In this bulletin:

• Afghan Defense Ministry Dismisses New Taliban Threat
• Talk of a Troop Surge for Afghanistan
• 100 Afghan drug police killed last year
• Afghan Cops Get An Upgrade
• Afghans learning a better way to match Taliban pay
• No extra troops for Afghanistan, minister insists
• Afghan settlements secret
• Out of Guantanamo and Bitter Toward Bin Laden
• Afghanistan's youngest migrants adrift on the road to asylum

Afghan Defense Ministry Dismisses New Taliban Threat

KABUL (AFP)--The Afghan defense ministry said Tuesday its security forces were stronger than ever this year and dismissed a Taliban threat to expand its operations countrywide starting this spring.

The U.S.-funded Afghan army in particular was in a "very, very good position" compared with a year ago, it said, describing the Taliban as fragile. Last year was the bloodiest of an insurgency launched by the Islamic rebels after 2001.

A Taliban representative called media with a statement said to be from one of the insurgent movement's most senior members, Mullah Bradar, to announce Operation Ebrat, which means "lesson" in Pashtu.

"This will be a new type of operation to expand operations countrywide and surround the enemy wherever they are and encounter them," according to the statement read to an AFP reporter over the telephone.

It said the Taliban's "holy jihad" would continue until international troops left Afghanistan and President Hamid Karzai's administration collapsed.

Victory would be when "an Islamic system is in place in independent Afghanistan," the statement said, calling on Afghans to join a "holy freedom war."

The defense ministry said the announcement was part "of a psychological campaign and not a reality which could implemented on the ground."

"The national army has significantly improved in terms of capability, capacity and skills compared to the beginning of last year," it said, referring to the start of the Afghan year on March 20.

"New and modern equipment has been given to the national army. The air force has been revived and activated."

Afghan National Army Commando battalions have been formed and engineering battalions are working across the country, it said, adding that international forces are providing security.

The Taliban had meanwhile lost its leading figures, it said, claiming there were also disputes in the group's ranks.

A U.S.-led coalition removed the Taliban from government in late 2001 because the extremist regime had sheltered Al-Qaida.

Talk of a Troop Surge for Afghanistan
By Anna Mulrine U.S. News & World Report - Mon Mar 24, 9:49 AM ET

As the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq fades from the front pages, analysts are turning their attention to what is often called the forgotten war. Many fear that progress in Afghanistan is stalled and that the country is in need of major new measures to reinvigorate the war effort against the Taliban and other extremist factions.

To that end, talk is increasingly turning to a troop surge for Afghanistan. The conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank, which was instrumental in designing the current surge strategy in Iraq, in January convened an "Afghanistan Planning Group" that will shortly announce recommendations for an influx of troops into Afghanistan as well. "It's clear to everyone who looks at it that more troops are necessary in Afghanistan," says Frederick Kagan, an AEI fellow and an architect of the surge strategy in Iraq.

It is clear to U.S. military officials that efforts in Afghanistan are faltering and that more troops could help turn the tide. Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, former commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and now the deputy chairman of NATO's military committee, says that there is currently a shortage of maneuver and infantry forces in the country. What' s more, he adds, there are not enough troops to train the Afghan Army and police. "That's the greatest shortfall," he adds.

To that end, the U.S. is now sending some 3,200 marines into the country. Half of them will serve as trainers, and the other half will serve as combat troops backing up British troops in violent, drug-producing Helmand province.

But American soldiers--stretched to the limit in Iraq--are at a premium. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has repeatedly called on NATO member countries to contribute more troops to the troubled country. To date, these pleas have not inspired an overwhelming response among NATO partner countries.

But senior defense officials expect some announcements to come at next month's NATO summit in Bucharest, including a possible commitment by France to send as many as 700 additional troops (France currently has about 1,600 in the country, most stationed around the capital of Kabul).

The NATO summit is "high political stakes," says Eikenberry. "We think that the French will make an offer," adds a senior defense official. "If they make an offer, it's going to be to go into eastern or southern Afghanistan, the most troubled areas." The Canadian Parliament has agreed to extend its military mission of 2,500 troops in Afghanistan until 2011, but only if NATO countries send 1,000 more troops to back them up in the violent Kandahar province.

France's contribution would enable U.S. military planners to shuffle American forces from the East and move them into the increasingly violent South where attacks tend to be concentrated, says the defense official. "The French fight very well; I'd be happy to see them there," adds Kagan.

In the meantime, Eikenberry says that he expects an increase in high-profile terrorist attacks from extremist Taliban forces. Moving troops into targeted troubled areas could help tamp down violence. Eikenberry points out that 70 percent of attacks in Afghanistan are concentrated in roughly 10 percent of the districts of Afghanistan.

Currently, a graph of monthly bomb attacks is trending upward. "It looks exactly the way you would want your stock portfolio to look," says one senior military official. "And that's exactly how you don't want IED trends to look."

100 Afghan drug police killed last year
By RAHIM FAIEZ, Associated Press Writer Mon Mar 24, 6:38 AM ET

KABUL, Afghanistan - Around 100 police officers on Afghanistan' s poppy eradication force were killed in the line of duty over the last year, an official said Monday.

Gen. Doud Doud, who heads the Interior Ministry's counter-narcotics police, also said that about 90 percent of the country's poppies are grown in dangerous regions where insurgents hold sway and the government has little reach.

"The main challenge for us is security," Doud told a news conference.

Police poppy eradication teams — whose work brings them to remote and dangerous areas of the country — are often attacked by insurgents or farmers angered that their profitable crop is being destroyed, leading to the force's high number of casualties.

The U.N. says that Afghanistan supplies more than 90 percent of the world's illicit opium, the main ingredient in heroin. Tens of millions of dollars from the drug trade are believed to flow to Taliban fighters, who charge taxes on farmers and demand payment for safe passage through dangerous territory.

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

About 820 people were arrested over the last year for drug trafficking by the counter-narcotics police force, Doud said.

He said a new battalion of Afghan army soldiers — approximately 800 troops — were about to graduate from training and would be assigned to work alongside eradication forces.

Last year, 13 of Afghanistan' s 34 provinces were poppy-free. Doud said the government hopes to raise that number to 22 this year.

Many farmers in poppy-free provinces have started planting marijuana. Doud said some government leaders have promised to tackle the marijuana problem as well.

Afghan Cops Get An Upgrade
Strategy Page - Mar 24 2:31 AM

March 24, 2008: The U.S. has convinced the Afghan government that the traditional Afghan approach to policing won't work. In the past, cops were poorly paid, and recruited more as a make-work program, than as an attempt to get the best qualified people. These cops were used more as a paramilitary militia, to enforce the will of the provincial government, than to serve and protect the population. The new program will recruit more carefully, pay more, and train the new police to do traditional policing (keep the peace and protect the people.) The new program will be implemented in a few of the more troublesome (Taliban ridden) districts of southern Afghanistan. If it works, the program will take a generation or two to implement throughout the rest of the country. And that's only if the government comes up with the money, and maintains the independence and honesty of the new force. That's a long shot.
 
The problems in Afghanistan are common in poor and undeveloped nations. Policing, in the Western sense, is a relatively new concept, and has been around for only about a century.

Afghans learning a better way to match Taliban pay

by Bronwen Roberts Mon Mar 24, 12:08 AM ET

ASADABAD (AFP) - Under the gaze of snowy peaks on which insurgents operate, Afghan and US officials open a trade centre they expect will find men jobs and take them out of the reach of rebel recruiters.

The gleaming new Kunar Construction Centre -- 10 kilometres (six miles) from the border with Pakistan, where extremists are said to have bases -- offers courses in plumbing, painting, masonry and other building skills.

"It is the graduates of this school who are going to rebuild your country," US Navy Commander Larry LeGree tells a room of local men in traditional dress guarded by heavily armed Afghan forces and US troops.

Afghanistan's rugged and remote Kunar province is a key battleground in an extremist insurgency hindering the government's efforts to bring stability to a country devastated by nearly three decades of war.

Twenty international soldiers have lost their lives here since May, a US commander says, and there are about three attacks on security forces a week.

It is near here that some say Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who was sheltered by the 1996-2001 Taliban regime, was last sighted. Many now believe he is hiding just across the border in northwestern Pakistan.

There is also talk that wanted radical commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar had a meeting in the area recently. His powerful deputy Kashmir Khan once lived on a mountain just behind the new centre, says a local.

"These insurgents are always on the top of the mountains," says Kunar governor Fazlullah Wahidi.

Most are from outside the country, he says. "They come and spend some time in Kunar and they go to other areas."

This section of the border does not see the same bulk of infiltration as the flatter southern part, where large groups of former madrassa students come over, says Lieutenant Colonel William Ostlund.

"Here smaller groups of command and control people bring in specialised equipment and finances to pay very poor and uneducated people that live in the mountains to attack," he said.

This includes an Al-Qaeda element from mainly Arab countries who have had some form of training in Pakistan, says Ostlund, the most senior US military commander in Kunar.

"They will sit on the hill and tell the young fighters what to do and how to do it but few of them engage in the fighting themselves."

The incentive for these fighters is cash, he says. And the US government-funded trade school aims to help "fighting-age males" to match, through legitimate jobs, the money they would get from insurgent activity.

"We need to pay construction workers more than the Taliban are paying their soldiers, fighters and porters," says Ostlund, putting porters' pay at about 100 dollars a month and fighters' at 150.

The new centre will plug into an expected construction boom that will be worth 3.5 billion dollars over the next few years, say its sponsors at the US government's aid agency, USAID.

It is targeted to the "at-risk population" -- men aged between 18 and 35 who may be persuaded to carry out a rocket-propelled grenade attack for about six dollars, says Captain Steve Fritz, who headed the centre's construction.

"There is a sense that this is more an economic fight," he says.

The strategy is one of several being used by the Afghan government and its international allies to defeat a Taliban insurgency that was countrywide its bloodiest last year with more than 8,000 people killed, most of them rebels.

In Kunar, as in other parts of the country, more police are being trained: provincial police chief General Abdul Jalal Jalal says, however, he needs at least double the 1,000 men he has.

There are also moves to draw insurgent leaders, like Hekmatyar, into dialogue. And there is new emphasis on improving provincial-level governance, with Wahidi's appointment in November seen as promising.

Military efforts are meanwhile making headway, Ostlund says. Troops in Kunar are initiating up to half of contacts with the rebels, up from only two to five percent about a year ago.

And the number of "significant acts" dropped from 156 in September to 60 in February, he says.

"The security allows a bubble for the government to develop, and behind development comes economic prosperity.

"As soon as people can tap into the good governance and the economic benefits of good government... they understand they have more to gain by being part of the government than by living up in those mountains there or over in Pakistan," says Ostlund.

No extra troops for Afghanistan, minister insists
Sydney Morning Herald, Australia March 25, 2008
THE Defence Minister, Joel Fitzgibbon, says there is no argument "whatsoever" for Australia to increase its troop commitment in Afghanistan, even after it withdraws more than 500 soldiers from southern Iraq in the middle of the year.

His comments come before next week's NATO summit, at which European and North American nations will forge a new strategy for securing Afghanistan, where the Taliban and al-Qaeda are resurgent and violence is at levels not seen since the 2001 invasion.

Both Mr Fitzgibbon and the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, will attend the summit in Bucharest and have made it clear they want a substantial increase in troop contributions from NATO countries.

That, in turn, will put pressure on Australia to do likewise.

But Mr Fitzgibbon said Australia - with just over 1000 military personnel in the volatile southern province of Oruzgan - is not well placed to increase troops.

"Really, would an extra 5 or 10 per cent Australian contribution make any difference to the long-term result in Afghanistan? I don't think so," Mr Fitzgibbon told the Herald.

"As the 10th-largest contributor overall and the biggest non-NATO country, I just don't think there's an argument whatsoever for us increasing our contribution."

There has been speculation that Australia will boost its presence in Afghanistan once the 515 military personnel based at Tallil in southern Iraq return home, but Mr Fitzgibbon said the Defence Force would "remain overstretched" after their withdrawal.

Given the continuing unrest in Australia's immediate region, the Rudd Government wants more troops based here for any crises that may flare closer to home.

Even after the withdrawal from Iraq, about 1000 Australian personnel will be assisting there, including an Anzac-class frigate patrolling the Persian Gulf, C-130 and P-3 Orion aircraft and crews, and a security detachment based in Baghdad that protects Australian government officials.

As well as the 1000 Australians in Afghanistan, a similar number are deployed in East Timor and the Solomon Islands.

Australian forces, unlike those of many other nations in Afghanistan, have been deployed in one of the country's most violent areas, a fact reinforced by bloody action over the weekend. A Taliban ambush of a coalition and Afghan patrol sparked a furious confrontation that resulted in up to 40 Taliban being killed from the ensuing air strikes and ground battle. It is understood no Australians were involved in the battle.

Mr Fitzgibbon said "progress is slow, at best" in Afghanistan and "in some areas we are even going backwards".

He said only a substantial increase in forces by NATO nations would make a difference, saying the 10 per cent increase foreshadowed by the NATO secretary-general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, earlier this month would almost certainly be inadequate.

There are about 43,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan, plus 13,000 American personnel operating under their own command.

"I find it hard to accept that a 10 per cent, 15 per cent increase is enough," Mr Fitzgibbon said.

He added that gaining more co-operation from Pakistan, where the Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders directing the insurgency in Afghanistan are based, was critical to success.

Mr Fitzgibbon ruled out negotiating a peace deal with the Taliban's leadership, as suggested by the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, last year.

Air strikes, war on drugs drive Taliban
Insurgency's foot soldiers are motivated by loved ones lost to NATO planes and money lost to poppy-eradication programs
GRAEME SMITH gsmith@globeandmail .com; Graeme Smith; Associated Press and The Canadian Press March 24, 2008
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN -- The series
Running through this week, we will probe the heart of the Taliban

insurgency in Afghanistan in groundbreaking research by The Globe and Mail. Based on video-recorded interviews of 42 fighters connected with insurgent groups in Kandahar province, the research provides us with a glimpse of who they are, their motivation and goals.

Air strikes and drug eradication are feeding the insurgency in southern Afghanistan, as those actions convince some villagers that their lives and livelihoods are under attack.

In a unique survey, The Globe and Mail interviewed 42 ordinary Taliban foot soldiers in Kandahar and discovered 12 fighters who said their family members had died in air strikes, and 21 who said their poppy fields had been targeted for destruction by anti-drug teams.

The results suggest an unusual concentration of first-hand experience with bombing deaths and opium eradication among the insurgents, analysts say. Despite the violence and expensive counter-narcotics campaigns in Afghanistan, most villagers have not been touched by these events themselves, and their prevalence among the Taliban highlights two important motives for the insurgency.

"This is very interesting," said Sarah Chayes, an American author who lives in Kandahar.

The Taliban may exaggerate their claims of civilians killed in air strikes, she said, "but I do think civilian deaths, and the cultivated impression of civilian deaths, is playing an increasing role."

Some analysts have described senior Taliban leaders reaping large profits from the opium industry, but Ms. Chayes said the ordinary fighters are simply trying to protect a meagre source of income in a place where other jobs are scarce.

"It's not profit motive at these guys' level - it's bare livelihood," she said. "Anybody would defend that."

Aerial bombings and civilian deaths have both increased: the United Nations estimates that more than 1,500 civilians were killed last year.

That figure as compares to the 900 to 1,000 civilian deaths counted by two studies of the previous year. An analysis of the first nine months of 2007 found the number of air strikes was already 50-per-cent higher than the total for 2006.

Civilian bombings emerged as a major theme of the war last year. President Hamid Karzai shed tears in public as he spoke about civilian deaths. In June, a coalition of Afghan aid agencies published a controversial report suggesting that the rate of civilian casualties had doubled from the previous year, and that international forces were starting to rival the Taliban as the greatest source of civilian deaths.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization disputed the aid groups' figures, but quietly took action to reduce the likelihood of killing civilians. A report from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon this month said international forces had reviewed standard operating procedures for aerial engagement with a view to reducing collateral deaths caused from the air.

Still, some countries, such as the United States, have been reluctant to curtail their use of air power.

"The United States views this as the tragic but bearable cost of a successful operation against insurgents, without understanding that the Taliban has deliberately traded the lives of a few dozen guerrilla fighters in order to cost the American forces the permanent loyalty of that [bombed] village," wrote Thomas Johnson and Chris Mason, of the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in California, in an academic paper last year.

The Taliban are usually reluctant to admit that they're fighting for any causes other than religion, but they have recently embraced civilian deaths as a rallying point. Insurgents have helped journalists arrange interviews with victims in the aftermath of air strikes in southern Afghanistan, and NATO soldiers have repeatedly witnessed the Taliban forcing civilians into dangerous situations in hopes of getting them killed by foreign troops, thus evoking the wrath of the village.

The Globe and Mail's survey was not scientific, but it offers a sample of the insurgents' views on the topic. Asked specifically about bombings by foreign troops, almost a third of respondents said their family members had died in such incidents during the current war.

Some insurgents complained about bombings by Russian aircraft in the 1980s in addition to recent air strikes under the Karzai government, suggesting that memories of the Soviet invasion fuel some of the current opposition to U.S. and NATO troops.

Even those who have not lost relatives in the bombings clearly identify themselves as defending Afghanistan against such attacks. In response to the question, "Has your family been bombed by foreigners?" four fighters offered fatalistic responses such as: "No, not yet." Two others gave variations on a declaration of solidarity. "No," one fighter said. "But the families of my friends have been bombed, and other Muslims are like my own family." Others described the air strikes hitting closer to home: "No, but our neighbours and relatives have been bombed."

About half of those who cited bombing deaths in their family said they joined the Taliban after the killings occurred: six joined afterwards, five joined before and one was not asked.

Those for whom the bombings was a trigger for joining the Taliban generally fell into two categories: young men replacing older relatives who died fighting in the Taliban ranks ("call-ups"); and men who took up arms against the government after their civilian relatives were killed.

An example of the call-up mechanism was the case of a 25-year-old farm worker who said three older members of his family were killed in air strikes. He specified that all of his slain relatives were Taliban fighters, and that it was his duty to replace them.

"All of them were with the Taliban and when one of them was killed in war, after that another was killed and then the third one was also killed," he said. "So after that I decided to join the Taliban."

"But what is your goal? Do you want to take revenge or what?" he was asked.

"No, no, no," the fighter said. "I would never fight to take revenge for my family or something else. I am fighting only to remove the non-Muslims from my country because they are here to destroy our religion."

Others did not dwell on the rhetoric of jihad. A 22-year-old farmer initially said he abandoned his farm work because foreign troops arrived in his area, but later specified that three of his relatives - two elders and a child - had been killed in an aerial bombing in the previous year, and that he joined the Taliban after the bombing.

"Are you fighting because of that bombing?" he was asked. "Yes," he said. "Because of the bombing,and also because the foreigners are here."

Bombing was the only reason given when an older farmer, perhaps in his 40s, described his motives: "The non-Muslims are unjust and have killed our people and children by bombing them, and that's why I started jihad against them," he said. He said his family was bombed several times. "They have killed hundreds of our people, and that's why I want to fight against them."

International troops sometimes complain that they're fighting three wars in Afghanistan: the war on terrorism, a war against insurgents, and a war on drugs. The first two conflicts are viewed as inescapable, but the counter-narcotics campaign is often seen as hurting the rest of the war effort.

With opium production soaring to record levels, however, many Western politicians are pushing for a new crackdown on poppy farmers. The International Crisis Group predicted in February that such an effort would be disastrous: "Insurgents would exploit local alienation to recruit more soldiers," the ICG report said.

Most of the insurgents in the Globe survey admitted a personal role in the opium industry, with more than 80 per cent of respondents saying they farm poppies themselves and a similar percentage saying the plant is farmed by their family or friends.

Those numbers aren't surprising in rural Kandahar, where poppies rank among the most common crops. The more significant number, in the view of some analysts, was that half those surveyed said their fields had been targeted by government eradication efforts, sometimes more than once.

Eradication was not widespread in Kandahar in the years before the survey was conducted; it appears the Taliban either exaggerate the government's counter-narcotics program, or there is a connection between farmers who face crop eradication and those who join the insurgency.

The Taliban did not seem inclined to admit an economic rationale for the war, saying it's a secondary reason for fighting after the primary concept of religious war, but a few described the connection bluntly: "Previously they were cutting them [poppies] down, but now those areas are controlled by mujahedeen and now they cannot cut them down," said a 26-year-old who described himself as a former religious student.

Under the previous Taliban regime, Afghanistan briefly witnessed one of the world's most successful anti-drug campaigns when Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar declared that growing poppies is un-Islamic. Some historians say the Taliban cynically cut production to increase the values of their own stockpiles, but the effects in the fields was dramatic: a year's crop was almost entirely wiped out.

The idea of opium as a religiously forbidden product has lingered in Afghanistan, and is often reinforced by the current government. But many of the Taliban in the survey gave a new rationale when asked to explain why they have reinvented themselves as protectors of the drug trade.

"We grow it because it damages the non-Muslims," one fighter said, repeating the line used by many others, sometimes parroting the phrase verbatim.

"Before this drug reaches the non-Muslims, won't it destroy our own people first?" he was asked by the Afghan researcher, expressing concern about Afghanistan' s growing population of drug addicts.

But the fighter shrugged off this argument, saying the opium is mostly consumed in foreign countries.

"Islam says that it isn't permitted," the fighter conceded. "But we don't care whether it is permitted or forbidden. But we are only saying that we will grow poppies against non-Muslims."

A private security consultant in Kabul who reviewed the videos of the Taliban who were surveyed said the recurrence of this argument among the fighters seems to suggest an indoctrination campaign by Taliban leaders.

"If you read between the lines, some higher commanders have figured out a good excuse to cultivate poppy," the consultant said. "Those farmers are quite well brainwashed."

Taliban funding

The Taliban revealed very little about their financing when asked by The Globe and Mail's researcher. Other sources suggest that their biggest cash inflows arrive from supporters in Pakistan, sometimes originally from donors in the Middle East, but the front-line insurgents didn't seem to know much about those transactions, or else kept them secret.

"All the Muslims give us money, whether they are Afghans or from Saudi Arabia or somewhere else," one fighter said.

Other insurgents described voluntary payments by ordinary Afghans and implied that the insurgents get a cut of the local drug trade. Such payments were always couched in the language of traditional Islamic payments to charity, usually in two forms: usher and zakat.

Usher literally means one-tenth, but can refer to any portion of agricultural crop that is set aside as a donation. Zakat is another kind of obligatory charity, usually 2.5 per cent of annual profits from business.

These payments are regularly shared with the Taliban in southern Afghanistan; farmers sometimes give half their donations to the insurgents and the other half to the local mullah for charitable causes.

Prominent local drug dealers and businessmen in Kandahar are known to make donations beyond the requirements of zakat and usher, sometimes in the form of cash, opium, vehicles, cellphone-recharge card numbers, or even warm clothing in winter.

Afghan settlements secret
March 24, 2008 Murray Brewster The Canadian Press

There have been at least eight instances in the last two years where the Canadian government has dipped into its pocket to compensate Afghan civilians or their families for accidental deaths or injuries.

But the figures and details of the settlements remain a closely held secret, despite calls in the Manley commission report for the Conservative government to be more open and forthright.

The Justice Department, which shares responsibility with the Defence Department for ex gratia payments, refused to release any details.

A recent access to information request by The Canadian Press was returned almost entirely censored.

Federal officials refused a subsequent request to release a global figure of what has been paid out since Canadian troops deployed to Kandahar in early 2006.

Opposition parties say the information is being suppressed for political reasons because the notion of civilian casualties -- however inadvertent -- is embarrassing to a government that made helping Afghans the central pillar of its strategy to extend the mission to 2011.

"We have no problem if they blank out the names and some of the details, but c'mon, this is taxpayers' money,'' Liberal defence critic Denis Coderre said.

"The public should know at least -- at the very least -- how much we have spent and what (the) criteria is for compensation . . . even if it's only a few thousand dollars, it shouldn't be a secret.''

New Democrat defence critic Dawn Black accused the Tories of trying to keep the truth from the public.

"They don't want Canadians to know what's happening in the war in Afghanistan, '' she said.

A call to Justice Minister Rob Nicolson's office last week was not returned. Over a two-day period, Justice officials were asked to respond to questions about ex gratia payments, but the queries were eventually sent to National Defence. The military said it wasn't able to respond.

Coderre said the question of how payments are handled is vital because Afghan civilians, who are accidentally injured or killed by Canadian soldiers, have no legal right to compensation.

Instead, restitution depends upon an obscure claims process that provides payments under "moral considerations. ''

The waiver was signed in December 2005 by Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier and remained secret for six months. It became public through an access to information request filed by The Canadian Press in 2006.

Over 30 pages of information on ex gratia payments made since February 2006 were released by the Justice Department after a followup access to information request.

The records are almost entirely censored, but indicate at least eight payments were made between March 2006 and the end of 2007.

The agreement signed by Hillier states "Canadian personnel will not be liable for any damages to private or government property.''

Under the arrangement, civilians can submit damage claims and lawyers deployed with the troops are allowed to make payments up to $2,000.

"Any higher amount must be approved by the deputy minister,'' said an undated Defence Department note. "In most circumstances, ex gratia payments should not be made.''

Part of the secrecy involves a genuine concern for the safety of Afghan families being compensated.

In the spring of 2006 the family of an Afghan man, mistakenly shot dead by a Canadian soldier at police checkpoint, received a settlement. But the officer commanding the mission at the time -- Brig.-Gen. David Fraser -- warned that revealing compensation details would potentially make the family targets of bandits.

Out of Guantanamo and Bitter Toward Bin Laden
By Faiza Saleh Ambah Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, March 24, 2008; A08
JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia -- A calling to defend fellow Muslims and a bit of aimlessness took Khalid al-Hubayshi to a separatists' training camp in the southern Philippines and to the mountains of Afghanistan, where he interviewed for a job with Osama bin Laden.

Hubayshi, 32, a Saudi native, was among the Arab fighters dug in with bin Laden in the mountains of Tora Bora during the U.S. bombardment of Afghanistan in 2001. He later spent time in the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in a Saudi jail.

He was released in 2006 into a world radically altered by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Muslim fighters were no longer viewed in Arab countries as larger-than- life heroes, and clerics had stopped urging young Muslims to fulfill their religious duties by fighting on behalf of their brethren.

Hubayshi had also changed. He had grown disillusioned with bin Laden, whose initial idealism had turned into terrorism, he said, adding that his family, "not bin Laden," had suffered when he was at Guantanamo.

U.S. government documents and a series of interviews with Hubayshi provide a rare look into the mind and motivation of a man who trained for religious warfare, never fought in combat and now says he believes in the political process.

His life today in the city of Jiddah is comfortably routine. On most days, he wakes before dawn, drinks an espresso made by his wife and takes a 90-minute bus ride to his job as a controller at a utilities company. But "if the government had not helped me marry and get my job back," he said, "I might be in Iraq now."

In 1995, Hubayshi was a 19-year-old college student looking for more meaning in his life. Bin Laden was a hero to many Muslims, and aiding Muslims in distress seemed like the most admirable and altruistic route. He was initially inspired by a fiery taped sermon extolling the virtues of waging war against the enemies of Islam, but a series of videotapes produced by Arabs fighting in Bosnia completed his transformation.

The tapes showed Muslim women and children sprawled dead and bloodied in a market. One woman's head had been blown off. Muslim civilians with rifles were shown fighting the Serbian army, and the only ones helping them, Hubayshi said, were Arab fighters trained in Afghanistan during the war against the Soviets.

"I couldn't sleep at night knowing that women were being raped and children slaughtered, just because they were Muslim," he said. "I had to do something."

By the time he got in touch with the Arabs fighting in Bosnia, the war was over. So Hubayshi took a five-week vacation from his new job at the utilities company and made his way to the southern Philippines, where he lived in wooden shacks in a humid jungle camp for Arab fighters. He said he slept well for the first time since seeing the Bosnia tapes.

But the Philippine separatists lay low most of the time he was there, and he soon felt restless and yearned for better training.

His contacts arranged for him to go to Afghanistan, and in 1997 he went to a camp in the southeastern city of Khost. He learned to fire antiaircraft missiles, antiaircraft machine guns, antitank weapons and rocket-propelled grenades and became an expert in explosives.

By 1999, the fighting in Afghanistan had become mostly ethnic. He packed his bags to return to Saudi Arabia. "I was not there . . . to help Afghans fighting Afghans for political gain," he said. "If I was going to die, I wanted to die fighting for something meaningful."

As he was making his way home, he was arrested in Pakistan at the Peshawar airport and sent to prison.

Hubayshi said that he was released two months later but that the Pakistanis kept his passport. He traveled on a fake passport to Yemen and was smuggled into Saudi Arabia, where he returned to work at the utilities company.

Two years later, he learned that he was wanted for questioning by Saudi authorities. Not willing to risk jail, he left the country on a fake passport and returned to Afghanistan in May 2001, he said.

In the years that he had been away from Afghanistan, al-Qaeda's influence had spread and the organization had become more like a corporation, he said, with company cars and many safe houses. The Taliban, a radical Islamist militia that had taken control of most of the country by 1996, had also grown more powerful.

Hubayshi became adept at making remote-controlled explosive devices triggered by cellphones and light switches. Impressed by his skills, an associate of bin Laden's asked him to join al-Qaeda, or at least meet with bin Laden, he said.

In the summer of 2001, Hubayshi recalled, he spent half an hour with bin Laden at a converted military barracks near the city of Kandahar. The two sat on carpets in bin Laden's office and shared a fruit platter.

"What are my duties toward you, and what are your duties toward me, if I join with you?" Hubayshi said he asked.

"That you don't betray us and we don't betray you," bin Laden responded, and offered him a plot of land, Hubayshi said.

But bin Laden's "fight had changed from defending Muslims to attacking the United States. I wasn't convinced of his ideology. And I wanted to be independent, not just another minion in this big group."

On Sept. 11, 2001, Hubayshi said, he was training Chechen fighters in explosives in the eastern city of Jalalabad. In October, when the first U.S. airstrikes hit Jalalabad, the Afghans "blamed us . . . and forced us out of the city at night. We slept by the river for two weeks."

Weeks later, an associate of bin Laden came seeking experienced fighters, and those without families left for Tora Bora. In the trenches there, the fighters ate and slept and cleaned their weapons, surrounded by the distant sounds of bombardments.

"Bin Laden was convinced the Americans would come down and fight. We spent five weeks like that, manning our positions in case the Americans landed," he said.

As the airstrikes moved closer, and with the United States' Afghan allies advancing, bin Laden decided to retreat and left one morning. His aides told 300 Arab fighters to make their way to Pakistan and surrender to their embassies.

Pakistani authorities stopped the fighters near the border and handed them over to the U.S. military, which sent them to Guantanamo Bay.

Hubayshi remains bitter about what he considers bin Laden's betrayal: calling the fighters to Tora Bora and then abandoning them there. "The whole way to Cuba, I prayed the plane would fall," he said. "There was no dignity in what he made us do."

Hubayshi said he is sorry that Muslims carried out the Sept. 11 attacks because they targeted civilians: "That was wrong. Jihad is fighting soldier to soldier."

His wife of one year said she had been looking for a husband who did not take drugs or drink alcohol, who was polite and had a kind mother. "He is a very good husband," the 26-year-old said on condition that her name not be published. Some segments of Saudi society follow strict social codes that deem it shameful for a woman's name to be made public.

In all the years he spent trying to help Muslims, Hubayshi said, he regrets he did not do more.

"My dream was that I would fight when there was fighting, and teach children when there was peace," he said. "I'm sorry we left Afghanistan with so much war and death. I wish we had built hospitals or schools."

Pakistan-Afghan chamber of commerce agreement sparks controversy
3/24/2008 7:48:16 Source ::: IANS via Peninsula On-line, Qatar
PESHAWAR • Signing of an agreement by the business communities of Pakistan and Afghanistan for setting up of a joint chamber of commerce and industry in the presence of a similar body has created controversy in the business circles.

A memorandum of understanding for setting up the Pakistan-Afghanista n Chamber of Commerce and Industry was signed on March 15 at the regional office of Federation of Pakistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) here.

FPCCI former vice president Faiz Rasool Khan and Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Hamidullah Farooqi signed the agreement on behalf of their respective organisations.

The body, as per the agreement, would be governed through a 30-member executive committee having equal representation from both the countries. The president of the chamber will be elected for two years on rotation basis, as first one will be from Pakistan.

However, existence of a similar body with the same objectives and goals is causing confusion about the legality of the new body.

The accord for a same kind of joint chamber of commerce was signed on March 23 last year by Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) and Afghanistan International Chamber of Commerce (AICC).

The-then SCCI President Liaqat Ahmad Khan and AICC Chairman Azarakhsh Hafizi had signed the agreement on behalf of their chambers.

The APCCI, having main secretariat at SCCI, have an executive committee comprising 12 members each from Pakistan and Afghanistan besides an equally represented general assembly of 48 members.

Businessman Forum leader Senator Ilays Ahmad Bilour is the founding chairman and Azarakhsh Hafizi of AICC is co-chairman of the body.

The terms of references of the two bodies outline similar objectives, as they are supposed to help exchange of information pertaining to government policies, rules and regulations concerning trade, investment and other allied areas between the two countries.

Two different bodies with same goals have raised questions about the validity of each body, as both the sides claimed of being on the right side.

FPCCI former president Faiz Rasool Khan said the joint chamber for which he had signed an agreement with Afghan counterpart last week was legal one as the body formed earlier had no official backing of the two governments.

According to him, only FPCCI was the appropriate forum to form joint bodies with other countries as it was not the prerogative of the SCCI.

He clarified that decision for establishment of a joint chamber was taken some three months ago in a meeting of Joint Business Council, which also have officials of various ministries from Pakistan and Afghanistan as its members.

Afghan President Hamid Karazai would formally announce the establishment of the body in his visit to Pakistan scheduled for April 26, he said.

On the other hand, SCCI former president Liaqat Ahmad Khan, who had signed earlier agreement on behalf of the chamber, has different story to tell. He said the joint chamber, which has its headquarters at SCCI, was formed with the consent of Afghan President Hamid Karazai.

He argued that Afghan representatives in the joint chamber, headed by Bilour, were reputed and leading businessmen with official recognition.

Afghanistan's youngest migrants adrift on the road to asylum

By Niki Kitsantonis, International Herald Tribune, March 24, 2008

PATRAS, Greece: Hundreds of child refugees from Afghanistan are camped around this port in western Greece, hoping to sneak onto a ferry to Western Europe. But the boys, some as young as 8, are being preyed on by traffickers in what the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees calls "a humanitarian crisis."

Most of the children said their parents in Afghanistan had paid smugglers to escort them to safety. Many stopped off for months in Iran before fleeing westward to escape deportation to their war-torn homeland. For most, Patras is the penultimate stop of their long journey to Western Europe. But they are far from the sanctuary they seek.

The Greek office of the United Nations refugee office wants "immediate support" for about 400 children who scattered across Patras last month when the police dismantled a makeshift settlement that mushroomed near the port's entrance over the past few years. The police detained half the camp's 3,000 adult residents, almost all Afghans. Since then many of the children have slept on streets and in squares, falling victim to new traffickers offering an organized crossing, aid groups said.

Some children were rounded up this month before the city's annual carnival - which attracts thousands of visitors - and sent to hostels in other cities. But most are still adrift in Patras.

The Council of Europe's human rights commissioner, Thomas Hammarberg, said he was worried about the children and wanted the local authorities to set up camps for them. "Special assistance should be urgently given to the minors," he said.

But the authorities here have refused to do so, arguing that a camp would become a magnet for ever more migrants.

Aid groups said children should be regarded as minors rather than migrants. Giorgos Karapiperis, a doctor with a local Red Cross team that is offering shelter and advice to the migrants, said: "We are closing our eyes to a real problem. There are laws which dictate that we help such children."

The death of a 15-year-old on a ferry leaving Patras could have been prevented if such laws had been upheld, said George Moschos, the Greek ombudsman for children's rights. The boy had hidden under a truck and had suffocated on its exhaust fumes. A deportation order was found by the Italian authorities in his pocket.

Port officials in Patras said children hide on trucks regularly. "Around 600 trucks board ships here daily," an official said. "We try to check them all but it's chaos."

Members of relief organizations said most of the children refused to apply for asylum here because they wanted to move on. "They want to reach their final destination so they can start working and repay their debt to traffickers," said Karapiperis of the Red Cross. He said they take out "loans" of €1,000 to €7,000 - on top of their parents' payment - to continue journeys from Iran, through Turkey, to Greece.

The director of the UN refugees' office in Tehran, Sten Bronee, said most adult Afghans entering Iran are "absorbed" amid two million fellow refugees. But he added: "The fact that no child migrants seek our help suggests they are being escorted by smuggling rings."

Sometimes loans are agreed on in Patras. One Afghan, 9, said he paid traffickers €800 to take him to Italy. He was taken out of the port but then returned to Patras. He said his parents had given him the money, which was carried by an adult in his group.

The boy was one of about 900 migrants who were returned to Patras last year under the European Union's Dublin Regulation, which stipulates that refugees seek asylum in the first EU country they enter. The authorities in Patras complain that they are flooded with "returns" from Italy.

Rights groups said people under 18 should not be included in the returns. "Authorities should give child migrants the benefit of the doubt if they are not sure of their age and let them stay," said Giusy D'Alconzo of Amnesty International's office in Rome.

The lack of a common European standard for tests to assess the age of young migrants who have no documents hampers efforts to protect minors, said Lars Olsson of Save the Children in Sweden, a popular destination for Afghans. "A child might come to Sweden and be returned to Greece without ever being recognized as a minor," he said.

[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.]