In this bulletin:

• Several Taliban killed and 3 car bombs discovered in Afghanistan, US-led coalition says
• Second Afghan suicide blast in two days kills policemen
• Iran says it will deport over one million Afghans
• AFGHANISTAN: Unable To Cope With Returning Refugees
• UN: Afghanistan Should Hit Drug Lords
• Afghan lawmakers protest Danish prophet cartoon, Dutch film criticizing Quran
• Mobile phone mast attacks could jeopardize aid deliveries
• France pushing for focused NATO front against Taliban
• Afghanistan mission the focus of NATO meeting
• Deal with U.S. for helicopter support in Afghanistan is close: MacKay
• Opium Wars
• Trial of B.C. man in Afghan singer's death begins Monday
• Putting blame on Pakistan won't help war on terror
• Pakistan's grand bargain falls apart
• AFGHANISTAN: Poor sanitation, bad toilets cause deaths, misery

Several Taliban killed and 3 car bombs discovered in Afghanistan, US-led coalition says

The Associated Press, Wednesday, March 5, 2008

KABUL, Afghanistan: Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces killed several Taliban insurgents and discovered cave complexes containing three car bombs and other explosive materials in southern Afghanistan, the coalition said Wednesday.

In southwestern Nimroz province, meanwhile, Taliban militants attacked a police checkpoint Tuesday night, and the ensuing two-hour gunbattle left three policemen dead, said provincial Gov. Ghulam Dastagir Azad.

In southern Helmand province, Afghan and coalition forces were patrolling northeast of Gereshk district when Taliban fighters fired on them Sunday with small arms, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars, a coalition statement said.

The Afghan and coalition troops returned fire and called in airstrikes, killing "several insurgents," the statement said. It did not give further details.

In a separate operation late last week in the southern province of Zabul, Afghan and coalition troops searched compounds and caves where they discovered a large weapons cache, another coalition statement said.

It said the cache included bomb-making materials and three car bombs. Airstrikes were used to destroy the complex and ammunition storage areas, the statement said. It said seven insurgents were arrested.

Last year Afghanistan experienced its deadliest violence since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. More than 6,500 people — mostly militants — were killed in insurgency-related violence, according to an Associated Press count.

Second Afghan suicide blast in two days kills policemen

March 4, 2008 - KHOST, Afghanistan (AFP) - A suicide car bomb exploded near a government compound in eastern Afghanistan Tuesday, killing a policeman a day after two NATO troops and two civilians died in a similar blast in the area, officials said.

The bombing -- claimed by the extremist Taliban -- was the fifth in a week in the eastern province of Khost, which borders Pakistan, and indicates an increase in militant unrest as the weather warms.

The attacker had tried to ram an explosives-filled vehicle into the compound -- which houses the local government and security forces -- in the Tani district, officials said.

"The guards opened fire and an explosion took place, killing the policeman who opened fire at the attacker," district governor Badai-ul-Zaman Sabarai said. An Afghan soldier was critically wounded and nine civilians were also hurt, he added.

The attack was similar to one in the nearby Sabari district on Monday, which killed two soldiers with NATO's International Security Assistance Force and wounded 15, according to an ISAF statement.

Two Afghan civilians were killed and several wounded in Monday's blast, local officials said. That explosion also caused several buildings in the compound to collapse, ISAF said.

The insurgent Taliban claimed responsibility for both attacks. Khost has been struck by five bombings since last Tuesday. The previous blasts were roadside bombs that killed 10 people, five of them policemen.

The province adjoins Pakistan's North Waziristan province, where Taliban and other militants are active. Officials had said in recent months that efforts to stem insurgency-linked violence there had shown some progress.

Last year was the bloodiest since the Taliban were removed from power in late 2001 and there are fears this year will be just as bad.

The country has already suffered its deadliest ever suicide bombing, at a dog fighting match near the southern city of Kandahar in which about 100 people were killed, some of them in gunfire from bodyguards.

Iran says it will deport over one million Afghans

KABUL , 4 March 2008 (IRIN) - All Afghan citizens in Iran without valid refugee documents will be deported, Seyyed Taghi Ghaemi, director of the Iranian bureau for aliens and foreign immigrants, told reporters at the end of a two-day meeting with Afghan and UN officials in Kabul on 3 March.

The Iranian authorities had announced a temporary suspension of the deportation process in early January due to extremely cold weather in Afghanistan. Now, Iranian officials say the deportation will resume in the near future.

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) says it does not know exactly how many unregistered Afghans are living in Iran, but Iranian officials estimate there are over one million.

There are over 900,000 registered Afghan refugees in Iran, the UNHCR says, and they are legally entitled to stay.

Ghaemi did not specify whether all unregistered Afghans would be expelled from Iran in 2008, but said there would be consultations with the Afghan authorities, adding: "We will deport them from Iran as we encounter them."

The UN and the Afghan government acknowledge Iran's right to deport aliens who enter its territory or stay illegally. However, aid agencies and Afghan officials have repeatedly called on Iran to deport Afghans in a humane and gradual way.

Afghanistan, the fifth least developed country in the world, does not have the capacity to integrate large numbers of returning refugees and deportees, UN and Afghan officials said.

Insecurity, lack of economic opportunities and poor services in Afghanistan are factors which have contributed to a significant decline in voluntary repatriation rates from Iran and Pakistan where over three million Afghan refugees still live.

"Afghanistan's problems are well-known to everyone," said Abdul Qadir Ahadi, Afghan deputy minister of refugees and returnees, adding that his country could not absorb a large number of deportees from Iran.

Afghan officials have warned that mass deportations would cause a humanitarian crisis. Iran deported tens of thousands of Afghans in 2007, which sparked a humanitarian emergency and a political crisis in Afghanistan.

Many Afghans - most of them single males - illegally cross the border into Iran in search of work, according to the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU), an independent Kabul-based research organisation.

Remittances from Afghans working in Iran provide a lifeline to many vulnerable families in Afghanistan, AREU says. Cheap Afghan labour is also considered to be beneficial to Iran and Pakistan, where Afghans are widely employed in the construction industry.

"To cut off this source of income for many poor Afghans could have disastrous consequences - not only in the humanitarian, but in the security sphere," said a report of the US Congressional Research Service on the status of Afghan refugees in Iran and Pakistan released in January 2007.

A recent IRIN report highlighted the possibility that poverty could be driving some Afghans into the arms of the Taliban.

The movement of labourers between Afghanistan and Iran has a long tradition, but the Iranian authorities have recently started adopting a tougher stance. Tehran blames unregistered Afghans in Iran for breaking the law on a number of counts: "Those who illegally enter Iran commit several crimes: illegal entry, illegal residence, illegal work and paying human trafficking networks," said Ghaemi.

"What would the USA and Afghanistan do to people who illegally entered their territory?" asked Ghaemi. "They would put them in jail for six months," he said.

AFGHANISTAN: Unable To Cope With Returning Refugees

By Anand Gopal - KABUL, Mar 4 (IPS) - The rate of return of refugees to Afghanistan from neighbouring countries is causing tremendous stress to the Afghan government and society, government officials here say.

According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), in 2007 alone the Iranian government deported over 360,000 Afghans, most of whom struggled to find adequate housing and social services. In addition, thousands more have returned to their home country voluntarily, assisted by UNHCR and government programmes.

Shir Mohammed Etibari, head of the Afghan Ministry of Refugees and Returnees, recently told reporters that the Afghan government does not have the capacity to absorb the large numbers returning from Iran and elsewhere. Officials here worry that the influx of refugees has sparked food, housing and job shortages and fuels resentment against the government.

"We are trying to come to an agreement with Iran, because we are not able to provide for all of these refugees," says Abdul Qader Zazai, chief advisor to Etibari.

Millions of Afghans fled their homes because of the decade-long Soviet occupation, subsequent civil war and the rise of the Taliban. According to UNHCR spokesman Ahmed Nadir Farhad, for decades Afghans constituted the world's largest refugee population -- at the height of the exodus, up to eight million Afghans were living outside their country, mainly in Iran and Pakistan.

While aid agencies say that the rate of voluntary return has slowed due to the worsening economic and security situation, Iran is deporting large numbers and Pakistan is beginning to do so.

The former refugees say that they are returning to a bleak situation, where a lack of social services, job and food insecurity have sparked disillusionment with the Karzai administration. "It is very difficult to find a job," Daoud, 35, a returned refugee from Pakistan, tells IPS. "Without a job, we have many problems. Since the government has not given us help, we can't afford most things. My daughter is sick but I don't have money to go to the doctor."

The U.S. reports that Afghanistan's unemployment rate is at least 40 percent, and rising every year. Kabul's population has swelled from an estimated 500,000 in 2001 to over three million, according to the Afghan Central Statistics Office, and returning refugees comprise the bulk of this increase. But employment opportunities under the Karzai administration and international presence are at numbers nowhere near the number of job seekers, fuelling widespread discontent.

In addition, skyrocketing food prices threaten to push thousands into hunger. While the problem affects all Afghans, it hits the refugee communities the hardest. "We have nine people in my family," says Mohammed Tazib, 35. "During this winter, we can't support our family. Middlemen hoard the food and only sell it when the prices increase. We don't have enough money to get all of the goods we need. The government doesn't pass any laws to control the price of goods. The dignitaries in power -- especially Hamid Karzai -- have not even paid attention."

The returning refugees also bring an additional problem to Afghanistan's streets - drug addiction. Iran has one of the highest drug addiction rates in the world, and thousands of Afghan refugees pick up the habit and spread it to their friends and family back home.

Afghanistan now has close to one million addicts, transforming a country known to be relatively addiction free into one of the fastest growing drug populations in the world.

Zakih, 33, returned from Iran six months ago. "When I was working in Iran," he recalls, "we worked very hard all day. At the end of the day, my boss, who was Iranian, gave me some drugs and said 'take them -- you will feel better'".

Hundreds of addicts like Zakih live in abandoned parks and bombed-out buildings around Kabul. Most are jobless and are forced to beg and steal to earn their drug money.

"When someone is drug dependent and has no money, anyone can buy him," says Jehenzeb Khan, director of the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime Demand Reduction Programme. "They are vulnerable to insurgents, petty criminals, and others."

"This is directly affecting the health of the society," he adds. "When so much of the youth are addicted, it is difficult to rebuild our society."

While the government cites a lack of resources, many insist that supporting the refugees is possible if the Karzai administration and foreign forces focused on developing social services and not just on waging counterinsurgency.

"The Americans are more interested in killing their enemies than rebuilding the country," says one Afghan media worker, who requested anonymity. Washington currently spends close to ten US dollars on the war effort for every dollar spent on reconstruction.

According to a recent report by the aid watchdog Action Aid, international "donors have failed to deliver money pledged for aid, distributing five billion dollars less than promised between 2002 and 2006."

Experts say that the trends augur ill for the future of the Afghan government. A U.N. news agency recently reported that the lack of economic prospects is driving poor youths into the hands of the Taliban and fuelling the insurgency.

In the ghettos and makeshift refugee camps that dot Kabul, things have not yet reached this point. But the residents here agree that something must be done. "Government vehicles drive by our camp every day, without stopping." Daoud says. "We have too many problems -- we just can’t continue like this."

UN: Afghanistan Should Hit Drug Lords

Associated Press Writer - KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - The Afghan government should target big drug traffickers - some with links to government officials - who are fueling the country's multibillion-dollar illicit drug trade, which has reached unprecedented levels, the United Nations said Wednesday.

Christian Gynna Oguz, country director for the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, said Afghanistan remains the world's largest producer of opium and heroin and that drug lords and corrupt government officials operate with impunity.

``Powerful individuals are able to compromise the justice system through bribes and corruption, as well as implicit and explicit threats,'' she said in a statement. ``Such situations can no longer be tolerated if Afghans are to have the type of judicial system and functioning institutional structures that they deserve.''

Afghanistan supplies 93 percent of the world's illicit opium, the main ingredient of heroin, and Taliban rebels fighting U.S.-led forces receive up to $100 million from the drug trade, U.N. officials have said.

``The illicit cultivation of opium poppy in Afghanistan has reached an unprecedented level,'' the U.N. drug office said in a statement.

Farmers cultivated a record 477,000 acres of opium in 2007, a 14 percent increase over the previous year. Total production, spurred by unusually high rainfall, increased even further, by 34 percent, it said.

``The government must therefore widen its effort to include the fight against drug traders who profit the most from the illicit opium industry and who collectively earn more than $4 billion,'' Gynna Oguz said.

Gynna Oguz also called on the government to stamp out ``telephone justice, in which powerful individuals, inside or outside the government, improperly intervene in this process with a simple phone call.''

``There are telephone calls being made to release suspects that have been arrested, and this 'telephone justice' ... is unacceptable because it undermines the trust in the government and its institutions and it must be stopped,'' she said.

Afghan lawmakers protest Danish prophet cartoon, Dutch film criticizing Quran

The Associated Press, 03/04/2008

KABUL - More than 200 lawmakers shouted ''Death to the enemies of Islam'' during an angry demonstration outside the Afghan parliament protesting the reprinting of cartoons of Prophet Muhammad in Denmark and an upcoming Dutch film criticizing the Quran.

The lawmakers from the upper and lower houses of parliament chanted and pounded their fists in the air, urging the Danish and Dutch governments to prevent blasphemy against Islam.

''We want the world community, the U.N. and the Organization of the Islamic Conference to react against these kinds of activities, and not allow any countries to cause such confrontations and dangerous challenges among Muslim communities,'' lawmaker Mohammad Saleh Suljoqi read from a statement.

Last month in a gesture of solidarity, Denmark's leading newspapers reproduced cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad after Danish police said they had uncovered a plot to kill the artist, whose drawings sparked deadly riots across the Muslim world in 2006.

The reprinting triggered another wave of protests in Islamic countries in recent weeks. The Afghan lawmakers were also angered by an upcoming short film by a Dutch lawmaker that reportedly portrays the Quran as a ''fascist book.''

They demanded that the Afghan Foreign Ministry summon envoys from Denmark and the Netherlands to discuss the matter. They also urged the Danish and Dutch governments prevent such acts in their countries.

On Monday, Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta told reporters during a visit to Denmark that he respected differences in cultures, but suggested Danish newspapers abused freedom of expression when they reprinted the cartoons three weeks ago.

Spanta said freedom of speech should be used to promote ''equality and peace between nations'' and to exchange information. ''Freedom of speech must not be used to make a billion Muslims cry,'' he said.

Afghanistan is a Muslim nation where criticism of Muhammad and the Quran is a serious crime that carries the death sentence.

Tuesday's protest follows a large demonstration Sunday in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif in which clerics and madrassa students burned the Danish and Dutch flags and demanded that the government shut the two countries' embassies in Kabul.

Mobile phone mast attacks could jeopardise aid deliveries

KABUL, 3 March 2008 (IRIN) - A blackout of mobile phone services, particularly during the night, in parts of southern Afghanistan has created serious problems for local people and raised concerns about humanitarian and development activities.

"I cannot call the police or a hospital in an emergency because the phones do not work at night," said Abdul Gafar, a resident of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.

"We feel cut-off and isolated from the rest of the country," said a resident of Lashkargah, the provincial capital of Helmand Province.

Taliban insurgents have burned down three mobile telephone antennas belonging to private companies in Kandahar and Helmand provinces in the past five days, provincial police and local people said.

The attacks happened after a purported Taliban spokesman reportedly warned telephone companies to shut down their networks from 5pm to 7am for security and intelligence reasons.

The spokesman said Afghan and international forces had tracked insurgents via their mobile phones and that government supporters had often disseminated information about Taliban activities by mobile phone.

Afghanistan's Ministry of Communication and Technology has condemned attacks on the telephone infrastructure and said the right to communication should be respected by all warring parties.

Aleem Siddique, a spokesman for the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), called the attacks on telephone masts a "sinister ploy", which would not limit the ability of Afghan and international forces to launch military and/or intelligence actions against Taliban insurgents.

Officials at Afghanistan's National Disasters Management Authority (ANDMA) said mobile phones were one of its major communication tools all over the war-torn country and a shutdown of the network would have grave consequences for operations.

"Without mobile phones we will not be able to quickly receive, verify and send information about the occurrence, response to, and management of, natural and man-made disasters everywhere in the country," said Mohammad Siddique Hassani, ANDMA's director of policy and coordination.

With the flooding season coming up, ANDMA is concerned that in the absence of proper communications the agency and its partners will find it difficult to effectively coordinate evacuation, needs assessments and aid delivery operations in vulnerable rural areas.

A shutdown of mobile telephone networks would not prevent UN agencies from doing their work in southern provinces, Siddique told IRIN in Kabul on 3 March: "We have radios which we use for communications," he said.

Currently four private mobile telephone companies operate in Afghanistan. They not only provide employment opportunities for hundreds of Afghans but also pay considerable amounts in taxes to the government.

France pushing for focused NATO front against Taliban
Canwest News Service Tuesday, March 04, 2008

PARIS - France, poised to expand its military commitment in Afghanistan, will push this week for a more focused allied plan to battle Taliban insurgents and rebuild the country, the French government said Tuesday.

Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner "will express the need for the alliance to develop a true strategy in Afghanistan" when he meets in Brussels Thursday with foreign ministers at a North Atlantic Treaty Organization meeting.

Kouchner will be attending an informal meeting of NATO foreign ministers where he is expected to discuss France's ambitions with Canadian counterpart Maxime Bernier.

Canada has waged a high-pressure diplomatic effort to convince NATO allies, and in particular France, to come up with the 1,000 troops Canada says it needs to continue its mission beyond 2009 in the dangerous Kandahar region of Afghanistan.

The Paris newspaper Le Monde reported last week that French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who will announce France's plans at a NATO summit next month in Bucharest, wants to send the additional troops to the east to fight with Americans, rather than to the south with the Canadians.

Pascale Andreani, senior spokeswoman for the French Foreign Ministry, refused to comment on the report but said France isn't ignoring Canada's request.

"We have certainly heard the call of Canada," she said at a news conference today. "As I said to you, we are in the process of preparing a decision that will be announced in Bucharest."

She also noted that France has already recently boosted its efforts in Afghanistan, sending Mirage fighter jets to Kandahar and expanding efforts to train the Afghan National Army.

French officials stress repeatedly that Canadians should recognize the country has more than 15,000 troops in various peacekeeping and peacemaking missions overseas, including about 2,000 in Afghanistan.

Some analysts have suggested that France, which has historically tried to push the image of French "greatness" abroad, would rather fight alongside American troops in the east than play a junior role to Canada in the south because Canada is a middle power that gets almost no media attention in Europe.

But one official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said France's interest in locating more troops in the east has far more to do with operational and logistical issues and less to do with enhancing French prestige.

He noted that the eastern battle area is far closer to Kabul, Afghanistan's capital, where the majority of French troops and equipment are based.

He also confirmed that an expanded French role in the east would liberate American soldiers there to move south to help the Canadians.

Afghanistan mission the focus of NATO meeting
Canwest News Service Wednesday, March 05, 2008

BRUSSELS - Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier arrives here Thursday for a key North Atlantic Treaty Organization meeting where the troubled Afghanistan mission will be the hottest topic on the table.

NATO foreign ministers are gathering to discuss the framework for a coherent plan to bring development and peace to a country facing an increasingly aggressive Taliban insurgency.

They will also be confronted with one of many examples of flagging public support for the mission - Canada's ultimatum that it will withdraw its 2,200 troops from the dangerous Kandahar region unless NATO finds substantial reinforcements.

The gathering sets the stage for a NATO summit next month in Bucharest, Romania, where Prime Minister Stephen Harper is expected to find out if his diplomatic gambit will yield fruit.

One diplomatic source praised Canada's efforts Wednesday, saying France is profoundly aware of Canada's position, even as it contemplates sending hundreds of new troops to the east rather than the southern Kandahar region.

He said a French move to the east is logical because troops will be closer to Kabul, the Afghanistan capital, where most of France's equipment and 2,000 troops are located. But that move would free up American soldiers in the east, near the volatile Pakistan border, to head south to help the Canadians.

Deal with U.S. for helicopter support in Afghanistan is close: MacKay

MUURAY BREWSTER - The Canadian Press March 4, 2008 at 5:14 PM EST

OTTAWA — Canada is in the final stages of high-level talks with the United States to acquire six battlefield helicopters for operations in Afghanistan, says Defence Minister Peter MacKay.

“We're not quite there yet, but I'm confident we'll have something very soon,” Mr. MacKay said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

Supplying air transport to get soldiers off the bomb-strewn highways of Kandahar was one of the major conditions set down by the Manley panel for Canada's continued military involvement in the war-torn country.

The independent panel set a deadline of February 2009 to have the helicopters, which could be used for troop movements and re-supply mission, in place.

In his first detailed interview about the scramble to provide helicopters, Mr. MacKay said the Defence Department has been pursuing three options — all of them involving variants of the Boeing CH-47 Chinook heavy-lift aircraft.

The first option, and the one Mr. MacKay suggested is the most likely to succeed, involves convincing the U.S. Army to let Canada's air force slip ahead in the production line.

The main drawback to that proposal is the air force would likely not get the specific model of helicopter — a CH-47-F — that it had requested almost two years ago.

“I think we're going to get tails earmarked for the American army, but they may not be the exact specs of the ones we had originally envisioned and that's where we're into a bit of a negotiating stage,” Mr. MacKay said.

He says the other options include:

— acquiring older, refurbished Chinooks under a U.S. army program and leasing those helicopters until an existing Canadian order is filled — in much the same way Leopard 2 A6 tanks were borrowed from the Germans.

— leasing helicopters from another country.

NATO has been examining a program whereby countries fighting in Afghanistan pay for the use of helicopters from countries that don't have major troop commitments.

The Conservative government announced in June 2006 that it intended to spend $4.7-billion for 16 heavy-lift battlefield helicopters and 20 years of maintenance support.

The program has been stalled, partly because the air force asked Boeing last year for design changes to make the Canadian Chinooks more versatile and give them longer range.

National Defence has yet to sign a contract with the U.S, aircraft giant and delivery of the first helicopter — under the original plan — isn't expected until 2011.

The delay has been great source of frustration to the army, which quietly implored the Manley panel to make helicopters an urgent priority in its final report, which was released in early January.

The Manley report also mandated the purchase of advanced unmanned surveillance aircraft. Cabinet last spring killed a proposal to buy as many as 12 U.S. Predator drones because of concern over sole-source contracts.

The Defence Department recently put out a tender to lease a mid-level drone that can fly for 12 hours “to gather and transmit high-quality imagery at a distance of 100 kilometres from Kandahar, Afghanistan.”

Even though it's a step down from the Predator, Mr. MacKay says he's confident Project Noctua — as the air force is calling it — will fulfill the requirements set out by the independent commission.

Opium Wars

Newsweek, 03/04/2008 By Katie Paul

Afghanistan's narcotics trade is back with a vengeance. Washington's latest antidrug plan is unlikely to curb it.

Back in 2003, U.S. officials worried about the drug economy in Afghanistan, where 80,000 hectares (200,000 acres) were being used to grow poppies to supply three-quarters of the world's opium, the main ingredient in heroin and a major source of funding for the country's divisive provincial politicians.

Those were the days. With Afghanistan now growing nearly 200,000 hectares of poppies and supplying a full 93 percent of the world's opium, U.S. officials are stepping up counternarcotics efforts in the restive southern provinces of Afghanistan, a move that triggered a bloody six-hour gunfight last week. The clash, the first in this year's aggressive new campaign to eradicate poppy fields, killed 25 Taliban militants fighting to protect the crops and one policeman fighting to raze them.

U.S. officials say more extensive but targeted eradication is needed to rein in the billions of narcodollars floating around Afghanistan, which they say funds and arms the escalating insurgency. In its annual International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, released on Friday, the State Department insisted that profits from drug production in southern Afghanistan were lining the pockets of warlords supporting the resurgent Taliban, pointing to the contrast between relatively poppy-free northern provinces and the growing production in the volatile south. Poppy eradication, they say, is a necessary evil in the fight to secure the dangerous and strategically critical southern provinces.

With the spring harvest just around the corner, the coming weeks pose a challenge in the U.S.-led effort to crack down on the Afghan drug economy. Two years of record harvests and evidence of a shift toward larger and wealthier poppy cultivators in the south prompted American officials to revise their floundering poppy strategy this year. Now, as spring approaches, their controversial plans to intensify the eradication campaign are being put to the test.

But concerns remain. Will wiping out the fields of well-connected local warlords set a powerful precedent for future planting seasons, or, as critics protest, will the political fallout from the crop eradication create more problems than it solves?

Opium has long played a role in the Afghan economy, but the industry has skyrocketed in the years since the U.S.-led coalition toppled the Taliban government in 2001. The Taliban used to keep production and sales in check by regulating them, collecting taxes from both farmers and traffickers. Following the invasion, the new administration outlawed the trade, initially cutting it as farmers, fearing widespread confiscations, engaged in a panicked sell-off of their goods.

But in the years since, as the Karzai government has proved too weak to enforce the ban or develop alternative industries, poppy cultivation has revived. In 2007 the United Nations reported a windfall harvest of 200,000 hectares, capping two years of all-time highs that accounted for a third of the Afghan economy. The last report showed a 17 percent rise in poppy cultivation from 2006 to 2007, and a whopping 34 percent rise in opium production, a level expected to be maintained in this year's harvest. According to one State Department official, tens of thousands of hectares of poppies are currently growing right up to the edge of the provincial reconstruction office in the capital and economic center of Helmand.

Just as troubling to onlookers has been the geographic breakdown of the growth. In the northern provinces, where the government exercises a greater degree of control, counternarcotics strategies have generally made production plummet. That didn't work in the south, where five provinces now produce more than 80 percent of all poppies grown in Afghanistan and Helmand alone is responsible for over half the country's cultivation.

Not coincidentally, Helmand and its neighbors are also the most dangerous and divided areas in the country. U.S. Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell reported to Congress last week that the Afghan government has control of only 30 percent of the country, estimating that Taliban forces control 10 percent and local strongmen—who fiercely maintain their independence from both of the country's power centers—run the show in the rest. In such lawless areas, antigovernment forces offer credit lines to poppy farmers and collect taxes on their crop, potentially earning up to $100 million in the process.


In response, U.S. officials announced this fall that more aggressive eradication plans were in order. Thomas Schweich, the State Department official responsible for coordinating the $600 million initiative, said the strategy is to get both stronger and smarter this year, expanding and militarizing eradication efforts while taking care to target strikes only at wealthier farms. In addition, he says, the U.S. is bolstering development and judicial reform programs to provide long-term alternatives to the poppy economy. Officials hope more oversight will head off bribes by the "big fish" of the trade looking to steer eradication teams away from their fields.

"This is not the paradigm we've heard in the past—which was true, to some extent—of the poor farmer that's been growing poppy for generations and has nothing else to grow," says Schweich. "If they were poor farmers with no other alternatives to growing poppy, I wouldn't be eradicating their fields. That's counterproductive. [But some] farmers do have access to markets and are using our own irrigation canals and roads to bring their poppy to market. And that's where you need to eradicate."

But critics warn that boosting eradication efforts in unstable areas could prove disastrous, depriving farmers of their only source of income, alienating a key swing demographic and driving large numbers of people to side with the insurgency. None of Afghanistan's legal crops can compete with the income generated from poppies, estimated by the U.N. at $5,000 per hectare. As a result, they say, most farmers are stuck between a rock and a hard place, with warlords demanding taxes on one side and eradicators on the other. Analysts say removing a main source of income before stable governance is established could make last week's resistance a harbinger of many more battles to come.

"[Eradication works] in areas where there is security and government control, so they can deliver programs and invest in other crops and market goods. That cannot work in insecure areas. What people in insecure areas do to manage the risk brought by eradication is not plant other crops—they join the Taliban and keep the government out of their area," says Barnett Rubin, a director at New York University's Center on International Cooperation, who released a report in early February slamming the eradication policy.

In addition, critics say development projects are underfunded and poorly managed, with most of the allocated funds going toward consulting firms and war damage repairs, not alternative livelihood projects. Tangible evidence of the fatter budget and increased focus on development aid this year has yet to reach those on the ground.

"The impression is still that the rich, well-connected landowners are spared and poor farmers are targeted," says one USAID subcontractor, who wished to remain anonymous because of employment concerns. "[Well-connected] Afghans have been dealing with the international community in all sorts of ways for the last three decades and are well versed in how to direct international funds and efforts to fulfill their own personal agendas."

Given the recent U.S. push for additional NATO troops, the debate over muscle versus development will likely spill into a broader divide among the coalition over how to right the crumbling reconstruction effort in Afghanistan. Dissatisfied with the focus and inertia of the war, most European allies have been reluctant to volunteer additional troops, despite public requests by Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Splits are expected to come to a head at a NATO summit in early April, when President George W. Bush has said he will ratchet up pressure for U.S. supporters to cough up military support for the embattled southern regions.

"Dozens of districts in the south are currently no-go zones, not only for international forces but for Afghan government forces. President Karzai can't even make the trip to his home province of Kandahar," says John Sifton, a former Human Rights Watch lawyer who researches Afghan security. "In a situation where the government can hardly put a footprint down enough to really even be a government in remote areas, it's hard to imagine it bringing the enforcement measures needed to reduce opium. So you have to say, 'Well, is this really high on our list of priorities right now?'"

Trial of B.C. man in Afghan singer's death begins Monday

CBC, 03/04/2008 - A Burnaby, B.C., man's trial for manslaughter in connection with the death of an internationally acclaimed Afghan singer three years ago started on Monday.

In its opening statements, the Crown said that Ahmad Froogh, then 19, punched Nasrat Parsa during an altercation in May 2005, causing the 39-year-old to fall backwards on cement steps. He suffered head injuries and died in hospital less than 24 hours later.

Police said at the time that three men approached the singer outside the Days Inn on Kingsway after he performed a concert at the Vancouver Playhouse.

The first witness to testify Monday was one of the first police officers to arrive on the scene, who told the court he thought he was responding to an assault only to find out later it was a death.

The trial is expected to last two weeks and the Crown will call Parsa's two brothers to the stand Tuesday, who were present at the alleged altercation.

Parsa, who had 10 albums under his belt, was hugely popular among young Afghans around the world. He began his career at a young age, singing for radio shows and performing in plays and musicals.

Born into a musical household in Kabul, Parsa and his family left shortly after the Soviets began rolling into Afghanistan. They moved to Pakistan, India and eventually settled in Germany.

Putting blame on Pakistan won't help war on terror

March 05, 2008 - Tariq Amin-Khan, Toronto Star

The Harper government, with the support of the Liberals, appears set to extend Canadian troop deployment in Afghanistan beyond 2009. The question is: What are Canadian troops doing in Afghanistan, and by extending the mission will Canada be able to assist the U.S. and NATO in their objective to win the war on terror and eliminate Al Qaeda, the Taliban and the militant Islamists? A tall order to be sure, but is it achievable? The short answer to the question is no.

If the mission objectives are unattainable, then why are Canadian troops in Afghanistan? The situation gets murkier as we examine the rhetoric of security analysts who pin the blame squarely on Pakistan. They claim that the issue is not the insurgency in Afghanistan; the problem really is with Pakistan.

But it appears that the problem is neither in Afghanistan nor in Pakistan. Rather, there is a direct relationship between foreign military presence in Afghanistan and the rise of militant Islam. Furthermore, the absence of a democratic alternative gives militant Islam a free hand to operate in both of these states.

The foreign militaries occupying Afghanistan take the view that militants are on the run as NATO intensifies its military campaigns against them. The reality is otherwise.

Even a cursory look at the developments in Afghanistan, Iraq and even Pakistan (until recently) shows that militant Islamists have gained in strength, and have become bolder since the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq. The Taliban in Afghanistan have not been contained but have actually become stronger.

Militant Islam is a political movement and its aim is to capture state power. The U.S. played a significant role in the 1970s and 1980s to empower Islamists. The Taliban in Afghanistan took advantage of this nurturing environment to hone their political and military skills. They have had a taste of holding onto state power and are eager to return.

It is now becoming clearer that militant Islam cannot be defeated militarily. Every time overwhelming force has been used, NATO, Afghan, Iraqi and Pakistani casualties have increased and Taliban, Iraqi and Pakistani militant Islamists have withdrawn and regrouped to relaunch their attacks another day. This has been the pattern. All this raises the possibility that the war on terror is not a war to be won at all.

By all accounts, the Bush administration has crafted this war as the new permanent war, a "long war," along the lines of forcing a stalemate as in the Cold War. This permanent war fuels not only the military-industrial complex, but now also the security-industrial complex all combined with the synergy that exists between Big Oil, the military and Western economies.

This idea of forcing a stalemate is also echoed by professor Janice Gross Stein in the recent book The Unexpected War: Canada in Kandahar. Her view, expressed in terms of Canada's military strategy in Afghanistan, is that based on the U.S. Cold War policy of containment, the aim at best would be to attain a stalemate in the war on terror.

It is not possible here to discuss in any detail the fallacy of applying the logic of the Cold War in relation to militant Islam and the war on terror. But it can be said that this strategy of forcing a stalemate is ill-conceived against adversaries that are mobile and geographically untethered. These adversaries, in the heat of battle, can simply melt into the populace as NATO commanders are left to mull over their battle plans.

Blaming Pakistan for the war on terror going badly for NATO, therefore, does not help; it merely compounds the problem. The sobering fact is that Pakistan has very little to do with the war on terror being won or lost. But alienating Pakistan is an option that NATO takes at its own peril.

As to the support that militants in northwest Pakistan have provided the Taliban on the Afghan side, there is a need to understand the ground realities of the area. Southern Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan is a contiguous area inhabited by the same ethnic group, the Pashtuns, who have had historical kinship ties. The border, the Durand Line, is an arbitrary divide between Pakistan and Afghanistan established by British colonial rulers, and it has never been possible to effectively police it.

Consequently, the border has always been porous and an attack by an occupying force against Pashtuns on one side is seen as an attack against the other side as well. However, when you overlay religious ideology onto this ethnic solidarity, it becomes a potent combination that produces a resilient guerrilla force. A force that is able to take on the most sophisticated militaries within an inhospitable terrain against which standing armies and modern weaponry have not been very effective.

This reality of guerrilla warfare worked wonders for the U.S. when its Islamist proxies in Pakistan and Afghanistan were waging the jihad against "godless communism." Ironically, now that the shoe is on the other foot, Pakistan is being blamed for the war on terror going badly for Canada, the U.S. and NATO.

The only way militant Islam can be contained, nay challenged, is for a democratic alternative to take root in Pakistan and Afghanistan. However, it would be naive to assume that even if this shift comes about, the transition will be simple and painless because the democratic alternative will be resisted. But democracy will eventually deal with the militants.

In this context, the outcome of the Feb. 18 elections in Pakistan gives pause for hope. The outcome reinforces the position that the political and democratic alternative is the best antidote to check the rise of militant Islam. Just look at the rout the Islamist parties have suffered in these elections in the Northwest Frontier Province. A province where the Islamists had formed the government after the 2002 elections, and where people resoundingly said no to intimidation and suicide bombings.

This is the message that Stephen Harper also needs to hear. Even with additional troops, Canada will end up fighting for more stalemates. But what will this no-win situation mean in human terms – in lives lost for an objective that is neither clear nor within the mission's grasp.

Tariq Amin-Khan is an assistant professor in the department of politics and public administration at Ryerson University.

Pakistan's grand bargain falls apart
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - Over the past few months, the Pakistani military's new leadership has devised a roadmap aimed at national reconciliation without compromising the country's commitment in the "war on terror".

The plan centered on developing an understanding with the Pakistani Taliban in the tribal areas that at the onset of a planned military offensive there, both sides would attempt to keep losses to the minimum; that is, they would go through the motions while Pakistan fulfilled its obligations in the eyes of the world in cracking down on militancy.

Initially, the project went well. But, coinciding with the visit this week to Pakistan - the second in a month - of the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, and a series of suicide attacks, the situation has changed.

Mullen was due to meet with President Pervez Musharraf and military leaders to discuss US assistance for a massive military operation in Pakistan, under US supervision, against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

In the latest suicide attack on the military, the fourth in five days, bombers on Tuesday targeted the Navy War College in Lahore, killing six people and injuring 18. This string of attacks leaves the new military chief, Lieutenant General Ashfaq Pervez Kiani, with the unpopular choice of having to take off the velvet glove to reveal an iron fist against militancy.

The chief beneficiary of this would be Musharraf, who has rapidly been losing his grip in the wake of Kiani's popular steps of reconciliation. Politicians elected in last month's polls for a new Parliament have already indicated they want to oust Musharraf for his heavy-handed role in prosecuting the "war on terror" during his eight years as a military ruler.

The militants are also concerned now. Under Kiani's initiative, they would have been restricted to isolated areas on the border areas and, apart from token raids against them by the Pakistani military, been allowed to get on with their "business".

The understanding was that once the Taliban and al-Qaeda were thus contained, it would create space for the forces of democracy to assert themselves in the country under the new government, and Musharraf could walk into the sunset.

In the longer term, these measures could have ended the hostilities in Pakistani society that were the result of eight years of military rule and Pakistan's active participation in the "war on terror".

According to Asia Times Online contacts, a military operation is imminent, starting from a base camp in Peshawar in North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). The main focus will be Mohmand and Bajaur agencies, and some other tribal areas, to pre-empt the Taliban's spring offensive in Afghanistan.

Under the initial plan, the operation would have been largely symbolic and the militants had been convinced that if they remained at the forefront and fought against Pakistani troops, their positions would be exposed to the foreign supervisors and they would sustain huge losses.

Instead, if they struck ceasefire deals and retreated from forward positions to the border regions, they would be helped with advance information about possible raids and they could take alternative measures for their survival. They were categorically told that the operation was inevitable, so it would be best for them to take rear positions and flit on both sides of the border for their survival.

The military rationale for adopting this approach was based on pragmatic grounds - that it would cause the militants to evacuate the main tribal areas for Afghanistan or the tribal fringes. This would allow secular Pashtun sub-nationalist forces to regain a hold in the area and develop an atmosphere of peace and reconciliation.

The military would ensure that Musharraf could then make an honorable exit. These steps were aimed at ending hostilities between the military establishment and political parties, as well as the militants. At the same time, it would help bring the extremely alienated right-wing military section in NWFP and in Punjab province (mostly non-commissioned officers) on board.

They have been actively involved in leaking information to militants, and in some cases have been hand-in-hand with them in attacking officers and camps. A senior official told Asia Times Online that Tuesday's attack in Lahore could have been done by members of the camp.

The grand bargain is unraveling, though. The recent missile attack by a US Predator drone on militants in the tribal area helped stir the militants' skepticism of any deal and different independent groups continued to attack the security forces.

The first glimpse the iron fist came last week when Kiani ordered more than 1,000 raids in several cities and hundreds of suspected militants were arrested. This was the biggest operation in the past 12 months and followed the assassination of the surgeon-general of the Pakistani army.

Pakistan therefore finds itself back at square one, with the old divisions of pro-American and anti-American revived in the military and no doubt stoked by Musharraf during his meeting with Admiral Mullen. This is Musharraf's chance to regroup in the pro-American camp by presenting himself as being in the best position to serve US interests in the region.

For the militant camps, they realize their attacks on the security forces will benefit their real enemy - Musharraf - and cause unity in the secular camps. But they also have doubts about Kiani's moves that will banish them to rear positions while at the same time facilitating tribal jirgas (councils) to devise a strategy to combat the Taliban!

Last weekend, such a jirga was held in Derra Adam Khail, about 40 kilometers West of Peshawar, in which ideas were discussed among tribal leaders to curb the Taliban in their area. When the jirga concluded, a suicide bomber attacked the crowd, resulting in the death of over 50 people.

With Kiani's hand being forced, and militants not ready to roll over just yet, Pakistan is a long way off peace.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief.

AFGHANISTAN: Poor sanitation, bad toilets cause deaths, misery

05 Mar 2008 13:29:11 GMT - Source: IRIN

Reuters and AlertNet are not responsible for the content of this article or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author's alone.

The child had drunk contaminated water which Saliha's family collects from a nearby river and uses for all purposes, including drinking, cooking and washing.

About 200 metres away from where households in Spinkay village, Asmar District, collect water, is a mosque built across the river where dozens of men gather for prayer five times a day. Men who come to the mosque often perform their ablutions (washing their hands, arms, face, head and feet) with river water.

Some even urinate and/or defecate near the riverbanks, and refresh afterwards with the river water.

It is not always a surprise for locals to see human faeces, sputum and even animal dung floating in the running water. There is a consensus among some residents in Spinkay village, and indeed many other rural communities across Afghanistan, that "flowing water" is always clean, unless the colour, smell and taste is changed.

However, not only was Saliha's daughter killed by the "flowing" river water but many other children also suffer various water-borne diseases, according to medical experts in Asadabad, provincial capital of Kunar Province.

Preventable diseases such as diarrhoea, cholera, dysentery and pneumonia kill about 600 under-five Afghan children every day, according to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).

About 25 percent of under-five children in Afghanistan are affected annually by diseases originating from poor and/or bad sanitation.

World's worst toilets

According to the State of the World's Toilets 2007 report, about 92 percent of Afghanistan's estimated 26.6 million population do not have access to proper sanitation. This has placed the country at the top of the list of "the worst places in the world for sanitation".

UNICEF statistics show that 34 percent of Afghans (urban 49 percent, rural 29 percent) are using adequate sanitation facilities.

Others also highlight the problem: "The sanitation status of Afghanistan, where 60 percent of the population lives in unplanned shantytowns and where there are growing inequalities in cities in terms of sanitation, is not satisfactory," Bindeshwar Pathak, founder of New Delhi-based Sulabh International, a sanitation and social services organisation, told IRIN.

Open defecation is prevalent, causing social, health, environmental and development problems. In the past six years the government of Afghanistan and the international aid community has spent a lot of development money on projects that have improved access to drinking water, while sanitation issues have received little or no funding, according to the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development.

As poor sanitation hurts communities throughout the country, killing thousands of children, there are hopes that the issue of sanitation will be brought into the development process.

"UNICEF wants to pay greater attention to sanitation and the government has also increasingly realised the importance of sanitation," said Nadarjah Moorthy, head of the water and environmental sanitation unit with UNICEF in Kabul.

Poor waste management

Officials in Kabul Municipality estimate that the over three million people living there produce at least 1,500 cubic metres of solid waste every day. However, due to lack of resources and a limited capacity, the municipality does not collect more than half of the waste from open locations in and around Kabul city.

"We collect 700-800 cubic metres of solid waste in Kabul city on a daily basis, except Fridays," said Payenda Mohammad, an official at the department of waste management in the municipality.

Some of the remaining solid waste is either consumed by grazing animals in some parts of the city and/or collected by destitute children. "When it rains a lot of waste mixes with rainwater and often reaches drinking-water sources, which causes different diseases," Nasrullah Habibi, a specialist on sanitation with the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) in Kabul, told IRIN.

The traditional dry vault toilet system – a specially-shaped dry vault that separately collects solid and liquid waste and which is commonly used in Afghanistan - is also considered a major health and sanitation problem.

Septic tanks and sewerage (whereby solid and liquid waste is collected near the home for disposal elsewhere) are two other widely used toilet systems, particularly in urban areas, both of which are not "safe" or "eco-friendly", according to Pathak of Sulabh International.

Sulabh has constructed five public toilets in Kabul city "with biogas digesters for recycling human waste into biogas, which can be used for lighting and electricity generation".

"The Sulabh two-pit-pour-flush toilet system is an appropriate and affordable solution to the crisis of dry vault toilets in Afghanistan," said Habibi of UN-

HABITAT.

Boosting public awareness

The UN General Assembly has named 2008 the Year of Sanitation and has asked member states to improve their citizens' access to adequate sanitation.

UNICEF, in partnership with government bodies, plans to boost public awareness on personal hygiene and sanitation and save thousands of lives. "We will nominate 'model villages' to encourage communities to improve sanitation," said Nadarjah Moorthy, UNICEF's sanitation expert in Kabul. "It requires government, donors and communities' support," he added.

Personal hygiene

Apart from the widespread lack of a proper toilet system, experts such as Moorthy are concerned about very poor personal and family hygiene practices among Afghans.

"Hygiene practices need to change," said Moorthy. Improving sanitation and hygiene practices often requires behavioural change and takes a long time, he added.

[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.]