In this bulletin:

• Severe cold, snow claim 120 lives in Afghanistan
• UK's Ashdown accepts job as U.N. Afghan envoy: source
• Paddy Ashdown to become 'super envoy' in Afghanistan
• US urges NATO allies to replace Afghanistan reinforcements
• Gates slams NATO force in southern Afghanistan
• Afghan Hotel Attacker Wore Cop Uniform
• Taliban Threaten Restaurant Attacks
• Strong reactions to the Kabul attack
• Seven troops, 50 militants dead in Pakistan clash: army
• Fanatics overrun Afghan border fort
• US says it has broad support for new Afghan anti-poppy drive
• Afghan force on track despite Taliban attacks: British commander
• Afghan paper slams Browne comments
• Officials reviewing future of Kabul team
• Canada eyes leaner role in Afghanistan
• Abandoning Afghanistan
• Liberals get a boost from Kandahar trip
• When Iggy met the Taliban
• Kabul closes border over wheat ban
• 'Kite Runner' Banned in Afghanistan

Severe cold, snow claim 120 lives in Afghanistan

Kabul (AFP) - Two weeks of heavy snowfalls, avalanches and severe cold in Afghanistan have killed 120 people and tens of thousands of domestic animals, government officials said Wednesday.

Parts of northern Afghanistan are under 3.5 metres (11 feet) of snow with several roads blocked, cutting off scores of remote villages and districts that are home to thousands of people, the disaster management department said.

In two weeks to Tuesday, 106 people were recorded dead and 134 wounded, it said. Nearly 30,000 animals were also killed and more than 50 districts cut off, it said in a statement.

The hardest-hit province was Herat in the west, where 60 people were confirmed dead and 17 missing, it said. Authorities in the northwestern province of Faryab announced separately Wednesday that 14 people, including four children, had died in the severe cold.

Up to 100,000 animals were also dead, the head of the provincial council, Sayed Farokh Jenab, told AFP. Six people were in hospital, he said.

Afghanistan, where most people live in severe poverty, is a country of climatic contrasts: scorching, dry summers are replaced by bitter winters that claim scores of lives, with many killed in avalanches in the Hindu Kush mountains.

UK's Ashdown accepts job as U.N. Afghan envoy: source

BRUSSELS (Reuters – 01.16.08) - British politician and former soldier Paddy Ashdown has agreed to become the United Nations' envoy to Afghanistan, a source close to negotiations on the post said on Wednesday.

The role will put Ashdown at the heart of international efforts to combat a Taliban insurgency and guide reconstruction.

"Yes, he has accepted the job," the source said of an agreement between Ashdown, 66, and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon after talks about Ashdown's request for a strengthened mandate for the post.

A spokesman for Ashdown declined to comment on whether an agreement had been reached. The source said that the United Nations was expected to make an announcement confirming the appointment imminently.

Western sources have said Ashdown will have greater powers than his predecessor, U.N. special envoy Tom Koenigs, to coordinate with the government of President Hamid Karzai, and with bodies such as NATO and the European Union.

However they stress he will have no say in the chain of command in NATO, which is leading a UK's Ashdown accepts job as U.N. Afghan envoy: source42,000-strong peacekeeping force in Afghanistan.

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said he could not confirm Ashdown's appointment but told reporters in Brussels:

"I would very much appreciate and applaud the nomination of a strong coordinator by the secretary general of the United Nations. I would applaud it."

"He (Ashdown) is somebody with great experience of course for such a job," he added.

In an interview with Reuters in October, Ashdown -- former U.N. High Representative and EU special representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina -- called for "for a high-level coordinator" to lead the foreign mission in Afghanistan.

He said that if such a new position was not created, the West would lose the war in Afghanistan, risking a regional conflict that could match the magnitude of previous world wars.

But the former leader of Britain's Liberal Democrats, who now heads the Brussels-based EU-Russia Centre think tank, at the time ruled himself out of the job.

He saw active service as a soldier with Britain's Royal Marine commando units in the jungles of Borneo and on the streets of Belfast.

The source said a main focus of Ashdown's efforts will be to liaise between the 39-nation NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), a smaller U.S.-led military coalition, a small EU police mission and the U.N. presence.

He will also be responsible for coordinating U.N. agencies and NGOs delivering humanitarian assistance in the country.

"There definitely seems to be an understanding on the U.N. side about the enhanced mandate needed for the job," the source said.

The Taliban have in past months increased the number of suicide attacks after suffering heavy casualties in conventional clashes with foreign forces and the Afghan army.

While Western forces, alongside the Afghan army, have claimed victories against Taliban rebels in the south, many remote areas and some towns remain under rebel control and insurgent attacks have hit regions once considered safe.

Paddy Ashdown to become 'super envoy' in Afghanistan

From Times Online, January 16, 2008

Paddy Ashdown was said today to have agreed terms for him to become the new United Nations “super envoy” to Afghanistan.

Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon, the former Liberal Democrat leader, was said by United Nations sources to have accepted the role. A formal announcement is expected to follow, although his precise responsibilities have yet to be confirmed.

He has been keep to do the job but has insisted on been given enhanced powers to give him the scope and authority he felt were needed to undertake the role. Otherwise he felt the job would not be worth doing, he had told friends.

His conditions required extra negotiation and approval, particularly from the Americans. There were also sensitivities within the Afghan government about beefing up the role in a way that carries echoes of a British colonial-style governor.

Lord Ashdown, who left the Commons in 2001, two years after stepping down as leader of the Liberal Democrats, is a former Royal Marine Commando and special forces officer.

He was held to have acquitted himself well in his previous role as the international administrator, as the European Union’s special representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina from 2002 to 2006.

He will replace a German diplomat, Tom Koenigs, who has had a low profile as the UN’s Special Representative in Afghanistan.

As part of his wish for a stronger mandate, Lord Ashdown has sought to combine the post with some of the former responsibilities of Nato’s civilian envoy to Afghanistan, Daan Everts, who concluded his mission at the end of last year.

Mr Koenigs had expressed his frustrations at the lack of coordination between the various missions and international agencies in Afghanistan, where Nato has 42,000 troops and there is still a separate US-led military coalition.

Mr Everts, his Nato counterpart, had also criticised the lack of strong central power in Afghanistan, which had meant a fragmented approach to running the country and an unhelpful division of responsibilities among the various states that have committed troops there.

As “super envoy”, Lord Ashdown would be expected to become the main point of contact between President Karzai and the international forces, EU policing mission and UN contingent, as well as co-ordinate reconstruction efforts. He would have to balance the need for "Afghanisation" with that of combating the Taleban insurgency.

A spokesman for Lord Ashdown declined to comment on whether an agreement had been reached on the post, nor on what precise powers he might enjoy. But Western diplomats said that he would have no oversight over the chain of command in Nato, which is leading the peace effort in Afghanistan.

His candidacy for the post, against other contenders including Joschka Fischer, the former German foreign minister, had been backed notably by the United States.

US urges NATO allies to replace Afghanistan reinforcements

Washington (AFP) - The US Defense Department urged NATO allies to send more troops to Afghanistan in order to fill a shortfall, or at the least replace temporary US reinforcements coming home later this year.

After announcing that the United States would deploy 3,200 marines as early as March for a seven-month mission, the Pentagon's spokesman said he hoped the decision would influence NATO allies to beef up the international force in Afghanistan.

"We certainly hope that us doing so will inspire them to do so," spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters, noting that commanders in Afghanistan want 7,500 additional troops.

"It is our hope that our allies in NATO and other partners who were involved in the efforts in Afghanistan will see what more they can do to add forces to bring down the shortfall that will exist even after we deploy these additional marines," he said.

"At the very least, we would hope they would take a serious look at back-filling this deployment after the marines leave at the end of this year," Morrell said.

The US marine reinforcement will increase the US troop presence by about 10 percent, from 27,000 to about 30,000, he said.

"But this is for a very finite period of time. We made it clear this is seven months, a one-time deal, that's it," the spokesman said.

Some of the troops being sent to Afghanistan became available after the US military decided that it did not need to replace two battalions that left Iraq's Al-Anbar province late last year, Morrell said.

"So we are reaping the benefits to some extent from the success we have been seeing in Iraq," he said.

Gates slams NATO force in southern Afghanistan

Washington (AFP) - US Defense Secretary Robert Gates unleashed rare public criticism of the NATO forces deployed in southern Afghanistan saying they were unprepared to fight a guerrilla insurgency, The Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.

"I'm worried we're deploying (military advisors) that are not properly trained and I'm worried we have some military forces that don't know how to do counterinsurgency operations," Gates told the daily.

With allied commanders fretting over the security situation, Gates' biting analysis comes as the US administration has decided to send 3,200 Marines to southern Afghanistan on a temporary mission to help curb mounting attacks.

"Most of the European forces, NATO forces, are not trained in counterinsurgency," Gates added. The NATO troops in the area are mainly British, Canadian and Dutch.

Gates said that "our guys in the east, under General Rodriguez, are doing a terrific job. They've got the (counterinsurgency) thing down pat. But I think our allies over there, this is not something they have any experience with."

Tuesday, the Pentagon urged NATO allies to send more troops to Afghanistan in order to fill a shortfall, or at the least replace temporary US reinforcements coming home later this year.

After announcing that the United States would deploy 3,200 marines as early as March for a seven-month mission, the Pentagon's spokesman said he hoped the decision would influence NATO allies to beef up the international force in Afghanistan.

The US marine reinforcement will increase the US troop presence by about 10 percent, from 27,000 to about 30,000.

Coalition commanders in Afghanistan have complained that they are short three infantry battalions, 3,000 trainers and helicopters, which were promised but not delivered by NATO members.

With its military already heavily engaged in Iraq, Washington has increased pressure on NATO allies to increase their contributions, with little success.

Afghan Hotel Attacker Wore Cop Uniform

By JASON STRAZIUSO – KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghan officials have arrested four men following an attack on Kabul's main luxury hotel, including one suspected of wearing a police uniform during the multi-pronged assault that killed eight, officials said Tuesday.

Meanwhile, a militant connected to an insurgent leader in Pakistan was accused of masterminding the attack, which left at least one American among the dead and could signal a new era of brazen extremist assaults in Afghanistan.

Police said they also found a video made by two of the attackers in a home in Kabul, where they arrested two men. A fourth man — believed to have driven the attackers to the Serena Hotel — was arrested in eastern Afghanistan while trying to flee to Pakistan.

Amrullah Saleh, the head of Afghanistan's intelligence service, said three militants stormed the Serena Hotel on Monday evening. A guard shot and killed one attacker at the gate to the hotel's parking lot, which triggered his suicide vest.

A second attacker blew himself up near the entrance to the hotel's lobby, and the third attacker made it inside the hotel and shot his way through the lobby and toward the gym, Saleh said. A man alleged suspected of being the third attacker was arrested Monday.

The three militants stormed the popular luxury hotel just after 6 p.m., hunting down Westerners who had cowered in a gym. More than 30 U.S. soldiers in a half-dozen Humvees rushed to the hotel, and security personnel from the nearby U.S. Embassy ran to the scene. Blood covered the lobby floor as gunfire rang out, witnesses said.

Saleh said the attack was masterminded by Mullah Abdullah, a close ally of Siraj Haqqani, a well-known militant leader thought to be based in Pakistan's tribal area in Miran Shah, the main town in North Waziristan. The U.S. military has a $200,000 bounty out on Haqqani.

Police arrested a man named Humayun, allegedly a key link to Abdullah, in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday as he was trying to flee to Pakistan, Saleh said, accusing him of supplying the assailants with weapons, explosives and suicide vests and driving them to the hotel.

Saleh showed a picture taken from the hotel's security cameras showing a gunman in a police uniform inside the hotel's lobby, apparently the third attacker. He was apprehended 15 to 20 minutes after the attack began, he said.

"The third person, after killing a number of the guests, maybe he changed his mind for some reason, he didn't detonate himself," Saleh said. "He changed his clothes and later when security forces searched the premises, he was arrested."

Authorities raided a house in Kabul early Tuesday where the alleged attackers had spent the night before the attack. Police found a video showing two of the assailants, identified as Farouq and Salahuddin, saying they were ready to die. The owner of the house and his brother were arrested.

"I commit this suicide attack for Allah," the video showed the attacker named Farouq saying. He was believed to have blown himself up during the attack.

Salahuddin was captured and provided information that led to the arrest of Humayun, Saleh said. The official spokesman of the Kabul Serena said the hotel was closed for repairs, including damage caused by bullets and grenades.

"This will certainly affect our business," said the spokesman, who asked not to be identified citing company policy. "The hotel was helping drive business in Afghanistan by creating a safe haven for international businessmen that wanted to invest and work here. This will dent that confidence."

There was confusion over the death toll. Saleh said three Americans and a French woman were among those killed, but the U.S. Embassy said only one American citizen died. The French embassy was not aware of any French casualties.

The Serena spokesman said three hotel employees and two guards were killed during the attack. Officials have said an American citizen and a Norwegian reporter also died, and the Philippines Foreign Affairs Department said a Filipina spa supervisor wounded in the attack died on Tuesday, bringing the death toll to eight.

The Taliban has targeted aid workers and civilian contractors with kidnappings and killings, but this was the most daring and sophisticated attack yet on a prominent symbol of the foreign presence.

The Taliban have typically focused attacks on Western and Afghan officials or security personnel, not Western civilians.

Bo Asplund, the top U.N. representative in the country, said the attack was a matter of great concern, representing "a deliberate targeting of foreign guests and Afghan civilians."

"The international community has been present here for many years, enjoying the hospitality and generosity of its Afghan hosts," Asplund said in a statement. "Its work is driven by the shared belief that peace and progress must prevail over war and suffering. This was an attack on those values, and a senseless crime."

Taliban Threaten Restaurant Attacks

By JASON STRAZIUSO – KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Security experts responsible for the safety of Americans and other Westerners in Kabul were evaluating on Wednesday whether restaurants that cater to foreigners should be off limits after the Taliban warned that suicide bombers would target them.

The warning came the day after a deadly attack Monday on the Serena Hotel — a well-guarded, high-profile property in Kabul frequented by Westerners.

The country's intelligence chief linked the assault to a Pakistani militant, and Afghan officials arrested four people, and said they included one of the three attackers, who was disguised in a police uniform for the assault.

The death toll in the bombing and shooting attack on the hotel rose to eight. An American, a Norwegian journalist and a Filipina who died of her wounds Tuesday were among those killed.

"We will target all these restaurants in Kabul where foreigners are eating," Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told The Associated Press by telephone. "We have jihadists in Kabul right now and soon we will carry out more attacks against military personnel and foreigners."

Taliban spokesmen often boast that militants plan to step up attacks, claims that often fail to come true. Suicide bombings have increased in the last two years, however, and the hotel attack was the first against a facility favored by Westerners.

Security companies that protect international workers in Afghanistan restricted Westerners' movements Tuesday, placing restaurants and stores frequented by foreigners off-limits for some.

Kabul has about a half dozen restaurants popular with Westerners. The establishments — run by ex-pats with themed menus such as French or Mexican — do not allow Afghans entry because they serve alcohol, which is illegal for Muslims here. The restaurants sit behind nondescript walls and do little advertising, relying on word-of-mouth to bring in customers.

Some Westerners said they would continue to eat out. Christoph Klawitter, the head of a German logistics company, said he dined out two to three times a week, including at the Serena, before the attack.

"I will still go out but not as often as before, maybe, and the venue now is more important," he said. "The Serena was pretty secure, and even there they got in. So I don't know. The more security, the more likely it is I might go there."

The Taliban have targeted aid workers and civilian contractors with kidnappings and killings. But the Islamic militants have typically focused attacks on Western and Afghan officials or security personnel, not civilians.

If there are more attacks on Western establishments, it will likely restrict Westerners' freedom of movement even further, and eventually could force aid agencies from the country, the way attacks in Iraq did.

"This is a new kind of target for the Taliban," Barney Rubin, an Afghanistan expert at New York University, wrote on his blog. "Foreigners going to restaurants in Kabul ... sometimes joke that they feel like targets. Up to now, however, they have not been."

Referring to the attack on the Serena, Rubin added: "I imagine it will not be the last" such attack.

In New York, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the U.N. Security Council issued separate statements condemning the hotel attack and called for redoubled efforts to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan.

"The attack will not diminish the commitment of the international community to Afghanistan," Ban said.

The Serena attack was a grim start to 2008 after record violence last year, possibly showing that militants could be refining their strategy to undermine the government of President Hamid Karzai and the Western-backed campaign to stabilize Afghanistan.

Amrullah Saleh, the head of Afghanistan's intelligence service, said police found a video made by two of the attackers in a home in Kabul, where they arrested two men. Police also arrested a man they said was one of the attackers, while a fourth man — believed to have driven the attackers to the hotel — was arrested in eastern Afghanistan while trying to flee to Pakistan.

Saleh said three militants stormed the hotel just after 6 p.m., hunting down Westerners who hid in the gym. A guard shot and killed one attacker at the gate to the hotel parking lot, which triggered his suicide vest.

A second attacker blew himself up near the entrance to the hotel lobby, and the third attacker made it inside the hotel and shot his way through the lobby and toward the gym, Saleh said. The third attacker wore a police uniform and an explosive vest, he said.

More than 30 U.S. soldiers in a half-dozen Humvees rushed to the scene, and security personnel from the nearby U.S. Embassy ran through the hotel in search of Americans.

Thor Hesla, 45, of Atlanta, was among the dead, friends and his company said Tuesday. Hesla worked for BearingPoint Management & Technology Consultants, which had a contract with the U.S. Agency for International Development to help Afghanistan rebuild, a company spokesman said.

Samina Ahmed, the South Asia project director for the International Crisis Group, was in her hotel room when the attack began. She said a hotel employee led her to the basement but there was little protection until U.S. troops arrived.

The attack "certainly is a demonstration of intent by the Taliban to make their presence felt, and it also counters in a lot of ways this growing talk that they're responsible actors and let's include them in the (peace negotiations) process," said Ahmed.

Saleh said the attack was masterminded by Mullah Abdullah, a close ally of Pakistani militant leader Siraj Haqqani. Haqqani is thought to be based in Miran Shah, the main town in Pakistan's lawless tribal region of North Waziristan and the U.S. military has a $200,000 bounty out on him. Saleh said he did not known whether Abdullah is Afghan or Pakistani.

Saleh displayed a picture taken from the hotel's security cameras showing the gunman disguised in a police uniform inside the hotel lobby.

"The third person, after killing a number of the guests, maybe he changed his mind for some reason, he didn't detonate himself," Saleh said. "He changed his clothes and later when security forces searched the premises, he was arrested."

Authorities raided a house in Kabul early Tuesday where the alleged attackers had spent the night before the attack. Police found a video showing two of the assailants, identified as Farouq and Salahuddin, saying they were ready to die.

"I commit this suicide attack for Allah," the attacker named Farouq said on the video. He was the one believed to have blown himself up during the attack.

Associated Press writers Noor Khan in Kandahar and Amir Shah

Strong reactions to the Kabul attack

Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg says Monday's attack on the Kabul hotel where the Norwegian delegation was staying, will have no influence on the Norwegian presence in Afghanistan.

Stoltenberg goes on to say that the attack shows how important it is that Norway contributes to the work of creaating peace in Afghanistan.

The political opposition in the Storting (Parliament) has supported Stoltenberg's view. 

Sweden's Foreign Minister Car Bildt calls the attack attrocius. The Danish government also condemns the attack, and foreign minister Per Stig Moeller says it is a signal that Taliban tries to frighten all those who want to help Afghanistan.

Head of the Norwegian Journalists Association, Elin Fiberhagen, says the death of Carsten Thomassen makes the work to strenghten journalists' security even more important, both at the national and international level. (NRK)

Seven troops, 50 militants dead in Pakistan clash: army

Wana (AFP) - Seven Pakistani soldiers and up to 50 Islamic militants were killed in clashes after hundreds of rebels captured a paramilitary fort near the Afghan border, the army said.

Heavy fighting erupted after militants armed with rocket launchers attacked the outpost at Sararogha town in the South Waziristan tribal district overnight, military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told AFP.

"Yesterday around midnight 400 miscreants attacked the Frontier Corps at Sararogha. There are reports of 40 to 50 dead miscreants, while seven personnel embraced martyrdom," Abbas said.

Fanatics overrun Afghan border fort

(AP) - Hundreds of Islamic fanatics overran a remote military outpost close to the Afghan border killing or kidnapping more than 20 Pakistani soldiers.

At least 50 of the attackers were also killed in the raid in the South Waziristan region.

Seven soldiers from the garrison were confirmed dead and another 20 were still missing after the attack on Tuesday, an army spokesman said. "About 200 militants charged the fort from four sides. They broke through the fort's wall with rockets," he said.

Fifteen men from the paramilitary Frontier Corps garrison managed to escape to an army base about 20 miles away.

It is the first time rebels have captured a government position since last October, when they grabbed several police stations and military posts in Swat valley, another volatile region in the country's north.

Sararogha Fort, which dates back to the British colonial period, is one of several dozen posts located along South Waziristan's mountainous border with Afghanistan. Government forces based there monitor and patrol the frontier, a main staging area for volunteers and the transportation of weapons crossing into Afghanistan.

The latest military setback will contribute to the impression that the government of President Pervez Musharraf is failing to contain a growing Islamist insurgency ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for February 18.

Opposition leaders blame Mr Musharraf for the upsurge in extremist violence. "Musharraf is the root cause of all problems," said Nawaz Sharif, a leading opposition politician and former prime minister.

"If he goes 95% problems of this country will be solved. There will be no bomb blasts, there will be no missile attacks," Mr Sharif said.

US says it has broad support for new Afghan anti-poppy drive

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The United States says it has garnered broad support for Afghans to mount a new drive next month to wipe out major opium poppy fields and deprive a resurgent Taliban of a key source of funds.

After spurning US calls for an aerial chemical spray campaign, Afghanistan and European countries now back a "very tough manual," albeit more dangerous ground-based eradication plan, State Department official Thomas Schweich said.

He said the plan is "an integrated part of a program" aimed at planting alternative crops, "interdicting" top drug traffickers, prosecuting corrupt officials abetting the trade, and improved public information.

"I believe we have a lot of support from the allies ...," the department's coordinator for counter narcotics and justice reform in Afghanistan told AFP after touring London and seven other European capitals at the end of last year.

"Even those that were very skittish about aerial eradication have come in now and are supportive of a ground-based eradication campaign against wealthier farmers in wealthier areas," Schweich said.

Eradication efforts have stumbled on "sort of a myth" that poppy farmers are poor, he said. "A lot of the poppy is being grown on government land. A lot of the fields are owned by corrupt officials and wealthier Afghans."

He cited a report from the Vienna-based United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime which last year said opium cultivation is no longer associated with poverty. His argument was well-received in Europe, he added.

Eradication plans have also snagged on a failure by North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) forces to link the drug trade with the security threat posed by the Taliban as well as on arguments over methods and strategy.

But NATO has changed tack in disseminating public information, he said. "In Helmand province, for example, NATO's new campaign is narcotics breeds insecurity," he said.

As for strategy, he said it was important to press ahead now with poppy eradication rather than wait until the justice system is capable of gathering evidence and successfully prosecuting those involved in the drug trade. "We can't sit back," he argued.

But Washington lost its argument for the method of chemical spraying from the air, even though it is much safer than a ground campaign where he said "you have to fight your way in and you have to fight your way out."

With Afghan police and army offering security in broad coordination with NATO forces, he said, Afghan workers using tractors and other equipment will manually eliminate poppies from the farms.

The goal is 50,000 hectares under cultivation, compared to 20,000 hectares last year. The targets will also be better, he said.

Though a top ally, the British government was among those "actively opposed" to the air campaign for fear it would lose the "hearts and minds" of Afghans who recall harsh chemicals sprayed on fields during the Soviet occupation. Germany and Sweden were also strongly opposed, he added.

In Kabul on January 2, NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) commander US General Dan McNeill said Afghansitan's opium production was likely to boom in 2008.

He also predicted continued Taliban-led violence, which he said was fueled by the illicit drug trade.

Robert Templer, director of the Asia Program for the International Crisis Group, was skeptical about chances for the new campaign, saying Washington has failed to ensure key steps were taken, such as building effective policing.

He was not sure the allies would cooperate either. "I think you'll find there's far less enthusiasm on the ground, and therefore it would not surprise me if we saw some footdragging on the part of some governments" that see a different order of priorities, he said.

Afghan force on track despite Taliban attacks: British commander

Tue Jan 15, LONDON (AFP) - Taliban suicide attacks are setbacks but will not prevent coalition forces from squeezing insurgents out, the British commander in Afghanistan told BBC radio on Tuesday.

Brigadier Andrew Mackay declined to say his 7,800-odd troops in Afghanistan were winning the battle against the Taliban, but insisted they were succeeding in sweeping them out of urban areas.

Asked if Monday's attack on a Kabul hotel, which killed seven people, was worrying for the long term, he replied: "If you take a daily snapshot of life in Afghanistan it can probably lead you to some wrong conclusions.

"You've got to stand back and see the wood for the trees in order to take some deeper meaning away from the progress that's being made," he told BBC radio in Lashkar Gah, the capital of the restive southern Helmand province, where British troops are mostly based.

"The question is... of being pretty sure about the direction you are travelling, holding your nerve when you come across the occasional setback, and then pressing on with what you think is the right thing to do."

Asked if British troops were winning the battle, he said: "We're succeeding, I think the term winning is probably too absolute in these conditions with the complexities and the frictions that we have to endure daily."

British troops enjoyed the consent of local Afghans, he added. "It's really a question of squeezing this insurgency to limit its effect throughout Helmand.

"What we're looking to do is secure the major urban centres of population. "Those areas are by quite some distance better than they were a couple of years ago.

"If you go into the more rural areas, yes, there's a tougher fight going on and its certainly less secure. But bit by bit as we establish our presence in those areas, this insurgency is being squeezed out."

He added that the Taliban were "inextricably linked" with growing opium to gain revenue, which had weakened them. "I do genuinely think that over the next year, next two years we will start to make progress in this area."

Afghan paper slams Browne comments

January 15, 2008 - KABUL (Reuters) - The warning by Defence Secretary Des Browne that British troops could be engaged in Afghanistan for decades is an irresponsible one and against the country's national sovereignty, an Afghan paper said on Tuesday.

Britain, which has about 7,800 troops operating in Afghanistan in a 40,000-strong NATO stabilisation force, is expected to increase that number as it withdraws from Iraq.

Asked when British soldiers would be withdrawn from Afghanistan, Browne told Sunday's The People newspaper: "We cannot risk it again becoming an ungoverned training haven for terrorists who threaten the UK."

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

"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," he added.

The private Arman-e Millie daily lashed out at Browne's comments.

"This irresponsible comment of Britain's defence minister from the view points of political experts, is regarded as explicit sign of deviation of international treaties and against the national sovereignty of Afghanistan," the daily wrote.

"For (deciding) on the continuation of foreign troops presence in Afghanistan is the right of the government, the parliament and our people. No authority of any country has the right to extend the duration of its troops' presence without the consent and request of the Afghan people," it added.

Foreign troops, now under NATO and the U.S. military's command, have been stationed in Afghanistan since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled the Taliban government in 2001.

The al-Qaeda-backed Taliban are largely active in southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan and have made a comeback in the past two years, the bloodiest period since the militants' ouster.

Foreign commanders have not specifically said when the troops will pull out, saying it depends largely on the security situation of Afghanistan and after the Western-backed national security forces can stand on their own feet.

While considering the presence of foreign troops as vital for fighting the insurgency, the Afghan government has been demanding more resources and funds for its national forces as a remedy rather than dispatch of additional troops from its Western backers.

(Reporting by Sayed Salahuddin; editing by Jon Hemming and David Fogarty)

Officials reviewing future of Kabul team

DANIEL LEBLANC – Globe and Mail, January 16, 2008

OTTAWA -- A team of Canadian military advisers in Kabul will be a victim of their success if they are disbanded, senior Canadian officials said yesterday as they refused to guarantee the survival of the lauded Strategic Advisory Team.

Sources have said that SAT, a group of about 20 high-level military planners embedded in the capital with Afghanistan's fledgling government, is facing the axe.

At a briefing yesterday, senior officials insisted that no decision has been made regarding the future of SAT, adding that its existence is being reviewed.

A senior government official, who has seen SAT in action in recent days, said the team works effectively and in a collegial manner alongside Afghan officials. However, the official said, it's time to take a deep look at the structure of the three-year-old group of military officials.

Affairs and Correctional Service Canada are trying to find "the best formula to be able to continue having the impact that we have.

"For the Afghan government, a major problem is the human capacity to co-ordinate its activities and its progress. That team helps them, and now we have to find the formula to continue, either through a team or through another means."

Another official insisted that SAT will survive - for now."At this time, there has been no decision, either by Foreign Affairs or anyone else, to put an end to the activities of the SAT," the official said.

Chief of the Defence Staff General Rick Hillier put the team in place in 2005 after Afghan President Hamid Karzai mentioned he had appreciated the work of a small group of senior Canadian military officers who performed similar tasks. The Afghan ambassador to Canada said this week that SAT will be missed if the team is disbanded.

But Paul Heinbecker, a former Canadian ambassador to the United Nations, said that SAT produces a confusing power structure in Afghanistan. He added it's time to bring the advisory role back under the authority of Canada's diplomats.

"The problem I have is with making it permanent. It leads to confusion, and sooner or later, it becomes a problem about who is speaking for Canada," Mr. Heinbecker said.

Canada eyes leaner role in Afghanistan

Manley expected to call for partial pullout and transformed mission in ’09

January 16, 2008 - Bruce Campion-Smith, tORONTO sTAR

OTTAWA – Canada should reduce its contingent of combat troops in Kandahar and focus on training Afghan police and army officers to eventually take over security duties in southern Afghanistan.

That's likely to be among the chief recommendations when a federal panel created to study the future of Canada's Afghan mission after February 2009 releases its long-awaited report early next week.

The federal panel, led by former Liberal deputy prime minister John Manley, is likely to endorse the transformation of the mission from combat to training that is already underway.

"I hear the recommendations will support the mission in Kandahar with a transformation of the approach to the mission which is already happening," said Alain Pellerin, of the Conference of Defence Associations, a lobby group active on defence issues.

A poll released last night suggests strong public unease with the current combat mission.

Forty-seven per cent of Canadians want our troops brought back from Afghanistan as soon as possible, according to a Strategic Counsel poll done for CTV News and The Globe and Mail. In Quebec, 57 per cent want the mission to end right away.

The poll showed that only 17 per cent of Canadians want troops to continue in their combat role and 31 per cent said Canadians should remain in Kandahar but turn over the combat role to another NATO country.

Last summer, the Canadian Forces boosted its mentoring teams to train the Afghan army and launched new efforts to help train the Afghan police.

"We're into phase two now of ... recalibrating the mission so you put more emphasis on training the Afghan army, training the security forces and I think that's what is happening now on the ground," said Pellerin, a retired colonel with close ties to the military who has visited the troops in Afghanistan.

The news comes as yet another Canadian soldier was killed in Afghanistan yesterday. Trooper Richard Renaud, 26, was killed and a fellow soldier injured when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb during a patrol north of Kandahar city.

With yesterday's attack, 77 Canadian soldiers and one diplomat – Glyn Berry – have been killed in Afghanistan since 2002.

Those deaths – along with the reluctance of NATO allies to dispatch troops to dangerous southern regions of Afghanistan – have fuelled public and political misgivings in Canada about the Kandahar mission.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper established the panel last October in a bid to develop a compromise for the future of the mission, once the current military commitment runs out in a year.

In addition to Manley, the Afghan panel includes: former Conservative federal cabinet minister Jake Epp; Paul Tellier, former clerk of the Privy Council; Derek Burney, a former Canadian ambassador to the United States; and Pamela Wallin, former Canadian consul general in New York City.

After listening to hundreds of individual Canadians and organizations, visiting NATO headquarters in Brussels and seeing military and development efforts firsthand in Afghanistan, the Manley panel is due to release its own vision for the future of Canadian aid workers, diplomats and soldiers, either Monday or Tuesday.

Pellerin envisages a scenario that puts Canada on course for a gradual withdrawal from Afghanistan, reducing its force initially to about 1,500 – down from more than 2,000 now – to focus on training.

But in addition to the trainers, combat support elements would also be left behind. That includes artillery and even the tanks that serve as vital backup to allied and Afghan troops in the field, as well as field engineers, who have built roads and bridges in the region, he said.

"I think more and more that is probably what the (Canadian Forces) leadership would want to see and reducing the number of troops in Kandahar," Pellerin said.

Gen. Rick Hillier, the chief of defence staff, has warned that preparing Afghan security forces to take over is a job that will go past February 2009. Even the Conservatives' throne speech noted the training won't be done by then, suggesting the objective should be achievable by 2011.

But Manley may suggest putting off decisions on Canada's mission until after the NATO leaders' summit in April in Bucharest, Romania, where Afghanistan and troop commitments are expected to dominate the agenda.

Harper is expected to be at the high-level conference to wring commitments of money and military assistance for Afghanistan, along with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and European Union representatives.

Harper has pledged that Parliament will vote on any proposals to extend or change the current mission. However, retired major-general Lewis MacKenzie worries that efforts to find a political compromise in Canada may distort the mission in Afghanistan.

"I've got a funny feeling that the priority is to find some sort of compromise that's acceptable and all sides can say they won a little bit, which is unfortunate because it's the one issue ... where doing the right thing should trump domestic politics," MacKenzie said.

While the Liberals have called for a move out of Kandahar, MacKenzie said it makes sense for troops to stay put where they've built up a network of bases and now know the local Afghan leaders. "I hope they won't suggest moving out of Kandahar," MacKenzie said.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon yesterday announced that 2,200 U.S. troops will be sent to serve under the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in southern Afghanistan.

Another 1,000 Marines will expand the training of Afghan national security forces. But Pellerin cautioned the Americans are not meant as a replacement for the Canadian troops.

Abandoning Afghanistan

Dion and Ignatieff aren't just spineless -- they're misleading Canadians

John Turley-Ewart,  National Post  Published: Wednesday, January 16, 2008

When the tragic news of another Canadian death in Afghanistan was released Tuesday, federal Liberals praised the Canadian Forces for "put[ting] themselves in harm's way to create a safe and secure world for the people of Afghanistan." So what were the party's two most powerful politicians doing in the country undercutting that very mission?

Stephane Dion was promoted as a principled, honest political leader -- an academic-turned-pol who would do politics differently from Jean Chretien, Paul Martin and their amoral lieutenants. Yet when he emerged from his Saturday meeting in Kabul with the President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, Mr. Dion, flanked by his deputy, Michael Ignatieff, was sounding the language of cut-and-run.

Mr. Dion spoke of how a Liberal government would abandon Canada's combat-oriented posture in Afghanistan once our current missions ends there in February, 2009, declaring (without a hint of conscious irony): "Even though it's not combat, it will be for security." He assured Canadians that Mr. Karzai would "welcome" a noncombat role from Canada. "After three years of a combat mission," said Mr. Dion, "it's normal that Canada would say, 'We want to do something else.' " (One presumes the Canadian veterans who fought the Nazis from 1939 to 1945 -- six years for those counting -- would disagree.)

Aside from evincing an unbecoming spinelessness, the Liberal leader was also misleading the Canadian public. Far from "welcoming" a Canadian military that put daisies in its rifles, President Karzai made it clear that this would make his country a more dangerous place.

In a statement produced following the meeting, the Afghan President emphasized that fighting the Taliban must continue and that Canada's withdrawal could jeopardize "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." President Karzai reportedly made this point directly to Messrs. Dion and Ignatieff at their meeting, yet the Liberals made no mention of it.

President Karzai added: "The events of Sept. 11 serve us well in reminding ourselves that not fighting terrorism head-on can have disastrous consequences for Afghanistan, the region and the world at large." I don't think I'm going out on a limb when I suppose the words "head-on" were aimed squarely at the President's Canadian visitors.

For his part, Mr. Ignatieff appeared even more out of place than Mr. Dion. This is a man who once represented one of the English-speaking world's strongest proponents of muscular liberalism -- or, as Paul Martin put it, the "responsibility to protect." Be it Muslims in Kosovo or Kurds in Iraq, Mr. Ignatieff has rightly supported the need for military intervention to protect the innocent. Yet now that he is a Liberal MP, he appears ready to walk away from those principles.

If Mr. Dion's party does form the next Canadian government, and he makes good on his pledge to turn our forces into NGO bodyguards in Afghanistan's safer regions, it is the Afghan people who will pay the price. As they have in the past, the Taliban will fill the vacuum left by our departing combat troops and exact revenge upon teachers, health workers, women and others who co-operated with Canadian and NATO forces. It's for that reason that NGOs such as the Senlis Council -- as well as no less a multilateral authority than UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon -- support military intervention in that country, and not just development aid.

Mr. Dion's position is apparently that Afghanistan is a worthy cause, but not so worthy that Canadians should continue to fight for it. If this is what passes for principle in the new Liberal party, then it is easy to see why most Canadians don't think much of Mr. Dion's leadership.

Liberals get a boost from Kandahar trip
January 16, 2008 - Chantal Hébert- Toronto Star

OTTAWA - With some help from the Liberal leader himself, Conservative strategists had a field day framing Stéphane Dion as a weakling last year. But now there are signs that he is breaking out of that box. His trip to Afghanistan last weekend was a well-executed move based on a coherent strategy and a message that resonates with a majority of voters.

Liberal strategists seem to have finally figured out that Dion needs to be seen as more than just another opposition leader. Too often over the past year, he has been busy shooting at everything that moves within the Conservative government rather than focusing on a few key issues that will matter in the next election.

As essential as the role of chief critic of the government may be to the parliamentary system, it is largely incompatible with the goal of showcasing oneself as a prime-minister-in-waiting.

Canadians only too easily see Dion in opposition. They need all the help they can get to imagine him in power. In Afghanistan and, to a lesser degree, in Bali at the December climate-change talks, the Liberal leader managed to at least give them a taste of the latter.

One message from the Afghan trip is that the Liberal caucus will not again be split by the issue. Michael Ignatieff and Dion – who were on opposing sides of the decision to extend the deployment to 2009 – are singing from the same hymn book as to its future, as is Bob Rae, the party's foreign affairs critic.

Another message is that the Liberals have largely made their bed on the follow-up to the deployment or at least on their bottom line of not supporting another combat mission. And that almost certainly means leaving Kandahar, a province that is not pacified enough for the kind of Canadian support role Dion has repeatedly sketched out.

If the group presided over by former deputy prime minister John Manley is to bring the Liberals and Conservatives under the same Afghan tent, the recommendation it will make next week will need to amount to a substantial departure from the current mission. Otherwise, the Prime Minister is unlikely to achieve a consensus on the way forward in the current House of Commons. There simply is no opposition support in sight for an extended Canadian combat role in Afghanistan.

On the basis of the Conservative critique of the Dion trip, it seems the government is still hoping to browbeat the Liberal opposition into submission. But not only will that probably fail, it also detracts from attempts to portray Harper as taking a non-partisan road on the issue.

The dismissive tone of secretary of state Helena Guergis – who railed at Dion for needing the protection of the very soldiers he would reassign away from Kandahar – and the gist of a published open letter penned by parliamentary secretary Laurie Hawn – who accused the Liberals of running away from the war on terrorism – indicate that the Conservatives may have forgotten a key lesson from their own recent past.

It is foolhardy to engage an opponent on the basis of his caricature. The Martin Liberals learned that the hard way when they convinced themselves that they had so successfully assassinated Harper's political character in 2004 that he could not rise from the grave to beat them two years later.

Chantal Hébert's national affairs column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

When Iggy met the Taliban

Colin Freeze, January 15, 2008 at 12:18 PM EST

It’s a pithy paragraph, capturing as it does the Taliban’s contempt for international conventions and their predilection for medieval punishments.

The central image is very well crafted, too. One can almost imagine the blood-spattered rope circle, the vacant swinging space, which once held the neck of the fallen ruler who was lynched for being a superpower’s stooge.

 “Three nights before I arrived, the Taliban had dragged him out of the [United Nations] guesthouse, castrated him and beaten him to death and hanged his pulpy body from the stanchion of a traffic warden’s observation tower. As I drove into the city, only the noose, flecked with blood, remained swinging from the tower.”

So wrote Michael Ignatieff in 1997 in an essay for The New Yorker. At the time, he was  a celebrated writer -- one who happened to arrive in Kabul just as the Taliban was taking over and the world’s security situation was about to under go some seismic shifts. It was at this point that the writer became acquainted with what he called the “pitiless logic of jihad.”

The noose had been used to hang a Soviet-backed former Afghan president, Muhammed Najibullah. His final indignities were a major coup for the Taliban, who by then had captured three-quarters of the country, and were well en route to implementing what they regarded as God’s law.

Mr. Ignatieff actually met Taliban fighters face to face during his visit, experiences reflected in the 1997 essay that puts what he did and saw into the context of a big-picture  rumination:  How should the international community deal with the rise of remorseless irregular warriors, who care nothing about human rights nor the conventions of war?

Fast forward a decade later, and the question still hangs.

Mr. Ignatieff was back in Afghanistan this past weekend. This time, as a top Western politician, representing the Official Opposition of a country that has sent over 2,500 soldiers to help fight the Taliban.

Mr. Ignatieff, the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, was travelling with his former political rival, Leader Stephane Dion. Their shared message was that Canada is going to want the soldiers back, sooner rather than later. 

While the U.S. military and NATO allies, including Canada, have beaten back the Taliban over the past six years, the jihadists stubbornly linger. Now, the Liberals are pushing an agenda to ratchet down dangerous Canadian combat missions in the Taliban’s heartland, and crank up the less dangerous work, like development projects.

Because Mr. Ignatieff has hit hawkish notes in the past, he was asked within minutes of landing at Kandahar about whether he supported his party’s calls to start beating swords into ploughshares. “I wouldn’t be on this airfield if I didn’t,” he told reporters who asked whether he supported his party’s position.

While working with Mr. Dion in Kabul, the Liberal second-in-command said they both made sure that President Karzai got the message from a potential Canadian government-in-waiting “The key thing that the president understands, and the ministers understand, is that sooner or later this country is going to stand on its feet,” Mr. Ignatieff said.

For his part, President Karzai was gracious, but seemed unconvinced of the wisdom of the Liberal position. In a statement following the meeting, Mr. Karzai expressed thanks for Canada’s sacrifices, but pointedly added 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.”

Not long after President Karzai’s statement, the Taliban issued a statement of their own. It was called “Martyrdom attack preformed in Capital Kabul city.”

On Monday. gunmen killed eight inside a Kabul hotel. The Islamists claimed the attack was a noteworthy blow against “Western-backed puppet government, as well as foreign embassies and businesses.”

It was only meant as an aside. In a passing remark, Mr. Ignatieff told a group of reporters that he visited Afghanistan a decade ago. He made the remark in the darkness at the Kandahar Air Field, as he deferred to Mr. Dion, who was in the limelight.

The Leader was in front of a TV camera, being interviewed by TV news anchors  in Canada who asked him questions through his earpiece. That left the Deputy Leader to chat informally in the shadows with reporters, but only on “background.”

Still, the mention of past travels to Afghanistan intrigued me so much, I asked Mr. Ignatieff about them when the TV cameras were rolling.  “I’ve seen what the Taliban did to the women of Kabul in 1997, with my own eyes, which is why I feel passionate about what we’re trying to do here,” he said.

Then he added that “I am absolutely convinced the Taliban are not going to win here.”

The travels he was alluding to seemed to distill uneasily into sound bites.  So I had The Globe and Mail library dig up the full text of the March, 24, 1997, New Yorker article, “Unarmed Warriors,” and email it to Kandahar.

It’s a prescient article, centring on the 1990s-era existential struggles of the International Committee of the Red Cross, but still worth a read today.

Read it and you’ll find out the Taliban who attacked the Serena Hotel in Kabul this week had some spiritual ancestors who checked into Kabul’s Intercontinental Hotel back in 1996. That was where Mr. Ignatieff met the Taliban.

Here’s how he recalls the meeting in The New Yorker:

“They were sitting crosslegged, their bearded faces framed by their turbans and were languidly dismembering roses from the hotel gardens or turning over worry beads in their fingers. They had new watches and new shoes.

 “I asked what they were fighting for and they turned to the one who was apparently the most educated of them – a fierce young seminarian with a Western haircut and a long beard. ‘For Islam,’ he said. ‘To stop the fighting among the brothers. And to have an Islamic state.’

“But then, I asked, why are the brothers still killing one another. “ ‘Why are the brothers fighting? The Prophet Muhammad, may his name be blessed, instructed us that when corruption is on the earth one must fight to bring peace.”

It was shortly after that conversation that Mr. Ignatieff witnessed a jihad against booze. He wrote that he watched 1,400 cans of beer and 1,800 bottles of alcohol be put on display in the hotel parking lot. Taliban members charged with the protection of virtue and punishment of vice then smashed all the bottles. 

The essay goes on to describe Mr. Ignatieff working with the ICRC to visit Tajik teenagers jailed by the Taliban. He also saw the radicals string up cassette tapes around trees -- the videos apparently depicted God’s living creatures and the militants felt this was not permissible in Islam.

As Najibullah’s noose swung in the breeze, and the ICRC’s headquarters hid behind a fortress of sandbags, Mr. Ignatieff observed that “war is always at its most unrestrained when religion vests it with holy purpose and the Taliban is perhaps the most militantly religious militia on earth.”

Remarking on the ransacked mosques, hospitals, and schools, he marveled at the complete lack of restraint that exists in most modern wars. To him, Afghanistan’s capital amounted to “mile upon mile of rubble and dust, abandoned and windswept, populated here and there by ragged families eking out their survival inside abandoned truck containers." Having arrived on an international aid flight to the city, he called Kabul both “the Dresden of the post-Cold War conflict” and the “graveyard of the Afghan warriors’ honour.”

Today it’s become almost a hackneyed point to write that Afghanistan is a graveyard of empires. Though in the mid-1990s, back when fewer people could find the country on a map, the reference was were well worth making. Mr. Ignatieff reflected on the Afghans centuries-old reputation for “stubborn independence,” and of being “redoubtable guerillas” who ambushed the enemy rather than fight frontally.

Time after time he said, warlords united against common enemies, only to fight amongst themselves after the enemy fled. “The radicalization of Islam made things worse,” he wrote in the 1997 New Yorker essay. “Instead of bringing the militaries together, religious principle now set them at gun point.”

A deluge of U.S. and Soviet weaponry added into the mix as a legacy of the Cold War only added fuel to the fire.

Mr. Ignatieff pondered how the West is to resolve irresolvable conflict. He wrestled with the limitations of aid programs and non-governmental organizations.

The Red Cross, he pointed out, did good work in Afghanistan, thematically similar to some of the proposals now being espoused by the Liberals.

 “It feeds a large number of people, has rebuilt the shattered limbs of mine victims, visits prisoners on all sides of the conflict, and has taught the mujahideen, versed in the pitiless logic of jihad, the laws of war.”

But unlike the bloodthirst of irregular warriors, NGOs have their limits. “But how do you judge a program a success in a country where a million people have died since 1979?,” Mr. Ignatieff asked. The question, posed in 1997, was rhetorical and remains unanswered.

Kabul closes border over wheat ban

QUETTA, Jan 15: Afghanistan closed its border with Pakistan on Tuesday, stopping all kind of traffic and movement of people.

The Afghan border authorities suddenly closed the Friendship Gate at Chaman and deployed extra army personnel. They said the border would remain closed for an indefinite period.

Afghan border commander at Spin Buldak Abdul Raziq Panjsheri said various cities and towns in southern Afghanistan were facing an acute shortage of flour after wheat and flour supply from Pakistan was stopped. He said the situation would worsen if the ban was not lifted.

“Border with Pakistan at Chaman would remain closed till the decision to ban the supply of wheat and flour is withdrawn,” he said.

Hundreds of trucks and other vehicles carrying various goods, other than wheat and flour, were struck on both sides of the border. Fuel supply to Nato forces was also suspended as dozens of oil tankers were also stopped at Chaman.

Thousands of Pakistani and Afghan businessmen in Vesh and Chaman could not cross the border.

Frontier Corps IG Maj-Gen Saleem Nawaz said the Afghan officials closed the border because the FC had stopped smuggling of wheat and flour and the Pakistan government had also stopped their export through private channels.

“We will not allow smuggling and export of wheat and flour to Afghanistan at any cost,” he said, adding the decision had been taken in view of shortage of wheat and flour in the country.

“Our own people are not getting enough flour due to its smuggling across the border,” Gen Nawaz said, adding that the FC was allowing supply of wheat by the World Food Programme to Afghanistan.

He said the supply of wheat sent by the Pakistan government under its commitment to Kabul was not being stopped.

“The Afghan government has not informed us about the closing of its border,” the IG said. It is learnt that the price of wheat has gone up manifold in southern Afghanistan.

'Kite Runner' Banned in Afghanistan

By JASON STRAZIUSO – KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Afghan government has banned "The Kite Runner" film from theaters and DVD shops, an official said Wednesday, though Afghan shop owners with stalls at U.S. military bases are still selling the movie there.

The Afghan government banned the film more than a month ago because of a rape scene of a young boy and the ethnic tensions that the film highlights, said Din Mohammad Rashed Mubarez, the deputy minister of the Ministry of Information and Culture. Shops selling the movie would be closed, he said.

"It showed the ethnic groups of Afghanistan in a bad light," Mubarez said. "We respect freedom of speech, we support freedom of speech, but unfortunately we have difficulties in Afghan society, and if this film is shown in the cinemas, it is humiliating for one of our ethnic groups."

"The Kite Runner" is based on the 2003 best-selling novel by Afghan-American writer Khaled Hosseini. In the story, the main character witnesses the rape of his ethnic Hazara friend by an ethnic Pashtun. The two groups fought bitterly during the country's 1990s civil war.

Ethnic violence has not been a problem recently, but many Afghans fear any hairpin trigger that could reawaken the infighting.

Paramount Vantage, which released the film, flew four boy actors in the movie out of Afghanistan last month over fears they could be ostracized or subjected to violence. Though the movie was never scheduled for release in Afghanistan, officials worried that pirated DVDs could reach Kabul and some residents might react violently.

Pirated DVDs are a booming business in Afghanistan, and high-quality DVDs of new releases are frequently available the same week the movies are released in theaters in the United States.

"The Kite Runner" does not appear to be for sale in most Afghan DVD shops, but one DVD seller who asked not to be identified for fear of government retribution told The Associated Press he was selling the movie at Camp Eggers, a U.S. military base in Kabul that hosts an outdoor market every Friday.

The shop owner said government authorities had visited his shop and threatened to throw him in jail if he sold the film. However, he said he still sells it inside the closed walls of the military base.

"I'm selling it inside the camps," the seller said. "We don't sell it outside. We're scared."

A soldier at another U.S. base in Kabul, Camp Phoenix, told the AP this week he had bought the movie there.

Lt. Col. David Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman at Camp Eggers, said, "We're not aware that this movie has been prohibited in Afghanistan and we'll look into this."

[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.]