In this bulletin:

• Militants destroy more Afghan mobile phone towers
• Top commander unveils new Taliban tactics
• Doctor: 40 dead in Pakistan attack
• Bush calls for more troops in Afghanistan
• Bush warns Iran, calls for more NATO troops in Afghanistan
• Afghanistan parliament approves new drugs minister
• U.S. hits record drug growth in Afghanistan
• Afghanistan. Pakistan. Forgotten.
• Afghans protest Danish, Dutch "insults" to Islam
• Propaganda and PR claims over Prince Harry's Afghan tour
• War on Terror, Taliban and Pashtun Nationalists
• Making the mission work
• The Afghan threat
• Afghan wasteland

Militants destroy more Afghan mobile phone towers

Kabul (AFP) - Two mobile phone antennas were destroyed in southern Afghanistan, officials said Sunday, after Taliban militants threatened to bring down such masts, alleging they are used to locate hideouts.

A first mast was destroyed in the southern province of Kandahar on Friday, four days after the Taliban warned they would attack the technology because it was being used at night to pinpoint rebel bases.

In the new attacks, armed rebels scaled a mast just outside Kandahar city overnight and destroyed equipment, local police officer Ghulam Hazrat said.

"I'm sure it was the work of the Taliban," he told AFP, adding that guards at the facility had escaped unhurt.

Another antenna was destroyed in the neighbouring Helmand province's Sangin district, a local official told AFP under condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to media.

The police chief for Helmand, Mohammad Hussein Andiwal, confirmed a cell phone tower was destroyed in the area but could not say how.

"We know that a telephone antenna has been destroyed there (Sangin) but we don't yet know how it was destroyed," Andiwal told AFP from the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah.

The police chief said that he could not reach his men in the area by cell phone, the normal means of communication, and they had had to use radios.

Both masts belonged to Roshan, Afghanistan's leading mobile phone provider, the officials said. Militants used petrol bombs on Friday to attack an antenna in Zhari district, west of the city.

Issuing their warning on Monday, the Taliban also demanded mobile services be halted at night. Some residents in the area where the first attack was staged said their mobile networks had been down for several hours after the incident.

Five mobile companies operate in Afghanistan and the sector is one of the most successful of the post-Taliban government.

The Taliban were removed in late 2001 for not handing over their Al-Qaeda allies after the September 11 attacks on the United States.

They are waging an insurgency that was at its deadliest last year with more than 6,000 people killed -- most of them rebel fighters.

Top commander unveils new Taliban tactics

Reuters, 03/02/2008 By Sayed Salahuddin

KABUL - A top Taliban commander has said suicide attacks and roadside bombs would spearhead its new strategy against foreign troops, and hinted the movement could work with Afghanistan's government if foreign troops left.

In an apparent policy shift, Taliban deputy leader Mullah Brother told a militant Website that the Islamic movement could cooperate with the government of President Hamid Karzai, rather than seek its ouster.

"The matter can not be solved through war...the issue should be settled through understanding and talks," he said.

In the past, the Taliban has vowed to topple Karzai's government and drive out foreign forces.

Ousted from power in 2001, the al Qaeda-backed Taliban have made a strong come back since 2006, causing splits among the NATO alliance as some members appear reluctant to send their soldiers to areas where the militants are active.

In his interview, Mullah Brother refused to spell out all aspects of the Taliban's new military strategy, but said: "Martyrdom attacks and roadside explosions will form major part of the such operations."

"Through our military commanders, local and central councils we are working on these tactics...which will be implemented across the country in the near future as the new military strategy," the website quoted him as saying.

The date of the interview was not mentioned.

Brother served as a top Taliban military commander during the reign of the group until its ouster and is among the militants list wanted by the Afghan and U.S. governments.

Western military commanders say the Taliban have suffered heavy casualties in conventional battles with NATO and U.S.-led forces in recent years and instead have resorted mainly to suicide raids and roadside bomb blasts.

The Taliban carried out more than 140 suicide attacks last year, a record high in Afghanistan as the militants adopted tactics used with devastating effect by insurgents in Iraq.

Brother said suicide attacks were "very effective" against foreign and Afghan government forces.

Most of the casualties in such attacks have been civilians, who have also lost lives in operations by foreign troops hunting militants.

More than 11,000 people, including more than 350 foreign soldiers, have been killed in the past two years, the bloodiest period since Taliban's removal.

The deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan has led some Western politicians to warn recently that Afghanistan could slide back into anarchy.

U.S.-led troops overthrew Taliban's government in 2001 after it refused to hand over al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the suspected architect of the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Doctor: 40 dead in Pakistan attack

Peshawar (AFP) - A suicide bomber blew himself up Sunday at a large meeting called by tribal elders pushing for peace in northwestern Pakistan, killing at least 40 people and injuring more than 100, witnesses and officials said.

It was the third suicide bombing in as many days in the volatile northwest, where security forces were battling pro-Taliban Islamic militants.

Thousands of people were at the meeting in Darra Adam Khel in North West Frontier Province about 25 miles south of the provincial capital, Peshawar. The five tribes involved wanted to finalize a resolution calling for punishing anyone who sheltered or helped militants, including those of al-Qaida and the Taliban, Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said on state-run Pakistan Television.

Alam Khan, a tribesman who attended, said a young man walked up to a group of elders and blew himself up.

"It was a huge explosion and left body parts and blood scattered on the ground," said Ramin Khan, whose left leg and face were wounded.

President Pervez Musharraf said the attack was an attempt to sabotage the peace process and reiterated the government's "resolve and commitment" in the fight against terrorism and extremism.

Dr. Hamid Afridy, the area's chief medical officer, said he counted 40 bodies, some with severed limbs and mutilated faces, at the site.

"We have dispatched more than 100 injured to .. hospitals" in Peshawar and Kohat town, he told The Associated Press. He said he feared the death toll could rise because many of the injured were in critical condition.

Pakistan Television said the suspected bomber's severed head was found.

Television footage showed blood, shoes and caps littering the bombing site — a tree-lined ground amid wheat fields that is only a few yards away from brick homes.

On Friday, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the funeral of a slain police officer in Mingora town in Swat Valley, killing more than 40 people and injuring at least 60. The next, day another suicide bombing in nearby Bajur killed one person and wounded 19 others, mostly security personnel.

Friday's bombing was the bloodiest attack in the Swat Valley since militant followers of a pro-Taliban cleric, Maulana Fazlullah, grabbed control of large parts of the scenic corner of Pakistan's restive northwest, an apparent reflection of how Musharraf's government has lost control of parts of the region.

Meanwhile, a prominent opposition lawyer who had been under house arrest since Musharraf declared a state of emergency more than three months ago was freed Sunday, police said.

The attorney, Aitzaz Ahsan, said the police who had been restricting him to his home in Lahore have left.

Ahsan, a strong critic of the president, had been under house arrest since Nov. 3, when Musharraf declared a state of emergency and fired dozens of independent-minded judges, including the country's Supreme Court justices, who had been expected to rule on the legitimacy of his October re-election.

Ahsan, who is president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, has been at the forefront of demands that Musharraf reinstate the justices. Hours after being freed he led a rally of lawyers and called for the judges to be reinstated.

Bush calls for more troops in Afghanistan
Canwest News Washington Correspondent Saturday, March 01, 2008

CRAWFORD, Texas - President George W. Bush urged NATO members on Saturday to come to Canada's aid in southern Afghanistan, promising to join the effort to convince European allies to meet Ottawa's demand for another 1,000-soldier strong battle group by early 2009.

Following a summit here with Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Bush said his main goal at next month's NATO summit in Bucharest will be to press for the deployment of more troops in southern Afghanistan.

"I understand there's certain political constraints on certain countries. And so I am going to go to Bucharest with the notion that we're thankful for the contributions being made, and encourage people to contribute more," Bush said at a news conference on his Texas ranch. "The United States is putting in 3,200 additional Marines. We are trying to help Canada realize her goal of a thousand additional fighters in the southern part of the country."

Bush's remarks could provide Prime Minister Stephen Harper with some added negotiating power with nations like France, which last month signalled its desire to help Canada meet the military goal.

The Harper government has introduced a confidence motion that extends Canada's commitment in Afghanistan past 2009, setting a 2011 end date for the country's military mission. The new Canadian role would place greater emphasis on reconstruction and training of Afghan security forces, and has the tentative support of Stephane Dion's Liberals.

But Ottawa has said the continuation of Canada's role in Afghanistan is contingent on other NATO allies providing 1,000 more troops. In a phone call last month, Bush reportedly assured Harper the U.S. would step up and provide the extra troops if NATO does not deliver. On Saturday, however, Bush said his first priority is to get Europe more involved.

"My administration has made it abundantly clear we expect people to carry a heavy burden if they are going to be in Afghanistan," Bush said. "Look, if we're going to fight as an alliance, let's fight as an alliance."

Bush's summit with the Danish prime minister was his second high-level meeting on Afghanistan in as many days. He met Friday in Washington with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, who told the U.S. president the alliance is in Afghanistan "for the long haul."

The Harper government motion would see all 2,500 Canadian troops out of Kandahar by December 2011. Denmark currently has about 800 troops under British command in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, which has seen some of the heaviest fighting over the last year.

The Danes increased their troop levels last autumn and Rasmussen did not signal plans to further increase Denmark's commitment.

"I feel confident that we can convince partners to contribute with more troops than today," Rasmussen said. The key to securing more NATO troops is showing nations "the successes that are being achieved," Bush said. "Remember last year about this time, it was, the Taliban was going on the offensive; the Taliban was going to be doing this, the Taliban was going to be doing that. Well, the Taliban had a bad year when it came to military operations."

The U.S. has almost 30,000 troops in Afghanistan, about half of them deployed to the NATO coalition.

Bush warns Iran, calls for more NATO troops in Afghanistan

CRAWFORD, Texas (AFP) — US President George W. Bush on Saturday warned his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to "stop exporting terror" ahead of the Iranian leader's historic visit to Iraq.

Bush, at a press conference at his Texas ranch with visiting Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said while Iraq needed to hold talks with its neighbor it should make clear to Tehran it must stop arming Iraqi militias.

He said that "the message needs to be 'quit sending in sophisticated equipment that's killing our citizens.'" Bush said his message for Ahmadinejad was "stop exporting terror."

The United States has accused Iran of supplying Iraq insurgents with bombs used to attack US soldiers and is increasingly concerned over Tehran's influence in the Shiite-majority country.

Ahmadinejad hopes his groundbreaking visit to Iraq on Sunday will mark a major step in bolstering ties between Iran and its conflict-torn western neighbor, marking a new chapter after a devastating eight-year war in the 1980s.

Bush spoke after a two day summit with the Danish prime minister focusing on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, telling reporters he would lobby NATO members to offer more troops to the mission in Afghanistan.

"My administration has made it abundantly clear we expect people to carry a heavy burden if they are going to be in Afghanistan," Bush said.

The US president said he understood "there are certain political constraints on certain countries" but said he planned to press for more NATO troop contributions at a major summit in Bucharest in April.

"And so I am going to go to Bucharest with the notion that we are thankful for the contributions being made, and encourage people to contribute more," said Bush.

Rasmussen backed military action in Iraq and Afghanistan with Danish troops despite opposition to the conflicts in his country and other parts of Europe.

Some 550 Danes are serving in Afghanistan where most are deployed under British command in the volatile southern Helmand province.

The US administration has been pressing its allies to commit more troops to Afghanistan, but many countries face fierce opposition at home and will only allow their forces to be deployed for training missions -- not for combat in the south.

Bush on Friday held talks in Washington with NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer about Afghanistan, which is facing a fierce resurgency by the Islamic Taliban militia and their Al-Qaeda allies.

Bush meanwhile vowed to maintain international pressure on Iran to halt its disputed nuclear program, which, he charges, hides a bid to build an atomic bomb. Tehran insists its nuclear work is solely aimed at generating electricity.

The US leader said "the international community is serious about continuing to isolate Iran until they come clean about their nuclear weapons ambitions. That's why there will be action in the United Nations here early next week."

The UN Security Council is expected to adopt on Monday a third set of sanctions against Iran over its refusal to freeze uranium enrichment work.

Iran and the United States held three rounds of talks over the security of Iraq last year despite mounting tensions over the Iranian nuclear program. The two foes have had no diplomatic relations since 1980.

Bush also refused to speculate as to whether more US troops would be pulled out of Iraq after July saying the decision would be made by his top military leaders.

The Washington Post speculated Saturday that the Bush administration would withdraw more US forces from the country before he leaves office in January 2009.

But Bush said his decision "is going to be based on the recommendations" of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and US military commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, as well as the joint chiefs-of-staff.

"We're not going to let politics drive my decision, again," Bush said.

A senior administration official, who asked not to be named, said the administration was "not ruling anything in or out" on US troop levels.

Afghanistan parliament approves new drugs minister

KABUL (AFP) — Afghanistan's parliament approved Saturday a new minister to lead the fight against an opium and heroin industry that is at historic highs and funding a growing Taliban insurgency.

The appointment, part of a reshuffle which also saw the replacement of the transport minister and three provincial governors, comes as the US State Department said in a report Friday more Afghans than ever are growing opium.

The post of counternarcotics minister has been vacant for seven months. Parliament voted in as minister an army general named only as Khodaidad who had been serving as acting minister, a government spokesman said.

There has been a surge in Afghanistan's opium output, which accounts for more than 90 percent of the world supply of the drug used to make heroin.

A US State Department report released Friday said more than 14 percent of Afghans were involved in poppy production in 2007, up from 12.6 percent the previous year.

"Narcotics production in Afghanistan hit historic highs in 2007 for the second straight year," it said.

Parliament also approved the replacement of the governor of the heart of the country's opium and heroin production, Helmand province, where Taliban hold a handful of districts.

President Hamid Karzai on Saturday awarded the outgoing governor Assadullah Wafa one of the country's highest medals for "outstanding" service in efforts to promote peace and security, his office said.

The national assembly parliament also voted in Karzai's nomination of businessman Hamidullah Qaderi to replace Nehmatullah Ehsan Jawid as transport minister.

Jawid was dismissed in part because of problems with the corruption-plagued national carrier, Ariana Airlines, one official said on condition of anonymity.

The governors of the central provinces of Laghman and Ghazni, where 23 South Korean hostages were held by Taliban for weeks and two killed, were also replaced.

U.S. hits record drug growth in Afghanistan

'Decisive action' must end trade that aids Taliban

Chicago Sun-Times, United States, March 2, 2008, BY ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON - Record illegal drug production in Afghanistan supplies the Taliban insurgency with money and arms and the U.S.-backed government must take direct, prompt action against poppy growers, a State Department report said Friday.

Afghan farmers grew more poppies for opium in 2007 than ever before, the second year in a row of record production in the nation the United States invaded after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. The drug trade deters progress toward a stable, economically independent democracy, the report said.

''The counterinsurgency nexus is both real and growing,'' said Assistant Secretary David Johnson, the State Department's top drug enforcement officer.

The International Narcotics Control Strategy Report says the largest and best-known insurgent group -- the hard-line Taliban -- benefits in money and weapons while offering protection to growers and traffickers.

''Eliminating narcotics cultivation and trafficking in Afghanistan will require a long-term national and international commitment,'' the State Department said in the report, which added: ''The Afghan government must take decisive action against poppy cultivation soon to turn back the drug threat before its further growth and consolidation make it even more difficult to defeat.''

Afghanistan grew 93 percent of the world's opium poppies last year, according to United Nations figures cited in Friday's report. The haul, worth an estimated $4 billion on the illegal world market, represented more than a third of Afghanistan's combined total gross domestic product, or GDP, of $11.5 billion.

Afghanistan. Pakistan. Forgotten.

By JOE BIDEN – Oped NY Times

THE next president will have to rally America and the world to “fight them over there unless we want to fight them over here.” The “over there” is not, as President Bush has claimed, Iraq, but rather the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

That is where those who attacked us on 9/11 came from, where the attacks in Europe since originated and where Al Qaeda is regrouping. It is the real central front in the war on terrorism.

Afghanistan is slipping toward failure. The Taliban is back, violence is up, drug production is booming and the Afghans are losing faith in their government. All the legs of our strategy — security, counternarcotics efforts, reconstruction and governance — have gone wobbly.

If we should have had a surge anywhere, it is Afghanistan. And instead of eradicating poppy crops, which forces many farmers to turn to the Taliban, we should go after drug kingpins.

We also need to make good on President Bush’s pledge for a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan. In six years, we have spent on Afghanistan’s reconstruction only what we spend every three weeks on military operations in Iraq.

Afghanistan’s fate is directly tied to Pakistan’s future and America’s security. When President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan concluded that we were not serious about finishing the job in Afghanistan, he began to cut deals with extremists in his own country.

As a result, the border area remains a freeway of fundamentalism: the Taliban and Al Qaeda find sanctuary in Pakistan, while Pakistani suicide bombers wreak havoc in Afghanistan.

The recent Pakistani elections gave the moderate majority its voice back and gives the United States an opportunity to move from a Musharraf policy to a Pakistan policy. To demonstrate to its people that we care about their needs, not just our own, we must triple assistance for schools, roads and clinics, sustain it for a decade, and demand accountability for the military aid we provide.

If Afghanistan fails or Pakistan falls to fundamentalism, America will suffer a terrible setback. The candidates should tell Americans how they will handle what may be the next president’s most difficult challenge.

Afghans protest Danish, Dutch "insults" to Islam

MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan (AFP) — About 800 people took to the streets of the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif on Sunday to protest "insults" to Islam by Danish newspapers and a Dutch politician, witnesses said.

The demonstrators, most of them school and university students, gathered around the city's main shrine, known as the Blue Mosque, chanting "death to Denmark, death to Holland," a witness told AFP.

"No one has the right to insult our prophet," the protesters shouted.

Several Danish dailies recently reprinted a drawing featuring the Prophet Mohammed's head with a turban that looked like a bomb with a lit fuse.

A Dutch right-wing politician, Geert Wilders, is meanwhile said to be preparing to broadcast a film on the Internet this month which attacks Islam.

"Holland must apologise to the Muslim world and punish its citizens insulting our religion," the protestors said, the witness said.

One of the students, Noor Ahmad, who is in his 20s, said: "We demand the Dutch and Denmark governments to bring those insulting Islam to trial."

Afghanistan's extremist Taliban movement warned Thursday it would step up attacks on Dutch soldiers if Wilders' film in released.

There are around 1,500 Dutch troops in Afghanistan as part of a 40-nation NATO-led force that is helping the government battle an insurgency led by the ultra-religious Taliban, who were in government between 1996 and 2001.

In Kabul, hundreds of Islamic clerics led by Afghanistan's religious affairs minister on Thursday condemned the reprinting of the cartoons.

Days of demonstrations against the first publishing of the cartoons in early February 2006 left around 11 people dead in Afghanistan, a deeply conservative Islamic nation.

Islam forbids any physical representation of the Prophet Mohammed.

Propaganda and PR claims over Prince Harry's Afghan tour

LONDON (AFP) — Prince Harry was on Sunday spending his first full day back in Britain after a tour of duty in Afghanistan, but amid claims that coverage of his mission was propaganda for a failed military strategy.

The 23-year-old's time fighting the Taliban in the volatile Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan has dominated the British media since a prominent US website blew his cover on Thursday, forcing military brass to pull him out.

Britain's domestic Press Association news agency put out 11,548 words within an hour of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) confirming the Drudge Report story.

On Friday, there were 56 pages of coverage in eight national newspapers, with headlines like "Harry the Brave" and "Harry the Secret Hero." The Sun tabloid published 11 pages, plus a poster of him on patrol.

All included photographs of the flame-haired prince: riding a motorbike in the desert, Steve McQueen style; with his shirt off playing rugby; in combat fatigues on patrol; or behind a machine gun, firing at insurgent positions.

Harry and the head of the British Army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, have said the blanket coverage could help better inform the public about Britain's mission in Afghanistan -- and also in Iraq, which remains unpopular here.

Dannatt's predecessor, General Sir Mike Jackson, told BBC television Sunday the coverage was "not unhelpful" for recruitment, saying Harry had summed up the sense of comradeship and common purpose among serving soldiers.

But dissenting voices are beginning to be heard, not least about the British media's rare, but not unprecedented, agreement with the defence ministry to a news blackout until Harry's return.

The presenter of Britain's Channel 4 News, Jon Snow, in an e-mail previewing Thursday's show, said: "One wonders whether viewers, readers and listeners will ever want to trust media bosses again.

"Or perhaps this was a courageous editorial decision to protect this fine young man?" he asked.

The British publicist Max Clifford told The Guardian Saturday the deployment was a "total, superficial, PR exercise" aimed at casting Harry -- who has a reputation as a wayward party animal -- in a more positive light.

One columnist at the right-of-centre Mail on Sunday said the focus on Harry and criticism of foreign media for breaking a gentleman's agreement was "sheer propaganda" that "may make us feel 'our boys are winning' in Afghanistan.

"But this is not the truth at all," wrote Suzanne Moore.

"Instead of secret meetings between the MoD and TV and newspaper editors and the Palace, wouldn't this time have been better spent in working out what we are trying to do in this brutalised country, as no-one is quite sure any more?"

In the Independent on Sunday, a British soldier who served in Iraq and Afghanistan criticised Britain's campaign in Helmand, arguing air strikes of the kind Harry called in as a battlefield air controller were not working.

"Rather than highlighting the appalling truths about the war in Helmand, the media, dazzled by the heroic ideal that Prince Harry so perfectly embodies, perpetuate the myth that this is a just war fit for heroes," said Leo Docherty.

"This is war reduced to entertainment, willingly ignorant of the truth that young men like Harry, both British and Afghan, are dying violent pointless deaths in Helmand province.

"Outrage is the only response to this, not entertainment."

The Observer, another centre-left weekly, said the complexities of the NATO-led mission and tensions between allies, particularly over troop numbers and rules of engagement, had been overlooked.

Scant attention was paid to recent claims about the Afghan government's fragile grip on power in the face of the Taliban's "kamikaze fanaticism," the difficulties of reconstruction or the coalition's counter-narcotics strategy, it wrote.

War on Terror, Taliban and Pashtun Nationalists

The Media Line, By Shaheen Buneri Sunday, March 02, 2008

[Peshawar, Pakistan] The first breeze of the coming spring may have caused flowers to blossom and reinvigorated life across the deserts and rugged mountains of the Pakistan tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

And on this side of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border a group of enthusiastic youth in the backyard of a private university in Hayatabad Peshawar are waving red flags and dancing to the tunes of artistically rich Pashto music, celebrating the landslide victory of secular political parties in Pakistan’s general elections held on February 18.

It is clear from their glowing faces that they are enjoying their newfound freedom.

"We are celebrating the change. Earlier, the establishment imposed a religious government on us; it promoted militancy and extremism. But this time people of the North West Frontier (NWFP) have flushed them out from the corridors of power. They are the agents of status quo, of frustration and obscurantism," Munnawar Khan, a student leader at the youth gathering says, a rare expression of joy sparkling in his eyes.

This is definitely a big change in people's attitudes and political ideals. The NWFP, commonly known as Frontier, is slowly shaking off longstanding feelings of insecurity and fear. Disappointment and resentment is giving way to hope and mutual understanding.

"The government of the religious parties banned music in public, closed Nishtar Hall, the sole cultural center of the provincial metropolis and, due to its ignorance, centuries-old archeological sites were either damaged or destroyed by different militant groups,” according to Usman Ulasyar, chairman of the Swat Cultural Society.

“This led to a frustration among the youth that has now manifested itself in the shape of suicide attacks and terrorist incidents," he says.

During the past two years militants spared no one. The intensified attacks on Awami National Party (ANP) rallies and the killing of leaders of the NWFP indicated that the extremist elements in Pakistan establishment and hardliner religious groups were feeling threatened over people's inclination towards liberal political parties, particularly the ANP, the secular and progressive Pashtun Nationalist Party in Charsadda.

A few days before the general elections a suicide bomber blew himself up at an ANP election rally, killing dozens of its workers and maiming many others.

Besides the killing of populist leader Benazir Bhutto, chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), militants attacked political leaders and rallies in Waziristan, Parachinar and Swat to derail the political process and intimidate the people.

Revenge, a feature of the Pashtuns’ psychological makeup, has always played a decisive role in their day-to-day life. This time they decided to avenge the damage extremists and religious parties had caused their society.

Despite threats and prevailing uncertainty, they cast their votes and replaced the six-party religious government of Muttahida Majlas-e-Amal (MMA) with secular parties like the PPP and the ANP in NWFP, a frontline province bordering Afghanistan where NATO Forces are fighting Al-Qa’ida and the Taliban (students of religious seminaries).

The ANP grabbed some 30 seats, and the PPP with 18 in the 124-seat NWFP Assembly, with their leaders agreeing to form a coalition government in the province. Analysts say, however, that dealing with terrorism will present a bigger challenge for them.

What is behind the Pashtun nationalists’ landslide victory?

A combination of the MMA government’s failure to establish an Islamic system, mismanagement of development projects, corruption and the rising tide of militancy, from Waziristan to the scenic valley of Swat, resulted into the resurrection of Pashtun nationalism. Some analysts have even called it the reawakening of Pashtuns.

Reports say that senior leaders of the MMA were very close to some of the militants in the region and on many occasions when the federal government tried to take action against certain militant leaders the MMA government strongly opposed the moves.

"Many of the Taliban voted in favor of the MMA in the 2002 elections; we can’t annoy them, as they are our vote bank," Qari Abdul Baghis, a former National Assembly member from Jamiat Ulama-e-Islam (a religious political party) told this reporter in an interview last summer.

The religious alliance always exploited anti-Americanism, but at the same time it provided tacit support for President Pervez Musharraf, the United States’ ally in the war on terror, on a number of legal and constitutional issues.

This double standard also alienated it from the people who voted it into the Assembly in the 2002 elections. Ironically, the masses rejected both Musharraf, who supported the war on terror, and the religious parties that opposed it.

This time they pinned their hopes on Pashtun nationalists and the PPP for restoring peace and stability to the region and redefining the ongoing war on terrorism.

Talking to journalists after meeting with U.S. Ambassador Anne W. Patterson at her residence, ANP president Asfandyar Wali Khan said the ANP would support other parties in forming a government that would change the policy on the war on terrorism and stop what he called the spilling of Pashtun blood on both sides of the Pakistan- Afghanistan border.

“Spilling of Pashtun blood" is the phrase that has haunted Pashtuns over the last 25-plus years on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The realization among Pashtuns that the war against terror is actually a war against Pashtuns poses new questions for U.S. policy makers and allies.

"Pashtuns had never shown aggression to anyone,” argues Syed Irfan Ashraf, a Peshawar-based journalist. “It was the USSR that attacked Afghanistan in 1979 and now the United States is repeating the same exercise.

“The long instability in the region has produced extremist views and a sense of helplessness being projected in suicide attacks and surging militancy,” he says.

Analysts say that by ignoring the Pashtun factor in its war on terror the U.S. has committed a blunder. The result is crystal clear, they say: terrorist activities are engulfing the whole region and now they are spreading to the settled districts of the Frontier and parts of Punjab.

Ali Gauhar, a political activist and social worker, believes that jirga (tribal assembly of elders) and consultation are the main features of Pashtun society. They believe in negotiations and will always prefer roses to guns.

But first they have to be understood in their socio-cultural context, Gauhar says.

Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the legendary Pashtun nationalist leader and prophet of peace, advocated non-violence and peaceful resolution of conflicts. In the 1930s he launched the Khudayi Khidmatgar Tehrik (Servants of God Movement) against the British rulers of India, using the weapon of non-violence.

He discouraged extremist tendencies among Pashtuns and trained them to struggle for their rights with non-violence and political activism.

"My leader is Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and not Mullah Omer or Osama Bin Laden,” says Sher Ali Khan, an educated Pashtun and government servant belonging to the Swat valley of Pakistan, where 25,000 Pakistan security forces fought the militants of militant leader Maulana Fazlullah.

“Talibanization is a totally alien phenomenon to my culture. My culture instructs me that all outstanding issues should be resolved through negotiations and jirga. While the militants want to establish a dictatorship based on religion, I want education for my children and they are bombing schools,” he says.

“I love to sing in the soothing loneliness of my fields and they break my rabab (a popular Pashtun musical instrument."

The 42-million Pashtuns on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border are the direct targets of both the militants and the U.S. war machinery, destroying not only lives but also the foundations of a liberal and secular Pashtun culture.

The recent electoral victory of Pashtun nationalists is an opportunity for both the Pakistani establishment and U.S. policy makers to assist the new government in tackling the issue of terrorism by traditional means and strengthen people's belief in moderation and tolerance.

The ANP's political agenda includes provincial autonomy, fighting terrorism and renaming the NWFP province. It highlights three main issues: Pashtuns want control over their resources; they demand an identity for their nameless province and they want to put an end to religious radicalism.

Khadim Hussain Amir, a university professor and Pashtun nationalist, states in his recently published article, "Aftermath of NWFP polls": “The majority of Pashtuns rejected the thesis that the core of their identity is constructed on the foundations of a narrow worldview. The ANP victory will compel analysts to revise their views on Pashtun nationalism and religious identity and look at them with a fresh perspective. The Pashtuns in the NWFP have given this simple message to the world, that they must not be equated with the Taliban and Al-Qa’ida."

The cordial relationship between the family of Asfandyar Wali Khan, the president of the ANP, and Pashtun leaders of Afghanistan, particularly Hamid Karzai, president of Afghanistan, will also help governments on both sides of the Durand Line to adopt more comprehensive and realistic strategies to counter terrorism.

Time will show whether an ANP-led government succeeds in materializing its vision of a prosperous and progressive Pashtunkhwa (the historical name of the Frontier province).

Their failure, on the other hand, may further complicate the already complicated socio-political situation in the region.

Making the mission work

With political consensus reached, Canada must now ensure its efforts in Afghanistan succeed

Toronto Star, Canada, Thomas Axworthy Mar 02, 2008

Parliament is convulsed with the issue of whether Canada should commit to three more years of fighting a war in Afghanistan. A more realistic time frame would be to add 25 years to that perspective.

This sober assessment was the major theme of a conference hosted by Queen's University in Ottawa last week. As Parliament next door debated the government's motion to extend the combat role to 2011, speakers with first-hand experience in Afghanistan debated the realities of what it would actually take to protect Afghanistan from predators and to rebuild this shattered state.

The Manley Report on Afghanistan also addressed this issue. Most commentary focused on the recommendations that NATO provide another 1,000 troops in Kandahar. However, the report also had some very pertinent sections on Afghanistan's challenges in rebuilding.

Progress has been made but the problems, as the conference speakers reiterated, are vast, and the international community is poorly motivated and poorly organized to meet them.

Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world – the per capita GDP is $1,640 U.S. compared with $36,821 in Canada. It ranks 174th out of 178 countries in the United Nations Development Program index on human development. Foreign aid totalled more than $3 billion U.S. in 2005, providing 90 per cent of the public spending in Afghanistan. However, such a sum is still much lower than illicit opium income.

Afghanistan is the world's largest exporter of opium, estimated by some to represent a street value of $60 billion U.S. This means that reconstruction in Afghanistan faces a triple whammy: NATO tries to eradicate the poppy in the south; the Taliban turns the disgruntled farmers against the West; drug lords have their own private militias. So, even if the Taliban were defeated, they might be replaced by drug cartels that live off corrupting the police. Replacing a Taliban-terrorist state with a narco-terrorist state is not progress.

The international community's effort to combat poverty and drugs is hampered by Afghanistan's security problems.

One of our conference speakers, who worked for USAID, described what it was like working in Herat. Her security detail consisted of 10 guards. When she went for a meeting with the province's governor, he had a security detail even larger.

A meeting to discuss women's development resembled a scene out of Chicago in the 1920s with Al Capone and his gang meeting Frank Nitty with his guards. How can development take place when you cannot meet the people you are trying to help?

Another conclusion of the conference was that the future of Afghanistan and Pakistan are inextricably linked. The Taliban were largely created by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate and elements of that directorate are still helping the Taliban today. The Taliban and their Al Qaeda allies live and train in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province and slip into Kandahar to do their dirty work, and then return to the safety of their sanctuary. Let there be no doubt – it will be impossible to defeat the Taliban if this safe sanctuary continues.

NATO and Canada must face up to the fact that to prevail in Afghanistan, Pakistan must be prevented from falling into chaos. The government of Pakistan must be assisted to restore its authority in the Northwest Frontier Province. This is a tall order. If we are making scant progress in assisting the 28 million Afghans, what can we do to mitigate the far larger problems of a Pakistan, which has a population of 165 million and nuclear weapons? Does NATO or Canada even have a Pakistan strategy? If we do not get a handle on Pakistan, the Canadian lives lost to date in Afghanistan and the additional losses we will endure by 2011 will all be for naught.

Afghanistan has made tremendous strides. It has freely elected a president and a legislature, and the next election cycle begins in 2009. This second election cycle will demonstrate whether democracy can be consolidated. Canada must do everything it can to help the Afghans in this crucial next phase of their democratic development.

Yet, if democracy has advanced, problems in governments remain. Public administration capacity is lacking throughout the country. The backbone of democracy, for example, is the rule of law. Yet, only 11 per cent of Afghan's judges have a university law degree and nearly half of the judges have no judicial training. How can Afghan citizens trust their legal system when half of the judges know no law?

The Manley Commission also addressed this dearth in public administration capacity. CIDA should concentrate on training Afghan public servants and on creating a local civil service college. As one of our presenters said: "Clean water will never deliver a clean government, but a clean government is far more likely to deliver clean water."

The Liberal and Conservative parties have now agreed to extend the combat mission – ending that debate. Now, the priority must be how to make that mission a success, which is an immense challenge.

Rebuilding a failed state while fighting a war against guerrillas, who have a safe sanctuary, is the single most difficult foreign policy commitment that Canada has made since 1945.

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

The Afghan threat

The Baltimore Sun, Editorial - 03/02/2008 

The war in Afghanistan is not going well, and there appears to be no easy answer to the challenge the Taliban and al-Qaida present there.

The United States is about to add 2,400 Marines to the 26,000 troops already in Afghanistan. They will go into the mountainous southern regions to help search out terrorist strongholds along the Pakistan border. The Americans are likely to win some skirmishes when they find the enemy. But when confronted, terrorist forces are in the habit of withdrawing into Pakistan where U.S. troops can't follow.

Meanwhile, security is deteriorating across Afghanistan. Opium and heroin production is booming, the main north-south highway connecting Kabul in the north and Kandahar in the south is no longer safe for unescorted traffic, and the threat of terrorist reprisal looms everywhere.

There's a long history of failure by powerful outsiders who have attempted to impose order here, going back to Alexander the Great. But the Bush administration never tackled this project as it should have, a consequence of its failed policy in Iraq.

Still, if the United States decides that the goal of suppressing the Taliban and al-Qaida is worth the cost, there is a lot that could be accomplished with added military power, money - lots of it - and a meaningful plan to achieve victory.

The Marines, who view the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan as two pieces of the same war, say they could shift significant numbers of troops there if the Pentagon is willing to accept the costs of shorter home leaves. Highways and schools could be built, more Afghan army and local police units could be trained to provide better security, and cultivation of alternative crops could be subsidized to lure farmers away from opium.

But none of this makes any sense without a plan that offers a reasonable expectation of long-term success. Last week, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates acknowledged that the U.S. and its NATO allies need to work together to find a more effective Afghan strategy.

But the allies, who took over peacekeeping responsibility in Afghanistan last year and have 28,000 troops on the ground, have been less than eager to send in more troops.

The status quo offers its own dangers to the U.S. and its allies in Afghanistan. The only thing that more threatens our future national security than not confronting the Taliban and al-Qaida is confronting them and not winning.

Afghan wasteland

The Guardian, 03/02/2008 By Conor Foley

The west's money for reconstruction in Afghanistan has been spent appallingly in ways that have done little to help the people

One of the least discussed aspects of the crisis in Afghanistan is the challenge that it poses to those involved in humanitarian aid and reconstruction. How can assistance best be delivered to the Afghan people and what should be the criteria governing how it is delivered?

A few months ago Nick Cohen wrote one of his characteristically forthright pieces in which he asserted that:

"The Taliban is being beaten on the battlefield, but while losing militarily it may be winning politically with the help of the strangest ally in the history of warfare: health and safety regulations."

Cohen claimed that "bureaucratic restrictions" by the British government were "making reconstruction next to impossible", because "risk avoidance" has become part of the British national culture. He quoted an unnamed officer in the Territorial Army saying that "people like the Pashto find our behaviour craven and despise us for it" and concluded with a stirring cry about the brave men and women ready to do their duty, but for the cowardice of their superior officers.

The most striking thing about the article, apart from its Boy's Own Annual writing style, was its assumption that aid should be used as part of a counter-insurgency strategy, despite a recognition that this has proved so ineffective in practice.

The origins of the policy date back to the early days of international intervention in Afghanistan. The UN-mandated International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) was initially based solely in Kabul, while the US-led coalition forces devoted themselves exclusively to hunting down the remnants of the Taliban in the south and east. This led to a security vacuum in the rest of the country, which was largely filled by the warlords and gangsters that the Taliban had chased out.

To try and counter this, a decision was taken to deploy Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs), which were military-led units, whose job was to provide some public reassurance to local people that they had not been entirely forgotten by Afghanistan's central government. The PRTs included civilian reconstruction workers who implemented Quick Impact Programmes (QIPs), designed to help "win hearts and minds" in the communities where they were based.

Most humanitarian aid workers had mixed feelings about the arrival of the PRTs. On the one hand we welcomed anything that could bring greater security to Afghanistan's anarchic countryside, but, on the other, we were concerned that the "mixing of military and humanitarian mandates" could affect the way in which we were viewed in the field. This latter concern was borne out as the Taliban increasingly started targeting humanitarian aid workers as "part of the occupation forces", murdering dozens of my friends and colleagues.

Six years into the occupation, it is clear that the PRT strategy has failed. Even a recent World Bank report recommended that they should be scaled down and phased out in many areas and humanitarian aid organisations have become increasingly vocal in criticising the strategy on which they are based. The problem is that aid is being poured into areas, not on the basis of where it is needed, or can do any good, but solely because of its supposed ability to buy the allegiance of local populations.

The US government, which is by far the biggest donor, is spending over half of its aid in the four southern provinces which are now effectively under the control of the Taliban. This money almost entirely bypasses Afghanistan's central government, which weakens its ability to build up national capacity, and is instead being channelled through US private contractors, who absorb a significant proportion of it in profits and security overheads.

The UK government has a better record of providing direct budget support to the Afghan government, but it has also scaled back its humanitarian assistance funding and channelled the bulk of what remains into Helmand, where it is having difficulty finding projects to spend it on. As one aid worker put it to me: "They are still relying on Quick Impact Projects after six years, which suggests that the projects have not been very quick or had much of an impact."

Afghanistan is a desperately poor country and it needs long-term assistance and support. It has so far received $15bn (£7.6bn) in aid, which should have gone a long way towards meeting many basic needs. But the money has been spent appallingly in ways that have done little to help the Afghan people and much to fuel resentment. The US also spent $35bn on military operations in the country in 2007, alone, which works out at around $65,000 a minute and these costs will probably rise in the next few months as the "Spring offensives" begin.

For all the rhetoric about "helping Afghans to rebuild their country", most aid is currently being distributed as largesse in a vain attempt to consolidate military conquests. There is little joined-up planning. Schools are being built with no teachers and hospitals with no doctors or medicines. Meanwhile the Afghan government cannot afford to pay its police officers more than $60 a month, with predictable consequences for corruption and law and order. As Simon Jenkins wrote here a few months ago, the west is currently dumping "random millions of aid" for no apparent purpose and "if the National Audit Office opened a branch in Kabul, it would have a seizure."

There are no easy answers for what to do next in Afghanistan. The Taliban are not being beaten; the insurgency is growing in intensity and President Karzai's government appears increasingly defensive. A huge military surge could buy it some breathing space, although it seems unlikely that western governments have the political will to support this.

The ultimate settlement will probably be a messy compromise based on an accommodation between Karzai and his Taliban opponents, unless western troops abandon the country beforehand, in which case Afghanistan will slide back into the fratricide of the 1990s.

The broader question remains, though; why is the west continuing to try and implement an aid and reconstruction policy which is clearly not working? The UK International Development Act specifies that aid should be given for the purpose of reducing poverty. Assistance for other purposes, such as to advance certain political or commercial objectives, is challengeable in court.

To be fair to the British Department for International Development, they have attempted to ringfence their own spending from the PRT strategy, but Britain, along with the rest of the donor community, have allowed their overall funding effort to be skewed behind a policy which almost everyone involved in aid work in Afghanistan privately admits to be stupid and wrong.

[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.]