past the honour guard and disappeared over a row of houses. Dion, 27, died Dec. 30 after his light-armoured vehicle struck a roadside bomb about 20 kilometres west of Kandahar city.

Childhood friend Kevin Graham, also a member of the Canadian military, said Dion loved his job and had no regrets about enlisting. Graham, who met Dion 15 years ago in a Gatineau elementary school, said his friend did not know what he wanted in life until he discovered the military.

"For sure, it's the best decision he made in his life," Graham said after the funeral. "He wanted to make a difference in the world and he did."

Graham described Dion as a quiet, generous guy who excelled in sports.

"I helped him a lot in school, but he helped me in basketball because he was really good," he said. "I lost a good buddy."

Dion, a native of Val d'Or, Que., was a member of the 5th Regiment d'Artillerie legere du Canada. Dion's uncle, Ronald Marcil, said his nephew was ready to give up everything to help others have freedom.

"Jonathan was proud to be a soldier. He loved his work," Marcil said after the funeral, adding the family isn't upset with the Canadian military over his nephew's death.

Women earn respect in Afghanistan

Canadian Forces; Female security in demand at checkpoints

Allison Lampert,  Canwest News Service  Published: Saturday, January 12, 2008

PASHMUL, Afghanistan - Once rejected by a culture that denies women's basic freedoms, Canada's female soldiers and military police are now in demand in Kandahar province.

Initially barred from working with male Afghans for fear of upsetting southern Afghanistan's conservative sensibilities, female security forces are now badly needed to search women at checkpoints. With insurgents dressing up in burkas to escape detection, demand for female officers at police stations and Afghan military outposts is rapidly growing.

"We are always worried about people who disguise themselves," Canadian Forces Colonel Stephane Lafaut says.

"The use of Canadian women at police stations will help us. What we are hoping to have one day are female Afghan police officers [at the stations]."

There are now three Canadian women working as mentors to Afghan police officers at stations in Kandahar's Zhari district. One female soldier is working in a similar capacity with the Afghan National Army, said Col. Lafaut, commanding officer of the Canadian mentoring team that's working with Afghan police and soldiers in Kandahar.

It is a dramatic change in attitude since November, when Quebec-native Corporal Jennifer Lettre, 26, became the first Canadian military police officer assigned to mentor Afghan forces. She works at a police substation in Pashmul, a cluster of mud-walled compounds in the Zhari district.

In September, Afghan resistance to the idea of a woman mentoring a male officer was so great, Cpl. Lettre and two other females had to be separated from the men in their platoon. While the men were sent to mentor the fledgling Afghan police force --long plagued by underfunding, poor training, and corruption -- the women were sent to work with prisoners at a detention centre.

"What we tried to do was to respect the Afghan culture," Col. Lafaut said, "and, unfortunately, within the Afghan culture the women aren't respected like men. At the same time, Cpl. Lettre's platoon wanted her back.

"We all know that she is capable," said her friend, military police Corporal Eric Dagenais. "I would trust my life in her hands just as I'd trust my life in the hands of any of the guys."

Cpl. Dagenais, 30, and other members fought to bring her to their police station, where they wanted a female to search women at their checkpoints. In September, a Canadian soldier -- and one of Cpl. Dagenais's closest friends -- was shot in the head during a patrol with Afghan police, after being ambushed by two insurgents who were hiding assault rifles under their burkas. The friend survived.

With her cropped blond hair hidden by a helmet and pale blue eyes covered by ballistic eyewear, Cpl. Lettre isn't overtly feminine on patrol. Yet for Afghans unaccustomed to seeing female soldiers -- and for women unaccustomed to being searched -- Cpl. Lettre remains an unusual sight on the road.

"At checkpoints it surprises them," she said. "They're not used to seeing a woman."

The mysterious Afghan warlord trusted to spread peace in a divided province

Anthony Loyd in Chaghali, Helmand – Times of London

Britain’s last chance of securing this treacherous corner of Afghanistan lies in the hands of a piratical, black-turbaned figure with long beard, white cloak and silver-sequinned slippers with curled toes.

Mullah Abdul Salaam may not look much like a white knight. He served as a commander in the Taleban and even today his true loyalties remain suspect. The 45-year-old former Mujahidin guerrilla could, however, decide the fate of the British mission to stabilise the lawless province of Helmand, where this week he was put in charge of the key district of Musa Qala.

“He’s not just the best show in town,” one British officer remarked. “He’s the only show in town.”

Mullah Salaam’s rise to power in Musa Qala, the test case for British efforts to evict the Taleban and install central authority, is a classic Afghan tale of intrigue, bloodshed, farce and fate. In an interview with The Times the former warlord explained how last year he had severed relations with the Taleban, was courted secretly by a foreign diplomat and eventually swapped sides to join the British-led effort.

“The Taleban called a shurah [council] to attack the district centre and coalition forces there but though invited I did not attend nor fight,” he said. “It was not a good thing.”

He was then approached by Michael Semple, an Irish diplomat working for the European Union in Kabul. Mr Semple, a fluent Pashto-speaking veteran of Afghanistan, was expelled last month by the Government in Kabul for his back-channel contacts with the Taleban.

Before being ordered out he managed to put together a deal with the former Taleban commander. “We discussed reconciliation and unity in Afghanistan,” Mullah Salaam said of the first of his several meetings with Mr Semple. “I was surprised to hear of his recent expulsion.”

Mullah Salaam went to Kabul for a meeting with President Karzai last autumn. He caught the Afghan leader’s imagination with the promise of a tribal uprising against the Taleban, which could, potentially, deliver Musa Qala into government hands with barely a shot being fired. The idea led to a War Cabinet meeting in Kabul, which included the British and American ambassadors, President Karzai and General Dan McNeill, the commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan.

The result was operation Mar Karadad, which had to be accelerated at the end of November when Kabul heard news that Mullah Salaam, now back in Musa Qala, had attracted the attention of the Taleban and the uprising was imminent. There was no uprising. When Afghan, British and US units closed in on Musa Qala last month, Mullah Salaam stayed in his compound in Shakahraz, ten miles east, with a small cortège of fighters, where he made increasingly desperate pleas for help.

“He said that he would bring all the tribes with him but they never materialised,” recalled one British officer at the forefront of the operation. “Instead, all that happened was a series of increasingly fraught and frantic calls from him for help to Karzai.”

In spite of his broken promises Mullah Salaam was still one of the few credible local leaders prepared to work with the British. He also proved to be a skilled orator. This week he took his antiTaleban campaign to elders in the rainswept village of Chaghali, ten miles from Musa Qala.

“It is enough now,” he urged the 30 men huddled around him. “Our dead have been eaten by the dogs.” He gestured at a small group of British and American officers. “You can see around you these people from noble nations have come to build you streets and schools. If they should ask you to leave your religion then you have a right to fight them, but not because they come to bring you streets and schools.”

The village was in an area roamed by Taleban led by Mullah Abdul Bari, who remains at large. Mullah Salaam wasted little time in using his own past connection with the militant commander in his address.

“Abdul Bari is our brother,” he said. “He can come and sit among us . . . He is from this land. Speak with him. But don’t let him be stupid. If he is not on the right path then don’t let yourself be sacrificed for him. Tell him to take his jihad somewhere else.”

His eloquence and leadership have impressed the British, who reconsidered him for the job of district governor, not least because there were few volunteers for the post.

“The first time we heard Mullah Salaam speak he spoke bloody well,” said Major Guy Bartle-Jones, the head of the British Military Stabilisation Team. “In fact, he dominated the whole show. He gave the government message: antiTaleban, counter-narcotics, interspersed with Koranic verses. He came across as an accomplished politician, far away from the reports from Kabul, where he had been pilloried as a fraught and frantic man. So we reported back up the chain that he was a charismatic, good orator. And the question was suddenly: ‘Is this a credible governor?’.”

Today the new governor’s challenge is to navigate the dark waters of Helmand’s politics, unite warring clans and reconcile his erstwhile Taleban comrades into the political process. His very survival will be an issue in itself: he claimed that two suicide bombers have already been sent to kill him. He remains, however, Musa Qala’s best hope, and has certainly won the backing of the British, albeit with a small caveat.

“We have in him a credible governor who is making an impression upon us and the people,” an officer in Musa Qala concluded. “He is a compelling individual. But we still don’t know what his ulterior motives are.”

Medieval Kabul rises from ashes after 30 years of war

Canada's $3.5M gift is helping Afghan masters school young in treasured carving, ceramic, calligraphy skills

January 12, 2008 Mitch Potter TORONTO STAR

KABUL–For a city befuddled by the mystery of where all its development dollars have gone, there is a certain comfort in seeing the bones of Old Kabul starting to shine through the rubble. Here in the medieval ruins of Murad Khane, a project that is simplicity itself, yet immensely ambitious, is taking shape one hand-hewn timber at a time.

What the Turquoise Mountain Foundation wants in a few years is nothing less than medieval Kabul reborn – a process that involves reviving a riverside neighbourhood studded with nearly collapsed examples of traditional Afghan architecture and the near-extinct Afghan craftsmanship that first created it.

With the growing list of donors – Canada's own foreign aid branch recently added $3.5 million to the kitty – it may yet come to pass, thanks primarily to the vision of British diplomat-turned-author Rory Stewart, best-known for The Places In Between, the startling 2006 account of his walkabout across Afghanistan after the fall of the Islamist Taliban.

Stewart enlisted the backing of old chum Prince Charles for his notion of reviving a dilapidated patch of the capital's Old City. By June 2006, with start-up funding in place and Afghan President Hamid Karzai on side, they began to break ground. One-and-a-half years along, the scene just beyond the north bank of the Kabul River is impressive. A fleet of more than 50 wheelbarrows criss-crosses constantly, hacking through and carting away decades of chest-high waste from the last of four traditional courtyard houses targeted for renewal.

In their wake, aging craftsman lead teams of young men newly schooled in Afghan joinery in restoring the skeletal timber-frame buildings. A few of these homes remain diamonds in the rough, but one, known as The Peacock House for its distinctive feathered Nuristani marquetry panels, is already a shining jewel.

Part of Turquoise Mountain's success stems from careful consultation with all levels of Afghan authority. Even so, not everyone got the memo right off the bat, according to site manager Andre Ullal.

"One day, the Kabul building inspector came down and he was shocked to see people working with timbers. `Why aren't you using concrete?' he wanted to know," said Ullal.

"But now he gets it, like everyone else. One of the keys is that we are showing results quickly, with high visibility. We want this to be a site of constant activity ... to build confidence in the work. Because the goal is to make this a living area – an area that hopefully will be a destination for foreign travellers, once Kabul becomes a safe destination to visit."

Ahmad Fawad, an Afghan engineer overseeing elements of the restoration, said the project already is a kind of soothing medicine for Afghan eyes.

"The young Afghans who come to see what we are doing are shocked to see these carvings and beautiful old windows. But some the older people recognize it from their childhood, before Kabul was destroyed.

"Just seeing the reaction in a child's face, you realize the value," Fawad said. "We are saying to them: `This is your country. This is your history. This is the beauty of Afghanistan.'"

Journeyman carpenter Abdul Baqi and an apprentice join the talk, momentarily pausing in the task of replacing rotted window frames.

"I'm really not that old – I just look old because of all the fighting," laughs Baqi, 66. "My father taught me joinery but, for many years, it was impossible to pass these skills to others. But now, finally, we are training the youngsters. Already, a few of them are as good as me."

Twenty minutes by car from the site, the training arm of the Turquoise Mountain project is every bit as active. Nestled in an old fort alongside the former British embassy, master classes are underway in calligraphy, ceramics and the two primary schools of Afghan woodcarving, classical and Nuristani. With classes in session, work crews expand the site, baking mud bricks in the midday sun that will extend a courtyard into a marketplace for the traditional wares now in production.

Rory Stewart himself is here on this day, busily attending to a tour of potential donors. He has more good news. Commissions are rolling in – a London hotel is ready to pay hard cash for carvings and ceramics and several Arab collectors are in a frenzy of excitement over the quality of Turquoise Mountain calligraphy shown recently at a trade fair in Dubai.

"We expected maybe 60 applications. We got 600," said Anna Woodiwiss, a staff assistant with Turquoise Mountain, who describes the ceramics, calligraphy and woodcarving streams as "three-year programs with an apprenticeship model.

"The goal at the end of three years is to revitalize these crafts, and to prepare the graduates to make a living. We are very confident that livelihoods are in the making, particularly because of the response from donors, especially in the Middle East.

"Handcrafted products from Afghanistan are an interesting selling point. But it is (working) because the school is producing good work, not because it is a charity case."

A handful of women are involved in the woodcarving program but school officials shelter them from attention, both for their own safety and so as not to disturb the across-the-board Afghan acceptance of the project. Turquoise Mountain's Ullal said Canada's $3.5 million contribution "is a real shot in the arm. It is the single most significant contribution right now, and we hope to stage it over three or four years for maximum effect."

By the end of the three years, Stewart's team hopes to integrate the two sites into one by relocating the Turquoise Mountain school to the newly restored ruins of Murad Khane.

Ultimately, a fuller revival of the historic neighbourhood will be up to its Afghan property owners, who retain title to the restored buildings, having agreed not to raze them in exchange for free restoration. One courtyard house being revived has 16 different owners from the same family, according to Turquoise Mountain staff. They must agree on how to use the building when it's done.

"It is very ambitious, because the neighbourhood is bigger than the pieces we are working on. What we want to see is momentum that will spread ... and become something greater," said engineer Fawad.

"But when you consider that the Russians wanted to completely destroy this neighbourhood – and when the Russians left, the warlords made an even bigger mess of it with their bombs and rockets – it is a victory already to be where we are today. Whatever other pieces of our history have been lost, these pieces are protected. They are here to stay."

BBC responds to criticism from the Afghan Ministry of Defence

The BBC strongly takes issue with criticism from the Afghan Ministry of Defence of its news coverage in Afghanistan.

In a statement issued on Wednesday 9 January 2008, the ministry claimed that coverage of the assault on Musa Qala in Helmand province was untrue and showed evidence of prejudiced reporting. The ministry criticised one report that civilians had been killed in the assault on the town, and two other reports in which the BBC was alleged to have said that members of the Afghan National Army had been looting in the town.

A BBC report did quote local people in Musa Qala, interviewed in the aftermath of the military operation to expel the Taleban, who said they had seen civilian casualties.  The BBC report stated: “This is denied by the government and the Ministry of Defence, and [the civilian casualties] were impossible to verify in the time we had on the ground.”

No report alleging looting appeared on the BBC output.  The BBC notes that the ministry in Kabul has been unable to produce any evidence to support its allegations.

Issued by BBC World Service Press Office

[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.]