In this bulletin:

• Taliban kills Afghan young man on charge of espionage
• US to deploy 500 mine-resistant vehicles to Afghanistan
• 20 Taliban killed in joint operation
• NATO military commanders and local analysts have expected an upsurge of militancy this year in the post-Taliban nation
• Pakistan kills dozens of militants in Bhutto suspect's den
• The charge made by Robert Gates
• In pursuit of Afghanistan's poppy crackdown
• Czech Republic to send more civilian experts to Afghanistan
• Despite string of local casualties, Quebeckers stand behind Canadian troops
• Dion distorts Afghan reality
• One-On-One: 'Perhaps Something Was Lost In Translation'
• Pakistan arrests teen suspect in Bhutto plot: officials
• NATO hears 'noise before defeat'
• The Girl Gap
• Bridge, irrigation projects launched in Kunar
• UAE diplomat injured in Kabul attack returns
• Sagada mom awaits return of slain daughter from Kabul

Taliban kills Afghan young man on charge of espionage

KABUL, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Taliban insurgents have killed a young man on charges of "spying" for Afghan and foreign troops in Musa Qala district of southern province Helmand, an official said Friday.

    "Abdul Wali, 22, a civilian and seller at a local market with a cart, was found hanged on a tree Friday morning," Mullah Salam, the newly-appointed district chief of Musa Qala, told Xinhua via phone.

    A letter left near the civilian's dead body warned that any others working as spy for Afghan government and foreign troops would be treated in the same way, according to officials.

    The man, married, was kidnapped by the militants Thursday evening on his way home, local Taliban told media, saying there were reports indicating his involvement in spying activities.

    Killings of people on charge of "espionage" have been common in remote Afghan regions, especially the southern provinces where Taliban-led militancy has been active since the Taliban regime fell six years ago.

    Rising militancy-related violence in Afghanistan claimed over 6,000 lives in 2007, the bloodiest year sine 2001.

US to deploy 500 mine-resistant vehicles to Afghanistan

by Daphne Benoit - Sat Jan 19, CHARLESTON, South Carolina (AFP) - The US military plans to ship 500 roadside bomb-resistant vehicles to Afghanistan amid a reinforcement of 3,200 extra US troops to be deployed to fight Taliban militants.

While the mine resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicles remain a top priority for Iraq, where US soldiers face frequent attacks from armor-piercing explosives, more MRAPs will be sent to Afghanistan, said Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

"I think we are going to send more MRAPs to Afghanistan," Gates said Friday as he toured a military factory where every day 50 of those vehicles are equipped with electronic equipment.

But the defense chief emphasized that Iraq, where nearly 4,000 US soldiers have been killed since the 2003 US-led invasion, is still "the first priority."

"IEDs are the tactic of choice of our enemies," he said. "They are cheap and deadly and difficult to detect and they have been the biggest killer of our troops in Iraq."

The V-hulled vehicle "is a proven life saver on the battlefield and provides the best protection against these attacks," Gates told employees of the factory with banners reminding workers that "Your Work Contributes to the War on Terrorism."

Amid criticism that he was slow in sending equipment aimed at improving the security of US troops in Iraq, Gates made MRAPs a priority in 2007 after learning that no marine has ever died inside such vehicles.

Up to 1,200 MRAPs are built every month and 2,225 were delivered as of mid-January, most of them to Iraq, said John Young, the Pentagon's under secretary for acquisition, technology and logistics.

Of those vehicles 1,508 are already being used by US soldiers in Iraq and while 45 of them are in operation in Afghanistan, he said.

But the number of MRAPs is likely to grow in Afghanistan, where 3,200 US reinforcements begin deploying to as early as March for a seven-month mission to help international forces battle a fierce Taliban insurgency.

The US government has ordered 500 RG-31 models from the military contractor General Dynamics. The 11.6-tonne vehicle is the lightest MRAP, whose heaviest model is the 25-tonne "Buffalo."

"It turns out that's the preferred vehicle (RG-31) for Afghanistan because they're a little lighter, a little more maneuverable" for the country's treacherous terrain, Young said.

The Pentagon has ordered 12,000 MRAPs from defense contractors and plans make more acquisitions in March to bring total orders to 15,400 vehicles with a budget of 22.4 billion dollars, Young said.

20 Taliban killed in joint operation

Sat Jan 19, 8:37 AM ET - ASADABAD, Afghanistan (AFP) - More than 20 Taliban rebels were killed and over a dozen wounded in a joint operation between Afghan and Western forces in eastern Afghanistan, officials said.

The Islamic extremists were killed late Friday in the province of Kunar, a troubled region on the Pakistani border, its governor Fazlullah Wahedi said. The rebels had recently crossed the border from Pakistan to launch an attack on Afghan and foreign targets, he said.

"The Afghan National Army and our foreign friends identified their locations and launched a successful operation. Over 20 of them were killed and over 10 were wounded," he said.

An army commander, Captain Adam Khan Mateen, citing military intelligence reports, said some of the fighters were foreigners.

"We've intercepted their radio conversations and have intelligence reports that some of those killed and injured were foreign terrorists," he said. Foreign nationals is usually a reference to Al-Qaeda members fighting with the Taliban.

The Taliban, who were in government from 1996 until being ousted in 2001, are waging an insurgency against the US-backed government in Kabul and tens of thousands of Western troops based in the country. Most of the Western troops are operating under the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, a United Nations-mandated peace-keeping force.

NATO military commanders and local analysts have expected an upsurge of militancy this year in the post-Taliban nation

Making Musa Qala Work

The authorities have a brief window of opportunity to prove they will improve life in this battered town. If they fail, renewed conflict is more than likely.

By Aziz Ahmad Shafe in Helmand and Jean MacKenzie in Kabul (ARR No. 279, 17-Jan-08)

Musa Qala, a dusty town in the north of Helmand province that was recently retaken from the Taleban, attracts the A-list these days. The American ambassador has been there, as have various Afghan ministers and the governor of Helmand.

They all have the same message to deliver - this time round, Musa Qala and the district around it will receive the assistance and money they need to rebuild, as well as the level of security required to keep the insurgents at bay.

“I have come here to Helmand with full hands,” the minister for rural rehabilitation and development, Mohammad Ehsan Zia, told tribal leaders in Lashkar Gah on January 17.

“I have money, lots of money, particularly for Musa Qala. Just ask for as much money as you need, and the ministry’s provincial head will give it to you.”

Zia was scheduled to visit Musa Qala but was prevented from getting there by bad weather. In all, he spent just a few hours in Helmand’s administrative centre Lashgar Gah.

That did not go down too well with his audience. “You spent eight days in Kandahar. Helmand is a wartorn province and you should be here for a month,” complained Helmand’s deputy governor Pir Mohammad Akhundzada. “Instead you arrive at 10 am and leave at 2 pm. This isn’t going to work.”

Such reactions have significant implications. If central government and the international community cannot convince the people of Helmand that help is forthcoming, there is a good chance that the growing Taleban insurgency will gain an even firmer foothold.

“You must help Musa Qala as soon as possible,” said Hajji Zaher, representing the council of the Alizai tribe, a major Pashtun group in the area. “If you do what you did before and ignore this district, then you will lose the people’s trust.”

The international community, too, is trying to woo over a sceptical public.

“The eyes of the world will be on Musa Qala,” said United States ambassador William Wood during a January 13 meeting with Musa Qala’s newly-appointed district governor Mullah Abdul Salaam, according to a Radio Liberty report. “We want the eyes of the world to see success, to see peace, to see reconciliation, to see health, to see education, and to see good governance.”

But a battered and bitter population will need more than fine words to convince them. “May God oppress the infidels as they have oppressed us!” cried Fazel Mohammad, a resident of Musa Qala who fled the fighting and is now living a miserable existence as a refugee. “We had a good life in Musa Qala before, when the Taleban were there.”

Musa Qala has become a symbol of the insurgency in troubled Helmand province, where Taleban and opium poppy have flourished to the detriment of the local population.

The district has changed hands several times in the past 18 months: First the scene of a punishing standoff between the British forces and the insurgents, Musa Qala was all but ceded to the Taleban when the British withdrew in October 2006, under an agreement in which local tribal elders were supposed to keep the peace.

The Taleban made their domination official in February, 2007, and set up a district government. In December, a combined NATO and Afghan operation dislodged the insurgents from their stronghold.

No sooner had the dust settled than the government announced the appointment of a new district governor, Mullah Abdul Salaam.

Abdul Salaam is a controversial and contradictory figure, not least because he used to be a high-ranking Taleban commander who was believed to be quite close to the movement’s leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.

His most recent defection to the government side, accompanied by some 200 of his men, took place some time before the December assault on Musa Qala and was hailed as a great victory for the counterinsurgent effort.

But Abdul Salaam’s allegiance has shifted many times over the past half decade, say observers, and owes more to a complicated web of tribal feuds and personal grievances than to any conversion to democratic values.

Under the Taleban, Abdul Salaam served as governor of Uruzgan province, then moved to Helmand, where he was district governor of Kajaki. He had a reputation for being a harsh leader, but people who remember his time in Kajaki recall that Mullah Omar would not hear a word said against him.

“Mullah Abdul Salaam treated his own people very badly,” said Din Mohammad, a resident of Kajaki. “He especially abused the Hassanzai.”

The Hassanzai are one of the three major branches of the Alizai tribe, which largely controls northern Helmand. Abdul Salaam is from the Pirzai sub-tribe; the other major branch of the tribe being the Khalozai.

The sub-tribes have historical disputes going back decades, and according to residents, Abdul Salaam used his position to attack his Hassanzai enemies.

One of the Hassanzai, however, Sher Mohammad Akhundzada, became governor of Helmand after the fall of the Taleban regime in late 2001. During Sher Mohammad’s tenure, Abdul Salaam was briefly imprisoned and badly beaten.

Despite this, he left the Taleban and eventually joined the government. He even served as head of Sher Mohammad’s security detail. However, his fellow-tribesmen never forgot the past affront. “They said, ‘this day will pass, our turn will come’,” said Din Mohammad.

According to local sources, when the Taleban re-emerged as a major force in the northern districts of Helmand, Abdul Salaam rejoined them, only to leave again several months later.

In September last year, the Taleban became convinced that Abdul Salaam was spying for the government and decided to eliminate him. Warned of the danger in advance, he managed to escape with the support of tribal elders and his own private militia.

At that point, he found it prudent to join forces with the provincial authorities again. “When he was with the Taleban, Abdul Salaam was a good man,” said local Taleban spokesman Qari Yusuf. “But we decided to punish him because he was a spy. He was playing a double game.”

The Taleban have made no secret of their distaste for those who cooperate with the government. They have assassinated several provincial and district governors, and attempted to kill many more.

Qari Yusuf made it clear that Abdul Salaam is firmly in their sights, “Now he is completely out of the Taleban, and we will treat him just like any other governor.”

Abdul Salaam’s new constituents seem less than impressed by their leader. “I don’t think Mullah Abdul Salaam is going to last long as governor,” said a Musa Qala resident who did not want to be named. “He just wants revenge for what happened to him under Sher Mohammad. He will begin to carry out his acts of cruelty again.”

The residents of Musa Qala are weary of being buffeted by opposing forces, and are nearing the end of their patience. Abdul Salaam, and the government he represents, will have a limited window of opportunity to make good. If they cannot convince the local populace that they are better off with the central authorities than with the Taleban, local support for the insurgency will grow.

Many of those who stayed in Musa Qala during the “liberation” from Taleban control in December are longing for what they already see as the good old days.

“The situation was very good under the Taleban,” said Hajji Abdul Qayum, a Musa Qala shopkeeper. “We could leave our shops open until 10 pm. Now we have to close them as soon as the sun sets.

“I left Musa Qala when the fighting started. The Taleban left as well. When I came back, my shop had been looted. I lost mobile phones worth over 300,000 afghani [6,000 US dollars].”

While he still hoped for peace, Qayum was not pleased with the change in administration. “I was not happy when the Taleban left,” he said. “They treated us well. But I hope that the government will build schools, bridges and power stations, as well as a hospital.”

All this and more has been promised by the current governor of Helmand, Assadullah Wafa, who announced a major aid package for Musa Qala the day after the district centre was cleared of Taleban forces.

But that may not be enough for some residents. “We don’t want schools,” said one man who identified himself only as Mohmad. “We don’t want reconstruction of the roads. The only thing we want is security. When the Taleban start fighting with the government, the only thing that happens is that innocent people are killed. They may lose ten people, but dozens and dozens of civilians die.”

On balance, Mohmad said he preferred the Taleban. “I was happy with the Taleban, because there were no thefts during that period. Everyone was sure about his property. Now we have stealing once again,” he said.

Many people are worried that the last battle around Musa Qala has not yet been fought. Until signs of more lasting stability appear, they plan to maintain a low profile.

“When the Taleban were in charge, the bazaar was full of people. Now it’s empty,” said Mohammad Juma. “One of the reasons is that people aren’t coming in from the districts. In the centre you see Afghan and foreign forces patrolling, but there are Taleban outside the district centre. They patrol at night and warn people not to come in to the centre.”

Another Musa Qala resident, Hajji Naser, was not optimistic that the peace would last.

“I do not think that these forces will stay here for a long time. The Taleban are not a small force. You see, we have forces from 32 different countries, and still the Taleban get stronger by the day. The foreign forces have failed to eliminate them.”

With the withdrawal of the Taleban, Hajji Naser said his problems had only increased. “The moment the military came here, the price of food went sky high,” he said.

Others complain that foreign forces are unable to distinguish Taleban from ordinary residents, and often unfairly target the civilian population.

“The foreigners do not allow us to move around easily,” said Hajji Abdul Razzaq. “If there is a mine or a remote-controlled bomb, they start killing or arresting civilians.”

Noor Mohammad, who was injured in the fighting around Musa Qala, agreed.

“The foreign forces accuse us of being Taleban,” he said. “If they are shot at in a village, they come and bomb everybody. The whole village is not Taleban, and nothing will be improved by bombing.”

The International Security and Assistance Force, ISAF, the NATO-led military contingent that helped the Afghan army mount the Musa Qala operation, insisted that its troops acted with due care for civilians during the assault in December.

Following the fall of Musa Qala, ISAF spokesman Richard Eaton insisted that there had been no civilian casualties at all in the operation. Other sources gave figures ranging from four to 40, but there was no hard evidence on the number of dead.

“We are blamed for supporting the Taleban, but if the foreign forces can’t get rid of them, how can we?” said Noor Mohammad. “I want the government to tell the foreign forces to leave Musa Qala, and just let the Afghan army and police stay. They know our culture, and they know how to treat us.”

There are now several hundred Afghan National Army soldiers stationed in Musa Qala, with a smaller number of police and an undisclosed number of foreign forces. They will be trying to bring the calm needed before reconstruction can begin.

Those who fled the fighting are in a desperate state, often living in makeshift housing during an unusually cold winter.

Helmand, in the south of Afghanistan, is normally quite mild in the winter months, but this year temperatures have dipped well below freezing.

Mohammad Ali 50, left Musa Qala when the fighting began in early December. He and his nine-member family live in one room in the Mukhtar refugee camp near Lashkar Gah. They have no door or windows, and only a tarpaulin for a roof.

“My little son died when the bombing started,” he said. “So we came here. We are afraid that our house in Mazasi district will be bombed and we will all die. We live near the front line between the Taleban and the government forces,” he explained, as his children huddled, shivering, in the corner.

“Recently 250 families have come here from Musa Qala,” he added. “No one is providing any assistance. I go to the bazaar looking for work, which I find once every five days or so.

“We had a good life in Musa Qala. We were happy there. Even if someone left a pile of gold on the road, no one would dare pick it up. Money and property were safe. We did not want anything more than that. Now we will see whether the government can do the same thing.”

Aziz Ahmad Shafe is a journalist based in Helmand. Jean MacKenzie is IWPR’s programme director in Afghanistan.

Pakistan kills dozens of militants in Bhutto suspect's den

Islamabad (AFP) - Pakistani soldiers killed up to 90 Islamist militants near the Afghan border Friday, as the chief of the CIA linked the leader of the extremists in the region to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

The fierce clashes were the latest in a series to rock the lawless Pakistani tribal region of South Waziristan, the stronghold of wanted Islamist warlord Baitullah Mehsud and his Al-Qaeda and Taliban allies.

Militants have stepped up attacks on troops in the region since opposition leader Bhutto was killed last month, underlining US fears Pakistan is spiralling out of control ahead of February 18 elections.

CIA Director Michael Hayden told The Washington Post in an interview published Friday that Al-Qaeda and allies of tribal chief Mehsud were behind her killing at a political rally on December 27.

"This was done by that network around Baitullah Mehsud. We have no reason to question that," Hayden said, echoing assertions by President Pervez Musharraf's government about Bhutto's death.

The CIA chief was quoted as saying there is a "nexus now that probably was always there in latency but is now active: a nexus between Al-Qaeda and various extremist and separatist groups."

The rebels have shown their growing strength in the past week, capturing a Pakistani paramilitary fort in the tribal belt and killing seven soldiers on Wednesday, with another 15 troops still missing.

Soldiers on Friday fought off a "large number" of insurgents who surrounded another fort at Ladha in South Waziristan and attacked it with rockets, the military said in a statement.

"Security forces used artillery, mortars and small-arms fire to engage the miscreants. Reportedly, 50-60 miscreants were killed and (the) rest of them dispersed," it said. There were no casualties among troops, it added.

Separately, in the Chaghmalai area of South Waziristan, militants ambushed a convoy moving from the main town of Wana, prompting a fierce-one hour gunbattle, the statement added.

Between 20 and 30 rebels were killed, while four troops were injured and two army vehicles damaged, it added.

Pakistani helicopter gunships also opened fire on two suspect cars near a third fort in South Waziristan on Thursday, killing a further eight militants, it said.

The growing boldness of the militants in challenging Pakistani troops is set to provoke a bloody showdown in the tribal belt, with pressure on Islamabad to take action against Mehsud.

Musharraf's government issued a purported telephone recording of Mehsud, the day after Bhutto's death, in which he is is said to congratulate one of his followers for her assassination.

But many Pakistanis are sceptical about the tape, and also about the conflicting official accounts of whether she died from a gunshot wound, a suicide blast or a head injury from her car sunroof.

The country has also seen no let-up in a wave of suicide bombings that have killed nearly 900 people in the past year, with an attack on a Shiite mosque in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Thursday leaving 10 people dead.

Echoing Hayden's claims about a "nexus" of extremist groups, Pakistani officials said they believed the Sunni extremist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which has close links to both Mehsud and Al-Qaeda, was behind the Peshawar attack.

"The bomber first fired some shots and then blew himself up. The modus operandi is the hallmark of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and it shows they have plans to stoke up sectarian hatred," a senior security official told AFP.

Pakistan is on high alert ahead of the weekend Muslim festival of Ashura, which is often hit by sectarian violence. Ashura is when Shiites commemorate the death of the Prophet Mohammed's grandson in the seventh century.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has strong links to Osama bin Laden's network and its members have been convicted of involvement in the 2002 murder of US reporter Daniel Pearl and in several attempts to kill Pervez Musharraf.

The charge made by Robert Gates

Friday, January 18, 2008 – In a Los Angeles Times report published Wednesday, U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates said NATO forces involved in a brutal and apparently interminable struggle against Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan "don't know how to do counterinsurgency operations." The assessment has been rejected in North Atlantic Treaty Organization capitals as a bizarre and offensive slur. But could he be right - not with respect to Canada, but with regard to some of our allies?

Mr. Gates now pretends not. He has spent two days slathering praise not only on Canadian soldiers but on the British and Dutch for their "valour and skill in combat," trying to damp down the international furor inspired by his remarks, a furor that can only contribute to public ambivalence over the mission in

NATO countries. The timing is particularly problematic in Canada. A federal panel chaired by John Manley will next week weigh in with recommendations on the future of Canada's military involvement in Afghanistan. Mr. Gates seems particularly concerned to make clear he was not speaking about Canadians.

Yet despite the Pentagon's expansive damage-control operation, Mr. Gates has not come out and apologized for, or withdrawn, his original, frank assessment of the capability of the 11,700-soldier NATO force in the south - and that is telling. Is it possible that he has no reason to?

In his original remarks, Mr. Gates said: "Our guys in the east, under [American Major-General David] 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." The Los Angeles Times story develops this idea, quoting a senior U.S. military veteran of Afghanistan as saying NATO forces are "taking on a Soviet mentality ... They're staying in their bases in the south, they're doing very little patrolling, they're trying to avoid casualties, and they're using air power as a substitute for ground infantry operations, because they have so little ground infantry."

It's not just the U.S. military that has identified a problem. Canadian military historian J. L. Granatstein, in the current issue of a journal published by the Conference of Defence Associations Institute, notes that "Canadian senior officers in off-record discussions have been very critical of the British, astonishing some listeners, and positively scornful of the Dutch who stay close to their fortified camp."

Counterinsurgency operations are designed to protect local populations. If Canada's allies are failing to do that - if they don't want to stray from their bases and are in fact endangering civilians with an over-

reliance on air power - that is a serious problem for the mission in southern Afghanistan and may weigh heavily against its likelihood of success.

It should concern not only Mr. Gates and four-star U.S. Army General Dan K. McNeil, who commands NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. It should concern Canada, too. It might also help explain the U.S. decision to send 3,200 Marines into the south. Mr. Gates's biggest sin might just be indiscretion, for revealing in a newspaper interview tactical concerns that are usually communicated through military channels.

In pursuit of Afghanistan's poppy crackdown

By Alastair Leithead BBC News, Kabul Saturday, 19 January 2008

The small digital display next to the clock on the car dashboard read -4C (24.8F). But then it was 0600 in Kabul, in January.

As the sun slowly started to pour light into the city we headed north out of the bustle of the slushy streets, across the Shomali plain near the big American air base at Bagram, and up towards the snow-capped peaks of the Hindu Kush.

And as the sun gradually turned the white mountain tops shades of red, the thermometer drifted ever downwards -6C, -7C, -8C, before settling on a nice even -11C. It was one of those beautifully clear days with a piercing blue sky.

We passed icing-sugar coated walnut trees, stone houses clinging to the mountain sides, and women clad in burkhas the colour of the sky, climbing upwards, making steep tracks in the snow until they disappeared from sight.

The tops of some vehicles - caught when the blizzards came - could still be seen poking out of the drifts beside the road, as could the triangular signs informing anyone who could make them out, or who cared, that there were dangerous bends in the road ahead.

But Afghans do not let two metre (6ft) snow drifts and a slight chill in the air stop them driving at ridiculous speeds. That is once they have defrosted their diesel.

I would not have thought lighting a fire under the fuel tank was the best way of getting the engine running, but it is a very popular method on the road to Mazar-e-Sharif.

We had put snow chains on the back wheels of our 4x4 and made good progress through the ice and snow. I was a little surprised when amid a beeping of horns and a cloud of powder snow, a coach, packed with people and topped with luggage, skidded past us at a crossroads.

"To be honest the Panshiris are mad," my colleague Mahfouz said in a matter-of-fact sort of way. Here, Mazar-e-Sharif is to the left, the Panshir valley to the right: once the heartland of the mujahideen fighters whom the Russians never managed to tame.

We approached the Salang Tunnel, the gateway to the north. And as a spindrift of snow - like a snake of steam - wriggled left and right across the frozen road ahead of us, the car plunged into the mouth of the tunnel and into an otherworldly smog of darkness and fumes.

The odd broken-down truck emerged from the haze just in time for us to slide past it, and then we emerged out again into the pin-sharp morning as -9C glowed from the dashboard.

The journey was taking us into one of the few Afghan provinces where farmers have been persuaded to stop growing opium poppies. An impressive achievement, mainly down to the relative security, law and order, and the strength and determination of the local governor.

He showed me a glossy guidebook on how he had managed to get rid of the opium poppies. The front cover shows him dressed in a shalwar kameez, smashing down poppies with a stick. Quite a contrast to the Italian-suited politician with handmade Gucci shoes standing in front of me.

He laughed off the suggestion that he himself was involved with the opium smuggling gangs who hide drugs in their trucks and take them to Iran and Central Asia.

But the men we met the next morning told us a different story about corrupt officials. Dodging donkeys and camels heading to market, laden with kindling, we drove first to one house then another. We spent time sipping tea and huddled around metal-drummed "buchari" heaters constantly fed with firewood.

Finally, we reached a mud compound in a village where the bearded drug dealers were quite happy to show us the opium they had got from elsewhere and the cannabis which has filled the financial gap left by the absence of local poppies. Smuggling drugs, it seems, is even bigger business here than growing them.

Back in Mazar-e-Sharif I wandered round a place that is largely at peace past the famous twin-domed shrine, and walked through the crazy mobile phone market, stopped for tea, ate rice and kebabs. Then the phone rang.

A friend in Kabul was in the five-star Serena Hotel, formerly a haven of peace and security in the capital. But a bomb had just gone off, and there was shooting all around her.

Eight people died and more were injured. It was the first attack specifically targeting international aid workers and civilians in Afghanistan. I rushed back to Kabul the next day to report on the story.

What a different landscape it was, emerging from the otherworldliness of the Salang tunnel and down into a changed city. An ever more paranoid place where Westerners are killed for being Western, and the many beautiful things about this country are forgotten.

From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday ,19 January, 2008 at 1130 GMT on BBC Radio 4.

Czech Republic to send more civilian experts to Afghanistan

PRAGUE, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- The Czech Republic will send some ten civilian experts on agriculture, construction and geology to join the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) for the development of the Afghan province of Logar, the Czech Foreign Ministry said on Friday.

The Foreign Ministry said Czechs were to follow up U.S. development projects in Logar, the Czech news agency CTK reported. After Lithuania and Hungary, the Czech Republic has become the third NATO newcomer with its own PRT.

Czech soldiers have acquired a number of light personnel armored carriers for the mission in Logar. Americans have lent 26 Humvees to the Czech military, some of which are to be used in the area. At present, experts from both countries are adapting them at the Afghan base in Bagram.

"Given the number of experts and scope of its own elaborate development strategy, it will be the PRT with the biggest civilian part in Afghanistan in general," the report said.

The Czech Republic plans to widen its military presence in Afghanistan this year. A total of 415 troops could be deployed in Afghanistan this year.

At the beginning of March, a separate Czech Provincial Reconstruction team will operate in the central Logar province, comprising 180 soldiers and civil specialists. Along with Logar, Czechs are still to run a field hospital in capital Kabul.

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

Despite string of local casualties, Quebeckers stand behind Canadian troops

INGRID PERITZ - From Thursday's Globe and Mail January 17, 2008

MONTREAL — The soldiers returning in flag-draped caskets have names like Longtin, Lévesque, Dion and now Renaud. Since CFB Valcartier's troops started shipping out to Afghanistan last summer, nine men from Quebec have paid with their lives.

Each casualty has left local communities grieving and spawned strong coverage in the Quebec media. Yet the death toll has not significantly altered public opinion in the province.

Before troops from Valcartier deployed, some expected a rising death count to cause support for the Afghan mission in Canada's most pacifist-minded province to collapse.

Yet as the troops' tour winds down, the death toll has neither inflamed anti-war passions nor sparked a burst of support-the-troops fervour.

A Strategic Counsel poll for The Globe and Mail/CTV News this week showed opposition to the Canadian mission in Afghanistan remains strongest in Quebec. It's leavened with pride, however: At 81-per-cent support, Quebeckers are also most likely to believe Canadian troops are doing a good job.

"The mission is the least popular in Quebec but the troops are the most popular," said Peter Donolo, a partner with the Strategic Counsel.

Observers say the strong visibility of high-ranking francophone military staff, such as Brigadier-General Guy Laroche, a regular presence on television newscasts, has had an impact on shaping public opinion in Quebec.

"The key is having French-Canadian leadership," a crucial difference with Canada's approach during the First and Second World Wars, said Roch Legault, a professor of Canadian military history at the Royal Military College in Kingston.

"Now that the tour is winding down, francophone Quebeckers will be able to say, 'It's us over there working very hard, and dying. Our blood was spilled like everyone else's," Prof. Legault said. "We've done our part."

Polling inside Quebec also shows support for the mission tends to be weakest in Montreal and strongest in communities with a military presence, such as Quebec City and the Saguenay-Lac St. Jean region, home to the Bagotville air force base and Trooper Richard Renaud, the latest casualty.

Major Michael Boire, an assistant professor at the Kingston Royal Military College and an officer at Valcartier, says recruitment levels have be high in the strong-willed and independent-minded region known as the Kingdom of the Saguenay.

"Secure jobs are hard to find up there, and young men and women see the armed forces as a way to get out of town and to see the world. Young Renaud fit in with that very well."

The presence of Québécois troops in Afghanistan has done little to change support in the province for the war, even after several deaths.

Do Canadians support sending troops to Afghanistan?

SOURCE: THE STRATEGIC COUNSEL

Dion distorts Afghan reality

Posted By Den Tandt, Michael – Sun Times

When people talk about Stephane Dion's difficulties they tend to talk about his personal style. But what if there's something more fundamental at work?

What if Dion's failure to catch on, especially in Ontario, relates directly to the mush, nonsense and outright falsehoods that he continues to perpetuate about the Afghan mission?

Consider the latest Liberal position paper on Afghanistan, unveiled in December. Since then Dion and his deputy, Michael Ignatieff, have dropped into Kandahar for a fact-finding mission. But neither man allowed the facts on the ground to interfere with their preferred story line.

As far as these two are concerned, this remains a "war-fighting" or "combat" mission. Their job, as they see it, is to help our misguided military reshape this into an entirely more peaceful operation, in which soldiers do not "proactively" seek out and engage enemy fighters.

This habit of "proactive" action, the Liberal brain trust says, is what makes the Afghan mission distastefully combative, as opposed to peaceful and supportive and righteous. Let's parse this notion for a moment.

Most of our casualties in Kandahar have been suffered in IED attacks. A convoy of LAV-III armoured troop carriers rolls down a dirt road, en route to or from a forward operating base or to the Provincial Reconstruction Team base in Kandahar City. It might be a resupply mission; it might be a convoy to an orphanage or a school; it might be a transport of aid workers, journalists, politicians or other civilians; or it might be simply to show a security presence on the roads.

There are only so many roads in Kandahar Province. The insurgents watch these routes and they know the ones our troops use. During the night, they booby-trap them with improvised explosive devices. These are sometimes made of reclaimed Soviet artillery shells, wired together. Or they use more conventional modern explosives, shipped in from Pakistan. The IEDs pack enormous explosive punch. They're rigged with wireless detonators and can be set off using a cellphone signal.

Here's the point: The bulk of our military casualties in Kandahar are not taken in so-called 'combat' operations. There are combat operations under way, to be sure: These are undertaken by a battle-group contingent, usually about 700 strong, within the larger Canadian force. These soldiers go "outside the wire" on missions to find, kill or disrupt insurgents. But they do this primarily for one reason - to prevent them from importing, building and setting off lethal IEDs on Kandahar roadways - because the roadways are the primary means of establishing security and advancing the reconstruction.

In other words, the 'combat' operations so distasteful to Dion and Ignatieff are defensive, from a tactical point of view. They are intended to disrupt insurgents before they kill our soldiers and aid workers, and their Afghan National Police and Afghan National Army allies. The overwhelming focus of all Canada's military efforts in Afghanistan is peace and security support. This has been the case for many months now. It's not a secret.

Prevent our troops from "proactively" seeking out and destroying insurgents? That's another way of saying, stop defending the troops, aid workers and diplomats engaged in training and reconstruction. Stop using your intelligence network to find out where the insurgents are, and stop trying to put them out of business. Instead, roll down the road in your convoy and let them blow you up. Sound insane? It is. But it follows logically from the current Liberal position on Afghanistan. It is worse than irresponsible, it is willfully ignorant. No military in the world would implement such a policy, because to do so would be suicidal. In Kandahar, without force protection, the only option is to stop rebuilding and leave.

Or - and perhaps this is the true Liberal view - we should look to the Americans to provide the muscle? Here's the trouble with that approach: Canadian soldiers are actually better at this than Americans. The American military too often uses blunt force, including air strikes, to impose security. Air strikes, the Liberals acknowledge, are a dangerously scattershot weapon in a counter-insurgency campaign. Most often they simply turn the local people against you.

Canadian soldiers are doing an extraordinary job in Afghanistan under extremely dangerous conditions. The political class in this country owes them a degree of unanimity. If Dion wants to be considered a leader in waiting, he should speak like a leader. That means, very simply, telling the truth.

Michael Den Tandt is editor of the Sun Times.

One-On-One: 'Perhaps Something Was Lost In Translation'

CBC's Peter Mansbridge: I want to just remind viewers of your remarks, and I want to understand exactly what you meant by this. Perhaps something was lost in translation. I think it was originally in French, but the English translation has been: "If [Pakistani leaders] are incapable of doing it themselves, it is something that we could envision with NATO forces; how to help Pakistan help us bring peace to Afghanistan." What are you saying here? Canadian troops, NATO forces should go into Afghanistan?

Liberal Leader Stephane Dion: Obviously not. It was diplomatic intervention with an effort that was to be more concerted between Canada and our NATO allies.

Mansbridge: But you know, I mean, with respect, we've been doing that for six years.

Dion: I don't have the magic solution. I'm just telling you...

Mansbridge: No, but on the diplomatic front, we have actually done that. Canadian ministers have been to Pakistan, American ministers. Americans are pouring billions of dollars into Pakistan. General Hillier has been there.

Dion: We should never miss an opportunity to make this point. Diplomatic effort very actively in Pakistan, because it's part of the problem. Part of what we are doing in the south of Afghanistan, in the province of Kandahar is nullified by the fact that the insurgents, they cross the border, they ignore the border. And when we provide security in an area, they may come back at any time from Pakistan.

Mansbridge: Everybody gets the problem, but what's the solution? Because talk has not seemed to have worked.

Dion: Well, I have no other solution than to say that we need to be very assertive in our diplomatic effort and pressure on Pakistan.

Mansbridge: But like what? How are we assertive? What do we say? What are we going to do if they don't do it? What does "being assertive" mean?

Dion: I have no solution, no magic solution to offer on that and nobody has. The only thing is if you compare Pakistan with Afghanistan, Pakistan has one of the most powerful armies in the world, the sixth or the seventh. They should be able to go in these areas and to do more. The Government of Afghanistan told us that very clearly. Their view is that the terrorist centres, training centres in Pakistan are known, we know where they are located it's what they are saying and that it should not be impossible for the Government of Pakistan to do much more to help us.

Mansbridge: They have been saying that, though, for ages. I'm sure Hamid Karzai said to you what he said to others there. He said that to me in his office, that they know where Mullah Omar is. They know the house he is staying in. I mean, do you really believe that they know that? And if they did know that, that they couldn't do something about it?

Dion: Well, I'm just saying that if, one thing, that there are easy solutions in Afghanistan, it's not the case. And one of the difficulties that explains why the province of Kandahar is more dangerous than the others is this wide open border with Pakistan.

Pakistan arrests teen suspect in Bhutto plot: officials

January 19, 2008 - ISLAMABAD (AFP) — Pakistani police have arrested a teenager who was allegedly part of a five-man squad in the plot to kill opposition leader Benazir Bhutto last month, security officials said.

The suspect, 15-year-old Aitezaz Shah, was arrested from the northwestern city of Dera Ismail Khan on Friday while planning a suicide bombing over the Muslim festival of Ashura, they said on condition of anonymity.

Shah told interrogators he had been part of a back-up team of three bombers who were tasked with killing former premier Bhutto if the original December 27 attack by two men had failed, the officials added.

Interior ministry spokesman Iqbal Cheema did not confirm the arrest. "It is not in my knowledge so far," Cheema told AFP.

Bhutto was assassinated in a gun and suicide bomb attack at an election rally in Rawalpindi. Pakistan's government and the CIA have blamed Al-Qaeda and tribal warlord Baitullah Mehsud for her killing.

Shah, originally from the southern city of Karachi, went for training last year at a camp run by one of Mehsud's commanders in the tribal border region of Waziristan, the security officials quoted him as telling investigators.

He allegedly said the attackers in the team that killed Bhutto were called Bilal and Ikramullah -- the same names mentioned in an alleged telephone conversation between Mehsud and another militant the day after Bhutto's death. The tape was released the day after her killing by Pakistan's interior ministry.

Shah's whereabouts at the time of the attack were not immediately clear. One security official said he was in Rawalpindi, the city where Bhutto was killed, while another said he was in the tribal area of Waziristan.

"The suspect was not in Rawalpindi at the time of attack on Bhutto. The boy told interrogators that he was in South Waziristan," a top police official quoted him as telling the interrogators.

One of the officials said Shah was arrested during a security check when he arrived in Dera Ismail Khan by taxi from the North Waziristan tribal area, which borders Afghanistan.

He allegedly told officials that he came to collect a suicide jacket for an attack at the US consulate in Karachi but the programme was changed because of tight security for Ashura, which takes place on Sunday.

Instead he was ordered to launch an attack during an Ashura procession by the minority Shiite sect on Sunday, the officials said.

A spokesman for Taliban militants in Pakistan rejected the allegations, saying that the boy arrested in Dera Ismail Khan had no link with the group.

"We are not involved in the attack and this information is meant to defame us," the spokesman Mohammad Omar said in telephone calls to reporters in Peshawar.

"He is not our man and we know nothing about him" Omar said adding that its purpose was to give credence to a CIA report about involvement of Baitullah Mehsud in Bhutto's assassination.

NATO hears 'noise before defeat'

By M K Bhadrakumar - Asia Times Online / January 19, 2008

When the blame-game begins in an indeterminate war, it is time to sit up and take note. US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' interview with the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday rings alarm bells.

There has been no effort to claim he was misquoted. In fact, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell confirmed the chief was "not backing off his fundamental criticism that NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] needs to do a better job in training for counter-insurgency".

Morrell made a little concession, though, that Gates meant no offence to any particular NATO country. NATO secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer responded he had the "greatest respect" for NATO forces fighting in southern Afghanistan. He advised Washington, "Combating insurgency is a complex thing, and not always easy." At The Hague, the American ambassador was summoned and asked to "clarify". Dutch Defense Minister Van Middlekoop publicly regretted, "This is not the Robert Gates we have come to know." Other European politicians expressed surprise, indignation.

In NATO history there have been few such laundering of dirty linen in public view. Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and Taliban head Mullah Omar have achieved something that Soviet leaders Josef Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev couldn't.

Washington mocks NATO

Gates' criticism was pinpointed - NATO was a lemon. He said: "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 counter-insurgency operations ... Most of the European forces, NATO forces, are not trained in counter-insurgency; they were trained for the Fulda Gap [NATO's Cold War battle lines in Germany]."

Gates was giving vent to pent-up frustrations. Finally, Afghanistan is threatening to be a blemish on his successfully nurtured record in public service. On December 11, at the US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Afghanistan, Gates admitted somberly, "If I had to sum up the current situation in Afghanistan, I would say there is reason for optimism, but tempered by caution."

Gates warned the NATO mission "has exposed real limitations in the way the alliance is, or organized, operated and equipped. I believe the problem arises in a large part due to the way various allies view the very nature of the alliance in the 21st century, where in a post-Cold War environment, we have to be ready to operate in distant locations against insurgencies and terrorist networks." He solicited help from US Congressmen for "pressuring" the NATO capitals "to do the difficult work of persuading their own citizens [in Europe] of the need to step up to this challenge."

Gates again spoke forcefully at the meeting of NATO defense ministers in Edinburgh, Scotland, on December 14. But "no one at the table stood up and said: 'I agree with that'," he later lamented.

This week, the Pentagon underscored its displeasure by making a deployment of 3,200 Marine Corps to southern Afghanistan, bringing the US presence to about 30,000 troops. The NATO force in Afghanistan numbers about 40,000, of which 14,000 are Americans. The Washington Post described the US move as one to "fill a void created in part by NATO's inability to fight the insurgency adequately, a job the allies never signed up to do". The majority of the marines will be directly engaged in fighting in the south alongside British, Australian, Dutch and Canadian troops, who have taken record casualties during the past year.

Of course, shadowboxing is to be expected in the run-up to the NATO summit meeting in Bucharest, Romania, in April, where Afghanistan will be a key agenda item. But that cannot explain away the unusual public discord. The reluctance on the part of major NATO powers to commit more troops to Afghanistan arises as much out of profound disagreement with Washington over the objectives of the war and the fashion in which the US spearheads the war as in deference to growing anti-war sentiment in Europe.

A general hits out

Gates' criticism draws heavily from a recent study authored by the US general who commanded the forces in Afghanistan from October 2003 until May 2005, Lieutenant General David W Barno, in the prestigious journal Military Review. Barno is an influential voice in the US defense community. He chose to begin his paper devoted to the counter-insurgency strategy in Afghanistan, citing lines by ancient Chinese general Sun Tzu, "Strategy without tactics is the slowest road to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat."

Barno claimed the US counter-insurgency strategy during his period produced "positive and dramatic" results. He gave the "center of gravity" in his strategy to the Afghan people and not the "enemy". He kept in view the Afghan people's "immense enmity to foreign forces" and deduced that eschewing the "Soviet attempt at omnipresence" in Afghanistan, only through a "light footprint approach" instead, could the war be successfully fought.

Barno wrote that Afghan people's tolerance for a foreign presence was "a bag of capital [that was] finite and had to be spent slowly and frugally" and, therefore, under his charge US forces took great care to avoid Afghan casualties, detainee abuse, or transgressions in observance of respect to tribal leaders or causing offence to traditional Afghan culture.

Second, Barno outlined that he and the then-US ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, bonded as a team and they had a "unity of purpose" in ensuring perfect interagency and international-level coordination. According to Barno, the slide began in mid-2005 after he and Khalilzad were reassigned. Washington then decided to publicly announce that NATO was assuming responsibility for the war and that the US was making a token withdrawal of 2,500 troops.

"Unsurprisingly, this was widely viewed in the region as the first signal that the United States was 'moving for the exits', thus reinforcing long-held doubts about the prospects of sustained American commitment. In my judgement, these public moves have served more than any other US actions since 2001 [the fall of the Taliban] to alter the calculus of both our friends and our adversaries across the region - and not in our favor."

Barno implied NATO messed up the top-notch command structure he created. The result is, "With the advent of NATO military leadership, there is today no single comprehensive strategy to guide the US, NATO, or international effort." Consequently, he says, the unity of purpose - both interagency and international - has suffered and unity of command is fragmented, and tactics have "seemingly reverted to earlier practices such as the aggressive use of airpower".

Barno makes some chilling conclusions. First, he says the "bag of capital" representing the tolerance of Afghan people for foreign forces is diminishing. Second, NATO narrowly focuses on the "20% military dimension" of the war, while ignoring the 80% comprising non-military components. Third, the "center of gravity" of the war is no longer the Afghan people but the "enemy". Fourth, President Hamid Karzai's government is ineffectual "under growing pressure from powerful interests within his administration". Fifth, corruption, crime, poverty and a burgeoning narcotics trade have eroded public confidence in Karzai. Finally, "NATO, the designated heir to an originally popular international effort, is threatened by the prospects of mounting disaffection among the Afghan people."

What can be achieved?

Somewhere along the line, mud-slinging had to happen. Yet, almost everything Barno wrote could be true. Barno drew a handsome self-portrait. He whitewashes a controversial phase of the war. NATO inherited a dysfunctional war. By end-2006, it was no longer a winnable war. When the alliance's defense ministers gathered in the Dutch seaside resort of Noordwijk last November to commemorate the first anniversary of NATO in Afghanistan, the crisis atmosphere was palpable.

There were no offers of major reinforcements by the member countries. The Dutch indicated they were close to withdrawing their 1,600-strong contingent from Uruzgan province in southern Afghanistan the coming autumn. The likely knock-on effect of the Dutch decision on countries such as Canada worried everyone present at the meeting. Germany, France, Italy and Spain insisted they were constrained by their national caveats guiding deployment of troops on non-combat roles.

The result has been a sort of "Balkanization" of Afghanistan, as Daan Everts, outgoing civilian representative of the NATO secretary general in Kabul, admitted to al-Jazeera in a recent interview. "You have a little 'German Afghanistan' in the north, an 'Italian Afghanistan' in the west, 'Dutch Afghanistan' in Uruzgan and a 'Canadian Afghanistan' in Kandahar and so on. Geographically we [NATO] have been fractured, but also sectorally with equal ineffectiveness - like giving the justice sector totally to the Italians, counter-narcotics to the British, the police to Germans, anti-terrorism to the Americans."

Everts was unusually frank for a high-ranking NATO official. He said Afghan reconstruction has been a "bonanza for consultants, serious consultants, half-baked consultants, marginal consultants and mailbox consultants"; there has been an outflow of resources from Afghanistan of up to 40% of aid given to the country. "So there is this aid industry that descends on a poor nation and runs away with part of the loot." He called for a government in Kabul that is "more serious about problems" such as corruption, drug-trafficking and law-enforcement.

In such a mess, Lord (Paddy) Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon is due to arrive in Kabul shortly as the United Nations' super envoy. Is a British colonial-style governor the right answer? Lord Ashdown - former Royal Marine commando and special forces officer, Liberal Democrat leader, member of Parliament, the European Union's high representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina during 2002-2006 - is a forceful personality, and was hugely successful in restoring order to the Balkan country torn apart by violence and ethnic cleansing.

But Afghanistan is notoriously untamed in history. Ashdown has sought to combine Everts' former responsibilities with those of Tom Koenigs, the low-profile German diplomat who served as the UN's special representative in Afghanistan. He hopes to be the main point of contact between Karzai's government and the international forces, the European Union policing mission and the UN contingent, apart from coordinating Afghan reconstruction efforts.

That is much too much for anyone to take on. But Ashdown is gifted. Even then, the chances are the blame-game is going to accelerate. The Afghans are unlikely to accept a British viceroy - even if he wears a blue beret. Karzai's government resents being bypassed. While in theory a "unity of purpose" and a formal link between the Afghan government and among NATO and the EU and the UN is desirable, there are problems. Some UN member countries do not want a direct relationship with NATO (or vice versa). NATO will chaff at subordination to the UN. There is no such thing as a unified EU voice. Least of all, Washington simply doesn't know how to be self-effacing.

Reconciliation with the Taliban

But then, Ashdown's real mission lies elsewhere, in addressing the core issue: What do we do with the Taliban? No doubt, the Taliban's exclusion from the Bonn conference seven years ago proved to be a horrible mistake. That was also how the Afghan and Pakistan problem came to be joined at the hips.

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf made a valid point in his interview with the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel this week when he said al-Qaeda isn't the real problem that faces Pakistan. "I don't deny the fact that al-Qaeda is operating here [Pakistan]. They are carrying out terrorism in the tribal areas; they are the masterminds behind these suicide bombings. While all of this is true, one thing is for sure: the fanatics can never take over Pakistan. This is not possible. They are militarily not so strong they can defeat our army, with its 500,000 soldiers, nor politically - and they do not stand a chance of winning the elections. They are much too weak for that," Musharraf said.

The heart of the matter is Pashtun alienation. The Taliban represent Pashtun aspirations. As long as Pashtuns are denied their historical role in Kabul, Afghanistan cannot be stabilized and Pakistan will remain in turmoil. Musharraf said, "There should be a change of strategy right away. You [NATO] should make political overtures to win the Pashtuns over."

This may also be the raison d'etre of UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon's intriguing choice of a Briton as his new special representative. Conceivably, the inscrutable Ban has been told by Washington that Ashdown is just the right man to walk on an upcoming secretive bridge, which will intricately connect New York, Washington, London, Riyadh, Islamabad and Kabul.

The point is, Britain grasps the Pashtun problem. Britain realizes that the induction of US special forces into the Pakistani tribal areas, or the custodianship of Pakistan's nuclear stockpile, or an al-Qaeda takeover in Pakistan isn't quite the issue today.

That is why Musharraf's four-day visit to London starting on January 25 assumes critical importance. British mediation in Pakistani politics may already be working. Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif has begun calibrating his stance.

Reconciliation between Musharraf and the Sharif brothers is in the cards. Shahbaz Sharif will be on call in London during Musharraf's stay there. If the reconciliation - thanks to British (and Saudi) mediation - leads to the formation of a national government in Pakistan, a leadership role for Nawaz Sharif may ensue and Pakistani politics may gain traction. Nawaz Sharif is the only politician today with the credentials and stature to mount the dangerous platform of Islamist nationalism and reach out to the Taliban and its followers inside Pakistan. The Sharif brothers could be invaluable allies for the Pakistani military - and for NATO - at this juncture.

Barno sidesteps the ground realities. The US strategy's real failure happened, in fact, in the 2003-2005 period when he was in charge of the war. Of course, the failure was not at the military level, but at the political and diplomatic level. That was a crucial phase when the window of opportunity was still open for a course correction over the Taliban's exclusion from the Afghan political process. The Taliban should have been invited to come in from the cold and join an intra-Afghan dialogue and reconciliation. The extreme emotions of 2001 had by then begun to ebb away.

On the contrary, Khalilzad's diplomatic brief was that the US presidential election of 2004 was the priority for the White House. The "war on terror" in Afghanistan was a milch cow in US domestic politics. Presidential advisor Karl Rove and Vice President Dick Cheney shrewdly calculated that an enemy in the Hindu Kush was useful for the Republican Party campaign, while resonance of the booming guns in Afghanistan would be a good backdrop for election rhetoric against a decorated war veteran like John Kerry.

And, showcasing of Karzai in Kabul's presidential palace helped display Afghanistan as a success story. A victorious Karzai indeed landed in the US to a hero's welcome from George W Bush on election eve. Bush went on to win a second term, but the Afghan war was lost. The slide began by mid-2005 as the embittered Taliban began regrouping. As the year progressed, as Everts and many others pointed out, the Iraq war "sucked the oxygen away from Afghanistan". How could Gates possibly admit all that? He would rather NATO take the blame. But then, it is a sideshow in actuality.

Britain is now called on to salvage the Afghan war. NATO at best will be a sleeping partner. The Hindu Kush is all set to be Lord Ashdown's theater. He represents the UN; the White House reposes confidence in him; he takes counseling and directions from London, which coordinates with Riyadh and Islamabad - and then, gingerly, he sets out, searching for the Taliban. Incidentally, among his many attributes, Lord Ashdown is a gifted polyglot who speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese and other languages. Maybe he already speaks Pashto.

M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for over 29 years, with postings including India's ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001).

The Girl Gap

Time Magazine January 17, 2008 - By Aryn Baker / Karokh District, Herat

Nothing gives principal Suraya Sarwary more pleasure than the sound of her second-grade girls reciting a new lesson out loud. Six years ago, that sound could have gotten her executed. The Taliban had outlawed education for girls, but a few brave teachers taught them in secret. Sarwary, now the principal of Karokh District Girls High School in Afghanistan's Herat province, recalls gathering students furtively in her home and imparting lessons in whispers for fear that her neighbors might report her to the Taliban.

These days the biggest risk posed by the girls' enthusiastic recitation is that it may drown out the math lesson next door. Basira, a thin 8-year-old whose obligatory white head scarf is actually a cotton dish towel printed with Korean characters, stands before the class. She is learning to read today's lesson, which the teacher has written out on a makeshift blackboard propped up on a wobbly easel. "A vegetable should be washed before it is eaten," she reads aloud as she slowly traces each word with her fingertip. Her teacher beams, and her classmates applaud.

Karokh District Girls High School is one of the most successful in Herat. And in terms of girls' education, Herat is the most successful province in Afghanistan. Even so, conditions are far from ideal. Sarwary's tiny school doesn't have enough classrooms: second-graders huddle in a ragged tent in the courtyard, where a torn strip of khaki canvas hangs between rusting metal struts, blocking many of the girls' view of the blackboard. The fierce desert wind howls through the holes and threatens to tear the class's one textbook from the students' hands as they pass it around for reading lessons. There is no playground or running water. The toilet, a pit latrine located at the far corner of the school compound, serves 1,500 students. Only two of the 23 female teachers have graduated from high school. Half the second-grade students, ranging in age from 7 to 12, can read; the rest just recite from memory. The freedom to study is a blessing, but Sarwary knows it is not nearly enough. "Our students have talent and a passion for learning I've never seen before," says the slim, stylish 33-year-old. "But we still have problems."

The parlous status of girls' education belies one of the greatest hopes raised when the Taliban was toppled by U.S.-led forces in 2001: the liberation of Afghanistan's women. Yes, they can now vote, they have a quarter of the seats in parliament, and they are legally allowed to find jobs outside the home. Foreign donors and nongovernmental organizations have expended a great deal of energy and capital on building women's centers and conducting gender-awareness workshops. But more than six years since the fall of the Taliban, fewer than 30% of eligible girls are enrolled in schools, and the infrastructure is so poor that only a tiny fraction are likely to get the education they need to enjoy the fruits of emancipation.

The stakes for Afghan society are high. Every social and economic index shows that countries with a higher percentage of women with a high school education also have better overall health, a more functional democracy and increased economic performance. There's another payoff that is especially important to Afghanistan: educated women are a strong bulwark against the extremism that still plagues Afghanistan, underscored by the Jan. 14 bombing of a luxury hotel in Kabul, which killed eight. "Education is the factory that turns animals into human beings," says Ghulam Hazrat Tanha, Herat's director of education. "If women are educated, that means their children will be too. If the people of the world want to solve the hard problems in Afghanistan--kidnapping, beheadings, crime and even al-Qaeda--they should invest in [our] education."

For girls in much of the country, education remains a dream no more attainable now than it was under the Taliban. In the past six years, 3,500 new schools have been built across the country, but fewer than half of them have buildings. Most are in tents, in the shade of trees or wherever open space can be made available. This has a direct bearing on the number of girls enrolled: most Afghan families won't allow their daughters to be where they may be seen by men. "Girls in this society have certain needs," says Education Minister Hanif Atmar. "They cannot be in a tented school or in an open space with no sanitation facilities, so they simply do not go." Competing demands for government money and more obvious problems such as a raging insurgency, poppy cultivation and widespread corruption leave education to nibble from the crumbs. Atmar figures he needs $2.5 billion for the next five years just to cover basic improvements such as training teachers, printing textbooks and building 73,000 classrooms--even tented ones--that might just accommodate all Afghan schoolkids if they study in shifts.

But a five-year plan is a luxury. Atmar can't find enough money for his most pressing needs. He got only $282 million this year, $216 million short of his bare-bones operating budget. Of the 40,000 teachers the Education Ministry said were necessary to meet the demand for schooling this year, the central government has been able to budget for only 10,000.

The shortage of university-educated instructors means that the higher grades suffer the most. Najeeba Behbood, 26, an 11th-grader at Karokh High School, was lucky to land in a chemistry class taught by a former college professor. Even then, the course was pure theory: with no laboratory, the teacher had to make rough drawings on the blackboard to demonstrate the use of cathodes and anodes in producing electricity. But Behbood is happy to be in the class at all--it was a struggle persuading her parents to permit her to attend, because the professor was male.

The Taliban policy of keeping girls out of school was based on a very strong cultural prohibition against having women mix with unrelated men. Those traditions still define large swaths of Afghan society--even in urban areas like Kabul. "My family says that they would rather I be illiterate than be taught by a man," says Yasamin Rezzaie, 18, who is learning dressmaking at a women's center in Kabul. Her parents refused to let her go to her neighborhood school because some of the teachers are male. Both her parents are illiterate, and they don't see the need for her to learn to read when the risk of meeting unrelated men is so high.

"In Afghan culture, women are seen as the repository of family honor, and the education of girls--whether in terms of the design of school buildings or in the way in which classes are conducted--needs to reflect that reality," says Matt Waldman, the Afghan policy adviser for Oxfam, which released a damning report in 2006 on the state of education in Afghanistan. It shows that the ratio of boys to girls in primary school is roughly 2 to 1, but by the time girls enter secondary school (and puberty), the ratio drops to four boys for every girl. In more than 80% of rural districts, there are no girls in secondary school at all. Overall, only 10% of girls in school actually obtain a diploma.

The Oxfam report identifies another critical factor holding back girls' education: only 28% of the country's accredited teachers are women. "It is absolutely crucial to increase the number of female teachers if you want to see more girls in school," says Waldman.

But if there are so few girls completing their education, how do you grow the next generation of female teachers? The first answer, says Atmar, is to remove all other impediments to girls' going to school. That means constructing new buildings so classes aren't held in the open. In the meantime, unconventional inducements can help. In a successful program in some rural areas, girls are given a free ration of oil and flour at the end of every month. This encourages their poor families to keep sending them to school. Increasing teachers' salaries would convince more parents that their daughters should take up the profession. Teachers with high school diplomas earn $50 to $75 a month, a tiny return on investment for families whose daughters could be spending those 12 years at home weaving carpets, tending the fields or taking care of the household.

While struggling to build the new infrastructure, educators must also contend with Afghanistan's old demons: the Taliban is making a comeback in several provinces and reimposing its rules. In little over a year, 130 schools have been burned, 105 students and teachers killed and 307 schools closed down because of security concerns. Many of those schools were for girls, and most of them were in the southern provinces, where a Taliban-driven insurgency has made it nearly impossible to secure the schools. But the violence is creeping closer to the capital. In June 2007, two gunmen on a motorcycle shot dead three female students coming out of high school in the central province of Logar, a 1 1⁄2-hour drive from Kabul.

But if Afghanistan has any reason for hope, it is the sheer determination of the girls who do have a chance to go to school. Lida Ahmadyar, 12, whose sister was one of the girls killed in the Logar shooting, has started going back to school. Every day she walks past the spot where her sister died, but she clings to her dream of becoming a doctor. "I am afraid," she says. "But I like school because I am learning something, and that will make me important. With education, I can save my country." If enough of Afghanistan's girls get the chance, they may do just that.

with reporting by Ali Safi / Kabul

Bridge, irrigation projects launched in Kunar

By Khan Wali Salarzai & Moeed Hashmi

ASADABAD, Jan 16 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Work on constructing a bridge and digging a canal, costing $355, 000 provided by the European Union and USAID, got under way in Ghaziabad district of the eastern Kunar province on Wednesday, an official said.

Governor Syed Fazlullah Waheedi told Pajhwok Afghan News the bridge would be built on the Kunar River in Kasa Gul area of the district. Four metres wide and 65 metres long, the $155, 000 link will be constructed in five months.

Meanwhile, work on 7.5 kilometers canal was initiated in the same district, said Irrigation Department Director Rashidullah, who added the USAID-funded canal would irrigate 1500 acres of land and benefit 1,250 families.

Local elder Haji Amir Zaman hoped the project would save his crops from floodwaters that previously washed away cropped lands.

In other news, two reconstruction projects were executed under the National Solidarity Programme (NSP) in Danishabad and Haji Qala areas of the Laghman province. NSP chief Eng. Humayun Akseer said the schemes were completed at a cost of three million afghanis.

UAE diplomat injured in Kabul attack returns

Abu Dhabi:  A UAE diplomat who was injured in a terrorist attack on a Kabul hotel returned home on Saturday.

Arif Abdullah Al Tunaiji, the third secretary at the UAE embassy in Kabul, was received at Abu Dhabi airport by Dr Tareq Al Haidan, acting Undersecretary of the Foreign Ministry, and a number of his relatives.

The diplomat was immediately taken to the Zayed Military Hospital to complete his treatment, in line with the directives of Shaikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Foreign Minister.

Shaikh Abdullah has been closely following the health condition of Al Tunaiji through the UAE embassy in Kabul.

Shaikh Abdullah had instructed authorities concerned to exert every possible effort to help Al Tunaiji, who sustained a stomach injury during the terrorist assault on Serena Hotel in the Afghan capital.

Sagada mom awaits return of slain daughter from Kabul

By Frank Cimatu Philippine Daily Inquirer First Posted 05:45:00 01/18/2008

BAGUIO CITY -- Herminia Aguilan’s sweet little girl is coming home, but it is not the homecoming she wanted. Her daughter Zennia, 31, a physical therapist, was killed with five other people on Monday when armed men stormed the five-star Serena Hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan. The 60-year-old mother was not sure when her body would be brought home.

“She was very sweet,” said Herminia, a retired teacher at St. Mary’s School in the tourist town of Sagada in Mountain Province. “She called regularly and the last time was when she greeted me ‘Happy New Year,’” she said by telephone.

The fifth of seven children, Zennia was still very young when her father died. Her only sister is the eldest and a nurse in the United States, so Zennia was her mother’s little helper, said her aunt, Mary Padilan.

“She was very loving, especially with kids,” said her cousin, Shirley Lebeng. “Zennia wanted to help her family and I don’t think she had a boyfriend. She always gave us gifts,” Lebeng said. “My daughter was very thoughtful,” Herminia said.

Although originally from Agawa village in neighboring Besao town in Mountain Province, Zennia and her siblings lived in Sagada to be with their mother.

She graduated from high school at St. Mary’s School and went to college in Dagupan City where she took up physical therapy. Sagada elders were talking with Herminia about possible rituals as they await the body.

Herminia said the last time she saw her daughter was in August last year when Zennia was about to leave for Kabul. “She told me to take care,” the mother recalled. Lebeng said Zennia wanted to go back to Kabul because “she liked the job and she liked the pay.”

Zennia was reportedly paid $700 a month as spa supervisor at Serena, one of Kabul’s popular luxury hotels. Both Lebeng and the elder Aguilan said they had no premonition of Zennia’s death.

Zennia returned to Kabul four months before the Department of Foreign Affairs imposed a travel ban to Afghanistan. On Monday night, Zennia sustained severe wounds when armed men threw grenades and fired AK-47 rifles as they stormed the hotel.

An American and a Norwegian journalist were among the six killed. Zennia was taken to a military hospital in critical condition but she died on Tuesday afternoon.

[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.]