In this bulletin:

• Ashdown opts out of Afghanistan envoy role
• Ashdown withdraws bid for UN envoy to Afghanistan
• Region faces 'doom and gloom' if Taliban prevail: Karzai
• Karzai says US help saved Afghanistan
• Afghanistan dismisses allegation over Iran mines supply to Taliban
• US shift seen to Pakistan, Afghanistan
• Harper backs Manley report push to extend Afghan mission
• Prisoner transfer resume once Canada sees 'improvements' in Afghan jails: MacKay
• Liberals, NDP ratchet up criticism of Tories over Afghan prisoners
• Afghanistan working to ensure safety of detainees: ambassador
• It's up to PM whether to fire spokeswoman over Afghan comment, says Tory MP
• Manley levels with Canadians
• 8 Taliban killed in clash with police in southern Afghanistan
• Threat to Indians in Afghanistan
• 2 policemen killed, 3 wounded by Taliban ambush in S Afghanistan
• Abdullah asks for decentralization of power
• Kabul gets 3 hours of electricity a day
• Afghan murals could be world's oldest oil paintings
• World's first oil paintings in Afghan caves: expert
• An Afghan Province Points the Way
• Pakistan 'seizes back key tunnel'

Ashdown opts out of Afghanistan envoy role

By Jon Boone in Kabul and Jim Pickard in London

Published: January 28 2008 02:00 | Last updated: January 28 2008 02:00

Plans to install Paddy Ashdown as a new "super en-voy" in Afghanistan were abandoned yesterday after the former high representative to Bosnia pulled out of the race, saying he lacked support from the Afghan government.

The Afghan government said its preferred candidate was now General Sir John McColl, a British general who was the first commander of the International Security and Assistance Force - the Nato-led military coalition set up after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

Lord Ashdown, who was strongly supported by the US state department and the British government, was expected to be announced as the UN's new special representative to Afghanistan last week.

The collapse of the deal will infuriate British and US diplomats who have been pushing for months to bring a senior statesman to the country. The hope was that Lord Ashdown would co-ordinate the often overlapping and occasionally conflicting efforts of the international community in Afghanistan.

But in a statement yesterday the former leader of Britain's Liberal Democrats said the support necessary for him to do the job "effectively does not exist".

"It would have been an extremely tough job, a bit of a dangerous one and the chance of success wasn't great," the former paratrooper said. He would be content to spend the time instead with his garden and grandchildren in Somerset, England.

Afghanistan's foreign minister, Rangeen Dadfar Span- ta, said reports of Lord Ashdown's appointment had worried the country's media and "political elites" who feared giving the British politician a powerful new role would threaten the country's sovereignty.

Members of the National United Council, a grouping dominated by former warlords from the north of Afghanistan, recently demonstrated against Lord Ashdown's appointment outside UN offices in Kabul.

Mr Spanta said other foreign ministers had also warned him that Lord Ashdown was too "authoritarian". He said the government thought General Mc-Coll was a "good candidate" with a wide understanding of Afghanistan.

General McColl is currently Nato's deputy sup-reme allied commander, Europe. He has also served as Britain's special envoy for the anti-drug effort in Afghanistan.

The UN is unlikely to welcome warmly a serving soldier as head of its mission in the country.

Many officials worry that the neutrality of the UN, whose agencies oversee a huge amount of reconstruction and humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan, has already been un-dermined by its political activities and close involvement with Isaf.

The UN's Assistance Mission in Afghanistan lacks a leader after Tom Koenigs, a German politician who served as special representative in the country, stepped down at the end of December.

Ashdown withdraws bid for UN envoy to Afghanistan

by Katherine Haddon January 27, 2008

LONDON (AFP) - Senior British politician Paddy Ashdown said Sunday he has withdrawn his bid to become the United Nations' new special envoy to Afghanistan, citing insufficient support from Kabul.

Ashdown said he had been offered the job by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and that Afghan President Hamid Karzai had initially supported the appointment.

But there were increasing signs that Kabul had cooled on the move in recent days, with some reports suggesting that Karzai thought Ashdown, the international community's former envoy to Bosnia, wanted too much power.

"This job can only be done successfully on the basis of a consensus within the international community and the clear support of the government of Afghanistan," Ashdown said in a statement, after writing to Ban on Saturday.

"It is clear to me that, in Afghanistan at least, the support necessary to do the job effectively does not exist. "I have therefore reluctantly decided to withdraw my name from consideration for this position."

Afghanistan's Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta told reporters Sunday he wished Ashdown "success", adding Kabul's objections were not down to Ashdown or his nationality but to a "negative atmosphere" created around the envoy role.

"It's better if our friends let us learn more and more by walking on our own feet, with our own experience," he added.

The minister praised Ashdown, saying he was one of the "very small number of diplomats who has a good understanding of the region."

The Afghan government had however had concerns about the powers of the job, which had previously been that of a special representative of the United Nations but which international circles had wanted to expand.

The United States embassy in Kabul said it was "disappointed" at the news.

Ashdown, former leader of Britain's smaller opposition party the Liberal Democrats and an ex-marine, gained a tough reputation during his time in post-war Bosnia from 2002 to 2006.

He pushed through a string of sensitive reforms, which included efforts to merge two ethnically divided armies, and the sacking of 60 officials suspected of belonging to a support network for war crimes suspects.

He is now a member of the unelected upper parliamentary chamber the House of Lords and until recent days had looked all but certain to take up the "super envoy" role coordinating the international community's work in Afghanistan.

The announcement comes against a backdrop of recent tensions between London and Kabul.

At last week's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Karzai was reported to have blamed British and US troops for contributing to worsening security in southern Afghanistan that had allowed the Taliban to return.

His comments provoked a furious response from the families of some of the 87 British troops who have died in Afghanistan since 2001 and a flat denial from Prime Minister Gordon Brown's official spokesman.

But Ashdown said he thought recent tensions between the two countries related to a disagreement over his candidacy rather than wider issues.

Karzai's comments in Davos stirred up anti-British feeling which was "much more about sending a message to me than it was about sending a message to Great Britain," he told BBC television.

Ashdown added that he now hoped relations between the two countries would stabilise.

"One of the reasons why I've withdrawn is precisely because I think it's important that Britain's relation with Afghanistan should get back on to an even keel," he said.

"When you generate these kinds of feelings in a country like Afghanistan, that can cost lives and I wouldn't want to be the instrument of that."

He also denied ever seeking the same powers in Afghanistan as he had in Bosnia after the 1990s Balkan wars, where some critics compared his role to that of a "colonial governor".

"The government of Afghanistan is a sovereign government, it's a proud nation, President Karzai is its president," he said, adding Karzai may have withdrawn his support for him because of "internal Afghan politics".

Zahir Tanin, Afghanistan's ambassador to the United Nations, told the BBC Saturday that Kabul's preferred choice was NATO's deputy commander in Europe, General John McColl.

McColl, another Briton, was the first head of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan in 2002 after the hardline Taliban were ousted.   

Region faces 'doom and gloom' if Taliban prevail: Karzai

January 27, 2008 - WASHINGTON (AFP) - Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai said his country along with Pakistan faces "gloom and doom" from Taliban insurgents, and called for the world to "join hands" to defeat the Islamist rebels.

In an interview published Sunday by the Washington Post, Karzai also said that the United States had been supportive of Kabul's positive relationship with Iran, despite the enmity between Washington and Tehran.

Asked about the strength of the Taliban in their attacks inside Afghanistan, Karzai suggested that the group has external backers. "They would not be strong without support," he said.

Karzai, who had just returned from Pakistan, declined to specify who is backing the Taliban, which US intelligence has said receives support from tribal areas on Pakistan's western border.

But Karzai said that "Pakistan and Afghanistan and the United States and the rest of the world must join hands in sincerity in order to end this problem."

He said that he found Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf "more cognizant of the problems of extremism and terrorism." "And that's a good sign, and I hope we will continue in that direction."

"We have to end extremism. We have to end support to extremism in the region," he added. "Unless we do that, the picture is one of doom and gloom -- for Pakistan, and as a consequence for Afghanistan."

Karzai applauded the US support for his government in Afghanistan-- including the planned deployment of 3,2000 US Marines -- and the battle against terrorism as "fundamental and strong."

But he added: "It will make a difference when the Americans are clear and straightforward about this fight," saying the US should "mean what they say .. (and) do what they say."

He said that Washington had encouraged Kabul in its close relationship with Iran, despite US-Iran tensions.

"We have had a particularly good relationship with Iran the past six years. It's a relationship that I hope will continue," Karzai said.

"The United States very wisely understood that it was our neighbor and encouraged that relationship," he said.

"We don't like a nuclear region, of course. Nobody wants nuclear weapons ... But the United States has been very understanding and supportive that Afghanistan should have a relationship with Iran."

Karzai says US help saved Afghanistan

WASHINGTON, Jan 26: The US-installed Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said that he knew people called him “a puppet of America” and he was willing to accept this image because without US help Afghanistan would have been occupied by its neighbours and Al Qaeda.

“The US administration has helped Afghanistan and if we are called puppets, or if I am called a puppet because we are grateful to America, then let that be my nickname,” Mr Karzai told CNN. “Me a puppet? My God,” exclaimed Mr Karzai, when asked to comment on his perceived image as an impotent leader in thrall to the US administration.

But he quickly added that he was willing to shoulder insults in return for US assistance. “Anyway, Americans have helped Afghanistan tremendously. The American people have a feeling for Afghanistan a very, very great feeling,” he said.

“The truth is that without the United States in Afghanistan, Afghanistan would be a very poor, miserable country, occupied by neighbours and Al Qaeda and terrorists.”

In the same interview, Mr Karzai urged the international community to help defeat terrorism in Pakistan, insisting that unless it’s done Afghanistan could fall into terrorist hands as well.

In a veiled reference to the theory that Pakistan needs Afghanistan for a strategic depth in its fight against India, Mr Karzai said that “misguided policy objectives” of some countries continued to fuel violence in Afghanistan, which could have disastrous consequences for the entire region.

“The fight against terrorism is not in Afghanistan, a very small part of it may be in Afghanistan, the bigger part is in the sanctuaries where they get trained where they get motivated that is where we should go and unless we do that this vicious circle will keep going.”

He said the Taliban were being funded partly by opium poppy crops, thriving due to the failure of efforts to eradicate them, from religious extremists and a “combination of criminals, misguided policy objectives and folly”.

He, however, rejected claims that Al Qaeda or the Taliban received funds from Saudi Arabia but expressed concerns over growing terrorism in Pakistan.

“The problem is growing, the problem has grown, unfortunately, of terrorism in Pakistan,” he said.

“I was concerned, I remain concerned but I had a very fruitful talk with President Musharraf last time. From that respect I hope there is more recognition of dangers there and of the dangers of the future of both countries and the region.

“Based on that I hope there will be a stronger effort in Pakistan and the region, and help from the rest of the world.”

Afghanistan dismisses allegation over Iran mines supply to Taliban

Kabul, Jan 27, IRNA - Spokesman of Afghan Interior Ministry Zemaira Bashary on Sunday rejected allegation over mines supply from Iran to the Taliban fighting with the Afghan government in western Afghanistan.

"No document has been available to prove Iran has supplied 130 mines to Taliban terrorists in Farah province," Bashary told IRNA.

Western media reports claimed on Saturday that a number of the mines discovered in a military operation on Thursday in Taliban's cache in Farah province bearing Iran trade mark.

This would be "a prejudgment" to get Iran involved in the case, the Afghan spokesman said.

He added, if it was proved that the mines belonged to a third country, then "the significant point is to find out when they were transferred to Afghanistan."

He stressed that Afghan military experts were investigating the case and would announce the result afterwards. The commander added that the name of the producer country has been removed from the mines back.

Out of the more than 12 million of mines planted in Afghanistan during the country's three decades of war against occupation of the former Soviet Union, only five million have been discovered and defused so far.

The terrorist group of Taliban, who led the government from 1996 until being ousted by Western forces in 2001, are fighting against the government of President Hamid Karzai.

US shift seen to Pakistan, Afghanistan

Associated Press / January 27, 2008, By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer

WASHINGTON - In a shift with profound implications, the Bush administration is attempting to re-energize its terrorism-fighting war efforts in Afghanistan, the original target of a post-Sept. 11 offensive. The U.S. also is refocusing on Pakistan, where a regenerating al-Qaida is posing fresh threats.

There is growing recognition that the United States risks further setbacks, if not deepening conflict or even defeat, in Afghanistan, and that success in that country hinges on stopping Pakistan from descending into disorder.

Privately, some senior U.S. military commanders say Pakistan's tribal areas are at the center of the fight against Islamic extremism; more so than Iraq, or even Afghanistan. These areas border on eastern Afghanistan and provide haven for al-Qaida and Taliban fighters to regroup, rearm and reorganize.

This view may explain, at least in part, the administration's increasingly public expressions of concern.

At a Pentagon news conference last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that while the U.S. respects the Pakistani government's right to decide what actions are needed to defeat extremists on its soil, there are reasons to worry that al-Qaida poses more than an internal threat to Pakistan.

"I think we are all concerned about the re-establishment of al-Qaida safe havens in the border area," Gates said. "I think it would be unrealistic to assume that all of the planning that they're doing is focused strictly on Pakistan. So I think that that is a continuing threat to Europe as well as to us."

The Pentagon says it has fewer than 100 troops in Pakistan, including personnel who are training Pakistan's paramilitary Frontier Corps in the western tribal region along the Afghanistan border.

The U.S. military has used other means, including aerial surveillance by drones, to hunt Osama bin Laden and other senior al-Qaida leaders believed to be hiding near the Afghan border. Ground troops on the Afghan side sometimes fire artillery across the border at known Taliban or al-Qaida targets, and U.S. officials have said special operations forces are poised to strike across the border under certain circumstances.

In recent days, administration officials have said they would send more U.S. forces, including small numbers of combat troops, if the Pakistani government decided it wanted to collaborate more closely.

It is far from certain that U.S. combat troops will set foot in Pakistan in any substantial numbers. On Friday, Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, said his country opposes any foreign forces on its soil. "The man in the street will not allow this — he will come out and agitate," he said. Musharraf said the U.S. instead should bolster its combat forces in Afghanistan.

The top two U.S. intelligence officials made a secret visit to Pakistan in early January to seek Musharraf's permission for greater involvement of American forces in trying to ferret out al-Qaida and other militant groups active in the tribal regions, a senior U.S. official said Saturday. Musharraf was said to have rebuffed an expansion of an American presence in Pakistan at the meeting, either through overt CIA. missions or by joint operations with Pakistani security forces.

The number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan has grown over the past two years from about 20,000 to the current total of 28,000. That is the highest number of the war, which began in October 2001. The total is to jump by 3,200 this spring with a new influx of Marine reinforcements, including 2,200 combat troops who will bolster a NATO-led counterinsurgency force in the south.

"There is strong pressure now from the international community to find some solution to Afghanistan because of the fear that this could quickly go south," said Ashley J. Tellis, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In 2006-07, he was an adviser to Nicholas Burns, the undersecretary of state for political affairs.

"We haven't lost the war yet, but we could be on our way to doing so," Tellis said in a telephone interview Friday. He strongly recommends strengthening the U.S. military presence in southern Afghanistan.

The vast majority of deployed U.S. troops are still in Iraq, although the force of nearly 160,000 is set on a downward trend. In recent weeks U.S. officials have spoken of Iraq as moving toward stability, with al-Qaida-affiliated fighters weakened and possibly forced to make a last stand.

So there is no wholesale shift of U.S. military firepower from Iraq to Afghanistan. Gates recently rejected a Marine Corps proposal to move the 20,000-plus Marine contingent in Iraq to Afghanistan, reflecting a worry that Iraq's progress is still fragile.

Just last month Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress that the war in Afghanistan is a secondary priority. "In Afghanistan we do what we can. In Iraq we do what we must," he said.

Yet it is apparent that as security conditions in Iraq improve, the administration is looking closer at what needs to be done in Afghanistan to counter recent gains by the Taliban. The Taliban ruled the country in the late 1990s and provided haven and support for bin Laden as his global terrorist network laid the groundwork from Afghanistan for the Sept. 11 attacks.

Gates is leading a NATO effort to produce a statement of goals for Afghanistan that spells out clearly what is at stake. The purpose is to bolster NATO governments' efforts to convince their publics that fighting and dying in Afghanistan is an investment worth making. The statement is supposed to be ready for adoption by President Bush and other NATO leaders at a summit meeting in April.

Also, the administration is showing more interest in deepening its involvement in Pakistan.

Teresita C. Schaffer, director for South Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Friday that an important indicator of that approach was the recent visit to Pakistan by Adm. William J. Fallon, the commander of American forces in that region. Fallon met with senior officials, including the new chief of the Pakistani army, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani.

"Why is that happening now?" Schaffer asked. "It suggests to me that the administration is taking this much more seriously than it was." That has meant more attentiveness to the needs of U.S. commanders in Afghanistan, including officers' concerns about countering the threat inside Pakistan.

"The sense I get is that at least in military terms they are getting a response from Washington which they weren't getting all along," said Schaffer, a career foreign service officer who was deputy assistant secretary of state for South Asia in the administration of former President Bush.

Harper backs Manley report push to extend Afghan mission

DARREN YOURK - Globe and Mail Update January 28, 2008

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has accepted the recommendation made in the Manley commission report to extend Canada's mission in Afghanistan if NATO allies help reinforce the effort.

The comments came as Mr. Harper made his first official remarks on the report issued last week by the blue-ribbon panel headed by the former foreign affairs minister.

The report said the Canadian mission in Afghanistan should not arbitrarily end in February of 2009, but the conditions for the continued presence of Canadian troops in the dangerous southern part of the country must be clearly dictated to NATO allies.

“The government accepts the panel's specific recommendation of extending Canada's mission in Afghanistan if, and I must emphasize if, certain conditions are met,” Mr. Harper said.

“That is, the securing of partners in Kandahar province with additional combat troops and equipment capabilities. In other words, while the case for the Afghan mission is clearly compelling, the decision to allow our young men and women in uniform to continue to be in harm's away demands the responsibility to give them a strong chance of success.”

Mr. Harper said his government will launch a diplomatic effort before the April meeting of NATO heads of government in Bucharest to meet those conditions.

The Manley commission report said at least 1,000 more soldiers from some other NATO country are needed to reinforce Canada's efforts. The panel rejected all four options proposed by the Conservative government for Canadian Forces in Afghanistan because each entailed a pull-out of Canadian troops starting in February, 2009. It instead argued for an indefinite extension that would see the Canadian Forces gradually refocus on reconstruction and then withdraw as Afghans are able to do their jobs.

“The panel has made a clear case that there cannot be a definitive timeline placed on when NATO will have finished the job in Afghanistan and when Afghans are able to take responsibility for their own security, and we agree,” Mr. Harper said. “However, Canada's contributions should be reviewed at a minimum in the context of progress on the benchmarks the panel has advocated and within two to three years time.”

Mr. Harper said the Manley commission report boils down to two choices for Canada: “We do everything better, we do everything right, or we don't do it.”

“We can't do a half a mission that might not succeed,” Mr. Harper said.

The panel also argued that successive governments have failed to adequately explain to Canadians why Canada is in Afghanistan – or what the troops are doing there – and calls for the government to have a more balanced communications strategy. Mr. Harper himself should take a lead on the file, the panel said. The Prime Minister said Monday he takes that criticism seriously.

“This is an extremely difficult mission. We don't believe it is perfect and never have,” he said. “There has been no issue that has caused me as Prime Minister more headaches, and quite frankly more heartache, than this particular mission. I don't think that's going to change in the near future. We accept the judgment that there are several things that could be done better. In the case of most of these things, I think the panel would also acknowledge the government has taken steps.”

Mr. Harper said the very nature of the Afghan mission makes it hard to communicate to Canadians.

“A robust military mission where there are casualties is never going to be easy to communicate and it is never going to be all that popular to communicate,” he said. “That's the reality of the situation. We do accept the criticisms, and we're looking to improve on that and several other fronts.”

With files from Gloria Galloway

Prisoner transfer resume once Canada sees 'improvements' in Afghan jails: MacKay

OTTAWA - Canada will resume handing over captured Taliban fighters to Afghan authorities as soon as the army is confident there is no risk of torture, Defence Minister Peter MacKay said Saturday.

The agreement signed with President Hamid Karzai's government last May will be honoured, MacKay insisted at the end of a closed-door strategy session by the government caucus.

The handovers will recommence once "we see there are improvements... in the Afghan prison," he told reporters.

But MacKay was adamant that military commanders on the ground will make the determination as to whether conditions in Afghan jails are good enough to allow for transfers.

He threw a blanket of operational security around what criteria field commanders will use to make their decision.

"We are not going to give the Taliban our playbook," he said. "We are not going to discuss the things we are doing operationally."

His comments will likely steel the determination of human-rights activists, who've been fighting in Federal Court to end the practice once and for all.

Amnesty International and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association have fought a protracted legal battle, arguing that Canada is in danger of violating international human rights law when it delivers prisoners into the hands of possible torture.

Government lawyers tried last week to have the case thrown out, arguing the transfers had been suspended, but human-rights groups countered that the handovers could resume at any time.

The international agreement governing the reconstruction of Afghanistan estimates it will be 2010 before that country's prison system is in good enough shape to be considered free of possible abuse.

"I don't think Canada or the Canadian Forces can be confident for a few years that that country will have the capacity to safely manage prisoners," said Paul Champ, the lawyer for Amnesty.

The halt in transfers was kept secret for nearly three months and came about only one day after Canadian diplomats saw a clear-cut case of torture on Nov. 5, 2007 in a Kandahar jail, belonging to the notorious Afghan intelligence service.

A prisoner, who had initially been captured by Canadians, showed signs of having been beaten unconscious with an electrical cable and a hose.

MacKay, who was in Afghanistan at the time, acknowledged that he was made aware of the incident right away, but he defended the decision to keep silent, insisting that Canadian lives were at stake.

Champ said the Canadian army churned out reports all last year that suggested torture might be taking place. "Mr. MacKay should be asking the army why they didn't stop the transfers earlier," he added.

Liberals, NDP ratchet up criticism of Tories over Afghan prisoners

(CP 01.27.08) – Prime Minister Harper was berated for a failure of leadership and two of his senior ministers were accused of lying Sunday, as opposition politicians turned up the heat over the handling of military prisoners in Afghanistan.

Deputy Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff got the ball rolling with an assertion aired on television that "we have not had forthright or honest answers from the government at any time."

The debate goes beyond the mistreatment of detainees and raises broader concerns about the Afghan mission as a whole, said Ignatieff.

"The prime minister has got to grab this policy by the throat and pull it together. Afghanistan is the most important thing Canada has done in 50 years and he's not leading. That's the issue."

The attack, coming on the eve of Parliament's resumption after a six-week holiday, suggests the Liberals think they've hit on a way to take Harper's public image down a peg with a spring election potentially in the offing.

Polls have consistently shown the prime minister running ahead of his party in popularity - and outdistancing Liberal Leader Stephane Dion on the crucial point of who Canadians think is the stronger leader.

Ignatieff insisted Sunday he's not trying to make partisan electoral fodder out of the Afghan mission, saying politicians of all stripes have a duty not to do that.

He then promptly blamed Harper for any divisions, claiming that "he prefers to wedge, he prefers to split" rather than seek accommodation.

NDP Leader Jack Layton agreed that harper bears ultimate responsibility for everything that happens in his government.

But the preferred targets for the NDP chief were Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier and Defence Minister Peter MacKay.

Both have misled MPs and the public for months over the handling of Afghan prisoners, Layton told The Canadian Press.

"Ministers who don't tell the truth to the House of Commons should resign," Layton said. "That's just not on, especially when a country's at war."

The government admitted last week that Canadian troops stopped transferring prisoners to Afghan authorities in November, after discovering one man had been beaten unconscious and lashed with electrical cords and a rubber hose.

The decision to halt the transfers was made by Canadian military commanders, but the government didn't make it public a the time. It only came to light through a court case launched by human rights groups.

MacKay contended Saturday, after a Conservative caucus meeting in Ottawa, that the government wanted to keep the move quiet for security reasons, fearing that public knowledge of the affair might lend comfort to the Taliban.

He also declared that Ottawa will resume transferring prisoners once "we see there are improvements" in their treatment in Afghan prisons.

Omar Samad, the Afghan ambassador to Ottawa, said that as far as his government is concerned the prisoner transfer agreement signed last year with Ottawa remains valid.

"We have no indications and no strong reasons to believe it should be scrapped or should be changed at this point."

Layton, however, called it "incomprehensible" that MacKay would contemplate a resumption of transfers and called for Canadian troops to keep any prisoners in their own custody.

The issue is complicated on the Liberal side by the fact that Dion and Ignatieff have acknowledged they were informed, in a confidential briefing on a recent visit to Afghanistan, that prisoner transfers had ceased.

Dion has said he argued with Canadian officials about their demands to keep the matter secret but agreed in the end to abide by their wishes. Ignatieff said Sunday the briefing was limited to bare bones and the officials did not specify when the transfers ended or why.

Layton said he never received any such briefing and expressed skepticism that there was any valid security reason for the government to hush things up for three months.

The controversy comes on the heels of a report by an advisory panel, chaired by former Liberal deputy prime minister John Manley, that recommended Canada extend its Afghan troop deployment past the present deadline of February 2009.

But Manley set two big conditions - that NATO find another country to relieve Canada of its current combat role, and that Ottawa shift its effort more toward training and development.

Harper has yet to offer a clear-cut response to the Manley report. He has repeatedly argued in the past that the deployment should continue, but has also promised Parliament will have the final say in a vote on the matter.

Afghanistan working to ensure safety of detainees: ambassador

Nick Fiske at 11:38 AM ET

[JURIST] Afghan Ambassador to Canada Omar Samad [official profile] said Friday that his country still considers its agreement with Canada regarding the transfer of detainees to be in effect and is working closely with NATO forces to ensure the safety of prisoners in Afghan custody. The statement [press release] comes two days after reports surfaced that Canada had ceased turning over detainees to Afghan authorities [JURIST report; press release, PDF] in November amid concerns that prisoners were being abused in at least one Afghan detention center. Samad said that Afghanistan is currently investigating the allegations. He also said that earlier this month, Afghan President Hamid Karzai [official profile] issued a decree "reinforcing the prohibition on human rights violations" in Afghan prisons. Samad said that the Afghan government was only made aware of Canada's decision this week, and characterized it as "operational [in] nature." AP has more.

The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association [advocacy website] on Monday released internal Canadian government documents [JURIST report; full text, PDF] detailing evidence of continued mistreatment and abuse of detainees transferred by Canadian forces to Afghan authorities. The documents, originally distributed to senior officials of the Canadian government and officers of the Canadian military, detail an investigation conducted by Canadian officials last November which found circumstantial evidence that detainees were abused at a facility belonging to the Afghan National Directorate of Security in Kandahar.

It's up to PM whether to fire spokeswoman over Afghan comment, says Tory MP

OTTAWA - A Conservative MP said it's up to the prime minister to decide whether to fire his chief spokeswoman for making false statements about Canada's mission in Afghanistan.

The government sent out two designated speakers Saturday - one English, one French - who defended Prime Minister Stephen Harper's communications director Sandra Buckler.

Other Conservatives grumbled privately that her misleading remarks are the latest example of how a potential good-news story about the Afghan mission has been plunged into the bowels of public-relations hell.

Alberta MP Art Hanger was not one of the officially designated spokespeople Saturday.

He offered a curt and unenthusiastic reply when asked whether the prime minister should fire his communications director.

"You ask the prime minister that question," Hanger replied outside a Conservative caucus meeting. "I'm not about to answer it."

And Defence Minister Peter MacKay took steps to distance himself from remarks about the military - which Buckler has since retracted.

He met reporters at a scrum where he lauded the Canadian Forces for maintaining an "information pipeline" to the government and keeping in "constant contact" about what happens in Afghanistan.

Buckler was quoted in news reports this week saying the military had kept the government in the dark about a halt in the transfer of prisoners to Afghan jails last November.

The transfers were halted amid mounting evidence of abuse by Afghan officials, which would place the Afghans and the Canadians who turned them over in possible violation of the Geneva conventions against torture.

When asked why the government withheld information from the public, from Parliament, and from the blue-ribbon panel hired to chart Canada's future policy in Afghanistan, Buckler said the Canadian Forces had kept it secret.

Buckler's statement provoked outrage within her own government and particularly infuriated military officials.

Some news organizations gave little prominence to her remarks because they simply assumed them to be untrue. But at least one newspaper quoted her in a front-page news story.

Amid outrage at the Department of National Defence, frustration among political staff, a mounting paper trail of contradictory evidence, and the fact that even the opposition Liberals were aware of the new policy, Buckler recanted Friday.

She told reporters she had "mis-spoken" - but didn't explain how she'd mis-spoken and then refused further comment.

At a Tory caucus retreat Saturday, Tory House Leader Peter Van Loan and junior minister Christian Paradis issued identical statements in defence of their boss's spokeswoman. "She's very credible," Van Loan told a news conference.

"If everybody on the Hill who mis-spoke themselves once in their life had to resign, none of you would be here, I wouldn't be here, nobody would be here on Parliament Hill."

Paradis later came out and repeated the line that if everybody who "mis-spoke" were forced to resign, the empty corridors on Parliament Hill would echo with the sound of silence.

But one telephone receiver was shaking with the sound of screaming as a livid Department of National Defence official vented his fury at the Prime Minister's Office.

The military official said his colleagues are incensed by the insinuation that they would be incompetent enough to withhold key details on a politically charged file from their civilian bosses.

He said the Canadian Forces should be receiving plaudits for having signed a detainee-transfer deal when Foreign Affairs failed to do so in 2005, and for having then immediately halted transfers when proof of torture was uncovered in November.

"Instead we've been wearing this," the military official said, shouting loudly enough to shake the phone receiver. He described the mood at DND as "outraged and frustrated."

A number of Conservative political staffers appeared to share his frustration. One said Buckler was made aware of the halt in transfers soon after the policy decision was made on Nov. 6, 2007.

And one said the ensuing communications chaos was the result of bad choices.

He said there were strategic military reasons for keeping the change quiet and he said he understood them.

But the slew of unflattering headlines about secrecy, flip-flops, and of torture revelations being dragged out in court documents could have been avoided in November, he added. And he said it could have been done honestly and straightforwardly, without compromising the mission.

"Things weren't capitalized on when they could have been," said the government source.

"Why would we not have proactively shouted this from the rooftops (in November) and said, 'Look how well our agreement is working. We have temporarily suspended (transfers) until they get their act together. Things should be back to normal in a few days," he said.

"'We are serious when we say we stand for human rights.' . . . But this feeds this continuing belief that the government is secretive - unnecessarily so."

The appearance of secrecy was only fuelled by the sight of dozens of Conservative MPs escaping through back corridors to avoid answering questions as they emerged from a caucus meeting.

Van Loan and Paradis were sent before the news cameras. But their colleague Sylvie Boucher probably summed up the sentiments of many as she beat a hasty path from one meeting room to the next. "I want to avoid running into journalists," she said.

When informed she was speaking to one, the Quebec City MP replied: "It's not that I don't like you. I just have nothing to say."

Manley levels with Canadians

January 27, 2008 - Thomas Axworthy comment – Toronto star

The report of the Independent Panel on Canada's Future Role in Afghanistan will make uncomfortable reading for almost everyone in Ottawa. The panel, chaired by John Manley, former Liberal deputy prime minister, makes a strong case for Canada's continued military commitment in Afghanistan. Yet, it raises troubling questions about many aspects of the mission.

The report bluntly begins: "Afghanistan is at war and Canadians are combatants." It then raises the question of whether that war is justified and, if so, whether Canada should make a further contribution to it. On the first question, the Manley panel has no doubts. Four main reasons are given: the Taliban's return would threaten regional peace and security; the United Nations has sanctified the mission; NATO is committed; and Canada should help failed states.

Having assessed the war's origins, the report is definitive that Canada should continue to play an important role. Manley asserts that Canada's "present presence in that distant land does matter." The panel travelled through four provinces in Afghanistan, and everywhere the response was the same: "We want you to stay. We need you to stay."

In 50 pages, the report makes a more persuasive case for Canada's military role than any minister of the Harper government has been able to do. But doubts are cast on the past actions of virtually every important player in Ottawa. The combat role is supported, but Manley agrees with many critics that needed equipment has been absent. We should only stay in Kandahar beyond 2009 if our troops have critical equipment, like helicopters and aerial surveillance drones. The question leaps out – how could the government put our soldiers' lives on the line without giving them the proper equipment in the first place?

Next, much is made of Afghanistan's importance to NATO. But Manley makes clear that another battle group is required in Kandahar. However, no NATO nation has shown an inclination to take this on.

One of the poorest countries on Earth, Afghanistan has less than half the GNP per capita of Haiti. Yet, progress has been made – school enrolment, for example, has tripled. CIDA's commitment is large, but almost all of its grants go to international agencies or the Afghan government, leaving little for local projects in Kandahar.

Manley stresses that Canada should not leave Kandahar until the Afghan army can assume the burden. They are not ready to assume it in 2009. But what if the Afghan army is never ready? What if Pakistan implodes and Afghanistan feels the repercussions? Will we be committed indefinitely?

Perhaps the most depressing of Manley's findings is that "government, from the start of Canada's Afghan involvement, has failed to communicate with Canadians, with balance and candour, about the reasons for Canada's involvement, or about the risks." There can be no more serious indictment of a country's political system than going to war without telling citizens why, or the severity of risks involved.

One place to have such a debate is within the Liberal party. Stéphane Dion is committed to a military pullout in 2009. Manley believes Canada should stay beyond that date, if criteria are met. The party should debate the Manley report and then have a referendum on his conclusions. More important, the Liberal party would be stepping up where governments have feared to tread.

Someone must finally level with Canadians about the value, the risks and the costs of fighting in Afghanistan.

Thomas Axworthy is chair of the Centre for the Study of Democracy at Queen's University.

8 Taliban killed in clash with police in southern Afghanistan

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A clash between police and the Taliban in a mountainous area of southern Afghanistan left eight militants dead and three officers wounded, a police chief said Monday.

The battle in Dihrawud district of Uruzgan province started Saturday and carried over into Sunday, said Juma Gul Himat, a provincial police chief. The authorities recovered the bodies of the dead militants alongside their weapons, Himat said.

An Associated Press count based on official figures found more than 6,500 people - mostly militants - died in insurgency-related violence in Afghanistan during 2007, the deadliest year since the 2001 ouster of the Taliban regime.

Threat to Indians in Afghanistan

via The Times of India - 27 Jan 2008, 1604 hrs IST,PTI

NEW DELHI: In the wake of recent terror attack on a convoy of Border Roads Organisation (BRO) workers in Afghanistan, the security of Indians engaged in reconstruction work in the trouble-torn country is being beefed up.

The security measures are being intensified by the Afghan government after a fresh assessment suggested increased threat to the Indians, particularly those engaged in construction of a crucial highway from Delaram to Zaranj.

The assessment of the threat was carried out by a two-member team of senior officials of External Affairs Ministry which went to Afghanistan.

The team, led by Joint Secretary (Afghanistan) T C A Raghavan, was sent in the backdrop of a suicide attack on a BRO convoy in South West Afghanistan earlier this month, in which two ITBP jawans guarding them were killed and five injured.

The team held detailed discussions with the officials of Afghan Foreign and Internal Security Ministries during which it came to be known that the threat to Indian workers was high, the sources said.

The officials also went to Jalalabad, where the Indian consulate and the Mission staffers are facing a high degree of threat from Taliban, the sources said.

The Consulate has come under attack in the recent times but all staffers are safe and no damage has been done to the heavily-fortified Mission, they said.

2 policemen killed, 3 wounded by Taliban ambush in S Afghanistan

KABUL, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- Taliban insurgents on Sunday ambushed police vehicles in Gereshk district of Helmand, the southern Afghan province, killing at least two policemen and injuring three others, according to a local official.

Rehman Jan, the district police chief, told Xinhua that it occurred at around 11:00 a.m. local time when a group of Taliban militants ambushed the police vehicles patrolling in Gereshk district. "Taliban insurgents escaped without any casualties after short clash," he said.

Meanwhile, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, the purported Taliban spokesman, claimed the responsibility for the attack. Over 6,000 people lost their lives in conflicts and Taliban-related violence last year in the country.

Abdullah asks for decentralization of power

By Lalit K Jha - Jan 25, 2008 - NEW YORK (Pajhwok Afghan News): Strongly advocating decentralization of power former Foreign Minister, Abdullah Abdullah Thursday, called for a national debate on it.

Visiting the United States, for the first time in two years, Abdullah said this at a breakfast meeting at the prestigious Asia Society in New York.

We need to help empower rural communities as well as local leaders. We have elected provincial councils. There role has to be defined so that they could be active participants in the process of development and security. There is need to start a national debate on little bit of decentralization in Afghanistan, he said.

Observing that post-9/11 the effort to rebuild Afghanistan started with a consensus among various sections of the society that resulted in a lot of positive development, Abdullah told a select New York audience: That spirit of working together has been damaged greatly. I think when President Karzai was elected as the President of Afghanistan it was a free and fair election, majority of the people voted for him. Somewhat President Karzai thought, as well as his colleagues in the Cabinet, that perhaps we do not need the consensus of people anymore, he said.

The spirit which brought different political forces together under common vision of peaceful, democratic Afghanistan was losing color. That was the start of the weakening of Afghanistan as a State, Abdullah said.

The former Foreign Minister said when Taliban lost Afghanistan; they went back to Pakistan, where the militants helped them to establish them back. Then came the Iraq situation where the US got engaged. While support for Afghanistan continued and did not diminish, I think what was happening in Pakistan was the US and the international community lost track, he said. That weakening factor within Afghanistan and strengthening of Taliban outside Afghanistan that gives us a clear picture of the situation where we are, he said. Stating that majority of the people are still supportive of the process, he said emphasized that it is important to seize the moment and not to let this opportunity being slept out of hands.

Abdullah said the need of the hour is that President Karzai as the elected president of Afghanistan as well as other political leaders should get together in order to be able to move the process forward. The initiative in this respect should come from the President or anybody in that sphere. That would give a message of political stability and of working together, he said.

Kabul gets 3 hours of electricity a day

Conditions persist despite millions in US, global aid

By Jason Straziuso - Associated Press / January 27, 2008

KABUL, Afghanistan - Gul Hussein was standing under a pale street lamp in a poor section of east Kabul when the entire neighborhood suddenly went black.

"As you can see, it is dark everywhere," the 62-year-old man said, adding that his family would light a costly kerosene lamp for dinner that evening. "Some of our neighbors are using candles, but candles are expensive, too."

More than five years after the fall of the Taliban - and despite hundreds of millions of dollars in international aid - dinner by candlelight remains common in the Afghan capital of Kabul. Nationwide, only 6 percent of Afghans have electricity, the Asian Development Bank says.

The electricity shortage underscores the slow progress in rebuilding the war-torn country. It also feeds other problems. Old factories sit idle and new ones are not built. Produce withers without refrigeration. Dark, cold homes foster resentment against the government.

In Kabul, power dwindles after the region's hydroelectric dams dry up by midsummer. This past fall, residents averaged three hours of municipal electricity a day, typically from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., according to USAID, the American government aid agency. Some neighborhoods got none.

"That's a scary sounding figure because it's pretty tiny," said Robin Phillips, the USAID director in Afghanistan. "So we're talking about the relatively poorer people in Kabul who have no access to electricity at this time of year."

Electricity was meager under the Taliban, too, when Kabul residents had perhaps two hours of it a day in fall and winter. The supply has since increased, but not as fast as Kabul's population - from fewer than 1 million people in the late 1990s to more than 4 million today.

Meanwhile, souring US relations with Uzbekistan have delayed plans to import electricity from that country. Power is not expected to arrive in a significant way until late 2008 or mid-2009.

"Life takes power," said Jan Agha, a 60-year-old handyman from west Kabul who recalled how the city had plentiful power during the 1980s Soviet occupation. "If you have electricity life is good, but if there's no electricity you go around like a blind man."

Some in Kabul do have electricity: the rich, powerful, and well connected.

Municipal workers - under direction from the Ministry of Water and Energy - funnel what power there is to politicians, warlords, and foreign embassies. Special lines run from substations to their homes, circumventing the power grid. International businesses pay local switch operators bribes of $200 to $1,000 a month for near-constant power, an electrical worker said anonymously for fear of losing his job.

If high-ranking government officials visit the substations, workers race to cut off the illegal connections. Large diesel generators, which businesses and wealthy homeowners own as a backup, rumble to life.

Ismail Khan, the country's water and energy minister, dismisses allegations of corruption as a "small problem."

"The important thing to talk about is that in six months, all of these power problems will be solved and everyone will have electricity 24 hours a day," he said, an optimistic prediction that relies on heavy rains next spring and quick work on the Uzbekistan line.

Colorful maps on the walls of Khan's office show existing and future power lines. There is a wall-mounted air conditioner, a luxury in Afghanistan.

India, the Asian Development Bank, and the World Bank have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on new power lines, including transmission towers installed this summer at 15,000 feet over the Hindu Kush mountains, to import electricity from Uzbekistan.

Though the line from Kabul to the Uzbek border is in place, a 25-mile section in Uzbekistan has not yet been built. And the US has little leverage to speed it up, said Rakesh Sood, the Indian ambassador in Kabul.

Initially, Uzbekistan supported the US-led war in Afghanistan, opening an air base to US planes. But the Uzbek government no longer views America as a friend, ever since US leaders loudly criticized the country's human rights record when government-backed forces massacred peaceful demonstrators in 2005.

Even when the Uzbek line is completed, Afghanistan can no longer expect the 300 megawatts originally envisioned, Sood said. That would have been more than the 190 megawatts Kabul has today and a significant boost to the 770 megawatts Afghanistan has nationwide.

President Hamid Karzai, during a radio address to the nation last fall, said he discussed with President Bush the country's need to produce its own electricity.

But some efforts have run afoul of the continuing Taliban insurgency.

Afghan murals could be world's oldest oil paintings

Radio New Zealand / January 26, 2008

A group of international conservationists has concluded that murals in Afghanistan's Bamiyan caves may be the oldest examples of oil painting.

The seventh-century murals include Buddha figures clad in vermilion robes, as well as crouching monkeys and mythical creatures.

Samples of the paint were found to contain oil, which could challenge the widely-held view that oil painting originated in Europe.

World's first oil paintings in Afghan caves: expert

January 24, 2008 - TOKYO (AFP) — Forget Renaissance Europe. The world's first oil paintings go back nearly 14 centuries to murals in Afghanistan's Bamiyan caves, a Japanese researcher says.

Buddhist images painted in the central Afghan region, dated to around 650 AD, are the earliest examples of oil used in art history, says Yoko Taniguchi, an expert at Japan's National Research Institute for Cultural Properties.

A group of Japanese, European and US scientists are collaborating to restore damaged murals in caves in the Bamiyan Valley, famous for its two gigantic statues of the Buddha which were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001.

In the murals, thousands of Buddhas in vermilion robes sit cross-legged, sporting exquisitely knotted hair. Other motifs show crouching monkeys, men facing one another or palm leaves delicately intertwined with mythical creatures.

The paintings incorporate a mix of Indian and Chinese influences, and are most likely to be the works of artists traveling on the Silk Road, which was the largest trade and cultural route connecting the East and the West.

The Los Angeles-based Getty Conservation Institute analysed 53 samples extracted from the murals. Using gas chromatography methods, the researchers found that 19 had oil in the paint.

"Different types of oil were used on the dirt walls with such a sophisticated technique that I felt I was looking right at a medieval board painting dating from 14th or 15th century Italy," Taniguchi told AFP.

The discovery would reverse common perceptions about the origins of oil paintings. The technique is widely believed to have emerged in Europe leading into the Renaissance, which flowered from 1400 to 1600.

Italian artist and architect Giorgio Vasari first wrote of oil painting in his book, "The Lives of the Artists," in the mid-16th century.

Art historians, however, argue that 15th-century Flemish painter Jan van Eyck may have known of the technique because he had developed a stable varnish, although he kept it secret until his death.

"It was very impressive to discover that such advanced methods were used in murals in central Asia," Taniguchi said.

"My European colleagues were shocked because they always believed oil paintings were invented in Europe. They couldn't believe such techniques could exist in some Buddhist cave deep in the countryside," she added.

Painters of the Buddhist murals used organic substances -- including natural resin, plant gum, dry oil and animal protein -- as a binder, which even today is an important element in paint.

A binder keeps pigment particles together in a cohesive film and allows the paint to resist decay. The researchers are trying to restore the murals amid international efforts to salvage what is left of Bamiyan.

The Taliban, ignoring global protests, dynamited the two 1,500-year-old statues, the world's biggest representations of the Buddha, in March 2001, branding them un-Islamic idolatry.

The regime was ousted later that year in a US-led military campaign after the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Although oil was used in ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, there currently exist no examples of their use in painting. The oil was used for medicine, cosmetics or to coat boats, Taniguchi said.

Taniguchi hopes the advanced techniques used to analyse the murals would be put to use in ruins of other ancient civilisations.

Other early civilisations including those in current-day Iran, China, Turkey, Pakistan and India may have used similar techniques as well but their ruins have not been subject to advanced, extensive research, she said.

"In analysing old murals throughout Europe and Central Asia, I look forward to throwing light on the roots of oil paintings," she said.

An Afghan Province Points the Way

The Washington Post, By David Ignatius Sunday, January 27, 2008; B07

JALALABAD, Afghanistan -- Air Force Lt. Col. Gordon Phillips has logged 5,000 hours in AWACS surveillance planes, one of the high-tech weapons systems that made America such a dominant power against conventional adversaries. But these days, Phillips is very much down on the ground, heading a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) here that's working with villagers to build dams, roads and schools.

Phillips's unlikely role illustrates the dilemma facing the U.S. military: The conventional wars it's good at fighting aren't the ones it's encountering in Iraq, Afghanistan and other unstable areas. The ideal modern warrior has to be something between a Peace Corps volunteer and a Special Forces commando.

The United States seems to be doing most things right here in Nangahar province, on Afghanistan's eastern border, and gaining some leverage in its fight against terrorism. This used to be Taliban country. Pakistan is just east, across the Khyber Pass. To the south are the rugged, snow-capped peaks of the Tora Bora mountains, into which Osama bin Laden fled in late 2001. These days, there are occasional roadside bombings and suicide attacks in the province, but some people have to stop and think a moment to remember the last one.

Success here results from an interesting mix of political and military factors. There's a strong local leader in the provincial governor, Gul Agha Shirzai. This gentleman is not a paragon of democracy; to be frank, he's a warlord. He rules the province with a firm hand, and with a personal fortune that U.S. officials estimate at about $300 million, he has the money to make political deals work.

The American contribution to stability in Jalalabad is twofold. First, there's the PRT effort. With its focus on economic development, the team is reaching out to the very people whose support the Taliban insurgents need to survive. I talked with a local cleric named Mullawi Abdul-Aziz, a small, dark man whose face is creased by the sun. He was once friendly with the Taliban, but he now serves as deputy chief of the provincial council and meets twice a week with Shawn Waddoups, a State Department officer on the PRT. The mullah says he ignores Afghans who criticize him for being too friendly with the Americans.

A second component of U.S. success here is the low-visibility but high-impact mix of combat and intelligence operations. Lt. Col. Jeffrey Milhorn leads a team that seeks, as he puts it, to "tighten down the gate" at the Pakistani border. He's aided by some very high-tech biometric equipment that's being used to check the movement of known insurgents.

When you visit places like Jalalabad and see things working the way they're supposed to, there's always a disconnect with what you've been reading and hearing about the larger war. I've been trying to put those pieces together in my mind after visiting here Wednesday with the chief of Central Command, Adm. William Fallon.

The reality is that the larger war in Afghanistan isn't going as well as it seems to be in this province. Roadside bombs and suicide attacks were up last year. The Taliban is regaining strength in some parts of the country. The Afghan national government is weak and disorganized. And NATO's operations are a ragged quilt -- with no other nation matching the U.S. effort, either in combat firepower or people-friendly PRTs.

The commanders back in Kabul try to put the best face on the situation. Gen. Dan McNeil, who heads NATO's forces in Afghanistan, says that the increase in Taliban terrorist attacks is actually a sign of the insurgents' weakness and the coalition's success. He says the United States is sending 3,000 more Marines to Afghanistan on the principle that "you reinforce where you're having success."

That kind of upbeat talk in the face of downbeat numbers is eerily reminiscent of Iraq. And it's a reminder that counterinsurgency wars are, in the end, about creating a state of mind. Security is a habit, born of weeks and months of ordinary life. Insecurity, too, is a habit, born of fear that a suicide bomber may attack your village or your Kabul hotel, regardless of how infrequent those attacks may really be.

A reality check for me was to talk in Kabul with Mohammad Hanif Atmar, the country's bright young minister of education. He said that Taliban terrorist attacks killed 147 students and teachers over the past 10 months and seriously injured 200 others. This campaign of intimidation closed 590 schools last year, up from 350 the year before. In areas where students are too scared to go to school, stability and security are still distant goals. You can see in Jalalabad what success would look like; the challenge is to make that picture real across Afghanistan.

The writer is co-host of Post Global, an online discussion of international issues.

Pakistan 'seizes back key tunnel'

BBC News / Sunday, 27 January 2008 - Pakistani security forces say they have recaptured an important road tunnel which was seized by pro-Taleban militants on Thursday.

A battle has raged around the Kohat tunnel since Pakistan launched an operation to reclaim it on Friday. The military said as many as 70 militants had died in the assault.

In holding the tunnel, the militants blocked the government's main route between the city of Peshawar and the volatile Afghan border area. Its closure stranded hundreds of vehicles on either side.

The border areas of North West Frontier Province are a hotbed of militancy and a feeding ground for the Taleban, and have seen growing violence directed at the Pakistani government and its forces.

The tunnel is in the vicinity of Dara Adam Khel, a town which security officials say had recently become a stronghold of the al-Qaeda linked Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the AFP news agency reported. On Thursday militants there seized four trucks carrying ammunition and other supplies for government troops, and blocked the tunnel.

The military mounted its response on Friday. Helicopter gunships and artillery were used to dislodge militants from the hilltops surrounding Dara Adam Khel. Hundreds of people have fled the area during the onslaught. Security forces said 24 militants died in fighting on Sunday, and there were reports of at least 45 being killed in previous days. The government said two of its own troops had been killed.

Meanwhile the government is also battling militants in the province of South Waziristan, where the insurgency is led by Baitullah Mehsud, who is accused by the government of being behind the murder of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. Fierce fighting in South Waziristan over the past week has led to the deaths of at least 150 militants and more than 20 government soldiers, news agencies report.

[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.]