In this bulletin:

• Afghans welcome new UN envoy
• Congress demands testimony from Nato commander in Afghanistan
• Anti-Taliban vote could be a gain for Canadian troops
• NATO: Russia could help in Afghanistan
• Iran Holds Keys to Afghanistan's Future
• Baku to consider increasing peacekeeping troops in Afghanistan
• Italy to build up military presence in western Afghanistan
• Italian minister reiterates commitment to NATO operation in Afghanistan
• Uzbek official says reports on allowing USA to use base "wishful thinking"
• Denmark to support Afghan religious schools to counteract extremism
• Editorial: NATO's European Mission
• Too Much Power in Karzai's Hands, Critics Say
• Taleban Declare War on Mobile Phone Firms
• Afghan refugees unwilling to vacate Pakistani camp
• Pakistan troops told to withdraw from refugee camp by Afghan Taleban
• Khorshied Samad: Upholding a promise to Afghanistan's women

Afghans welcome new UN envoy

Text of report by Afghan independent Tolo TV, on 7 March

[Presenter] UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon nominates Kai Eide, Norwegian diplomat, as the UN special envoy to Afghanistan. Currently, this Norwegian diplomat is the political head of Foreign Affairs Ministry of Norway. Earlier, he was the Norwegian ambassador to NATO. It is expected that this Norwegian diplomat will play a further key role in coordinating international reconstruction efforts.

[Correspondent] UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in a written letter, informed the UN Security Council members about the nomination of Kai Eide as the UN special envoy to Afghanistan. Currently, discussions are continuing in the UN Security Council about the appointment of this Norwegian diplomat.

Meanwhile, a number of experts believe that if the UN special envoy has specified power and acts seriously compared to the former envoy of this organization, he can seek more attention of the international community to Afghanistan.

[Ustad Masud, a Kabul University lecturer] If the new envoy enjoys support of the UN and UN Security Council as well as the support of the Afghan government, I believe it will be very good for the people of Afghanistan.

[Abas Nuyan, an MP for Kabul] We hope the new envoy acts seriously and competently to provide the people in Afghanistan with these things. On the other hand, he should convince foreign countries to pay more attention to Afghanistan.

[Correspondent] Foreign Affairs Ministry of Afghanistan has described Kai Eide as an experienced diplomat who is aware of the current situation in Afghanistan.

[Soltan Ahmad Bahin, a spokesman for Foreign Affairs Ministry] The new envoy will help boost coordination among the international community as well as between the international community and the Afghan government. Secondly, he will help support the leadership of the Afghan government in all processes including military and reconstruction. In another words, he will help Afghanize the pr! ocesses.

[Correspondent] The UN had earlier nominated Paddy Ashd own for the post but the Afghan government rejected him. According to a number of experts, the failure to appoint a special envoy to Afghanistan at the current situation is considered as an important political vacuum.

[Presenter] The Foreign Affairs Ministry of the country has said that the envoy has been nominated in an understanding with the Afghan government.

Congress demands testimony from Nato commander in Afghanistan

Elana Schor in Washington - guardian.co.uk , Friday March 7 2008

The US Congress is demanding the senior Nato commander in Afghanistan appear to explain the worsening situation in the country following a series of bleak warnings from the international community.

General David Petraeus, the senior US commander in Baghdad, and Ryan Crocker, the top US envoy in Iraq, are due to testify in April at hotly anticipated hearings on the Iraq war. The two senators who will lead those hearings today asked the state department to make the same offer for public testimony on Afghanistan.

"Hearing directly from the commanding general in theatre and the US ambassador to Iraq is critically important … the conflict in Afghanistan must also be a priority," Democratic senators Carl Levin, who chairs the armed services committee, and Joseph Biden, who chairs the foreign relations committee, wrote in letters to the state department and the Pentagon.

Levin and Biden asked for General Dan McNeill, Nato's chief commander in the troubled nation and William Wood, the US ambassador to Afghanistan, to appear in Washington by April 18.

That timeframe would set up a double skirmish between congressional Democrats and the administration over the simultaneous US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Leading Democrats, including presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, have accused George Bush of allowing Afghanistan to backslide while the US continues prodding Nato allies to increase their military presence there.

A withdrawal of international troops from Afghanistan could throw the already foundering state into violent chaos, according to an independent report released last month by former Nato commander James Jones. More recently, US director of intelligence Mike McConnell admitted that the Taliban controls 10% of the country and the government of Hamid Karzai only 30%.

"[W]e are concerned that the United States and the international community lack a strategy for success in Afghanistan," Levin and Biden wrote. "We want to hear firsthand from our leaders on the ground what they believe they need to succeed."

Clinton has made Afghanistan a centrepiece of her campaign against Obama this week, releasing a broad plan to heal the troubled country and hammering her rival for failing to hold hearings on the war there in a Senate panel that he leads.

Clinton's plan for Afghanistan would include a special envoy to increase cooperation with the Pakistani government; a revamped drug interdiction plan that would offer farmers relief in exchange for ending their poppy growth; and greater involvement by Middle Eastern nations in the economic revitalisation of Afghanistan.

Anti-Taliban vote could be a gain for Canadian troops

Richard Foot, Canwest News Service - Nationalpost.com March 07, 2008

It may be the best news for Canadian Forces since their arrival in Kandahar in 2005 -- yet it comes neither from inside Afghanistan, nor as a result of Canada's gruelling military efforts there.

In historic elections across Pakistan on Feb. 18, voters in North-West Frontier Province threw out the fundamentalist Islamic parties that have controlled the provincial government -- and provided safe haven to the Taliban -- since 2002.

In their place, voters elected a coalition of moderate, staunchly secular groups including the Awami National Party (ANP), a Pashtun movement remarkable for its dislike of Islamic jihadism and the Taliban.

While the national election results -- and the victory of two opposition parties hostile to President Pervez Musharraf -- dominated headlines in Canada after the election, many experts say the vote in North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) has huge but little-understood implications for the war in Afghanistan.

It's likely to have a more profound impact on Canada's mission in Kandahar than the promise of another 1,000 troops, or the delivery of military helicopters.

"The major threat to the Taliban offensive is not from the front but from the rear -- Pakistan," says Barnett Rubin of New York University, a world-renowned scholar on Afghanistan.

"As the Taliban and al-Qaida launch their spring operations in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, the political challenge to the control of their base areas is [now] their greatest vulnerability," says Mr. Rubin in a recent online commentary about the ANP victory, posted on the U.S. political blog Informed Comment: Global Affairs.

Ahmed Rashid, a respected Pakistan journalist, is equally clear about the sudden political transformation in the Taliban's zone of sanctuary.

"There have been big celebrations in Kabul at the victory of the ANP, he said in a recent online interview with Harper's Magazine.

"President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan will be hoping to see a real crackdown on the Taliban leadership that has been given sanctuary in Pakistan... He is particularly close to the ANP leaders whom he calls his brothers."

The ANP now not only controls the provincial government in the North-West Frontier capital Peshawar, it will also send the largest of the province's delegations to the national assembly in Islamabad.

And its electoral success is expected to reverberate across Afghanistan.

North-West Frontier Province -- a mountainous region of 20 million mostly Pashtun Muslims, and Pakistan's third-largest province -- has for the past six years been the home base of the world's most wanted terror networks.

Along with Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the city of Quetta to the south, this rugged region along the border with Afghanistan is where Osama Bin Laden and deposed Taliban leader Mullah Omar are believed to be hiding, and where al-Qaida and the Taliban have cultivated recruits and suicide bombers, and planned and launched their attacks in Afghanistan.

As former deputy prime minister John Manley stressed in his recent report on Canada's mission in Afghanistan:

"The [Taliban] insurgency has continued to benefit from easy resort to safe havens inside Pakistan, where it is refinanced, rearmed and replenished with new recruits."

Observers say this has been possible because since 2002 the government apparatus of the North-West Frontier has been controlled by pro-jihadist, militant parties and the radical, religious mullahs who lead them. Such groups have also benefited from the support of Pakistan's military intelligence agency, which helped create the Taliban in the 1990s, and continues to encourage it.

Tarek Fatah, the Toronto author and founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress, was a political activist in Pakistan in the 1960s before moving to Canada. He was imprisoned in Pakistan for campaigning with the ANP's youth wing in 1967.

Mr. Fatah says the ANP victory won't magically make the Taliban disappear, but it will make it more difficult for their supporters -- particularly the madrassas, or religious schools, that raise money and recruit insurgents -- to operate with impunity.

"The sanctuaries will still exist, but will not be able to function with the fluidity that they are used to," he says. "How will the Taliban get their mines and ammunition transferred across the border? Where will the fighters escape to? How will the madrassas train suicide bombers? The whole Pashtun region along the Afghan border will notice a change."

Barnett Rubin cautions that the insurgency is also fuelled by domestic factors inside Afghanistan -- corrupt government officials, opium lords, NATO air strikes that kill civilians -- but these sources are not enough on their own to keep the Taliban in business.

"The secure foreign base for leadership and logistics transforms protest or resistance into an insurgency," he says. Most importantly, the ANP's victory sends a powerful political message -- debunking the Taliban's claim to be the true guardian of Pashtun interests.

Mr. Rubin says the ANP has argued for years that support for the Taliban comes not from Pashtuns on either side of the border, but from Pakistani security services and from jihadist groups -- often Saudi-inspired -- "that use Pashtun lands as platforms for covert operations."

Having been tossed out of office in the North-West Frontier, no longer will Islamist mullahs and Taliban leaders be able to say to Pashtuns across southern Afghanistan that the Taliban are their rightful political agents.

"It takes away the legitimacy of the Islamists as the true representatives of the people," says Mr. Fatah. The question now for Canada and the rest of NATO, is how to exploit this opportunity?

Mr. Rubin says Canada should pressure the U.S. and Britain to end their massive financial and military support for the Musharraf regime, realizing that NATO's most sincere allies in Pakistan are "the secular, non-violent opponents of military rule, not the generals in Islamabad."

Mr. Fatah says Canada must come to grips with what the ANP victory means -- that the war against terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan will not be won by military action, but through political change.

"Six years of fighting the war on terror could not achieve what Pakistanis achieved in one day at the ballot box," he says.

NATO: Russia could help in Afghanistan

BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 8 (UPI) -- Russia could play an important part in assisting the NATO mission in Afghanistan, the special NATO representative to the South Caucasus said Saturday.

The Russian contribution would include a joint training center and the use of Russian equipment to train troops for Afghanistan, the Interfax news agency reported. Robert Simmons, speaking at a news conference in Azerbaijan, said Russia also could help deliver supplies and equipment to Afghanistan.

Simmons said he has held preliminary discussions with Russian leaders. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who steps down May 7 to become prime minister, is expected to attend a NATO summit in April.

Iran Holds Keys to Afghanistan's Future

PajamasMedia, 03/08/2008 By Richard Fernandez

Richard Fernandez notes that Iran’s economic influence in Afghanistan makes it difficult for the U.S. to promote its full slate of strategic interests.

Iran is widely perceived as one of America’s chief international foes and a charter member of the Axis of Evil. Even after an NIE expressed doubts that it was still developing nuclear weapons, Norman Podhoretz argued that the case for military action against Iran still stood. Podhoretz believed that any pause in the development would be merely temporary and that “if Iran is to be prevented from becoming a nuclear power, it is the United States that will have to do the preventing, to do it by means of a bombing campaign, and … do it soon.” Afghanistan, on the other hand, was described by President George W. Bush as a stalwart ally in the War on Terror.

It would therefore surprise many Americans to learn that Afghanistan’s largest trading partner is Iran. The association between Afghanistan and Iran goes back a long time; the province of Herat, for example, was formerly part of the Persian empire. And it is trying to get closer again in a menacing way; Teheran is furiously attempting to counter the American presence to its east by pulling every economic, diplomatic, and subversive lever it can to draw Afghanistan back into its sphere of influence.

In March 2006, the Afghan official news agency Bakhtar reported Iranian officers were secretly in border towns inside Afghanistan. Before September 11 Iran had been busily attempting to stem the influence of the Taliban, its Sunni rivals for dominance in Islamic militancy. But after the U.S. drove the Taliban from Afghanistan, Teheran cozied up to its former rivals and began making alliances with its former Sunni enemies to fight against America. It is actively working to expel the U.S. from Afghanistan.

Teheran also has many cultural and economic levers that it uses to spread its influence in Afghanistan. The New York Times describes how Iran has built highways through Afghanistan signposted every five miles with quotations from the Koran.

Two years ago, foreign engineers built a new highway through the desert of western Afghanistan, past this ancient trading post and on to the outside world. Nearby, they strung a high-voltage power line and laid a fiber-optic cable, marked with red posts, that provides telephone and Internet access to the region. “Forgive us, God,” declares one. “God is clear to everyone,” says another. A graceful mosque rises roadside, with a green glass dome and Koranic inscriptions in blue tile. The style is unmistakably Iranian. … The battle for young hearts and minds plays out in Herat, where children play soccer in front of an American-built school; behind it, a school built by the Iranians. As in Iraq, Iran sought to operate through the Shiite community that makes up 20 percent of Afghanistan’s population. Another New York Times piece cited Qari Ahmad Ali, a Shiite commander once backed by Iran, as saying that since 2001 his former patrons had funneled millions of dollars to a web of Shiite religious schools, and that the Sadaqia Madrasa in Herat was at the center of an effort to spread Shiite fundamentalism. If their support for the Taliban would not do the trick, the slow poison it was injecting into the veins of its neighbors eventually would.

So why doesn’t America react more forcefully against Teheran’s aggression? One reason is that Iran’s geography and road network play a crucial role in the Afghan economy and reconstruction. While routes through Pakistan handle most of the relief and donor cargo, Iranian routes carry the bulk of the commercial freight. “This reality limits Washington’s options to pressure Tehran since if Iran blocks its border, the Afghan economy could collapse.” The map below, taken from an UNCTAD study, graphically depicts Afghanistan’s dependence on Iran and Pakistan for access to the Arabian sea.

Kabul’s growing tension with Pakistan, exacerbated by Taliban cross-border attacks on its territory, have made it anxious to avoid a total dependence on the port of Karachi. And the only other way to the sea is through Iran. The Jamestown Foundation explains how it works: “renewed links with Teheran allow Afghanistan to use the Iranian port of Chabahar for its import-export trade. … Kabul also can use the other main Iranian port, Bandar Abbas, due to a transit agreement signed in 1974.”

But Afghanistan’s landlocked location puts it in the center of a strategic energy route built on the traces of the Silk Road. A 1,680 km Trans-Afghanistan pipeline was planned to take gas from Turkmenistan to the border of India, with Kabul to have received 8% of the revenues. But troubles with the Taliban have prevented its completion. It is the role of Central Asia as a petroleum highway that runs like a common thread through the destinies of Iran and Afghanistan — especially since the new Great Energy Game has cast Iran, a charter member of the Axis of Evil, in the unlikely role of the hoped-for savior of Europe from the clutches of Russian attempts make it beholden for its supplies of natural gas.

The New York Times reported in January 2008 that Russia had cemented its stranglehold on European energy sources by concluding a deal with Bulgaria. “The agreement … dealt another blow to … a major European Union gas pipeline project designed to diversify energy sources and reduce dependence on Russia. The union intends to buy gas from Iran and Azerbaijan and ship it through Turkey in pipelines that are run to Southern and Western Europe. But disputes over the routes, financing, and how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program have delayed the project.” The Asia Times notes that with European energy needs growing at a rapid rate, “Europe is increasingly left with only one serious option for diversifying its gas imports — Iran.”

The geographical position and hydrocarbon resources of Iran have complicated American policy in Afghanistan and its efforts to stop Teheran from becoming a nuclear-weapons power. The Russian offers to sell Iran nuclear fuel are probably designed to entice Teheran away from the Western gas markets into an energy alliance with Russia. As the Asia Times noted elsewhere, “Moscow can be expected to make robust efforts to coordinate with Iran over its oil and gas output and exports. The rationale for such a coordinated strategy involving Iran is very obvious. First, Moscow is intensely conscious of the Western awareness of Iran’s enormous untapped hydrocarbon reserves as an alternative to Russian supplies. Russia will strive to stay ahead of the European, and eventually American, overtures to Iran.”

The fall of Iran to Khomeini under the Carter administration created a host of difficulties for U.S. policy, not only in the War on Terror, but in its relations to Russia, which persist to this day. On the one hand, Iran is actively seeking to undermine the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. But on the other hand, Iran is vital to the economic life of Afghanistan, and without economic development no counterinsurgency campaign can succeed. Hence, while Iran’s nuclear program must be stopped at nearly all costs, the nuclear program stands in the way of enlisting Iran in the fight against the energy offensives of Russia.

The dilemma is that if America strikes out too hard against Teheran, it runs the risk of ruining Afghanistan’s economy; but if it ignores Teheran’s subversive activities, Iran may eventually evict it from Afghanistan. If America drops its opposition to Iran’s nuclear weapons program, Europe may gain access to its natural gas but only at the cost of spreading the cloud of nuclear danger over South Asia and the Middle East. They are all hard choices and there are no clear paths through the minefield.

Baku to consider increasing peacekeeping troops in Afghanistan

BAKU. March 7 (Interfax) - Azerbaijan may consider increasing the number of its peacekeeping troops in Afghanistan, if it receives such a proposal from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), country's parliamentary speaker Ziyafet Askerov told journalists.

"Last year, NATO proposed to the countries which participate in the peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan to increase their troops, and Azerbaijan responded positively by doubling the number of its peacekeepers. If such a proposal is received once again, we might consider it," Askerov said.

NATO and the European Union are interested in stability in South Caucasus and Central Asia because they want to use the energy resources in that region, he said. "This region is an alternative source of energy for them [EU, NATO]," he added.

Italy to build up military presence in western Afghanistan

Text of report by Italian popular privately-owned financial newspaper Il Sole-24 Ore, on 7 March

Kabul: Italy will be cutting back on its military effort in Kabul in order to reinforce its troops deployed in western Afghanistan, the Italian Army chief of Staff, Gen Fabrizio Castagnetti, announced yesterday. Italy is currently in command of the Herat and Kabul regions but the latter is handled on a revolving basis together with Turkey and France. When Italy's eight-month spell in command of the capital comes to an end in August, "NATO is going to have to decide what new structures to entrust with command responsibility in Kabul", Castagnetti said, pointing to the possibility that the Regional Command Capital may be handed over to the Afghan forces' direct responsibility.

According to disclosures in circles close to NATO, however, it seems likely that command in Kabul will be assigned to France "full time". Where the Italian contingent is concerned, Castagnetti specified yesterday that the "government and parliament will be the ones making the ultimate dec! ision but the inclination is to leave a reduced Italian presence in Kabul and to build up our regional command in the west". This would, in effect, amount to the implementation of a plan that Il Sole-24 Ore first revealed on 30 January - a plan providing for the deployment of a brigade command with an infantry battalion in Herat, thus doubling the operational capabilities of the forces currently stationed in the area.

Italian minister reiterates commitment to NATO operation in Afghanistan

Excerpt from report by Vicenzo Nigro, "D'Alema: Our commitment will continue", in Italian leading privately-owned centre-left newspaper La Repubblica, on 7 March

Rome: The Italian Army has been thinking of what it needs to do in Afghanistan over the coming months. [Passage omitted]

A source close to Defence Minister Arturo Parisi remarked, almost with an audible sigh of relief, that "that is going to be a decision for the new government and new parliament".

The only Italian government member who spoke of Afghanistan yesterday was Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema. Attending a meeting in Brussels to lay the groundwork for a NATO summit in April, D'Alema commented favourably on the upcoming political meeting on Afghanistan, which is due to be held in Paris in June.

According to our minister, "That meeting could have been held in Rome; it was in the furrow of the political initiative for which Italy has been calling for some time but that is the result of our country's political instability." Where the number of Italian troops in ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] is concerned, D'Alema confirmed the posi! tion that the government had adopted in the past few months: "Italy is ISAF's fourth largest contributor and it is going to remain so even after the boost to the French presence. Our presence is very important." So, Italy is going to stay on in Afghanistan and with the same number of troops.

Uzbek official says reports on allowing USA to use base "wishful thinking"

Text of report by Russian state news agency ITAR-TASS

Moscow, 7 March: Uzbekistan has not made a decision on giving the USA the right to use again its [Uzbekistan's] air base as a transit point for transporting troops and military equipment to Afghanistan. "All statements in this respect do not correspond to reality." The military attaché of Uzbekistan in Moscow, Farhod Murtazayev, told ITAR-TASS today, commenting on the statement by NATO Secretary General's Special Representative for the South Caucasus and Central Asia Robert Simmons, according to which Uzbekistan allowed several NATO countries, including the USA, to use its military base for these purposes.

"It was simply wishful thinking by the NATO representative. No decision on the resumption of the USA military presence on the territory of our country was made and no information in this respect was sent to us," the Uzbek military diplomat said. "The recent meeting of the president of Uzbekistan, Islom Karimov, with the commander of the US Central Command, ! Admiral William Fallon, did not affect our position at all," he added.

Simmons stated that Uzbekistan would allow the USA to use the base in Moscow on Wednesday [5 March]. "We welcome the fact that Uzbekistan expressed readiness to allow other countries to use this base. As far as I understand the USA is starting to use this facility," the NATO representative said.

In turn, the head of the CollectiveSecurityTreatyOrganization [CSTO] secretariat's press service, Vitaliy Strugovets, told ITAR-TASS that Uzbekistan resumed CSTO membership in June 2006, and "in line with Russian-Uzbek agreement and multilateral agreement within the framework of the organization it must inform its allies on changing the format of relations in military sphere with the third countries". "We received neither official nor other information about this from Tashkent," he said.

ITAR-TASS was told at the Defence ! Ministry of Russian Federation that no any notification from military authorities of Uzbekistan on allowing the USA to use the Uzbek air base was received by the Russian Defence Ministry. "Probably, it was "trial balloon", a kind of probing," the agency's source said referring to the NATO representative's words.

Denmark to support Afghan religious schools to counteract extremism

Text of report by Danish leading privately-owned independent newspaper Politiken website, on 5 March

[Report by Frank Hvilsom and Jacob Svendsen: "Danish Support for Religious Schools in Afghanistan"]

Aid money for religious schools in Helmand province is supposed to counteract the influx of students to "hate schools." A risky course, the Danish People's Party warns.

This year, Danish aid money will go towards supplying at least two religious schools in Afghanistan, the so-called madras schools, with secular textbooks.

Among other things, the aim is to avoid young Afghan men going to Pakistani madras on the other side of the border. The Taleban movement started in Pakistani madras schools in the 1990's, and the Pakistan Government still does not have control over that country's 15,000 religious schools.

In Denmark, the Danish People's Party is surprised by the initiative. "The government is on a risky course," warned the party's deputy chairman, Peter Skaarup.

Effort Against Hate Schools Takes Prominent Place

According to! the Danish development plan for Helmand province, the effort against the so-called hate schools is a priority.

The objective is not to fight the schools directly. Instead, a new curriculum is being drawn up for schools everywhere in the country, in which Islam may only take up 40 per cent of instruction, while mathematics, languages, and other secular subjects fill out the rest of the programme. In addition, the Afghanistan Government intends to support the madras by providing buildings and teachers, while Denmark will supply the new books in Helmand province.

Danish Ambassador: We Have to be Pragmatic. In the Helmand plan, support for the religious schools is explained as a variant of the tactic: "If you can't beat them, join them."

"In an area like Helmand, where tradition and Islam are strong, and where the illiteracy rate is over 90 per cent, we have to be pragmatic, if the public schools are going to reopen, and more of them are going to be buil! t," said the Danish Ambassador in Kabul, Franz-Michael Mellbin.

"If only public schools are built while the madras crumble, the strong, local clergy will see students leaving their schools. And then the mullahs will turn against the public schools and urge people not to use them, thereby doing the Taleban's work for them. That is why we are supporting the Afghans' effort with teaching materials, while the Afghanistan Government is responsible for building the religious schools and support for the teachers," he said.

DF: We have Our Doubts

But according to Peter Skaarup of the Danish People's Party (DF), his party had not heard of this initiative until now.

"We have doubts about supporting extremist religious groups. You should be cautious about giving support to fundamentalist groups. That is why we intend to ask the government to tell us precisely what this support consists of. Could there be a risk of us playing into extremist forces' hands with the support we have chosen to provide," Skaarup asked.

SDP Amazed that DF Knew Nothing About the Support

SDP defence spokesman John Dyrby Paulsen was "amazed" that the Danish People's Party knew nothing about the matter, because it has been thoroughly discussed in the parties that support the effort in Afghanistan, he said.

"They have been given the papers, and they have had the opportunity to comment on it. So if the DF knows nothing about this issue, they have not read the papers, and that is very worrying," Dyrby Paulsen said.

[Hvilsom] Is it not cause for concern if Danish tax money is being spent on strongly religious schools?

"We have thoroughly discussed whether we should take this initiative or leave it alone, but the Foreign Ministry has said that the madras that we are supporting are moderate. We would never dream of supporting Taleban-controlled schools," he said.

Editorial: NATO's European Mission

The alliance must act now to ensure a continent that is undivided and free.

Washington Post, Saturday, March 8, 2008; Page A14

AN UPCOMING NATO summit meeting in Bucharest , Romania , could well be dominated by debate over how and even whether the alliance can succeed in Afghanistan . But another topic, barely discussed so far, may be almost as important: whether NATO can extend its last major mission of expanding Europe 's zone of security to former communist countries.

Since NATO was created to defend the West against the Soviet Union , its greatest accomplishment may have been its role in consolidating democracy in Romania and nine other former East Bloc states, then admitting them to its ranks in two successive waves in 1999 and 2004. The process paved the way for the expansion of the European Union , ended the continent's Cold War division and ensured that liberal values would define its future. But it left out some critical places: most of the former Yugoslavia as well as the former Soviet republics of southeastern Europe .

The Bucharest summit is set to decide whether two of the former parts of Yugoslavia -- Croatia and Macedonia -- as well as nearby Albania should be offered full membership. The Bush administration and most other NATO members appear to agree on membership for Croatia and Albania, but Greece clings to an absurd demand that Macedonia first change its name. That objection, pushed by Greek nationalists, should not prevent NATO from issuing Macedonia an invitation.

At the same time, the alliance owes answers to Ukraine and Georgia , both of which have formally asked NATO for a Membership Action Plan, the bureaucratic vehicle used to guide countries through military and democratic reforms. The decisions are harder than those of the past -- because of the greater instability of those two countries and the greater resistance of Russia to further NATO expansion. At a meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels this week, Germany and France spoke up against Ukraine and Georgia, largely because of fear of offending Moscow .

For just those reasons, the United States should push the alliance to move forward. Russia's repeated and heavy-handed maneuvers in and against Ukraine and Georgia in the past several years have dramatically demonstrated Moscow's ambition to destroy those countries' freedom and independence. Russian President Vladimir Putin 's recent threat to target Ukraine with nuclear weapons should have been a wake-up call for any Western government that doubted whether Kiev needed defending.

While the administration is clearly sympathetic to the two states, it has held back from pressing their case with the reluctant Europeans. Yet Mr. Putin surely will regard a failure by the Bucharest summit to act on Ukraine and Georgia as an admission that they are outside its sphere and an invitation to escalate his bullying. President Bush , who oversaw NATO's last expansion eastward, should reinforce that legacy by insisting that the alliance reach out to these threatened democracies.

Too Much Power in Karzai's Hands, Critics Say

NPR, 03/07/2008 By Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson

One reason American troops are still in Afghanistan nearly seven years after ousting the Taliban is to protect the still fragile democracy there. A growing number of Afghans question whether that democracy is worth protecting.

They complain that the government they've elected is corrupt and that it does a poor job of providing basic services, let alone law and order. They accuse the West of caring more about backing President Hamid Karzai, than addressing his government's problems.

Some are so frustrated that they've taken matters into their own hands.

One by one, the elders of the Mohammadzai tribe arrive for their weekly meeting in the southern city of Kandahar. They sit cross legged on the floor in front of cups of steaming green tea.

This gathering, or shura, is a tradition the elders resurrected 18 months ago to address people's economic and security needs. They say they did so because they no longer trust their government to take care of them.

Locals Plan to Tackle Problems

The elders debate a new plan by their tribe and 26 six others in Kandahar province to form a council that would, in effect, take over the duties of the existing provincial government.

Members of the new council say they plan to tackle the Taliban, drug traffickers, unemployment — even girls' education.

One of the key proponents is Mohammad Issa Durazai, a former Kandahari attorney general whose son was killed in a suicide bombing last summer.

Durazai says he'd like to see the homebred council duplicated in other provinces. And he's convinced it can accomplish more in a few months than the government of fellow Kandahari Hamid Karzai has in years.

"The West kicked out the powerful Taliban regime and replaced it with a government people don't like and a person who cannot be a strong leader," Durazai says.

Such criticism of Karzai and his government is common in Afghanistan these days. So far, only Kandahari elders are trying to replace it. But Afghan and Western experts warn there'll be more trouble if things don't change.

Controlling the Levers of Power

While Karzai's government is widely viewed here as ineffective, experts note he still controls the levers of power. It's the president who appoints the cabinet ministers and provincial governors. That means government officials answer to the president and his advisers, rather than to the people they are supposed to serve.

Even parliament is unable to force the president to fire ministers. The legislators impeached the Afghan foreign minister last year, but he's still in office.

"There are signs that if we are not careful, we might be moving towards a dictatorship," says Mahmoud Saikal, a former deputy foreign minister who also served as ambassador to Australia. Saikal is helping establish an internationally mandated development strategy for his country. And he has plenty of concerns.

"I've seen lately some documents emerging from the States and also from Europe referring constantly to supporting the government of President Karzai," Saikal says. "I'm sure the president himself and a lot of us are quite happy to call it supporting the Afghan government. If we are looking for a durable and sustainable solution to the problems of Afghanistan, we have got no other choice but to support the state institutions and make sure that they are working, make sure that they are transparent, and make sure that they can deliver the goods to the people of Afghanistan."

A Decentralized Approach

Joanna Nathan, an analyst for the International Crisis Group, says that can't happen in the current climate.

"Far too much has been hung on individuals, and I think the system chosen here was a wrong one — a very centralized presidency, a sort of winner-takes-all system — when you actually have a country that has wide divisions ...." Nathan says. "It would actually be far more appropriate here to take a very regional approach."

That would mean empowering village and district councils that operate by popular consent to deliver services. Nathan also says more should be done to ensure ministries are running effectively as well as developing political parties with platforms that address people's needs. And, she says, law enforcement and the judiciary must be beefed up so that corruption is held in check.

Saikal agrees on the need for decentralization:

"Two or three years ago, I could see the merit of having a strong presidential system because we still were going through the recovery phase," he says. "But perhaps now, the time has come that we revise that system, and see if we could move somehow toward a strong parliamentary system where ministers of the government could come from the people."

But instead of reform, the only change seems to be the growing number of Afghan politicians looking to take charge. Some are openly flouting the law.

In a case that's making headlines in Afghanistan, a former warlord, Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, has refused to appear in court on charges he and his men brutally assaulted a rival and his relatives last month.

The only punishment for his defiance so far has been his suspension from a largely ceremonial post.

Taleban Declare War on Mobile Phone Firms

Civilians angered at insurgent attacks on the phone networks that provide them with a lifeline.

By Matiullah Minapal and Zainullah Stanekzai in Helmand, and Hafizullah Gardesh in Kabul (ARR No. 285, 06-Mar-08)

The Taleban are flexing their muscles again in southern Afghanistan, attacking what is undoubtedly the most dynamic sector of the economy - mobile phone companies.

Over the past week, four transmission masts belonging to different phone companies have been destroyed – two from the country’s largest service provider, Roshan, one belonging to its close competitor the Afghan Wireless Communications Company, AWCC, and one owned by the relative newcomer Areeba.

The attacks have taken place in Kandahar and Helmand provinces, where the Taleban have their stronghold and hold down large swathes of the countryside.

But in targeting mobile networks, the Taleban may be losing one of their most precious assets – the tacit support of the local population. While villagers in Helmand may turn a blind eye to public executions and grudgingly let their beards grow as the fundamentalists demand, they are extremely unhappy at the prospect of losing their phone service, for many their one link with the outside world.

“This has affected people very badly,” said Nazar Gul, a resident of Helmand’s Nad Ali district, where phone services were interrupted last week. “Our phones didn’t work and we couldn’t contact our relatives. This must not be repeated. The Taleban should pursue their aims in some other way. If they continue doing this, people are going to get upset and they will withdraw their support.”

Afghanistan leapt headfirst into the mobile phone age after the Taleban were ousted in 2001. After two decades of war, the country had little in the way of infrastructure and almost no land lines.

Two providers, Roshan and AWCC, shared the fledgling market for three years, investing hundreds of millions of US dollars to get the industry up and running.

It was a huge success. Now, after close to one billion dollars in investment, Afghanistan has four major providers with close to five million subscribers. From illiterate farmers to government ministers, everyone seems to rely on the cell phone for almost all communications.

The Taleban themselves are customers. In past years, spokesmen for the insurgents could only be reached via satellite phone. Now they have several mobile phone numbers through which they communicate with media outlets and each other.

In late February, though, the Taleban issued a warning to cellphone companies, demanding that they switch off their services between five in the evening and three in the morning, in order to prevent foreign military forces from tracking their movements through phone signals.

Hours after a deadline set by the Taleban expired, militants took out a phone mast belonging to Areeba in Kandahar. Two days later, a Roshan relay mast was destroyed, also in Kandahar. Over the next few days, Roshan and AWCC masts came under attack in Helmand.

“The companies did not comply with our demands,” explained Qari Yusuf, Taleban spokesman in the south. “We ordered them to stop the service at night. If these companies do not observe our rules and principles, we will attack them in all the regions under our control.”

He set out the Taleban’s reasoning for their night-time ban, “When Coalition forces launch operations against us during the night, they target our hideouts through these antennas and it damages us a lot.”

Abdul Hadi Hadi, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s telecommunications ministry, rejected any suggestion that the mobile phone network was being used for surveillance.

“The Americans and the Afghan government have other ways of collecting information about the Taleban,” he told IWPR. “Telecommunications services are part of the public sector, and those who sabotage these facilities are enemies of the people.”

Whatever the reason for the attacks, they have placed central government in an uncomfortable position. While the police claim to be in control of most of the territory in question, they are plainly unable to stop the insurgents destroying telephone antennas and other facilities.

“We can’t place police checkpoints beside each mast,” complained an employee of the interior ministry, who did not want to give his name. “We don’t have the capacity. The antennas are dispersed widely; if we try to cover the whole area we will be stretched too thin and we can easily be attacked.”

The official did, however, say that the police would endeavour to work with the provincial authorities and assist the phone companies.

Helmand police chief General Muhammad Hussain Andiwal told IWPR that security in his province was satisfactory.

“We are ready to help the telecommunications companies if they want us to,” he added. “We will ensure security in the areas where their antennas are installed.”

His remarks came after the destruction of two masts in Helmand. According to a high-ranking Afghan official who spoke on condition of anonymity, one of the Taleban’s aims was to embarrass the government.

“The Taleban are trying to increase the distance between the people and the government,” he told IWPR. “I don’t know about this espionage - I think it’s just an excuse. They want to show the people of Afghanistan that they are strong and the government is weak. They want people not to trust the government.”

The telecommunications ministry speculated that the runaway success of the mobile phone business might have angered the fundamentalists, who could be trying to curb development and scare off investors.

“Six years ago our compatriots could not even call from one province to another, and had to travel to Pakistan to make international calls,” said spokesman Hadi. “But now people can solve all of their problems with these mobile phones. And investment worth one billion dollars is a remarkable achievement. Perhaps this has raised certain sensitivities among the Taleban.”

He insisted, “The security agencies should take serious measures.”

The telephone companies refused to comment. While many people in Helmand were angry at the Taleban attacks on phone masts, some were still prepared to excuse their tactics.

“It is true that some people really do use mobile phones for espionage,” said one resident of the Nawa district. “I don’t blame the Taleban. I think they had to do what they did.”

Matiullah Minapal and Zainullah Stanekzai are IWPR trainees in Helmand province. Hafizullah Gardesh is IWPR’s local editor in Kabul.

Afghan refugees unwilling to vacate Pakistani camp

Text of report in English by private Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press news agency

Peshawar, 7 March: Afghan refugees at the Jalozai camp [NWFP, Pakistan] are unwilling to vacate the camp as seven days of the restart of voluntary repatriation have passed, but no family has so far left for their homeland or shifted to any other camp in Pakistan.

"Police deployed at all roads leading to the camp, do not allow any daily use item inside the camp. But people are unwilling to leave and stocked flour and other daily use item," a resident of Jalozai refugee camp told Afghan Islamic Press.

He said no one had left the camp while the elders were engaged in talks with government officials and other concerned people so that a solution of the problem can be find out. About pamphlet threatening police to leave the camp, he said:

"We have not seen such letters but people said that the letters had been spread by Khattaks, people of Khattak tribe of Pakistan who own the land of the camp."

UNHCR spokesman Babar Baluch confirmed to Afgh! an Islamic Press that no family had left the camp, but said the refugees have no other option except to leave the cam for their homeland or move to other camps in Pakistan.

"We are aware of the problems of the refugees but the Pakistan government had extended the deadline in the past for six months. Now it cannot be extended. We can only provide them assistance if they want to move to other camps in Chitral and Dir or willing to return their Afghanistan," he stated, adding only Pakistan government can decide to close the camp or not.

It worth mentioning here that the deadline extended by six months, expired on 29th February and the refugees are required to vacate the camp by 15 April.

Refugees at Jalozai camp, however, said they could not return to Afghanistan due to security problems and their old political differences.

They said they were also unwilling to shift to other camps in Pakistan because they will once again face the same situation and would be asked to vacate the camps after the passage of one or two years.

Pakistan troops told to withdraw from refugee camp by Afghan Taleban

Text of report by staff correspondent headlined "Afghan Taleban warn FC to leave refugee camp" published by Pakistani newspaper Dawn website on 7 March

Nowshera, 6 March: Afghan Taleban have threatened security forces to leave the Jalozai refugee camp in three days, otherwise their fighters will target them, instead of the allied forces in Afghanistan.

The Taleban operating in Afghanistan issued a threatening letter to the Frontier Constabulary deployed at the Jalozai camp. Copies of the letter, written in Pashto and attributed to the Afghan Taleban, were distributed among people on the premises of the refugee camp.

However, Nowshera DPO [district police officer] Mubarak Zeb told Dawn that the copies of the letter had been pasted on the walls of mud shops and houses in the Jalozai camp. He further said security had been tightened at the camp.

Meanwhile, the Commission for Afghan Refugees ruled out extension in the deadline for closing the Jalozai camp and asked its inhabitants to vacate the site by 15 April, said a spokesman here on Thursday [6 April].

The government! , he said, had no plan to extend the deadline and asked Afghans to start preparation to vacate the site. The spokesman said some elements were spreading disinformation regarding extension and clarified that the camp would be vacated according to the decision of the tripartite commission.

The FC, police and security personnel of the Afghan Commission were clueless about the people involved in distributing copies of the letter among inhabitants of the camp.

Over 200,000 Afghans, half of whom are said to unregistered, are living in the Jalozai camp. The camp was to be vacated by Dec 31, 2007, but later the deadline was extended till March 2008.

About 30 platoons of the Frontiers Constabulary have been deployed since 1 March to ensure security and safe exit of Afghan refugees.

Khorshied Samad: Upholding a promise to Afghanistan's women

Posted: March 08, 2008, Khorshied Samad

We must remember that it has been only six years since the Taliban regime was driven from Kabul

International Women’s Day, which we celebrate today, comes at a time when many Western countries, including Canada, are debating their future role in Afghanistan. These nations either have decided, or soon will decide, the direction and focus of that role for some years to come. Many issues have been raised, and arguments presented both pro and con with regard to NATO’s mission.
 
However, if we are still striving to help the Afghan people — and, especially, to support women and children in their quest for human security and socio-economic opportunities — we must remember that progress is impossible without a relatively secure and peaceful environment. If this is to be achieved, Canada and its allies have a key role to play in the troubled areas of my war-torn nation.
 
We must remember that it has been only six years since the Taliban regime was driven from power in Kabul. Since that time, many positive developments have occurred, especially in regard to improving Afghan women’s rights and participation in society. Under the Taliban, women were not allowed to work, attend school or pursue an education, receive medical care from male doctors, or travel without a male relative. They were regarded as non-citizens without rights or representation.  
 
Over the last six years, millions of women and girls have had the chance to attend school, return to work, open businesses, gain access to health care, and generally attempt to seize some of the opportunities that were stolen from them during the oppressive Taliban years. Afghan women have a presence in government, and strong voices in the media. They have no intention to give up these progressive strides ever again.
 
Already touting 23,000 members, the first political party for women was recently formed to develop a stronger platform for women’s rights throughout the country. However, their organization, and Afghan women in general, remain reliant on the sustained help of the international community.  
 
Nearly 6 million children have returned to school since 2002, with at least 1.5 million Afghan girls among them. (Boys still attend in greater numbers due to security concerns and other restrictions.) But the ongoing insurgency mounted by Taliban and terrorist forces in the south and east of the country threatens this progress. Last year saw nearly 150 schools burned to the ground, 305 schools closed, and 105 students and teachers killed, all accompanied by warnings to locals not to send their daughters to school. The Islamists prefer the darkness created by illiteracy and separation from society to the freedom and opportunity gained through education and economic progress.
 
The Afghan people, and especially Afghan women, continue to be hopeful and grateful for all that Canadians and the international community are doing to help their struggling nation onto a path of progress and peace. The stakes for Afghan society are indeed high. On International Women’s Day, let us strengthen our collective resolve: Canada’s ongoing mission in Afghanistan is worth it.

— Khorshied Samad is the former Kabul bureau chief and television correspondent for Fox News, and the wife of Afghanistan’s Ambassador to Canada.

[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

[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.]