In this bulletin:

• Bomb hits Afghan electricity building killing two
• At least 18 people reportedly killed in clashes in Afghan northwest
• 12 Dead As Taliban Attacks Afghanistan Anti-Drug Police -AFP
• Afghan radio station attacked for being un-Islamic
• Afghanistan expresses concern over blasphemous film produced in Netherlands
• MPs voice alarm over obsolete weaponry supplied to Afghan army
• Afghanistan adrift in misplaced aid
• New UN envoy arrives in Afghanistan with message of support for Afghan government
• Should Britain negotiate with the Taliban?
• 'Reach out to the Taliban': British defence secretary
• Pakistan-Afghan-NATO security personnel meet
• Czech, USA to soon agree on sending Czech unit to Afghanistan
• Afghan training force short 3,500
• Australian troops in Afghanistan for the long haul
• Australia says Pakistan must control Afghan border
• Afghan 'trust' in Arab troops
• US installs interim commander in Afghanistan, Iraq
• Russia's NATO envoy rejects Afghan transit trade off
• Relief in Afghanistan coming soon: PM
• NATO's unhappy warriors
• Afghan lament
• Jalali may contest presidential election
• Afghan MP plots path to presidential palace
• Taliban increasingly turns to suicide bombings
• Her son killed for a gold ring, an Afghan mother wants justice
• Afghanistan's fight for its cultural heritage

Bomb hits Afghan electricity building killing two

Sat Mar 29, KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) - A bomb blew up a small electricity department building in southern Afghanistan's troubled Helmand province Saturday, killing two people and wounding eight, police said.

The insurgent Taliban movement said it had planted the bomb in the Gereshk district in an attempt to kill the district police chief, Razak Khan, who regularly held meetings there.

Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi claimed Khan was among the wounded in the blast but officials could not immediately confirm he had even been there.

The attackers had somehow been able to pass through security outside the building to plant the bomb, Helmand province police commander, General Mohammad Hussein Andiwal, told AFP.

"How it happened, we don't know but some explosives were planted inside the building which caused the explosion," he said.

"As a result of the explosion, two employees of the department have been killed, six other employees and two civilians have been wounded."

One of the wounded was the head of the Gereshk power department, said Tahir Rasouli, head of the local hospital.

The one-storey building, made from traditional mudbrick, collapsed after the blast, which caused scores of people to flock to the site, a witness named Fida Mohammad said.

"People and police are cleaning up the rubble," he said. Mohammad said he had seen three bodies pulled from the debris.

The building, about 200 metres from a small hyrdopower plant, was where people came to pay their electricity bills or contact officials about their power supply.

The extremist Taliban, which frequently carry out bombings as part of their insurgency, is most active in Helmand, Afghanistan's largest province which also produces most of its huge illegal opium crop.

The Taliban were in government between 1996 and 2001, when they were ousted for harbouring Al-Qaeda leaders.

The militants target Afghan and international security forces as well as government officials and institutions.

The insurgency was in its deadliest last year with more than 8,000 people killed, according to figures used by the United Nations. This included about 1,500 civilians although most of the dead were rebel fighters.

Afghan and international officials say these fighters include jobless young men who carry out attacks for income and others who are trained in radical religious schools in Pakistan.

The government is trying to find ways to bring Afghan fighters onto its side, including by promoting economic growth and dialogue.

British Defence Secretary Des Browne said in a newspaper interview published Saturday that Britain should reach out to elements of the Taliban who can be won over to democracy.

Britain is the second largest contributor to a NATO-led International Security Assistance Force and has most of its 7,500 soldiers here based in Helmand.

At least 18 people reportedly killed in clashes in Afghan northwest

Text of report by privately-owned Afghan Arzu TV on 28 March

[Presenter] At least 18 people from both sides have been killed in a recent clash between Afghan troops and the Taleban in northwestern Badghis District. The clash took place in the village of Mangan in Bala Morghab District this morning.

[Correspondent] The conflict took place in the Mangan area of Bala Morghab District at 0800 [0330 gmt] this morning after the Taleban attacked a military post of Afghan troops.

Afghan and Taleban authorities made controversial claims over casualties. Badghis Security Commander Mohammad Ayub Niyazyar said six Taleban insurgents had been killed and two others seriously wounded in the clash. The security commander confirmed the injury of only one government policeman. Meanwhile, Qari Yusof Ahmadi, who claims to be a spokesman for the Taleban, said 10 policemen had been killed and two police vehicles destroyed in the conflict.

Police authorities rejected the Taleban claim and said more police forces had been deployed! in the area and the area is safe now.

Mangan village borders on Turkmenistan, and Afghan and foreign troops sometimes come under Taleban attack there.

12 Dead As Taliban Attacks Afghanistan Anti-Drug Police -AFP

28 March 2008

HERAT, Afghanistan (AFP)--Taliban rebels attacked a counter-narcotics police force in western Afghanistan Friday, triggering a fierce clash that left 10 militants and two police dead, a governor said.

The police were traveling back to their headquarters in Nimroz province when they came under attack, provincial governor Ghulam Dastageer Azad told AFP.

"Ten Taliban and two police were killed in two hours of fighting and two Taliban were arrested," he said. Two policemen and several Taliban were also wounded, he added.

The police had been on a mission to destroy opium poppy crops. Afghanistan is the world's top producer of illegal opium, which is used to make heroin, accounting for more than 90% of the global supply.

Afghan radio station attacked for being un-Islamic

By Amir Shah, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, cnews.canoe.ca 28 March 2008

KABUL, Afghanistan - Arsonists set fire Friday to a radio station near Kabul accused of being un-Islamic, and two poppy eradication policemen were killed in Afghanistan's southwest, officials said.

Four gunmen broke into the offices of Radio Zafar before dawn, tied up two security guards and then set the station's equipment ablaze, said Paghman district police chief Abdul Razaq.

The station's director, Najibullah Nassir, said militants have accused Radio Zafar of being morally corrupt and un-Islamic. Its programming includes shows on Islam, sports, news and music.

The station has 16 employees, including two female journalists.

The Afghan media have flourished since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, but journalists often face threats from militants and warlords for airing critical stories, playing music or employing women.

Also Friday, a three-hour clash broke out in southwestern Nimroz province after militants attacked poppy eradication forces in the Khash Rod district, provincial police chief Gen. Mohammad Ayub Badakhshi said.

Two policemen were killed and three wounded, he said. Six suspects were arrested.

Poppy eradication teams work in remote and dangerous areas of Afghanistan, and are often attacked by insurgents or farmers angry that their profitable crops are being destroyed.

According to the Afghan Interior Ministry, around 100 poppy eradication police officers were killed in the line of duty in the past year.

The United Nations says Afghanistan supplies more than 90 per cent of the world's illicit opium, which is made from poppies and serves as the main ingredient in heroin. Tens of millions of dollars from the drug trade are believed to flow to Taliban fighters, who tax farmers and demand payment for safe passage through dangerous territory.

Also Friday in Kandahar province, two gunmen assassinated a tribal leader who led efforts for peace and reconciliation in the area, said Panjwayi district chief Haji Shah Baran Khan.

And in volatile Helmand province, U.S.-led coalition forces killed several Taliban militants after coming under attack, the coalition said in a statement Friday.

The troops were searching for a Taliban insurgent involved in weapons trafficking in Helmand's Kajaki district when militants opened fire on them Wednesday.

The troops responded, killing several insurgents and wounding a woman who was not involved in the hostilities.

Helmand, the biggest opium poppy-producing region in the world, has been the front line of the bloodiest fighting between international security forces and Afghan insurgents in the recent years.

More than 8,000 people were killed in the insurgency in 2007, the deadliest year since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

Afghanistan expresses concern over blasphemous film produced in Netherlands

KABUL, March 29 (Xinhua) -- Afghanistan Foreign Ministry on Saturday expressed concern over the blasphemous film produced in the Netherlands and hoped it would not be put on show, a statement released here said.

"The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan once again expresses its concern over the release of the insulting film "Fitna" and believes attack on religious values of millions of Muslims cannot be justified as freedom of expression," the statement stressed.

The film, produced by a legislator in the Netherlands, according to media reports, pretends Islam as a religion spearheading terror and violence.

Moreover, the statement added that the government of Afghanistan had welcomed the stance of government of the Netherlands, its Prime Minister and its people on the blasphemous film and is sure that such motivation would never represent the official stance of a country which respects the international norms.

Afghans since last month have staged series of peaceful demonstrations in several cities.

MPs voice alarm over obsolete weaponry supplied to Afghan army

Excerpt from report by Afghan independent Tolo TV, on 28 March

[Presenter] A number of MPs said that aid organizations' excessive interference and limited powers of the National Defence Ministry in the signing of agreements, as well as a lack of coordination with the ministry prepared the ground for misuses.

The New York Times reported that in order to supply weaponry to the Afghan National Army, America had signed an agreement with a company which provides the Afghan National Army with Chinese weaponry that is more than 40 years old. Hamed Haydari has more details on this.

[Correspondent] The MPs said that Defence Ministry experts should have checked the supplied weaponry before they are used. An action of this kind calls into question the Defence Ministry's performance. They added that in view of a big budget for the development of the Afghan army, serious attention should be paid to avoid similar cases in the future.

[Helaloddin Helal, an MP for Baghlan Province] This weaponry has not been used in war fron! ts. It should have been destroyed in caches. It was purchased behind the scene and through a trader who did not have necessary background. The Defence Ministry's depots have been filled. Around 1bn projectiles have been brought to Afghanistan. This is a very big strike on the people's fate as well as the Afghan Defence Ministry's prestige.

[Najibollah Kabuli, an MP for Kabul Province] They bought old Chinese weaponry and ammunition from a number of arms smugglers inside Afghanistan in one way or the other. This is a source of concern. It is impossible for us to resist unless the international community is convinced to form a 250,000-strong army for Afghanistan and provide it with modern weapons.

[Presenter] MPs commented on this following a report about the supply of obsolete weaponry to the Afghan national army.

Afghanistan adrift in misplaced aid

By Aunohita Mojumdar, Asia Times Online / March 29, 2008

KABUL - A map of Afghanistan dotted with colorful pins adorned the wall in the office of the aid agency official. Looking with relish at the embellished map, the official stuck in a handful more, noting with a sigh of satisfaction the increase in the number of "projects completed".

For several years, reconstruction in Afghanistan has been a "drawing board and drawing pin" approach, with aid delivery overwhelmingly focused on numbers, quick delivery, high visibility, meeting benchmarks, a production line approach to the rebuilding of a nation.

However, the short-term, low-cost approach of the donor community is coming under increasing criticism from development experts, reputed international non-governmental organization (NGOs) and civil society.

In a report released this week by ACBAR, (an umbrella organization for NGOs working in Afghanistan), Oxfam, a member of ACBAR, called for a change of approach saying "too much of aid has been prescriptive and driven by donor priorities - rather than responsive to evident Afghan needs and preferences".

While Afghanistan has received nearly US$15 billion in the period from 2002-2008, Oxfam points out that in the first two years after the ouster of the Taliban the per capita expenditure on rebuilding the shattered country was $57 per capita compared to $679 per capita in Bosnia. Even this money does not come without strings attached. Half of it is "tied aid" which refers to the aid that has to be spent in the purchase of goods and services from the donor country.

"Preferenced aid" delineates the select areas - both in terms of sector and geography that the donor selects. An estimated 40% has returned to the donor country in the form of corporate profits and consultant salaries.

A Corpwatch report in 2006 stated "many development experts find the process by which aid contracts and loans are awarded to be counterproductive. International and national aid agencies - including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and USAID - that distribute aid money to developing countries have, in effect, designed a system that is efficient in funneling money back to the wealthy donor countries, without providing sustainable development in poor states." Oxfam states that vast sums of the aid money are lost in corporate profits of contractors and sub-contractors, which can be as high as 50% on a single contract.

Only approximately 25-30% of all aid coming into the country is routed through the government, eroding its legitimacy, planning capacity and authority. Donor funding is also usually premised on an annual cycle making it impossible for the government and the NGOs to undertake multi-year planning, a necessary concomitant for sustainable development.

"The nature of our funding in Afghanistan is such that we survive on a cycle of a few months. Once the funding comes in, it takes time for the project to be started up and then it's time to do the donor reporting and raise money for the next year," said the head of an established NGO in Afghanistan.

Criticism of donors has seen a shift in recent months. Whereas most of the earlier censure was limited to scrutiny of the efficiency of donor organizations, recent criticism has questioned the underpinnings of the aid paradigm. Noting the links between development and security Oxfam notes "thus far aid has been insufficient and in many cases wasteful or ineffective" pointing out that "most Afghans still endure conditions of hardship and millions live in extreme poverty".

The perception of the sporadic and patchy nature of economic development is also captured in a 2007 public opinion survey conducted by the Asia Foundation. While 49% of people thought they were more prosperous than under the Taliban, the number was down from the 54% who thought so in 2006. Those who thought they were less prosperous had increased by 2%. According to the National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment, 30% of the population was below the minimum level of dietary energy consumption.

The Oxfam report points out that despite an overwhelming dependence of the country's population on agriculture (70% directly or indirectly), the sector has received only $400-500 million since 2001. International spending in Afghanistan is focussed overwhelmingly on military operations. The US military alone spends nearly $100 million a day on Afghanistan while the combined donor funding on aid is only $7 million of which a bulk goes to those provinces and areas where donors have their troops.

Disbursement is often very slow, making the projects ineffective. A study of the National Solidarity Program by ELBAG (an Action Aid initiative in evolving accountability through civil society participation in budgetary analysis) found that the program, considered one of the most effective aid delivery projects in Afghanistan was facing not just a shortfall of funds but also huge delays in disbursement, leading to problems in implementation.

The ELBAG report called for "greater emphasis in looking at Afghan priorities rather than donor priorities" and "reducing the amount of preferenced aid, reducing the gap between donor commitment and disbursement and routing more of the external budget trough the Afghan government".

It is not just the delivery mechanisms of aid that are faulty. Coordination among donors is almost non-existent leading to overlapping projects and waste. "Donors are failing to coordinate between themselves and with the government," Oxfam states. A recent report by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group stated "disunity in Afghanistan is about not just structural issues or coordination but also priorities and preferences, goals, means and increasingly endgames, exit strategies and perhaps more importantly the reasons for being in the country".

Donors and donor countries have so far avoided any scrutiny of their effectiveness and aid delivery strategies. Oxfam points out that while there are 77 indicators for the government's performance in the London Compact, a joint Afghan international partnership, there are no benchmarks for the international community. "A national independent commission for aid effectiveness should be established to monitor aid practices, identify deficiencies and make recommendations."

While aid has made a significant difference to Afghan lives, Oxfam believes "major weaknesses have severely constrained its capacity to reduce poverty". Donors, the NGO argues, must take urgent steps to increase and improve their assistance to Afghanistan.

Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian journalist who is currently based in Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for 16 years and has covered the Kashmir conflict and post-conflict situation in Punjab extensively.

New UN envoy arrives in Afghanistan with message of support for Afghan government

Source: United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan

Kabul, 28 March 2008 – Arriving at Kabul International Airport this morning the new Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan, Kai Eide pledged to step up support for the Government of Afghanistan.

Mr Eide called on the international community to rally behind the Government of Afghanistan's efforts to rebuild Afghan institutions able to protect and serve the people of Afghanistan.

'I come to Afghanistan with the utmost respect for its people, religion and history and I am grateful for the support and confidence of President Karzai and the international community.

'Afghanistan has been calling for stronger coordination of international assistance - we need to better respond to this demand. The Security Council has now sharpened our mandate to meet the needs of Afghanistan's people and Government. In the past there has been much focus on the security situation. This needs to be balanced with the political dimension of our work to deliver much needed peace, stability and visible progress for all the peoples of Afghanistan.' said Mr Kai Eide, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan (SRSG).

Mr Eide will meet with President Karzai and other key Government Ministers and UN officials in the coming days before attending the NATO summit on Afghanistan in Bucharest, Romania next week.

United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan

Should Britain negotiate with the Taliban?

Telegraph.co.uk 29 March 2008

Britain must be willing to talk to the Taliban and other extremist groups in an attempt to stem the spread of terrorism, Defence Secretary Des Browne has told The Daily Telegraph.

Last year Gordon Brown said that Britain would not negotiate with terrorists but two weeks later The Daily Telegraph revealed that MI6 had held secret talks with the Taliban.

Mr Browne admitted that some will see his comments as pandering to terrorists, but said that his experience as a former Northern Ireland minister had convinced him that the West should be willing to have lines of communication open to Islamist extremists.

Do you think that people who use violence in an effort to achieve their political aims could ever be persuaded into political dialogue?

Is Mr Browne right to try and find solutions to Islamic fundamentalism based on his experience in Northern Ireland? Do you agree with Mr Browne's suggestion or should the British Government uphold their pledge never to talk to terrorists?

'Reach out to the Taliban': British defence secretary

Sat Mar 29, LONDON (AFP) - Britain should reach out to elements of the Taliban militia in Afghanistan who can be won over to the side of democracy, Defence Secretary Des Browne said in a newspaper interview published Saturday.

Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, Browne said conflict resolution was about persuading people who believe that violence is the way to achieve their aims to try to fulfil their ambitions through politics instead.

And that meant engaging with individuals or groups, even if their views were disagreeable. He applied the argument to Taliban insurgents -- whom British troops are fighting in southern Afghanistan -- as well as Lebanon's Hezbollah.

Browne said there was currently "no basis of negotiation" with Al-Qaeda, but added: "The Taliban is a collective noun. There are some people who are driven by their own self interest rather than ideology.

"There's no question that we should try to reach them. People have been switched. We have to get people who have previously been on the side of the Taliban to come onto the side of the (Afghan) government."

His comments come after Jonathan Powell, who was former prime minister Tony Blair's top adviser, said in a March 15 interview with The Guardian that Western nations should talk to the likes of the Taliban, Hamas and Al-Qaeda.

Powell argued that opening up channels of communication had proved to be successful in ending three decades of bloody sectarian violence between Protestants and Catholics in the British province of Northern Ireland.

But efforts to engage elements of the Taliban saw Kabul expel two senior United Nations and European Union diplomats -- one from Britain and the other from Ireland -- for contacting insurgents in southern Helmand province.

According to a Financial Times report from the Afghan capital on February 4, President Hamid Karzai was furious at the proposal to set up a military training camp for 2,000 Taliban militants who wanted to switch sides.

Pakistan-Afghan-NATO security personnel meet

'Pakistan Times' Wire Service

SPIN BOLDIK: Pak-Afghan NATO security officials held satisfactory the security steps taken at the Pak-Afghan border and stressed mutual Pak-Afghan links and the improvement in communication system in stanching the movements of suspected element.

A high-level delegation of Pakistani border security forces went to Afghanistan border city from Chaman, where it attended a significant meeting with the NATO forces and Afghan National Army.

Reliable sources said the security forces personnel held satisfactory the security measures taken at Pak-Afghan border.

The meeting said with consensus that mutual links are urgently needed to tamp down the terrorism.

The meeting made headway in various issues involving conflicts including the installation of Biometric Border Control System at Chaman border.

The meeting emphasized on organizing the cross-border movements at Pak-Afghan border.

Czech, USA to soon agree on sending Czech unit to Afghanistan

ceskenoviny.cz 29.3. 2008

Prague- The Czech Republic will soon agree with the USA on sending an elite military unit to Afghanistan, Defence Minister Vlasta Parkanova told.

The sending will have to be approved by the government and parliament because the special unit mission will be additional to the missions the parliament approved last autumn when it endorsed the operation of 415 Czech soldiers in Afghanistan, Parkanova said.

The mission in question is mainly to involve members of the special forces unit from Prostejov, south Moravia, that has operated in Afghanistan twice already.

Parkanova said that the unit that participated in combat operations in Afghanistan several times would serve as part of Operation Enduring Freedom and would not be part of NATO forces.

It would have more than 100 soldiers and operate again in very dangerous regions of Afghanistan. Parkanova said the intensive negotiations on the sending of the unit were carried out in the past days.

The elite Prostejov unit is directly subordinated to the defence minister through the Military intelligence service head.

Parkanova said the two sides agreed on how long and in how many rotations the unit would serve in Afghanistan but she did not want to disclose the information before Washington definitively confirmed the mission.

According to previous information, the unit would operate either in southern or eastern Afghanistan where fierce battles are being waged.

The unit operated within Operation Enduring Freedom in 2004 and 2006. In both missions it performed reconnaissance and information transfer tasks but the Czech soldiers also fought in combat operations.

At the end of this year, the Czech army would have more than 500 troops in Afghanistan. Prague has also sent its own Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) to the Logar province.

Afghan training force short 3,500

By Lisa Burgess, Stars and Stripes, Mideast edition, Saturday, March 29, 2008

ARLINGTON, Va. — The international task force building Afghanistan’s new police and military is short almost half the trainers plans call for, said its commander, Army Brig. Gen. Robert Livingston.

“Task Force Phoenix is currently about 53 percent strength of what we have documented to be our need,” Livingston told Pentagon reporters Friday during a briefing from Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital.

“We’re about 3,500 short, total,” said Livingston, who is also deputy commanding general of Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan.

Task force leaders have managed to “cover the army units” by reducing the size of the training teams, Livingston said.

But with just one-third the needed police trainers and 395 police districts to cover, “the police effort is not moving as fast as we would like it to,” he said.

The police training cadre will get a short-term boost later this month, with the arrival of 1,000 Marines from the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment from Twentynine Palms, Calif., for a seven-month deployment.

But while “the Marines coming in for the summer and fall will help us significantly, we’ll need a follow-up to that” once they return home, Livingston said.

Livingston said he would like to see more international participation on U.S.- dominated task force.

The U.S. provides 65 percent of the Afghan army’s trainers, and most of the police trainers — “although we do have some significant help from the Canadians and British down south” with the police, Livingston said.

Australian troops in Afghanistan for the long haul

abc.net.au 29 March 2008

Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has told the US President that Australian troops are in Afghanistan for the long haul.

President Bush welcomed Australia's continuing commitment to the war in Afghanistan.

Mr Rudd is attending the NATO summit next week in Bucharest where he will urge European nations to share more of the load.

He called on all friends and partners to work together all across Afghanistan and not just in parts of the country.

Mr Bush welcomed Mr Rudd's message to NATO and thanked him for going.

Australia says Pakistan must control Afghan border

The Associated Press, Published: March 29, 2008

SYDNEY, Australia: Diplomatic pressure must be applied on Pakistan's new government to keep militants from moving across its border into Afghanistan, the head of Australia's defense forces said Saturday.

Taliban insurgents are using bases in Pakistan to attack civilians and Western forces in Afghanistan, said Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, whose government is pushing for a bigger troop commitment in the war-torn country.

"What is important is all the Western countries work together ... to apply the necessary diplomatic endeavors" on Pakistan, he told Fairfax Media newspapers. Militants must be denied "freedom to move across the border."

Houston made the comments before attending a NATO summit on Afghanistan in Bucharest, Romania, next week.

Australia, a non-NATO nation, has 1,000 troops serving in south-central Afghanistan as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.

Pakistan has deployed approximately 90,000 troops to hunt down militants in its border regions.

Afghan 'trust' in Arab troops

BBC News / Saturday, 29 March 2008

This week the BBC's Frank Gardner revealed that a contingent of Arab troops from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been secretly operating alongside the Americans in Afghanistan. But getting access to them took months and was fraught with hurdles, especially as our correspondent is in a wheelchair.

Out on the tarmac at an Abu Dhabi airbase, in the slowly-building heat of the Gulf, my heart sank.

The UAE Airforce Hercules transport plane that was supposed to fly us up to Bagram base had its engines running, the pilot was in his cockpit, but I could not see how I was supposed to wheel myself up into it.

"No ramp!" shouted a crewman above the roar of the engines, "all full with cargo!" So the crew had to lift me bodily out of my wheelchair and carry me through a tiny hatchway like a baby.

Four hours after take-off the first snow appeared, dusting the mountaintops and filling the north-facing ravines of Waziristan, home to those elusive pockets of Taleban and al-Qaeda insurgents. "Thirty minutes to landing," shouted the airforce crew.

We flew low over the foothills of the Hindu Kush, then the green crops and dusty villages gave way to what looked like a purpose-built new town, a clean and tidy place where the buildings were all in neat lines.

It was Bagram airbase, home to 11,000 coalition troops. A reception committee of beaming Emirati officers had driven out to greet us, led by the Taskforce Commander, a slight man from Sharjah with a quiet intelligence and a twinkle in his eye.

"Welcome back to Afghanistan, Mr Frank," he said, extending his hand.

To my embarrassment, the ever-hospitable Emiratis had insisted on allocating me the VIP hut, a sort of miniature villa with faux columns amid rows of sandbags.

They had even got their Afghan carpenters to construct a wooden ramp so I could wheel up to the raised doorway and I could see it had been freshly painted.

That evening the Emiratis gave us a presentation on the humanitarian projects they were undertaking: a mosque here, a school there, wells dug in this village, a clinic set up in that one.

It did not seem vastly different from what other countries were doing but we were soon to see for ourselves that as Muslims, the UAE soldiers were welcomed and trusted in places where the rest of the US-led coalition frankly was not.

Knowing how important Islam was to most Afghan villagers, the Emiratis would address their religious needs first, either by building them a small mosque or just by distributing freshly-printed Korans.

Only then, said the Emiratis, could they discuss other secular projects like building a school or a hospital.

Of course in an ideal world I would get out and see all this with my own eyes but safety concerns meant I had to stay behind on-base - "in the rear, with the gear, where there is no fear" - while our crew went off to film.

To say this was frustrating was an understatement. In the village of Qalat Baland, my companions watched as boxes of sweet, sticky dates were handed out to grey-bearded elders, and children were given school notebooks while a tall, charismatic Emirati army officer sat cross-legged in a courtyard, listening as a young boy chanted verses from the Koran by memory.

From the pictures they brought back it all looked a vision of harmony, but then I could see it began to go wrong - word spread that there was not enough to go round

Suddenly the crowd surged, pushing and elbowing their way past the uniformed troops to get at the plastic-wrapped goodies.

The Afghan police, who had now turned up, weighed in with unrestrained brutality and it took all the Emiratis' diplomacy to restore calm before the scene descended into a riot.

Back in the Emiratis' camp I had not been completely idle. Part of the plan was that they brought in a succession of prominent Afghans for me to interview, all people who had worked with these fellow Muslims from the Gulf on humanitarian projects.

In their smart grey business suits the Afghan officials looked quite out of place here in this dusty, sandbagged camp.

There was the chancellor of Khost University and a junior minister for orphans, widows and the disabled. There was also an elderly but energetic member of President Karzai's government who had some outspoken views about his fellow governors.

"They are drug runners," declared Meraj Uddin Patan flatly, as he reeled off a list of provincial governors he said were all up to their necks in the opium poppy trade.

"How can people respect our government when you have people like these in charge of them?" he said, swatting away a fly that had emerged into the early spring sunshine.

"When I took over as governor of Khost in 2004," he continued, "I started a campaign against the sort of thugs who intimidated the population and do you know how?"

"No I didn't," I said. By now he was in full flow and a small group of Emirati soldiers had gathered to listen.

"When we caught a Taleban insurgent," said governor Meraj, "we would shave his head and put him on a donkey facing backwards and parade him round the city. But now," he paused, a look of genuine sadness on his face, "now it has gone back to being a very bad situation".

I asked him why the Taleban had been so successful in making a comeback since they were defeated here in 2001.

"There are three reasons" replied Meraj "weak government, no unity among the police, national army and the coalition allies, and, the Taleban has unrestricted freedom of movement in their rear area in Waziristan. Solve these problems," he said "and Afghanistan has a bright future."

US installs interim commander in Afghanistan, Iraq

by Daphne Benoit - Fri Mar 28, 8:38 PM ET

TAMPA, Florida (AFP) - US Admiral William Fallon was replaced Friday as head of US military operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, a post he quit following reports he opposed President George W. Bush's policy towards Iran.

The number two commander overseeing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, US Army Lieutenant General Martin Dempsey, temporarily took charge of US Central Command in a ceremony at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida.

Dempsey takes over amid a search for a permanent successor to Fallon, 63, who abruptly announced his departure in mid-March shortly after publication of an article in Esquire magazine portraying Fallon as "The Man Between War and Peace" with Iran, which Washington has accused of pursuing nuclear weapons capability.

Fallon said he stepped down because the press reports created the perception that he opposed the president's policy objectives -- something he denied.

"Under Admiral Fallon's command, the last year in Centcom's area of operation has been one of great progress on a number of fronts" since early 2007, said Defense Secretary Robert Gates, describing the admiral as "one of the (military's) best strategic minds in one of the world's most complex regions."

Gates, who has denied there was significant difference between Fallon's views and those of the White House, cited the "tremendous gains that have been made in Iraq," including a reduction of attacks on US troops and Iraqi civilians.

"Afghanistan too has seen successes over the last year -- despite ongoing violence and despite the reality that, as in Iraq, there will be hard days ahead," Gates said.

Dempsey takes up his duties amid rising tensions in Iraq, which has fallen prey to a resumption of Shiite militia violence in Baghdad and in the southern city of Basra, where the militias are battling Iraqi forces. Afghanistan is witnessing a resurgence in Taliban violence.

Dempsey, a graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point, has served two tours in Iraq -- first as head of US forces in Baghdad and then as the commander training and equipping Iraqi security forces. "I am confident he is prepared to lead Centcom," Gates said.

Dempsey emerged from the army's ground forces, whereas Fallon rose out of the navy ranks and his nomination had been a surprise in a region marked by two land-based conflicts.

Among the potential nominees Bush could pick to head up US Central Command are Dempsey, as well as General David Petraeus, the commander of US forces in Iraq, or Gates' top military advisor, General Peter Chiarelli.

In a brief address Fallon made no mention of any discord surrounding his resignation. He singled out Petraeus as a "brilliant officer" and the "principle instrument of success in Iraq".

Russia's NATO envoy rejects Afghan transit trade off

28 Mar 2008, BRUSSELS (AFP) - Russia's envoy to NATO denied Friday that Moscow's offer to help international forces in Afghanistan would depend on the alliance rejecting the membership plans of Georgia and Ukraine.

Ambassador Dmitry Rogozin rejected reports that any deal could be done to allow equipment and troops from the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to move across Russian territory.

Indeed he suggested that a transit arrangement was virtually finalised, and might be concluded in time for next week's summit in Bucharest between Russian President Vladimir Putin and NATO leaders.

"There is no connection, no relation at all between the NATO decision on Ukraine or Georgia and the completion of the transit agreement, or of any arrangement to support ISAF in Afghanistan," he told reporters in Brussels.

"We do not speak here in the language of deals and trade," he said.

However he underlined that ISAF's success in Afghanistan would depend on the strength of cooperation between NATO and Russia.

"Without a good partnership between NATO and Russia it will not be possible to solve the problem of the post war settlement in Afghanistan," he said.

"It's important to have an arrangement (on transit) because there are people who are struggling, fighting the Taliban and Al-Qaeda," he said. "Russia wants to help people."

"It doesn't really matter how the arrangement is reached. It doesn't really matter whether that will be an exchange of letters or a decree, or another document issued by the government," he said.

"Whether it can be concluded before the summit depends on our inter-agency communication in the Russia Federation. We will hope for the best."

The transit deal is expected to would allow "non-lethal equipment for the NATO efforts in Afghanistan" to travel by land routes through Russia and Central Asia -- a far cheaper option than shipping by air.

A NATO diplomat said there would no longer be any formal accord for NATO and Russia to sign, but rather "a unilateral decree", which would allow transit rights to be worked out between individual ISAF nations and Moscow.

Russia is deeply opposed to NATO allowing Georgia and Ukraine into its membership action plan -- the ante-chamber to joining the alliance -- and argues that such a move could spark regional instability.

Relief in Afghanistan coming soon: PM

Mike Blanchfield, Canwest News Service, Ottawa citizen.com March 28, 2008

KABUL - Canadian soldiers will soon receive the replacements and equipment they've long needed in southern Afghanistan, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Friday, adding the decision will reflect "a greater engagement of NATO allies" in that war.

"I anticipate in the weeks to come, there will be additional commitments made in Afghanistan by some of our allies. I also fully anticipate that will result in Canada having a partner in Kandahar, in Canada receiving both the troops we're looking for in Kandahar and the equipment," he said.

"But what I think is encouraging in the process is not just that we will receive a partner in Kandahar, but this will be reflective of frankly, a greater engagement of NATO allies in Afghanistan generally," Harper said, while visiting the Inuit settlement of Juujjuaq, Que.

But Harper warned that all the details about the deployment of 1,000 soldiers from either the U.S. or one of several European countries to reinforce Canadians troops may not come at next week's NATO summit in Romania.

"I don't think we will necessarily finish that process at Bucharest, but we will finish it in the very near future. It's all moving along very well."

Prior to the Romanian summit, which will involve all 26 NATO member leaders, Harper will take part in a prestigious symposium sponsored by the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Bucharest.

The commitment of at least 1,000 additional troops to the volatile south of Afghanistan and the acquisition of medium-lift helicopters to assist the Armed Forces were pre-conditions to Canada's continued presence in Kandahar.

Harper and the Canadian government lobbied hard for a piece of the international spotlight at what is being billed as a showcase event that will serve as the scene-setter for broader discussion by world leaders on Afghanistan.

Next Wednesday, one day before the formal start of the NATO summit and its major meeting on Afghanistan, Harper will discuss progress in the war-torn country on the same stage as Afghan President Hamid Karzai and NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.

The 90-minute forum, which will include on-stage interaction between the participants, also will feature a question-and-answer session with a guest list of government, think-tank and business leaders from North America and Europe.

Exactly which country steps up to provide the 1,000 troops, whether it is France, the U.S., Poland or some other ally, is a closely guarded secret that likely won't be formally unveiled until Bucharest.

Finding additional troops was essentially a done deal, Maurits Jochems, NATO's new senior civilian co-ordinator to Kabul, said this week in his first appearance in the Afghan capital.

"I think I know," Jochems told a briefing at the headquarters of the International Security Assistance Force for Afghanistan. "If I'm going to steal the thunder from some of the heads of state and government, it's going to mean the end of my career."

Jochems said he expected all NATO leaders to unanimously approve a final declaration on the way forward in Afghanistan.

The declaration would confirm long-term international support for Afghanistan; underline the importance of Afghan leadership; stress the importance of coordinating efforts between NATO and other international organizations such as the United Nations; and emphasize the importance of regional cooperation with neighbours such as Pakistan.

"I think the allies and partners will endorse a road-map for the future of this operation that will be quite specific in terms of where we want to go and how we will get there," James Appathurai, the NATO spokesman, said a telephone interview Friday from Brussels.Ottawa Citizen

NATO's unhappy warriors

Los Angeles Times, 03/28/2008, By A. Wess Mitchell

At next week's NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania, history will be made when an American president, cowboy hat in hand, literally begs Europe for help in Afghanistan. For weeks, high-ranking U.S. officials have traversed the "old" continent, beseeching its capitals for anything in lace-up boots and camouflage. Spare a tank, Germany? How about a mothballed helicopter, Italy? Say no, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has warned, and NATO will be "effectively destroyed," its members forever consigned to two tiers -- a fighting first and a lazy second.

Fortunately for everyone, Washington will get its reinforcements and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will survive another year. When the conference-room doors close, the pledges will flow in: a battalion here, a commando squad there. With the probable exception of France, however, the new forces are likely to come not from NATO's harassed second-stringers, but from members of its overworked, underappreciated "first" tier, most of whom already have troops at the war's hottest fronts.

Three of the countries in this group are already well known. For years, the British, Canadians and Dutch have held the line in Afghanistan's casualty-prone southern and eastern provinces. But they are not alone. Alongside them are some of NATO's newest members, the former communist countries of Central Europe. Though rarely mentioned in the media, these nations -- many small, few wealthy -- have often answered NATO calls for help when many larger Western militaries demurred. In the east of Afghanistan, Polish combat teams patrol the Al Qaeda-infested Pakistani border. In the south, Estonian light infantry, Romanian mountain troops and Lithuanian, Polish and Czech special forces have helped repulse Taliban offensives.

All told, about 3,000 Central European troops are in Afghanistan. Two new NATO members, Poland and Czech Republic, already have responded to the latest call for reinforcements. Answering Canadian threats to withdraw unless NATO sent 1,000 fresh troops, Warsaw pledged 400 soldiers -- its second increase in 18 months and a move that has done much to salve alliance wounds before the summit has even started.

This is a very different picture than is painted by some American commentators. Writing in the Los Angeles Times, military expert Andrew Bacevich complained that the new members had "diluted" NATO's military capabilities. Ted Galen Carpenter, a prominent Washington think-tanker, has called them "security consumers" that bring new burdens but "add next to nothing to America's already vast military power."

In fact, they're adding quite a lot -- the equivalent of a U.S. brigade, to be exact. For every soldier from Krakow or Brno who searches a Taliban cave, a soldier from Kansas City or Biloxi doesn't have to. Together, the Central Europeans and other first-tier members may be the best hope for winning in Afghanistan and for extending the life of NATO.

But the first-tier countries are not a happy lot. As Canada's recent warnings made clear, their military contingents, outnumbered and exhausted, are near the breaking point. Making matters worse, officials from first-tier countries say, is U.S. heavy-handedness, on and off the battlefield.

Two changes in U.S. policy are needed to shore up their support.
First, we must learn to criticize less. In the lead-up to Bucharest, American officials have publicly chided NATO allies for not fighting as well as U.S. troops. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Gates complained that, unlike American troops, the Europeans "don't know how to do counterinsurgency operations." First-tier allies took this personally. "Bloody outrageous," one British lawmaker said. The Dutch summoned the U.S. ambassador to explain. "We should not be criticizing allies," the Polish foreign minister warned. Indeed we shouldn't. A bad idea in any war, it is astonishingly unwise when Washington is pleading for help from other countries.

Second, we must listen better. For months, first-tier allies have been lobbying Washington, with little success, to experiment with a new southern strategy that would rely less on air strikes in an effort to avoid Afghan civilian casualties. Incorporating these suggestions would do a lot to soothe intra-alliance tension.

Washington's new motto, at Bucharest and beyond, should be "less hectoring, more harkening." In its remaining time in office, the Bush administration should devote as much energy to keeping NATO's workhorses happy as it has to motivating NATO's laggards. Doing so could help ensure that Bush's successor inherits a first tier that is growing rather than shrinking. The only thing worse than a two-tiered alliance is an alliance with one universally disillusioned tier.

A. Wess Mitchell is director of research at the Washington-based Center for European Policy Analysis.

Afghan lament

United Press International, 03/28/2008
By Arnaud de Borchgrave

WASHINGTON, March 28 (UPI) -- "I don't care if it takes another 10 or 20 years, but we cannot allow Afghanistan to fail." So spoke Frank Carlucci, former U.S. defense secretary and national security adviser, at the Council on Foreign Relations. Failure, said Carlucci, would break the Atlantic Alliance and turn the world stage over to the next two global heavy hitters -- China and Russia.

Most of the European members of NATO, while professing solidarity with the United States and NATO over Afghanistan and conceding that it's a make-or-break issue for the trans-Atlantic alliance, are not prepared to stay more than another two years, maximum three. Supplying their, at best, weak troop commitments stationed in the quieter parts of Afghanistan (where there is little Taliban guerrilla activity) is more costly than anticipated. Countries like Belgium, Spain and Italy have limited airlift capacity, and their military transport aircraft are stretched to the breaking point. EU countries that are also members of NATO allowed their defenses to run down since 1989 when the Berlin Wall collapsed and money saved went into the gargantuan appetites of welfare states.

Most European "statesmen/women" concede the need to become more engaged in Afghanistan, but the man/woman-in-the-street questions the need to expend resources in a country that is still hovering between the 15th and 16th centuries. The Taliban was there before we came, argue most Europeans, and will be back even before we leave. With luck, they add, what will follow our withdrawal will accept the education of girls that the Taliban had rejected and ruthlessly stamped out when it ruled the roost between 1996 and 2001.

Afghan's opium poppy crop has grown steadily larger (now 8,300 tons a year, representing two-thirds of the Afghan gross domestic product) since the 2001 U.S. invasion that toppled Taliban's Torquemada, Mullah Mohammed Omar. The one-eyed enforcer of religious fanaticism is still burrowed in the mountain fastness of the Hindu Kush and from time to time still manages to get pronouncements onto the world's satellite TV networks.

Speaking not for attribution about the Afghan narcotics crisis, an Afghan "strategic thinker" said recently the situation was under control and getting better from year to year -- whereupon he was interrupted by a journalist who said he had heard from the intelligence community that almost every minister in President Hamid Karzai's government was "on the take, and if not the minister, his No. 2 or 3 on the minister's behalf, and that ministers were careful to keep their U.S. visas up-to-date in case a hurried exit was suddenly required." The nonplused Afghan smiled, then said, "I thought this was on the record." Advised that it was "off the record," he confirmed everything the journalist had just said.

The high geopolitical stakes and lack of European resolve is NATO's existential crisis. Five former top-ranking military leaders have produced a new NATO "Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World -- Renewing the Trans-Atlantic Partnership," hoping this would discourage heads of government from kicking the Afghan can down the road one more time at the Bucharest, Romania, summit April 2-4. NATO's former uniformed chiefs (Britain's Field Marshal Lord Inge, France's Adm. Jacques Lanxade, Germany's Gen. Dr. Klaus Naumann, U.S. Gen. John Shalikashvili and Holland's Gen. Henk van den Bremen) say experiences gained in Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrate that crisis management in the alliance is obsolete and needs an urgent update. This would have to include everything from prevention to stabilization -- "smart power" in the new geopolitical vernacular.

Unveiling their new strategic document at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, the five military brains concluded there is no single organization capable of dealing with NATO's "out-of-theater" operations. The combined efforts of NATO, the United Nations and the European Union should be brought to bear. NATO needs EU support for its non-military capabilities, while the EU needs NATO for armed forces capable of managing a serious crisis. The United Nations, for its part, lacks the kind of heft that makes national entities pay attention to international political management. So the three entities should conjugate their efforts.

But what the five strategic thinkers skirted was (1) how to motivate awareness among European public opinion of current and future challenges and (2) how to spark political awareness of current and future challenges and political resolve to implement recommendations.

France, now half-in-half-out but more in than out, is banking on the ratification of a new European treaty that would give the EU the means to see itself as a coequal player with the United States, China and Russia. Hopefully, say Europe's strategic thinkers, this would give the EU a permanent president, a common foreign minister authorized to implement a single foreign policy. Common defense would take much longer. Small neighboring countries like Belgium and the Netherlands have separate procurement programs for their armies, navies and air forces. Until last week Belgium was without a government for the past nine months as its two principal ethnic groups -- hard-working, Dutch-speaking Flemish and welfare-dependent, not so hard-working, French-speaking Walloons -- argued over frayed constitutional links. Hardly a promising harbinger for the EU as a global superpower.

In any event, this could not be achieved in time to influence events in Afghanistan, where the clock is running out. The Taliban cannot win militarily. Nor can NATO. But could NATO, the EU and the United Nations build a viable state with modern infrastructure? Certainly not over the next three years. Hence, Carlucci's admonition to stick it out for 10 to 20 years if necessary. Chances of this happening? Slim to none.

Jalali may contest presidential election

PNS, 03/28/2008, WASHINGTON - Former Afghan interior minister Ali Ahmed Jalali is weighing the option of contesting the presidential election next year and could soon visit the country to consult with his advisers in this regard.

I have kept my options open and am considering contesting the election, Jalali said in an exclusive interview with Pajhwok Afghan News. His candidacy for the top office poses a new challenge to President Hamid Karzai.

A distinguished professor at the Near East South Asia Centre for Strategic Studies at the National Defence University, Jalali said he had been receiving a lot of advice from his well-wishers and supporters both inside and outside the country.

I have to consult with them before I take a final decision, Jalali observed, saying he would make up his mind in the coming months. Without specifying an exact date, Jalali revealed he would soon be visiting Afghanistan to meet his supporters. But he ruled out the possibility of forming an exploratory committee at this point. It is a bit too early, remarked the former minister, who believed the future of Afghanistan and its stability depended on the presidential ballot.

Referring to the current situation in Afghanistan, he urged both the Afghan government and the international community to focus on bringing stability to the country before the elections. An election without stability would pose a big question mark on its credibility, he argued. It would be very difficult to hold free, fair and inclusive election across the country. Even if elections take place, not across the country but in stable areas, it would undermine the governments legitimacy.

In the worst-case scenario, it is a recipe for inter-regional tension, he maintained. Jalali argued priority should be given to stabilising the situation in the country before the upcoming elections. I hope that activities linked to the election campaign will not take precedence over the major issue of stabilisation of the country. Usually elections in developing countries divide people.

In Afghanistan, such a division is going to be very detrimental to stabilisation. Therefore, I hope, the election would unite the country and not further divide it, he said. Jalali felt the best thing for the Afghan government to prepare for the elections was to deliver and the best thing for the international community was to focus on stabilising the country and not to do things that just showcased elections.

Unfortunately, he continued, not enough was time left for the Afghan government and the global fraternity. But there was lot of capability and possibility in Afghanistan, he hastened to point out. If the people of Afghanistan are convinced that the international community and the government are serious about improving the situation, they would cooperate. However, the time is not much enough.

Winning the trust of the people, he stressed, was more important at this point in time. An elected representative or election without winning the trust of the people would only worsen the situation, Jalali concluded.

Afghan MP plots path to presidential palace

By Jon Boone, FT.com March 29 2008

The scruffy tent pitched on a dusty scrap of land in front of Afghanistan’s parliament has a good claim to being the most unassuming presidential campaign headquarters in the world.

Its occupant, a slightly built Afghan MP who eschews the armed body guards favoured by most high-profile politicians, sits on a plastic chair in his tent’s gloomy interior and chats with anyone who wants to drop by.

Ramazan Bashar Dost, who represents a seat in the capital, Kabul, says he developed the idea for a public meeting place from Speakers’ Corner in London’s Hyde Park, and would rather use the money that he would otherwise spend on a proper office to give to the poor.

However, the ramshackle, yurt-like structure with just enough room for a dozen people is the base from which he is plotting an unlikely bid to become his country’s president.

“We have to change the leadership of our country if we are ever to become rich and democratic. The current people in power destroyed Afghanistan. We have had six years of [President Hamid] Karzai, and it has not been a good experience.”

In the past few days, he has become the first politician to formally declare his hand in presidential elections expected next year, although it remains to be seen whether he will be able to play anything more than a role on the fringes of what will undoubtedly be a hard fought campaign.

While there is endless speculation about who else will run, and plenty of ­campaigning behind closed doors, the most likely candidates have all given mealy-mouthed answers when asked about their ambitions.

“They are not honest enough to say what they are really thinking,” says Mr Bashar Dost.

At a time of growing alarm among Afghanistan’s international military and financial backers at the poor progress the country has made in developing a clean and effective government, next year’s election will be a crucial.

Mr Bashar Dost, a former minister of planning who acquired a degree in political science (and his French accent) at university in Paris, believes he is the man for the job and thinks that his policies of rooting out corrupt governors and ministers will prove popular.

On the plastic picnic table in front of him are files and documents that he says prove the outrageousness of the level of corruption in his country.

He rattles through details of alleged thefts, dodgy contracts and ministers dipping into their departmental budgets as if they were their personal bank accounts, all of which have not been investigated, he says.

But it will be a political miracle if his anti-corruption mantra is enough to convince his countrymen to vote for him.

For a start he is a Hazara, the smallest ethnic group in a country where the received wisdom is that the president must be from the biggest, the Pashtuns. Moreover, he will be competing against well-resourced campaigns capable of buying support from tribal elders.

Still, Mr Bashar Dost is not daunted. He believes he is a national figure with a reputation for honesty and thinks a cheap and cheerful campaign could transcend ethnic differences and beat Mr Karzai, assuming that he runs again.

“Karzai is like Gorbachev – he is a lot more popular in other countries than he is at home,” he says.

Taliban increasingly turns to suicide bombings

GRAEME SMITH, March 28, 2008 - Globe and Mail

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Suicide bombing used to be a subject of debate among the Taliban, as they struggled to decide whether the tactic was too extreme, but the frightening new reality in Afghanistan is that the radicals appear to be winning that argument within the Taliban ranks.

None of the 42 insurgents surveyed by The Toronto Globe and Mail were willing to express any reservations about suicide bombings when confronted by a researcher with a video recorder, and many of them boasted that they were ready to volunteer for such missions themselves.

Some Taliban have previously argued that it's cowardly to wear an explosive vest, because it prevents an insurgent from fighting his enemy face-to-face. Others suggested that the carnage among civilian bystanders that often results from a suicide blast alienates ordinary Afghans from the insurgency. A Taliban faction even took out an advertisement in one of Kandahar's weekly newspapers in 2006, blaming recent suicide bombings on foreign fighters and promising to stop the attacks: ''We will punish them,'' the advertisement said.

A year later, in the same province, all insurgents surveyed said they disagree. Suicide attacks are endorsed by religious authorities, they said, and they represent the Taliban's equivalent of air power, a devastating weapon capable of carefully aimed strikes. Few of them blamed foreign jihadists for the attacks.

The researcher asked them if the suicide bombers ''are only Afghans or are they foreigners?''

''They are sons of Afghanistan, and they are Afghans through and through,'' a fighter said. ''They sacrifice their lives for their country.''

A few of the Taliban seemed to acknowledge that it's a controversial means of fighting, but they claimed that such tactics are necessary against the overwhelming technological superiority of the foreign troops.

''Some people say that it is not good,'' an insurgent said. ''But they don't know that against non-Muslims, it is very good, because they can stop any kind of attack but not these kinds of attacks.'' Another gave a similar explanation: ''It is good to be used against the non-Muslims, because they are not afraid of fighting for five days against us but they are afraid of one bomber,'' he said. ''I pray to God to make me able to do this.''

The result of this shift in Taliban thinking has already become obvious in the number of suicide blasts. Afghanistan had never seen a suicide bombing before 2001, and the first such attack in the country -- on Sept. 9, 2001, targeting Ahmad Shah Massoud, the famed rebel leader who was fighting the Taliban -- was blamed on Arab extremists, not Afghans.

It does not seem likely that the sudden Taliban enthusiasm for blowing themselves up was driven exclusively by the insurgency's desire to kill more troops, analysts say, because so far the Taliban have proven themselves relatively incompetent at suicide bombing. A report for the United Nations in September found that, on average, more than three suicide bombers are required to inflict a single casualty on the international forces. ''From a military point of view, this could be considered extreme failure,'' the report said.

But the act of sacrificing oneself has a symbolic value; suicide bombers are publicly demonstrating the ultimate level of personal commitment to an ideology. The Globe survey suggested that those who craft the Taliban's ideology, their religious leaders, have made an organized effort to prove suicide bombing is acceptable in Islam.

Several of the insurgents said they couldn't remember the specific reference to Islamic holy texts used by their teachers to justify the idea, but some made reference to a story about a Muslim army that existed in the seventh century, during the lifetime of the Prophet Mohammed.

''There is a story from the time of the Prophet,'' one insurgent said.

''There were two companions of the Prophet, and ... they were attacking a place (where) the walls were high, so they could not jump over the wall.'' He continued: ''One lifted the other over the wall and he died in the attack. He knew he would be killed, but it was his duty.''

Turialai Wafa, former chief of staff to Kandahar's governor, said he has heard this justification before and it represents an incorrect view of Islamic teaching. A warrior who shows bravery in battle has nothing in common, he said, with somebody who breaks two major Islamic rules: committing suicide and attacking without first declaring intent.

''When one wants to justify an act of war to people -- in Afghanistan's case, illiterate angry masses who cannot read but only hear what the mullahs and radicals are telling them -- you can almost justify anything,'' Wafa said.

''The increase of suicide bombers recently has different causes, and one major one would be the lack of an alternative to express political opposition,'' Wafa added. ''It takes either a strong resolve or absolute despair. My personal opinion is it's never, ever the strong resolve, but the absolute despair.''

Her son killed for a gold ring, an Afghan mother wants justice

AFP, 03/28/2008, KABUL — Even Mother Nature was cruel on the day 15 years ago when rampaging thugs chopped off Marzia's fingers for a gold ring and shot dead her nine-year-old son when he cried out to object.

It was a bone-chillingly cold morning, she recalls, when militia loyal to Pashtun warlord Abdul Rab-Rasoul Sayyaf -- now a parliamentarian -- captured her village, west of Kabul and dominated by ethnic Hazaras.

Poverty-stricken Afshar, a complex of mudbrick houses at the foot of a barren and rocky mountain, was crushed in the orgy of murder, rape and looting.

In a post-assault attack on the village, gunmen smashed into her simple house, says the illiterate housewife in her 40s. They demanded a gold ring she was wearing.

"I couldn't take it off. One of them stepped forward with a bayonet and said 'I will take it off,' and chopped my fingers," she says, holding up a hand missing the thumb, fore and middle fingers.

Her son Samad cried out. "When he chopped my fingers, my son jumped towards me and wailed 'Oh, nanai (mother)'. Another man turned his gun and fired at him," she says, her lips quivering.

"My son died in my arms," she says, wiping away tears with the palm of her butchered hand.

The number of dead in what has become known as the Afshar Massacre is not clear: a United Nations report says 300 civilians, almost all ethnic Hazara Shiites, were killed but villagers say even more were slaughtered, some decapitated.

Hundreds of Hazara men were rounded up and corralled into forced labour -- or just disappeared. Villagers claim 1,200 men were taken away.

One was Marzia's husband, Sayed Mohammad.

Sitting near his wife in their one-room home, he says he was accused of being a combatant, beaten, and forced to dig trenches and wash dishes for his captors for six months before he was freed, half-paralysed and mentally ill.

The February 1993 Afshar campaign was one of the worst episodes of the 1992-1996 civil war that erupted when internationally supported militias that had driven out the Soviet occupiers turned on each other.

The ethnic-based factional fighting -- in which all sides are accused of atrocities, including the Hazara -- killed around 80,000 civilians in Kabul alone, according to rights groups.

An almost daily barrage of rocket and artillery fire reduced large parts of the attractive capital to rubble.

The conflict was ended when the Taliban Islamic militia took power in 1996, initially welcomed for restoring calm after the chaos. But they too brought terror before being ousted in a US-led invasion late in 2001.

"The Afshar Massacre is one of the worst brutalities of the civil war," says Horia Musadeq from the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.

"It is just one example of hundreds of incidents Afghans suffered. Hundreds of civilians were killed, women were raped and many men were captured, held and tortured," he said.

A 2005 Human Rights Watch report implicates Sayyaf -- now an ally of President Hamid Karzai -- and other figures such as Burhanduddin Rabbani, president at the time and now also in parliament.

"The Afshar campaign was marked by widespread and serious violations of international humanitarian law," it says, and calls for "justice-seeking mechanisms to sideline past abusers from political power".

Karzai in late 2006 signed a Peace, Reconciliation and Justice Action Plan that seeks to "establish accountability" -- which some fear could see a backlash from strongmen worried about having to face a judicial process.

Just weeks later the parliament voted in a bill that would give groups and factions amnesty against prosecution. Its position on individuals is vague.

Karzai admitted at a meeting in December, at which Marzia was among several victims who pleaded for justice, that this was a concern.

"There are tyrants in our land," he said. "We must move with lots of caution so as not to cause lots of noise and more human rights violations."

The United Nations has meanwhile expressed disappointment at the delays in implementing the action plan, which also provides for investigations of atrocities and memorials for those killed.

Marzia says she wants justice, even if only from "great God".

Responding to such calls is vital for Afghanistan to recover from its three decades of war and to revive the national spirit, Musadeq says.

"We can't survive as a nation unless we give justice to war victims. Can you imagine that those who have killed her or others' children sit in the parliament, live in palaces and drive Landcruisers?" she asks.

"When Sayyaf speeds past a victim in his Landcruiser, kicking up dust, think how it feels. It feels really bad."

Afghanistan's fight for its cultural heritage

by Marijke van der Meer, Radio Netherlands / March 28, 2008

One of the lesser noticed side-effects of the war and violence in Afghanistan is the immeasurable loss caused to the country's rich cultural heritage. Architectural masterpieces and museums have been bombed and looted over the years, music and television were banned by the Taliban for several years, and some of the country's greatest talents are now living in exile.

This has not prevented some people from even risking their lives to preserve what is left and to breathe new life into the rich traditions that have been created by generations of Afghans and the traders and travellers that came here from across the Asian continent and the Mediterranean.

"There is a rebirth of music," says Simon Broughton, world music expert and editor of the magazine Songlines and The Rough Guide to World Music. He points out that during the Taliban ban on music, many Afghan musicians lived in exile in Peshawar in neighbouring Pakistan and tried to keep the traditions alive. As soon as the Taliban fell at the end of 2001, some musicians came back. Some who were forced to practice other trades have picked up their instruments again.

"But it's starting to get dangerous even in Kabul again, so the situation is now tense," says Broughton, and he says that what he misses is a real music scene, in the tradition of Kabul teahouses where musicians can play and the public can be exposed to their music. "Once a generation has gone by, music effectively dies unless it is transmitted," Broughton warns.

The Aga Khan trust for culture has set up a school for training musicians, and it is also involved in the conservation of ancient monuments like the 16th-century Bagh-e Babur gardens in the old city of Herat.

Jolyan Leslie, who manages the Trust in Afghanistan, acknowledges that such projects may not be a top priority in such a devastated country where people have far more urgent needs. "We're not going to do high conservation where there is starvation," he says. The Herat project was presented, in fact, as an employment program, not as conservation, providing 100,000 work days of labour. "We start all our conservation projects with drainage and street paving and sanitation."

Some artists find inspiration in the ruins. Young Lida Abdul, whose family fled the country soon after the Soviet invasion and who now spends half the year in the United States, creates films and installations in which buildings, especially monuments that have been bombed to rubble, play an important part.

The Taliban's wilful destruction of the sixth-century Bamyan Buddhas inspired a film in which she asked local Hazara men to make a clapping sound with stones near the giant cavity left by the colossal statues that once stood there.

Abdul recruits locals to act out the surrealistic rituals she thinks up. "When I explain the work they often think it's odd and absurd, but then there's this moment of transformation, healing and reconciliation with their own history. And often they say you understand our pain." But Abdul believes people need time for reconciliation, healing and rebuilding.

Meanwhile, the process of destruction continues. Jolyan Leslie of the Aga Khan trust warns of indiscriminate modernisation, the desire to start with a clean slate and create a brave new world of steel, glass and concrete "that make Afghanistan's carbon footprint look like nothing one earth." One of the gravest new threats is illegal digging of archeological treasures. "The systematic scale is unprecedented. We would never have dared to believe that peace would bring this extraordinary ravage of the country."

Omar Khan Massoudi, the director of the National Museum of Afghanistan, says a cache of 4000 Afghan artefacts were confiscated by the police in Denmark last year, others were found in London and Switzerland. "We never gave permission to sell these artefacts, because it's against our law."

These artworks belong not only to Afghan culture but to humanity. They include Roman glass, Indian ivories, sculpture inspired by the Greeks who came through here under Alexander the Great, Persian ceramics, exquisitely crafted nomadic gold and Buddhist statues, all of it excavated at some point from the very soil of Afghanistan.

As Massoudi points out, his museum lost 70,000 objects during the past generation of looting, iconoclasm, and fighting. Fortunately an astounding collection still remains. Part of it has been on view in European cities and will begin a tour of the United States in May.

Meanwhile, the struggle continues to hold on to the pride and memory of Afghanistan's past culture. "These artefacts speak to us. This is important for the identity of a country. Every generation has the responsibility to preserve its past." 

[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.]