In this bulletin:

• Afghan president calls for end to forced marriage
• Afghans protest against cartoons
• Afghan protesters chant 'Long live al Qaeda'
• NATO adviser for talks with Taliban
• Afghan groupings join opposition National Front
• German chancellor praises foreign mission soldiers, aid workers
• UN steps up efforts for Afghanistan's reconstruction
• Dutch urge more Afghan training
• Afghan doctors protest against abductions in western province
• US official: More military contracts should be awarded to Afghan companies
• Iranian province, Afghanistan expand economic ties
• Drug trade is global threat
• Iran expels 630 Afghan immigrants from Sistan-Baluchestan
• US 'anxiously watching' Pak. developments: Pentagon
• We Can't Win These Wars on Our Own

Afghan president calls for end to forced marriage

Sat 8 Mar 08 - KABUL (AFP) - Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai called Saturday on his countrymen to stop forcing their under-aged daughters to marry, especially to men several decades older, and to allow them to be educated.

Speaking at a ceremony in Kabul attended by about 300 women to mark International Women's Day, Karzai also said threats from a Taliban-led insurgency were keeping girls out of school.

"I call on religious leaders, tribal elders and particularly men: stop forcing your under-aged girls to marry, stop marrying them to old men," he said, adding later he was referring in particular to men aged above 50.

Up to 80 percent of Afghan women face forced marriage, and nearly two-thirds are married before the legal age of 16, according to the United Nations.

Karzai also stressed the importance of educating Afghan girls, who were denied schooling under the 1996-2001 Taliban government.

"In parts of Afghanistan, Afghan girls can't go to schools because of the terrorism problem," he said. "In other places, like places without terrorism problems, girls are not allowed to go to schools."

Some Afghan families, particularly in rural areas, do not see the need to educate girls.

Thousands of girls have enrolled in classes since the ouster of the Taliban, but there remains only one girl for every three to four boys in secondary school, the UN has said.

In another event to mark Women's Day, about 2,000 people attended a concert in Kabul by one of Afghanistan's most famous singers, Farhad Darya, recently appointed as UN Development Programme goodwill ambassador for the country.

In the southern city of Kandahar more than 1,000 women, including Karzai's mother, called on the president to find ways to end the Taliban insurgency, which was at its deadliest last year with more than 6,000 people killed.

"Bring us peace, we're losing our husbands, sons and brothers," said one women, Setara Achekzai.

"It's too much. Stop it, we want peace, we want security," said another woman, Ramzia, adding that she lost her police husband and a brother in a Taliban attack in Kandahar.

Afghans protest against cartoons

BBC News 8 Mar 08 - Thousands of people in Afghanistan have been protesting against the reprinting of cartoons in Danish newspapers they say are insults to Islam.

At the scene of the biggest protest, in the western city of Herat, police say more then 10,000 people took to the streets to denounce Denmark. They also condemned the planned release of a Dutch film critical of the Koran.

They burned Dutch and Danish flags, and called for their troops to be removed from the Nato force in Afghanistan. Saturday's protests have been the largest in the last two weeks in Afghanistan.

Thousands of demonstrators walked to Herat's main sports stadium, shouting angry slogans against Denmark and the Netherlands for alleged insults against Islam.

One of the protesters, Mir Farooq Hussaini, blamed the US and its allies for what he saw as blasphemy against Islam.

"We are here today to show our anger for what happened in Denmark, and to all infidels in the leadership of criminal America for what is going on in the world," he said.

"If next time our beliefs are insulted, we will give a lesson to America and its allies the way we gave a lesson to Russia when they had occupied our country."

These protests are believed to be the biggest since 2006, when cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad were published in a Danish newspaper, causing outrage and sparking riots across the Muslim world.

Last month, Denmark's leading newspapers reprinted one of the cartoons, after Danish police said they had uncovered a plot to kill the artist, whose drawing was one of 12 cartoons that had angered many Muslims. The reprinting triggered another wave of protests in Islamic countries.

Saturday's protesters in Herat were also angered by the forthcoming release of a short film by a right-wing member of the Dutch parliament, Geert Wilders, as the film reportedly portrays the Koran in a negative light.

Afghanistan is an Islamic republic where criticism of the Prophet Muhammad and the Koran can carry the death sentence.

Last week, more than 200 Afghan MPs protested in parliament, and urged the Danish and Dutch governments to prevent what they said was blasphemy against Islam.

Afghan protesters chant 'Long live al Qaeda'

CTV.ca News, March 9, 2008

Thousands of Afghan students chanted "Long live al Qaeda," during a protest aimed at Denmark and the Netherlands.

Protesters accused the two European countries of insults against Islam. Sunday's protest in Jalalabad was one of at least a half-dozen in Afghanistan, including one in the capital city of Kabul.

The demonstrators burned flags from each country and also shouted "Death to America."

Jalalabad was where Osama Bin Laden made his last public appearance in late 2001. The eastern city has long been seen as friendly to the al Qaeda leader, who had a major compound south at Tora Bora in the White Mountains.

"We don't want Dutch and Danish forces in Afghanistan. If our government does not kick them out, we will continue our demonstrations until they leave Afghanistan,'' said one protester, university student Qari Ibrahim. "If these forces do not leave, we are prepared to carry out suicide attacks against them.''

Both Denmark and the Netherlands have troops in the NATO security force in Afghanistan. There are 780 Danish troops and 1,650 Dutch troops. U.S. forces are operating in eastern Afghanistan.

A protest happened in Kunar province on Saturday, also in eastern Afghanistan, and in the western city of Herat, where an estimated 5,000 people rallied. There have been earlier protests in Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif.

The protests have come after Danish newspapers reprinted an editorial cartoon that depicted the Prophet Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban.

There have been a rising number of protests in the Muslim world since the cartoon's reprinting, with demonstrations in Indonesia, Sudan, Yemen, Gaza, Iran, Jordan and Iraq.

The Danish newspapers decided to reprint the notorious cartoon last month after police there said they uncovered a plot to kill the cartoonist. The cartoon was one of 12 drawings linked to deadly riots across the Muslim world in 2006.

The Jalabad protesters were also angry about Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders' upcoming short film, which reportedly calls the Qur'an, Islam's holy book, "fascist."

In Islam, all depictions of the Prophet, positive or negative, are generally considered forbidden, as they are seen as idolatry. In Afghanistan, criticizing the Prophet Muhammad or the Qur'an are crimes punishable by death.

With files from The Associated Press

NATO adviser for talks with Taliban

By Iqbal Khattak, Daily Times 9 March 2008

PESHAWAR: A senior North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) adviser urged the United States on Saturday to hold a dialogue with the Taliban.

He supported Islamabad’s negotiations with the Taliban as “very, very important and we (the US) should [also] do that. For the time being, we try to minimise our footprints,” he added.

Minimum role: Addressing the Area Study Centre of the University of Peshawar, Harlan Ullman, member of the board of advisers to the Supreme NATO commander, said, “The US should play absolutely a minimum role ... minimum fingerprints in Pakistan and I think we should give far more responsibility to Pakistan. To do that, we have to give it far more capacity and capability.”

Ullman said Pakistan should be helped by being given “the tools” to aid its reforms and developments. “We need to come up with a plan not only in terms of military, intelligence and law enforcement, but also everything else Pakistan needs. As Churchill said ‘give us the tools and we will do the job,’ but we also [need to encourage] economic development,” he added.

He said only “repairing” the underlying issues, rather than staging combat, could win the battle. He expressed concern at the US’ ‘fixation’ on the “so-called” war on terror, saying: “And we really have induced or coerced friends and allies to be part of the war. In this particular case, we are dealing with symptoms and not the causes, which are much more profound.”

The adviser told the audience that if there were some form of large scale intervention by the part of the US “which I would profoundly oppose — say for example if [a] substantial number of ground forces are sent in (Pakistan) — I know what is going to happen in Pakistan. And in this particular case, our future (course) should be to trust Pakistanis more.”.” He said growing direct “foreign adventure” in the Tribal Areas or settled parts of Pakistan would destabilise the country, adding that the American military commanders are “very, very, very well aware” of it.

Sceptical: Ullman said he was sceptical that NATO would win the war in Afghanistan. “The Afghan war, I don’t think NATO is winning because we are failing on social and public sector side,” he said. Calling the region a “strategic centre of gravity” in terms of how “we (US and allies) are waging this geo-strategic battle”, he said the battle was not progressing as well as it could, as the US is heavily engaged in Iraq and its reputation abroad was not very strong.

Afghan groupings join opposition National Front

Text of report by privately-owned Afghan Arzu TV on 8 March

[Presenter] Five political parties have joined the [opposition] United National Front today. The spokesman for the front says the government should use their plan [on drugs] to decrease the poppy cultivation in Afghanistan.

[Correspondent] Sayed Fazel Sancharaki, the spokesperson of the United National Front, said that five parties had proposed to join the front some times ago. The parties were officially approved as members of the front after an observation of the leadership commission. The number of parties in the United National Front reaches 18 today.

The spokesman of the front in a press conference today once again expressed concern over the increasing insecurity and poppy cultivation and the involvement of high ranking government officials in drugs trafficking in Afghanistan. He said the government should use the plans of the front to decrease poppy cultivations in Afghanistan.

The following groups joined the front today: Wahdat-e Melli Aqwa! m [National Unity of Tribes], the Nahzat-e Eslami [Islamic Movement], the Hezb-e Eslami Jawan-e Afghanistan [Islamic Party of Afghan Youths], the Hezb-e Melli Esteqlal [National Independence Party] and Hezb-e Etedal-e Melli Afghanistan [Afghanistan National Moderate Party].

German chancellor praises foreign mission soldiers, aid workers

Text of report by independent German news agency ddp on 8 March

Berlin: Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) [Christian Democratic Union] has paid tribute to the deployment of Bundeswehr soldiers and German development workers in crisis regions. In Afghanistan, Germany is fashioning security in the north of the country, Merkel said in her weekly video message published on the Internet on Saturday (8 March). "Here is a great mission for us to accomplish."

"Many girls and boys today can attend school, medical care has improved and provision of drinking water has progressed. And so we can be proud of what our development workers in Afghanistan have already achieved," Merkel said. Without the guarantee of military security this would not be possible. Here, German soldiers are "in full deployment", sometimes under very difficult conditions.

At the same time, the chancellor emphasized that the "question whether Afghanistan develops reasonably, whether the state structures are being strengthened or whether it will again become a! n ungovernable country" is of essential importance for Germany's security. "For we recall - if terrorists can be trained in Afghanistan, that threatens the entire free Western world."

As examples of successful deployments abroad, Merkel mentioned participation in the UNIFIL mission off the Lebanese coast and safeguarding elections in the Congo. But the Kfor mission in the Balkans is of extraordinary significance especially now, after the declaration of independence by Kosovo.

Merkel announced that she would make it clear at the Bundeswehr commander meeting in Berlin on Monday (10 March) "that our female and male soldiers, as well as the police officers and civilian development workers deserve the great gratitude and great recognition of the people in Germany and of the federal government".

UN steps up efforts for Afghanistan's reconstruction

Xinhua, China
2008-03-07

The appointment of a new United Nations envoy for Afghanistan is the latest effort of the world body to speed up reconstruction in the war-torn country and it is expected to reinforce the international presence in face of a growing Taliban insurgency.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday named Norwegian diplomat Kai Eide Eide, a former Norwegian ambassador to NATO and who also once worked as a UN envoy in the Balkans, as his new envoy for Afghanistan.

Known for his working style of getting things done, Eide, 59, is expected to play a more significant role in beefing up coordination of the international reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan, where NATO is fighting a growing Taliban insurgency seven years after the militant group was ousted from power.

Eide became one of a handful of candidates for the post after Afghan President Hamid Karzai turned down British candidate Paddy Ashdown.

Kabul expelled two British nationals in December who worked as senior employees for the United Nations and the European Union, saying their activities were undermining their authority.

Eide is expected to be tasked with coordinating the work of the UN, NATO and various other international, charity and nongovernmental organizations, and extending the UN presence throughout the country, according to a diplomat from a Security Council member country.

Some countries also hope that Eide would play more of an international role, the diplomat said.

A stable security environment is vital to reconstruction work in Afghanistan, which has suffered years of war and is now struggling to cope with such thorny problems as refugee flows and drug smuggling, observers say.

With a long-term commitment, the UN has been stepping up efforts to promote the country's reconstruction and development in the fields of economy and education, as well as coping with security issues.

The UN World Food Program (WFP) on Wednesday began to distribute emergency assistance to about 650,000 Afghans suffering from food shortages due to a surge in the price of wheat, which has risen by 70 percent over the past years.

The UN and the Afghan government joined forces in January to appeal for more than 80 million U.S. dollars in aid to help those affected by the rise in food prices. The WFP has already received pledges for two-thirds of the 77 million dollars it requested as part of the joint appeal to deliver 89,000 tons of food to the poorest Afghans.

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime in Afghanistan (UNODC) has also called on the Afghan government to do more to dismantle major trafficking and criminal networks in the strife-torn nation which remains the world's largest producer of opium and heroin.

UNODC is assisting the government in several ways to tackle the drug problem, including by training intelligence officers within the Afghan police and providing legislative assistance on issues such as extradition.

In February, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization delivered some 80 tons of feed for the livestock of Afghan farmers who were badly affected by the harsh winter, and it appealed for more than 2 million dollars.

In the same month, the United Nations Fund provided learning materials and teacher kits for Afghan schools in efforts to ensure that more than six million Afghan children could start their new school year in time.

Early this year, the UN also allocated more than 100 million dollars in grants for lifesaving work in some of the world's trouble spots, including Afghanistan.

Taliban-related violence and conflicts claimed more than 5,200 lives in the Central Asian country last year alone.

The Taliban, which was toppled in a U.S. invasion in late 2001, has waged a year-long war against the Afghan administration and the international troops currently being deployed to fight militants and keep security.

Dutch urge more Afghan training

ninemsn.com.au 9 Mar 2008

The Netherlands has urged a doubling of efforts to rebuild the Afghan army and police, plus far greater aid organisation and United Nations involvement in reconstruction.

Dutch Defence Minister Eimert Van Middelkoop praised Australia's role alongside Dutch troops in south-central Afghanistan.

He also backed Australian involvement in the drafting of NATO's political military strategy for Afghanistan.

In an open letter released ahead of his visit to Australia this week, Mr Van Middelkoop said there was general agreement on the overall International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) strategy for Afghanistan.

What was missing was a clear statement on how to implement that strategy, he said.

"We must also clearly define what ISAF can and will do, but also what the Afghan government and other players in the international community must do," he said.

"We must redouble our efforts towards rebuilding the Afghan army and police. This is the most important area where ISAF can make a difference.

"Investing in the Afghan army and police is the smartest thing we can do."

Mr Van Middelkoop said the Afghan army had become a credible fighting force with more than 1,700 troops in Oruzgan Province, up from around 300 last October.

Australia currently has 1,000 troops in the province, operating as part of the 1,650-strong Dutch reconstruction task group.

The Netherlands has lost 14 soldiers in Afghanistan, while Australia has lost four.

Australia has been highly critical of long-term NATO strategy for Afghanistan with Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon demanding greater Australian involvement in planning.

Mr Fitzgibbon announced last month Australia would play a stronger role in training Afghan soldiers.

In Australia, Mr Van Middelkoop will discuss the situation in Afghanistan with Mr Fitzgibbon ahead of the crucial NATO meeting in Budapest next month.

Mr Van Middelkoop said much had been achieved in fighting the Taliban, but the ISAF contribution needed to be matched by an equivalent commitment of civilian resources.

He said development was essential to encourage Afghans to support their government and the international community, and to isolate insurgents.

"Projects such as schools, health clinics, roads and power plants will not only help the economy, but also help the government to assert its authority throughout Afghanistan," he said.

"A greater commitment of the United Nations and other international organisations and NGOs is necessary to ensure that progress does not evaporate."

Mr Van Middelkoop said the future of Afghanistan lay with the Afghan government.

"If the government does not improve its effectiveness and integrity, all efforts of the international community will prove to be futile," he said.

"This point can not be over-stated. ISAF cannot make the Taliban irrelevant, only the Afghans can. We should put more emphasis on the fact that ours is an assistance mission and that success is in the hands of the Afghan people."

Afghan doctors protest against abductions in western province

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

Herat, 8 March: According to details, hundreds of doctors of Herat Province, the number of which reached 600, went on strike in protest against the abduction of the son of a doctor in that province today.

The doctors, who stopped offering any health services today, accused a number if senior security officials of Herat Province of being involved in abduction and insecurity cases in that province.

They said a number of security officials were involved in the abduction of the son of Khalil Ahmad Yusofi, a doctor in Herat, on Thursday (3 Mar 08).

They seriously urged officials to release Dr Khalil Ahmad Yusofi's son from the abductors in 24 hours, otherwise they will continue with their strike and will not treat any patient.

The son of Dr Khalil Yusofi was abducted last Thursday in front of his house in Herat city. The abductors demanded 300,000 dollars in exchange for his release.

Nesar Ahmad Mosadeq, the head of the union of doctors of ! Herat, criticized the officials, and said: It is the fourth time in the current year that unknown armed men kidnap family members of doctors, but the government does nothing to stop all this.

Sayed Hosayn Anwari, the governor of Herat Province, expressed concerns over the current security situation, and strongly urged security officials to take serious measures to release the son of Dr Yusofi.

He urged the doctors to end their strike, and not to stop their health services to the people.

It is worth mentioning that the regional hospital of Herat, all health clinics, health centres, and drug stores were closed in protest against the abduction of Dr Yusofi's son, today.

Dr Khalil Ahmad Yusofi was kidnapped with his family by unknown men on the Kabul-Herat highway last year, but was later released.

US official: More military contracts should be awarded to Afghan companies

The Associated Press

Published: March 8, 2008

KHOST, Afghanistan: The U.S. military should let more Afghan companies bid on projects in Afghanistan in order to save U.S. taxpayers money, a senior U.S. Army official said Saturday.

Nelson Ford, the acting U.S. Undersecretary of the Army, said local businessmen "can give you more for less money."

"But you must have good contracting officers here, otherwise people in the states will say, 'We know how to do it right and the local people don't,'" Ford said at the end of a three-day visit to Afghanistan.

Ford visited the eastern provinces of Khost and Paktia — both bordering the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan — and was briefed by senior military officials on the situation there.

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.

Despite the spike in violence, Ford said that "everything I saw is very positive."

"I come away from this visit with a very positive feeling about the progress we are making here in Afghanistan," Ford said.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan, one NATO soldier was killed and two others wounded when a roadside bomb hit their vehicle Saturday, military officials said.

The soldiers were on a routine patrol in the eastern province of Paktia, which borders Pakistan, when the blast hit the vehicle, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said.

ISAF did not release the nationalities of the soldiers, thought most of the troops in Paktia province are American.

At least 10 U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan this year. Five Canadian and three British soldiers have also been killed.

Iranian province, Afghanistan expand economic ties

Excerpt from report by Iranian official government news agency IRNA

Zabol, Sistan-Baluchestan Province, 7 March: A group of traders from Afghanistan, provincial and local officials and the governor of Zabol [Sistan-Baluchestan Province] paid a visit to the Gomshad border market [Sistan-Baluchestan] on Friday [7 March].

During the visit, the governor of Zabol said that the Gomshad border market in Sistan-Baluchestan was built owing to the efforts of the ninth government and has been known as an eastern gateway to the country.

In an interview with an IRNA reporter, Hoseyn Keykhah said that this border market has allowed traders from Sistan-Baluchestan and Afghanistan's Farah Province to develop economic, cultural and commercial relations between the two neighbouring countries.

He said that 1,000 people are now working in 70 shops at the market.

The governor of Zabol said that the objective of the Afghan traders' visit to the Gomshad border market in Sistan-Baluchestan is to increase the vo! lume of export to Afghanistan and to expand commercial, economic and cultural ties between this province and Afghanistan.

Drug trade is global threat

Arizona Republic, AZ, Mar. 7, 2008

The poison oozing from Afghanistan threatens the people of that nation and spreads across the globe.

The world - specifically the members of NATO - ought to keep that in mind.

The Taliban has become the world's narcotics pusher. These terrorists exploited other people's weaknesses while turning Afghanistan into the source of 93 percent of the world's opium poppy.

According to the latest State Department report on the international narcotics trade, opium production in Afghanistan nearly doubled since 2005, and the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai has been unable to stop it. The export value of this year's illegal opium harvest is more than a third of Afghanistan's combined gross domestic product.

The United States has spent $150 billion to build stability in Afghanistan since 2001, and it has 28,000 forces in the country. With opium flourishing and undermining efforts to secure the country, questions about whether this represents a failure of U.S. foreign policy are legitimate.

Yet debating past policies should not become a distraction from the larger issue: What's going on in Afghanistan is a big problem.

And it's the world's problem.

The 26 NATO countries with troops in Afghanistan recognize that. Yet the reluctance of allies, such as Germany, France, Spain, Turkey and Italy, to commit significant numbers of combat troops to southern Afghanistan suggests some degree of European denial about the danger of what's going on there.

Southern Afghanistan is where the combat troops are needed.

That is where violence is resurging. That is where the Taliban's mission of dominance extends across the border to Pakistan. Together with al-Qaida, the Taliban in Pakistan engages the Pakistan army and sponsors suicide bombings to sabotage peace efforts in the troubled Pakistan region bordering Afghanistan.

Southern Afghanistan is also where opium creates a funding source for terror.

Afghanistan's opium is being produced mostly in the agriculturally rich southern provinces where the Taliban is strong. The terrorists provide protection to growers and aid in trafficking; drug lords pay off with money and weapons to the Taliban. Afghanistan exports a full range of addictive drugs, from unrefined opium to morphine base to finished heroin. These drugs travel around the globe, sucking the will and the life from addicts, thus allowing the Taliban to destroy people sight unseen.

In addition to the export of drugs, violence is up in Afghanistan, where 6,500 people died because of the insurgency last year, the most since the U.S. removed the Taliban from official power in 2001.

National intelligence director Michael McConnell told Congress last week that the U.S.-backed Afghan government controls only 30 percent of the country. That country's government disagrees, claiming there is only 5 percent of Afghanistan that is "absolutely" out of control. Even that assessment would be reason for alarm, but we're inclined to believe McConnell's more gloomy figure.

In Pakistan, the number of people killed in terrorist attacks more than doubled to 2,116 last year, and Baitullah Mehsud, leader of the Taliban there, is blamed for planning the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

At next month's NATO summit, President Bush is expected to ask Europeans to send more troops to southern Afghanistan. It may be a hard sell for a lame-duck president with low popularity ratings.

But our European allies should not see this as a referendum on Bush. They should see it as a necessary step in their self-defense.

The violence and drugs flowing from Afghanistan represent a global threat that requires intense international commitment.

Iran expels 630 Afghan immigrants from Sistan-Baluchestan

Text of report by Iranian state-run provincial TV from Sistan-Baluchestan on 8 March

Over the last two days, the personnel of the Zabol [Sistan-Baluchestan Province] border regiment have arrested 630 Afghan nationals who illegally entered the Islamic Republic of Iran. They have all been deported to their home country.

The commander of the Zabol border regiment, Maj Mehrdad Moshveq, said that during a patrol carried out on the border last night, the regiment based in the town of Dust-Mohammad confiscated and impounded 38 kg of opium.

Col Nazeri, the commander of the Basij Resistance force in Zabol, told a local TV reporter that Basij members from Ali Ebn-e Abitaleb Mosque in the village of Jaleh [Zabol] have apprehended a total of 108 Afghan nationals in the border areas of this village [as they tried to enter Iranian territory].

He said that after the legal procedures, the arrested immigrants were expelled from Iran to their home country.

US 'anxiously watching' Pak. developments: Pentagon

Hindu, India, (PTI)March 8, 2008

The United States is "anxiously watching" how the emerging political powers in Pakistan deal with the situation in tribal areas especially in the border with Afghanistan, a top Pentagon official has said.

Admiral William Fallon, Commander of the Central Command, told the House Armed Services Committee that Washington is ready to extend every assistance to the Pakistani Military with a view to making it "more effective and more competent".

"Pakistan, across the border, it's been a troubled country with a series of stability issues for the duration of its existence. There's a political process that's in progress now. We're anxiously watching how they deal with this situation," Admiral Fallon told the committee while defending the outlays for the Central Command.

"The reality of life is that the tribal overlay covers both countries (Pakistan and Afghanistan) and we just have to deal with the whole picture. We've been getting a lot of help in Pakistan," he said.

"We certainly intend to make ourselves available and to help them. We have given strong assurances to the PACMIL that we will do everything we can to assist them to make them more effective and more competent," he said.

"They're helping us immensely along the border with Afghanistan. That's one of the reasons that the level of attack is way down in eastern provinces. Though, there's a lot more that needs to be done," he added.  

We Can't Win These Wars on Our Own

Washington Post, By John A. Nagl Sunday, March 9, 2008; Page B04

It's now my job to train U.S. military advisers who are embedded in the Iraqi and Afghan security forces -- which often gets me thinking back to my time fighting in 2004 in Iraq's Anbar province, and the death of Lt. Col. Suleyman.

Suleyman was the best of my Iraqi comrades in arms in Anbar: a fierce fighter, former Republican Guard officer and, like me, a veteran of Operation Desert Storm (although he was on the other side in that one). I called him "Suleyman the Magnificent." We were like brothers -- which is to say, we fought incessantly about how to handle our common mission. Suleyman wanted more trucks and weapons; I wanted sharper intelligence, more patrols and better performance from his soldiers.

Suleyman, whose last name I never knew, commanded a battalion of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps (now the Iraqi Army) that was based just west of Fallujah, one of Anbar's major cities -- no easy job. But his problems exploded in April 2004, when the charred corpses of two Blackwater contractors were hung from a bridge within sight of his headquarters. Fallujah soon fell under the control of Sunni insurgents, who bristled when Suleyman defied their demands for weapons and money. Then the insurgents kidnapped one of his officers and told Suleyman to report to a mosque inside the rebel-held city to get his man back. Suleyman bravely did so, and was beaten to death -- a killing that was videotaped and sold throughout the streets of Anbar as a lesson to anyone who might consider supporting Iraqi and U.S. efforts to build a brighter future there.

We will not necessarily win if we have allies like Suleyman, but we cannot win without them. The hard lesson of this tragedy is clear: Foreign forces cannot win a counterinsurgency campaign on their own. In Anbar, I spent at least as much time training and equipping the country's nascent security forces as I did planning and executing raids against insurgents. This indirect approach is the key to winning the long war against al-Qaeda and changing the Middle East for the better.

Iraq has come a long way since Suleyman's death in the summer of 2004. Anbar is now one of the safest provinces in Iraq, scheduled to be handed over to Iraqi control this month. The Marines stationed there now struggle with boredom as much as with car bombs. The extraordinary success of the 2007 "surge" of troops to Iraq -- or, more precisely, sending additional forces to Iraq and using them in a classic counterinsurgency strategy that combined providing security for the population with reaching out to aggrieved parties -- will echo in the pages of military history. But it is far too early to take a victory lap, and a focus on Iraq that crowded out the other theaters in which the United States is fighting would be a strategic mistake of the first order.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq killed far too many of my soldiers in 2004, but it is not much of a threat today; this scourge has been largely defeated by other groups of Sunnis, including some former insurgents, known as the Awakening Councils or the Concerned Local Citizens, whose rise was one of the most important developments of 2007.

But last year's military successes in Iraq came at a very high price. The "surge" of five brigades and the extension of Army combat tours in Iraq from 12 to 15 months has strained the Army to the breaking point. Neither the Army nor the Marine Corps has a reserve of ground troops to handle other crises. Meanwhile, the Taliban is regaining strength in Afghanistan and the lawless border regions of Pakistan, and the opium production that funds their insurgency hit record highs last year. And the foreseeable consequences of a hasty U.S. withdrawal from Iraq -- instability in the region, an empowered and crowing Iran, a chaotic Iraq wracked by humanitarian catastrophes -- could easily reverse last year's gains and provide a new home for terrorism in the Middle East. The fight is far from won.

For starters, we must shore up Afghanistan. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates recently committed 3,000 more desperately needed Marines to Afghanistan, beginning next month. But it would take an increase of more than 100,000 soldiers and Marines to give NATO commanders in Afghanistan the force ratios that Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, has enjoyed. We don't have the troops.

The best short-term solution is rapidly expanding the Iraqi and Afghan security forces to hold towns cleared by U.S. forces. Local forces, stiffened by foreign advisers, have historically been the keys to success in counterinsurgency warfare. As such, I've been among the serving officers and veterans who've urged the U.S. Army to create a standing Adviser Corps.

But even greatly expanding and institutionalizing the role of advisers cannot win the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Insurgencies are ultimately inspired by ideas, and defeating the Iraqi insurgency will require a counter-narrative -- backed up by robust economic development, a solid and committed government in Baghdad, and providing the Iraqi people with basic services such as water, electricity and (above all) security. As such, the single most important step the United States could take toward victory is re-creating an information agency to discredit our enemies' narratives and amplify those of our allies. For starters, we should let the Muslim world know about atrocities committed by our foes, such as the vicious death of my friend Suleyman. By failing to help decent Iraqis, Afghans and others engage in the global war of ideas, we have ceded the most important battlefield of what the Pentagon calls the "Long War" to our enemies without a fight.

The longer-term fixes to our strategic problems will be far harder to make. Since the end of the Cold War, the military and the diplomatic corps have lacked resources. Some U.S. fighter jets are older than their pilots and literally fall out of the sky from metal fatigue. The Army and Marine Corps are exhausted and desperately need time and money to rebuild. That's not likely; keeping up the security the United States purchased at such a high price in Iraq last year will require committing tens of thousands of U.S. ground forces for several more years at least -- and maintaining a significant presence in Iraq for a decade or more. Achieving a similar success in Afghanistan will mean deploying tens of thousands more troops (and not just from our NATO allies) for similarly long hauls.

Petraeus deserves the accolades he's won for the military turnaround in Iraq. But those successes should not distract us from the fact that the United States is engaged in a war on many fronts for which it is not properly mobilized. Iraq and Afghanistan don't just need more advisers from the Army and the Marine Corps; they need more help from the State Department and the Justice Department, too.

Above all, we soldiers need the American people to understand that counterinsurgency is slow, painstaking work that requires serious patience. Lt. Col. Suleyman understood the risks and confronted them head-on. We should do the same, with clear eyes and no illusions. These will be long wars.

[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.]