In this bulletin:

• NATO soldier, 8 civilians killed by roadside bombs in Afghanistan
• Afghans See Link to Qaeda in Plot to Shoot Karzai
• Taleban say two fighters, woman, child killed in Kabul siege
• "Key mastermind" behind Afghan parade attack arrested - security chief
• Pakistan denies Karzai murder plan was hatched in Pakistan
• US Cites New Evidence of Iranian Support for Taliban
• President orders weapons crackdown
• AFGHANISTAN: NEW UN TROUBLESHOOTER AIMS TO IMPROVE RECONSTRUCTION COORDINATION
• U.S. army targets $400 mln for Afghan emergency funds
• Pentagon officials may beef up command role in Afghanistan
• Gates: Afghanistan no worse than before
• Taliban regaining hold on Afghanistan, report says
• Interview: Afghan stability will take a generation-US general
• Turkey Condemns Terrorist Attack Targeting Afghan Officials
• Blast 'targets' pro-Taleban group
• Zardari condemns attack on Afghan president
• Pakistan frontier politician condemns Afghan jerga attack
• Australian defence minister visits troops in Afghanistan
• Canada reaches out to Taliban
• S Korea to send police to Afghanistan
• Czech soldier killed, four wounded by roadside bomb in Afghanistan
• Czech parliament approves sending 100 special forces to Afghanistan
• Germany sends more money, not troops to Afghanistan
• Turkmen leader invites German firms to take part in four-nation gas project
• Afghans struggle as food prices soar
• Afghan 'health link' to uranium
• Schools in Afghan capital on strike over pay
• Editorial: A Separate Peace?

NATO soldier, 8 civilians killed by roadside bombs in Afghanistan

Last Updated: Thursday, May 1, 2008 - CBC News

Nine people are dead and 10 were wounded after roadside bombs hit a NATO patrol and two other vehicles in Afghanistan, officials said.

An alliance soldier was killed and four others injured when an explosion rocked a NATO patrol in Logar province, south of Kabul, Wednesday, according to a statement from NATO. The nationalities of the soldiers were not released.

Meanwhile, roadside bombs struck two civilian cars on a road regularly used by Afghan and foreign troops in southern Kandahar province Wednesday. Eight people were killed and six wounded.

About 2,500 Canadian troops are participating in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in and around Kandahar province. More than 1,200 people, many of them militants, have died in war-related violence this year in Afghanistan, according to a tally by the Associated Press.

Afghans See Link to Qaeda in Plot to Shoot Karzai

NY Times - May 1, 2008 By CARLOTTA GALL and ABDUL WAHEED WAFA

KABUL, Afghanistan — The attempt to kill President Hamid Karzai on Sunday was the work of militants who had infiltrated Afghanistan’s security forces and had ties to groups linked to Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas, the Afghan intelligence chief said Wednesday.

The claims emerged after a day of heightened alarm in which Afghan security forces killed and captured a number of suspects involved in Sunday’s assassination attempt, raiding three safe houses in Kabul, the capital. An eight-hour siege with one cell left seven people dead, including a child and three security officials.

One of those killed was a militant named Homayoun, who assisted in the attack on President Karzai as well as in the bombing in January of the Serena Hotel in Kabul, killing seven people, Amrullah Saleh, the intelligence chief, said at a news conference.

Afghan intelligence officials say they have linked Homayoun through an intermediary to Jalaluddin Haqqani, a mujahedeen commander who is based in Pakistan’s tribal areas and has long had ties to Al Qaeda.

The statements by Afghan officials suggested that militants linked to Al Qaeda and based in Pakistan were working closely with the Taliban to threaten the Karzai government, bringing a new level of sophistication to attacks in and around the capital.

American counterterrorism officials in Washington, however, said it was not yet clear what role, if any, Al Qaeda might have played in the attack against President Karzai on Sunday, even while acknowledging Mr. Haqqani’s past links to the group.

Afghan and Western intelligence officials have warned for more than a year that Taliban and Qaeda militants were using their sanctuary in Pakistan’s tribal areas to fortify their links, recruit new fighters and expand their ranks of suicide bombers.

The tightening alliance has been felt not only here, but also in Pakistan, where militants linked to Al Qaeda have carried out scores of suicide attacks over the past year, and have pushed Pakistan’s new government into fresh talks aimed at a truce. It has also alarmed American and Western officials who report a rise in cross-border attacks from Pakistan in Afghanistan this year.

“Once again our country was attacked from Pakistani soil,” Mr. Saleh, the chief of Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security, said at a joint news conference with the defense and interior ministers. “This is clear like the sun, and we have all the evidence to show that.” That evidence included cellphone calls from the militants to Pakistan up until their final moments, he said.

The unraveling of the plot here, the officials said, came after the Interior Ministry arrested some of its own men, who had been under investigation since the Serena Hotel bombing.

One of them confessed to involvement in the attack on a military parade on Sunday, which killed three and wounded 11, and he gave information on other groups in Kabul who were planning more attacks, Mr. Saleh and other officials said.

The ministry informant confessed to receiving money in return for weapons for the group and providing cover for them through his job. A second suspect also confessed to supplying the weapons for the attacks, Mr. Saleh said.

Members of the police and a high-ranking officer of the Defense Ministry are also accused of helping the group, according to a member of the intelligence service who did not want to be identified because he is not permitted to speak to the press.

Mr. Saleh called the men traitors and said more would be revealed about them after a full report was delivered to the president. Both the interior minister and defense minister admitted that the security services had been infiltrated.

“From the investigation so far it has become clear that the enemy to some limit infiltrated our security forces,” Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak said. “Those who were involved have also been arrested.”

Within an hour of the confessions, the security forces had narrowed their search to a single house in the Kabul neighborhood of Guzargah and surrounded it on Wednesday, Mr. Saleh said.

When security officials tried to enter, they came under fire from gunmen and a woman barricaded in the basement. Three intelligence officials were killed in the ensuing battle. The security forces finally set off explosives, which killed all those inside — two men, a woman and a child — Mr. Saleh said.

In addition to the militant Homayoun, the two other adults killed in the house were a married couple and were not Afghan, Mr. Saleh said. He said he suspected that the child would have also been used in a suicide attack they were planning in Kabul. The group had been armed with guns, rocket-propelled grenades, mines and suicide vests, he said.

Six others suspects were arrested in a village on the eastern edge of the capital, he said, adding that another raid in a suburb of eastern Kabul was under way.

Interior Minister Zarar Ahmad Muqbil said that his ministry had been watching a group of police officers suspected of involvement in the attack on the Serena Hotel and that they had been arrested. Mr. Saleh said none of the suspects arrested were from the intelligence service.

The group members killed inside the house had been in telephone contact with people in Miram Shah, the capital of North Waziristan, as well as Bajaur, another tribal region of Pakistan, and with people in Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province. They were using Pakistani subscriber identity module cards in their cellphones, Mr. Saleh said.

“Some contacts were made back and forth, and we have some evidence that they were receiving orders from the other side of the border until the last moments,” he said. “Whether these orders were given through the government of Pakistan, we have no evidence,” he added.

On Monday, Mr. Saleh told Parliament that the group of three gunmen who fired on the parade just as Mr. Karzai was preparing to speak had also been in contact with a central base through text messages, and that they were being urged to carry out their task.

Earlier this year after the attack on the Serena Hotel, Afghan government officials said that the mastermind, Homayoun, was receiving orders from a militant based in Pakistan’s tribal region of North Waziristan.

In particular, they named Mullah Abdullah, who they said had ordered the Serena attack, and who is a senior lieutenant of Mr. Haqqani, the mujahedeen commander, who is based in Pakistan’s tribal region of North Waziristan.

Western military officials in the region have confirmed that the little-known Mullah Abdullah has links to Al Qaeda and ordered suicide attacks in Afghanistan from his base in North Waziristan.

After the attack on the Serena Hotel, Homayoun escaped to Pakistan and called his wife from there the next morning, said one senior Afghan government official, who asked not to be named. The call was monitored by Afghan officials, and his telephone number was passed on to counterparts in Pakistan’s intelligence service, but without result, the official said.

The attack on the Serena Hotel, mounted by a two-man team wearing police uniforms, was a new development in Afghanistan in its sophistication and planning, and it was probably not the work of the Taliban, but more likely an operation by militants linked to Al Qaeda, Afghan and Western officials have said.

The first attacker, a suicide bomber, blew himself up at the gate, killing or wounding the security guards and opening the way for the second attacker. He then entered the hotel and shot and killed people in the lobby and the hotel gym before hiding his weapons and trying to walk out with the hotel employees.

He was caught inside the hotel, and intelligence officials were able to trace the plot back to Mullah Abdullah, partly through 14 phone calls he made to Pakistan in the minutes before his capture, and through his own confession, Afghan officials say.

Pakistani military and government officials have denied that they have any knowledge of Mullah Abdullah or that the Serena attack was planned in Pakistan.

Taleban say two fighters, woman, child killed in Kabul siege

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

Kabul, 30 April: The Taleban have given an explanation about an incident in Gozgargah [area of Kabul city]. Speaking to Afghan Islamic Press [AIP] from an undisclosed location over the phone about today's clash between the Taleban and the government forces in the Gozgargah area of Kabul, Taleban Spokesman Zabihollah Mojahed, said: "There were two Taleban, Mirwais and Ata, at a house along with a woman, Aisha, and her child, a girl. They fought the government forces for 10 hours and all four were killed."

The Taleban spokesman added that Ata had also taken part in the attack at a function on 27 April attended by President Hamed Karzai and senior officials, which killed and wounded around 12 people. The government has yet to release any official information about the Gozgargah clash.

"Key mastermind" behind Afghan parade attack arrested - security chief

BBCM – 01 May 08 - Excerpt from report by state-owned National Afghanistan TV on 30 April

[Presenter] National security, police, and army forces have uncovered a big terrorist network, organizing suicide attacks in Kabul city, in the Gozargah [southern outskirt of capital], Tarakhel, and Arzanqimat [both eastern outskirt of capital] areas of the city. More than 10 suicide bombers, including a woman, had been stationed in these areas.

The ministers of defence, interior affairs, and the head of the National Security Directorate briefed journalists about the incident.

[Passage omitted: Terrorists, including a woman, had rented a house in Gozargah area. The hideout of the group was identified by national security forces. Local residents speak about the raid.]

[Correspondent continues] The head of the National Security Directorate said they had arrested a man who was providing the insurgents with arms and ammunition. He added that the majority of the terrorists were foreign nationals commanded from the Pakistani Waziristan and Bajaur areas.!

[Amrollah Saleh, head, National Security Directorate] The other issue is the detention of the person that the esteemed Ministry of Interior Affairs and the National Security Directorate suspected.

We passed the intelligence on the detention of the person to the esteemed minister of interior affairs. Fortunately, the person was arrested four or five hours ago [presumably before the start of the operation].

The person had been handed over to us yesterday. By midnight this person made a confession. He had a key role in masterminding, equipping and implementing [terrorist] operations. He confessed at 0000 midnight. He told us that they had a central base in Gozargah and that only a limited number of people stayed there. He did not exactly tell us where in Gozargah the base was.

[Passage omitted: ministers of defence and interior affairs speak about the progress in activities of the commission set up to investigate the attack on 27 April attack.]

Pakistan denies Karzai murder plan was hatched in Pakistan

Daily Times 1 May 2008

* Afghan spy chief says militants behind plot were in phone
contact with people in Bajaur, Waziristan and Peshawar

KABUL: Pakistan on Wednesday denied allegations that a plot to kill Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai during a military parade over the weekend was hatched in its Tribal Areas, AP reported.

Afghan intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh earlier said the plot was hatched in the Tribal Areas of Pakistan. The militants involved in the weekend plot were in phone contact with people in Pakistan’s Bajaur and North Waziristan tribal agencies and Peshawar, he said. Pakistan Army spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas said the allegation appeared ‘baseless’. “Anybody can say that militants [in the Tribal Areas] have done this or that,” Abbas said. “How can one validate such claims?” he questioned.

However, Saleh said there was no evidence that Pakistan’s government or its intelligence agencies were involved in the assassination attempt on Sunday.
“We have no evidence whether ... the operation has had any mercy or go-ahead from the Government of Pakistan and [its] special agencies,” he told reporters in Kabul. “There [is] very, very strong evidence suggesting that Pakistan’s soil once again has been used to inflict pain on our nation.” Separately, Afghan security forces raided a Taliban hideout in Kabul, sparking a battle that left seven people dead, including two militants involved in the attack, and a woman and a child, AFP reported. agencies

US Cites New Evidence of Iranian Support for Taliban

By Al Pessin – Pentagon VOA News 30 April 2008

The Pentagon said Wednesday Iran is continuing to provide weapons and other material to Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, in addition to its alleged continuing support for Shiite militias in Iraq. Officials spoke to reporters Wednesday shortly after a second U.S. aircraft carrier strike group arrived in the Persian Gulf. VOA's Al Pessin reports from the Pentagon.

The chief of operations for the senior U.S. military staff, Lieutenant General Carter Ham, says Iranian support for the Taliban, first reported last year, is continuing.

"There is indication that the Iranian support of the Taliban has continued," said General Ham. "Again, we don't believe it to be at the same level of which they have provided fighters and weapons into Iraq. But there is some clear evidence that it has occurred."

General Ham says the support involves "weapons and material," but he did not provide details of what Iran sends or how much. He did say there is no indication Iran is providing the high-powered roadside bombs it has given to insurgents in Iraq.

The new allegation comes as two U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups are in the Persian Gulf in an unusual display of American military power in the waterway along Iran's southwestern coast. Officials say one carrier group is relieving the other, and the overlap will not last long. On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates offered this characterization of the temporary double deployment.

"I don't see it as an escalation," said Secretary Gates. "I think it could be seen, though, as a reminder."

General Ham says the message is aimed at both U.S. allies and potential adversaries in the region, but he said it would be a mistake to view the carrier overlap as designed specifically to send a message to Iran.

"The message of commitment to the region is one that we think is important, but it's not intended to be any more than that," he said. "It's a message to all nations that the United States possesses the capability and the will to operate globally. So this is an opportunity to do that."

General Ham says the two carriers will enable U.S. commanders to order more air strikes in Iraq, as well as more reconnaissance flights and other missions.

He says it also provides an important training opportunity for the two carrier crews. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino explained it this way.

"These exercises are not aimed at Iran," said Dana Perino. "They reinforce that the U.S. has an enduring commitment to the region and to our allies and we continue to protect our allies and interests wherever necessary."

Also on Wednesday, the director of planning for the U.S. military staff, Lieutenant General John Satler, denied a news report that indicated there is increased planning for potential U.S. military action against Iran.

"There has been no order, specific order, to plan in any particular area of the world," said General Satler. "But I want to make it clear to everyone that we do plan. We challenge those plans. We challenge the assumptions of those plans, ongoing. And I would just leave it at that. We don't discuss, as you well know, specific plans that are ongoing or operations that are ongoing."

U.S. officials have said they do not want to have a military confrontation with Iran, and hope to work through allies and diplomatic channels to convince Iranian leaders not to support insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.

President orders weapons crackdown

Written by www.quqnoos.com - Wednesday, 30 April 2008

Weapons must be registered with government, ministry warns

PRESIDENT Karzai has ordered a crackdown on the possession and sale of illegal weapons in the country following Sunday’s attack, when gunmen opened fire on the president and other high-ranking government officials at a parade in Kabul.

Kazai has said today (Wednesday) that all weapons must be registered with the government and that anyone caught buying, selling, trading or owning a weapon will be prosecuted. The Ministry of Interior said registering weapons would help increase law and order in the country.

AFGHANISTAN: NEW UN TROUBLESHOOTER AIMS TO IMPROVE RECONSTRUCTION COORDINATION
Richard Weitz: 4/30/08

At NATO’s Bucharest summit in early April, alliance members endorsed the idea of transferring greater security responsibility to the Afghan government. But the Taliban’s brazen April 27 attack in central Kabul indicates that Afghan forces aren’t yet able to guarantee security in the capital. President Hamid Karzai is on record as stating that Afghan security forces should assume responsibility for safety in the capital by this August.

The attack underscored the challenges faced by Kai Eide, the newly appointed Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Afghanistan. Having been on the job for less than two months, Eide suddenly finds himself under pressure to quell a brewing crisis of confidence in the Afghan reconstruction process.

Eide offered his views on the stabilization challenges during an April 28 presentation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. In addition to his role as UN Special Representative in Afghanistan, Eide is also the new head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA).

The UN envoy said recent conversations in Europe and in Washington had led him to believe that he possessed the “tools” needed for a successful UN campaign in Afghanistan. “There is strong support for the job that I and the mission right now do, and … there is strong support for an expanded UN role,” he said, adding that he also enjoyed the “strong confidence” of the Afghan leadership.

Eide identified improving reconstruction coordination as a top priority. He observed that, “everybody now talks about coordination, which is good, but what I see is also more and more countries are talking about their readiness to be coordinated, and that is a breakthrough.” Eide expressed dissatisfaction with most of the existing coordination mechanisms involving Afghanistan: “once such mechanisms are put in place, they very easily become bureaucratic [and] cumbersome. … All of a sudden it becomes a process-oriented consultation process, and not a delivery-oriented process. We have to get away from that.”

Although Eide wants to improve civil-military coordination, he described the subject as “one of the most troublesome parts of my mandate.” He insisted that he would resist a relationship in which “the military is carrying out their mission and asking the civilian leadership, ‘Where are you now?’”

“The UN and NATO/ISAF have very different roles and I do not want our political role in any sense compromised,” Eide added.

One reason Eide cited for keeping UNAMA independent of NATO is that the UN might at some point directly seek to promote reconciliation among Afghan factions. In this case, Eide stressed that UNAMA would adhere closely to its mandate, the Afghan constitution, and the principle that “any such process … must be led by the Afghan government,” with the international community playing only a supporting role.

Although relatively new to his post, Eide said it was already clear that “more resources are required” for a successful economic redevelopment campaign in Afghanistan. “We have to spend the resources we have better than we do today,” he said.

Eide decried the current practice of hiring expensive foreign consultants rather than investing in developing Afghans’ indigenous capabilities, which is essential for achieving sustainability of foreign-funded projects. He went on to propose the creation of a monitoring unit that could monitor the flow of aid from its source to its ultimate destination. Although tracking every project would prove impossible, “perhaps we should be able to conduct more spot checks in order to create a certain deterrent effect among both the Afghans and the international community.”

Editor’s Note : Richard Weitz is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC.

U.S. army targets $400 mln for Afghan emergency funds

Thu May 1, 2008 2:46am EDT , By Luke Baker

BAGRAM, Afghanistan, May 1 (Reuters) - The U.S. military hopes to double its emergency funds for aid and reconstruction in Afghanistan this year, turning a once small-scale programme into a core part of its strategy to defeat Taliban insurgents.

If the U.S. Congress approves, commanders on the ground say they could soon have as much as $410 million to finance new schools, roads, bridges and small hydro-electric power projects in rural areas, up from $206 million in 2007.

The programme, known as the Commanders' Emergency Response Programme, or CERP, gives mid-level officers the authority and financial freedom to launch local reconstruction projects without the usual lengthy approval process from above.

It has become a central to the military's counter-insurgency strategy as it seeks to quell the still-potent threat from the Taliban more than six years after U.S.-led and Afghan forces removed the hardline Islamists from power after they refused to surrender al Qaeda leaders behind the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

The theory is that the sooner roads can be improved, clinics built, bridges repaired and power restored -- especially in areas along the Pakistan border -- the less likely the Taliban are to be let back in to vulnerable communities.

British commanders in southern Afghanistan, where the Taliban is strong, have expressed envy in the past that they do not have the same funding or authority as their American counterparts to implement a similar strategy.

In the two years they have been based in Helmand province, British forces have often taken towns and villages after a lengthy battle only to see them fall back into the hands of the Taliban shortly after they have withdrawn.

"This has got to be a two-fold process -- kinetic combat operations to drive out the insurgents followed right afterwards by the rebuilding work," U.S. Navy Lieutenant Ashwin Corattiyil, the CERP manager for eastern Afghanistan, said on Thursday.

"The prime reason CERP has the impact it does is its quick delivery. It's small scale but quick impact."

Corattiyil said $210 million had been set aside for Afghanistan's CERP spending in 2008, and an extra $200 million was pending approval from Congress. The programme has expanded steadily in Afghanistan since it was founded in Iraq in 2003 with money seized by U.S. forces from Saddam Hussein's regime.

While sabotage, including the Taliban burning down schools and clinics and attacking Afghans employed to build new roads, has set back some projects, many more are pushing ahead.

U.S. army engineers have designed and helped build almost 90 micro-hydro-electric plants in the past three years, a process which involves diverting a portion of a river's flow so the water can power a generator that in turn provides basic power.

Road-building, which costs anywhere from $100,000 per kilometre for a gravel road to $250,000/km for an asphalt one, has also become a major focus of engineering work.

"Roads can be a real moneymaker," said Lieutenant-Colonel Craft Smith, the head of engineering for the U.S. military's CJTF-101 task force, based in eastern Afghanistan.

"If you get a road opened up, you sometimes see the local souks (markets) quickly doubling in size -- it helps the local economy to pick up, and it makes it easier to get Afghan security forces to some of these places which helps."

Under CERP rules, battalion commanders -- usually lieutenant-colonels or majors -- can spend up to $25,000 at their own discretion. Task force commanders -- usually colonels -- can spend up to $200,000 on their own, and above that figure approval has to be sought from a commanding general.

Big projects require oversight by separate legal, financial and contracting teams, but that once lengthy process has been streamlined so that it now takes as little as two to three weeks.

Some NGOs and aid agencies have raised concerns the programme gives reconstruction projects too much military emphasis, but Corattiyil says there is consultation with third parties -- NGOs and ministries in the Afghan government -- to make sure there is agreement and as little overlap as possible. (Editing by David Fox)

Pentagon officials may beef up command role in Afghanistan

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, Published: April 30, 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Pentagon officials are quietly considering a significant change in the war command in Afghanistan to extend US control of forces into the country's volatile south. The idea is partly linked to an expectation of a fresh infusion of US combat troops in the south next year.

Taliban resistance has stiffened in the south since NATO took command there in mid-2006, and some in the Bush administration believe the fight against the Taliban could be strengthened if the US, whose span of control is now limited to eastern Afghanistan, were also in charge in part or all of the south.

The internal discussions about expanding the US command role were described in recent Associated Press interviews with several senior defense officials who have direct knowledge but were not authorized to talk about it publicly. All said they thought it unlikely that a decision would be made anytime soon.

Giving the US more control in the south would address one problem cited by US officials: the NATO allies' practice of rotating commanders every nine months -- and their fighting units every six months, in some cases. The 101st Airborne, by comparison, is in eastern Afghanistan on a 15-month deployment. In the US view, nine-month commands are too short to maximize effectiveness.

US combat tours in Afghanistan and Iraq are to shrink to 12 months starting in August.

The idea of changing the command structure has not yet developed into a proposal to Defense Secretary Robert Gates. The internal discussions reflect concern at a lack of continuity among NATO forces and a view that, in the long run, NATO may be better off focusing mainly on areas of Afghanistan, like the north and west, where there is less fighting but a great need for noncombat aid.

Changing the command structure to give a US general more control in the south would, in effect, mark a partial ''re-Americanization'' of the combat mission. That could be politically controversial, given US interests in maintaining close ties with NATO in fighting terrorism.

NATO now has overall responsibility for the mission in Afghanistan, and that would not change if a US general were to be put in charge in the southern sector. But it would give the Americans a greater degree of control.

Settling the command issue has implications not only for the success of the overall mission in Afghanistan but also for the NATO allies' willingness to join with the US in future military ventures beyond Europe's borders.

The defense officials doubted a decision would be made before fall and possibly not until a new administration takes office in 2009. Two officials said there appears to be no high-level advocate for making such a change in the near term, although there is growing concern that while higher US troop levels in Iraq have helped reduce violence there, the trends in Afghanistan are less positive.

In the meantime, as an interim step, there are plans to beef up the NATO command headquarters in southern Afghanistan with additional NATO and US staff, one senior official said.

There are now about 34,000 US troops in Afghanistan -- the most at any time during the war, which began in October 2001. They include 3,400 Marines who arrived this month as reinforcements for combat missions in the south and to help train Afghan security forces. Those Marines are scheduled to leave in October, but if replacements are not offered by NATO allies soon the Pentagon likely will either extend the Marines' deployment or tap another unit to fill the void.

At a NATO summit in early April, President Bush told the allies the United States would send many more troops to Afghanistan in 2009. He mentioned no numbers, but US commanders say they need at least two more brigades, or 7,500 troops.

In early stages of the war, the US military commanded forces across Afghanistan. NATO's security role initially was limited to heading an International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, in Kabul, the capital; but it spread, starting in 2004 -- first to the north, then west and, in 2006, to the south and the east.

The overall ISAF commander is an American general, Daniel McNeill, but the only sector headed by a US general is the eastern area, where the 101st Airborne is in charge. If the southern sector were to be put under US command, the American in charge there would still be subordinate to NATO.

Last week Gates was asked at a news conference if he expects any changes in the command structure.

''If there were to be any discussion of changes in the command structure, it would require some pretty intensive consultations with our allies and discussion about what makes sense going forward,'' Gates replied. ''There have been no such consultations so far.''

The Pentagon chief acknowledged, however, that the subject has been talks about internally. ''I've made no decisions,'' he said. ''I've made no recommendations to the president. We're still discussing it.''

The topic is politically sensitive. A US move to limit NATO's role in the south, where the alliance has taken its heaviest casualties over the past two years, could be seen by the allies as implying US superiority. It could be seen in the same light as Gates' comments to the Los Angeles Times in January about the NATO allies not being as well trained as US forces to fight an insurgency. Those remarks were seen in some European capitals as a slap, which Gates said was not his intent.

A new twist may be added with Bush's decision to nominate Gen. David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, to head Central Command, which is responsible not only for US operations in Iraq but also Afghanistan. Petraeus will have a chance to air his views on the troop-command issue in the south when he testifies at his Senate confirmation hearing, possibly before the end of May.

David Barno, a retired Army lieutenant general who commanded US forces in Afghanistan from October 2003 to May 2005, says the US command structure is not being used to its full potential. He said in congressional testimony April 2 that the US two-star headquarters at Bagram air base north of Kabul, the capital, is capable of ''a broad counterinsurgency fight all across southern Afghanistan.''

In an interview Monday, Barno said the Europeans did not get what they expected when NATO agreed to extend its reach in 2006 from the less-volatile north and west into the south, where it looked then like a mission focused more on economic reconstruction and humanitarian aid than on combat.

''NATO came into Afghanistan under one set of expectations and now is faced with a very different reality, and that's not playing well politically at home -- not terribly well with many of the governments but even less well with the populations in many countries,'' Barno said.

Among the NATO nations fighting in the south are Canada, Britain, the Netherlands and Denmark. A Canadian general is commander of the southern region now and he is scheduled to be replaced by a Dutch general later this year, part of a rotational pattern that Barno and some senior Pentagon officials believe gives the commander and his staff too little time on the ground to be fully effective.

Gates: Afghanistan no worse than before

MEXICO CITY, April 30 (UPI) -- The situation in Afghanistan isn't worse now, despite the assassination attempt on President Hamid Karzai, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday.

"(The) problem with terrorism is they can always carry out a spectacular act that gains everyone's attention," Gates said during a briefing in Mexico City, where he met with several government leaders.

More likely, tactics are changing, he said, citing increased use of suicide and roadside bombings, as well as the assassination attempt Taliban leaders claimed they engineered.

"I think that we have seen a change in the nature of the Taliban threat, and the question is whether it's temporary or longer-lasting," Gates said. "And so I think that they're (Taliban) confronted with the firepower and the strength of the coalition forces in Afghanistan, that they are changing their tactics."

Reports of Taliban infiltration in Afghan security forces and the possible Iranian support, while important, don't signal a significant downturn in security in Afghanistan, he said.

Infiltration "has happened before and I expect it'll happen again," Gates said.

Regarding Iranian support, Gates said, "I do not have a sense at this point of a significant increase in Iranian support for the Taliban and others opposing the government in Afghanistan."

Taliban regaining hold on Afghanistan, report says

30 May 2008 - WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Taliban in Afghanistan -- whose government was toppled by U.S.-led forces after the September 11 attacks in 2001 -- has strengthened its military and technical capabilities even while suffering heavy combat losses, says a State Department report released Wednesday.

"The Taliban-led insurgency remained a capable, determined, and resilient threat to stability and to the expansion of government authority, particularly in the Pashtun south and east," according to the "Country Reports on Terrorism 2007."

The Taliban's information operations have become "increasingly aggressive and sophisticated," and their ability to obtain al Qaeda support and recruit soldiers from the Taliban base of rural Pashtuns is "undiminished," the report says.

But new civilian-military counterinsurgency approaches in the east, particularly Nangarhar, have begun to yield successes, the report says.

The Taliban is funding its terror activities with money from supporters in neighboring Pakistan, and profits from narcotics trafficking and kidnappings. Kidnappings of foreigners have increased, the report says.

The group also has increased its use of improvised explosive devices, and suicide bombings have become more frequent and more deadly, it says. Quoting U.N.-compiled figures, the State Department said terrorists launched about 140 suicide-bomb attacks in 2007.

The number of terror attacks in Afghanistan increased from 969 in 2006 to 1,127 last year, and the number of people killed, injured or kidnapped as the result of terrorism rose from 3,557 in 2006 to 4,673 in 2007, the report says.

In the face of attacks by the Taliban and related groups on coalition forces and others, Afghanistan has struggled to build a stable, democratic government. However, it has taken steps to build strong relationships with neighboring Pakistan and address problems such as poverty that help fuel terrorism, the report says.

The Program for Strengthening Peace and Reconciliation has persuaded more than 5,000 Taliban members and other insurgents to stop their lives of violence, it says.

The shifting situation in Afghanistan prompted the top U.S. military officer to say in early April that he is "deeply concerned" about the situation there, and that maintaining troops in Iraq is harming overall U.S. military capabilities.

"The Taliban is growing bolder, suicide attacks are on the rise, and so is the trade in illegal narcotics," said Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the United States needs more troops to hold areas of southern Afghanistan -- the region of highest concern -- and to train local army and police personnel.

The two men testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. The United States recently sent an additional 3,500 troops to Afghanistan, but commanders in the region would like 10,000 to 12,000 more, Gates said. He said he doubted NATO would make up the difference.

Although 25 NATO allies and 13 other countries have contributed forces, the bulk of the recent fighting in Afghanistan has been done by U.S., Canadian, British and Dutch troops. Canadian troops are based in the southern province of Kandahar, once a Taliban stronghold.

Interview: Afghan stability will take a generation-US general

FORT BRAGG, N.C., April 29 (Reuters) - Stabilizing Afghanistan will need an international commitment lasting a generation, the general who has just spent more than a year commanding U.S. forces there said on Tuesday.

Maj. Gen. David Rodriguez, commander of the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division, said Afghan and international organizations had to work together closely to improve all aspects of daily life to win over ordinary Afghans.

'Everything is interrelated,' he said in an interview at his headquarters at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

'There's no separation in the minds of the people out there,' Rodriguez said. 'It's the opportunities they have, it's the security they have and it's the ability to provide for their children.'

Violence involving the Taliban and other insurgents has risen sharply in Afghanistan over the past two years, particularly suicide attacks and car bombings.

But Rodriguez, who returned home this month after some 14 months commanding the U.S. contingent of NATO's security force in Afghanistan, said he was optimistic about the future, although change would take time.

'As the government and security forces improve... people will see and have confidence that this is the way ahead,' he said. 'They're increasing that confidence every day but they still have a long way to go.'

Asked how long it would take to create lasting stability in Afghanistan, Rodriguez replied: 'In some way, shape or form ... I think it's a generation.'

Rodriguez said the size of foreign military forces in Afghanistan would decline over time, but the country would still need international help in other areas such as building infrastructure and government capacity.

'We've done this many times before,' Rodriguez said of efforts to stabilize countries such as Korea, Japan and Germany after wars. 'It's been between 20 and 30, sometimes 50, years,' he said.

The United States has some 34,000 troops in Afghanistan, split between NATO's 47,000-strong force and other missions.

Despite the overall increase in violence in Afghanistan, Rodriguez has won praise for progress in security and governance in the U.S.-led sector in the east of the country.

Rodriguez stressed the importance of understanding Afghan society and said U.S. troops had developed a Wikipedia-style internal Web site of information about the country.

'Everybody gets to input -- it's just like Wikipedia,' he said, referring to the Internet encyclopedia that takes contributions from readers. 'A young corporal figured out how to do that.'

Earlier this year, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said troops under the general's command were 'doing a terrific job' and had counterinsurgency skills 'down pat.'

Such skills, aimed at winning the trust of local people, are very different from those often associated with the 82nd Airborne Division, among the most famous in the U.S. Army.

Its paratroopers, known for their maroon berets, have a history of tough combat missions going back to World War Two.

But Rodriguez said he believed the wide range of skills his soldiers used in Afghanistan -- from mentoring local security forces to helping local officials contract for reconstruction projects -- would be necessary in future conflicts too.

'I think we're going to need to do that -- to be multi-functional and pentathletes, to do everything and anything it takes to make a difference and accomplish the mission,' he said.

Turkey Condemns Terrorist Attack Targeting Afghan Officials

TurkishPress.com - Headlines - Published: 4/30/2008 ANKARA

Turkey condemned Wednesday the terrorist attack in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, which targeted top Afghan officials. The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) issued a press release strongly condemning the terrorist attack.

"Turkey strongly condemns the terrorist attack that was staged in Kabul on April 27th during the independence day celebrations of our brother country Afghanistan, which claimed the lives of four people including MP Fazil Rahman Camkhani and an infant, and wounded many others," said the statement.

The statement said President Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent messages of condolence following the terrorist attack "which targeted the peace of Afghan people and the atmosphere of stability in the country, in the person of Afghan President Hamid Karzai."

Turkish MFA pointed out that terror had no religion, nationality and wished condolence for the Afghan people and government. The MFA wowed to keep on contributing to the establishment of peace and stability in this country.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai escaped unhurt after an assassination attempt by Taliban terrorists with guns and rockets during an official celebration in Kabul during independence day celebrations of his country. (OZG-MS)

Blast 'targets' pro-Taleban group

BBC - At least one person has been killed and 30 wounded in a blast at the offices of a pro-Taleban group in north-west Pakistan, local officials say.

The explosion appeared to target a religious organisation called the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in the Khyber tribal region.

A group spokesman said the blast was the work of a suicide attacker. Some observers say the group has a history of militancy and explosives may have detonated by accident.

A spokesman for the group, Munsif Ali Khan, told the BBC it was a suicide attack, carried out by a teenage man, just after the daily teachings from the Koran when the group's head, Haji Namdar asked for donations.

"The boy was about 18 or 19," Munsif Khan said. "He got up and walked towards [Haji Namdar] with a pistol in his hand which he wanted to donate. He blew himself up just when he was handing the gun to the amir."

The spokesman said the attacker and Haji Namdar were holding hands at the time. He said the young man died, but that Haji Namdar was not harmed at all.

"This is the third time God has saved [Haji Namdar]. Twice before he was targeted by bomb attacks, but every time he remained unharmed." Some of the injured are said to be in a critical condition.

An official of the Khyber administration told the BBC that the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice group was suspected of involvement in the kidnapping of World Food Programme officials as well as the kidnapping of more than 10 Pakistani paramilitary personnel in the Khyber region earlier this year.

The hostages were subsequently released. The organisation denies the charges and says it intervened to get the hostages freed. The Khyber official also said the organisation was suspected of carrying out suicide attacks in Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar province.

Khyber is one of seven semi-autonomous tribal regions along the Afghan border. Last month, a suicide bomber in a car attacked a Pakistani army base near the Afghan border, killing five troops and injuring nine.

Zardari condemns attack on Afghan president

Text of report by official news agency Associated Press of Pakistan (APP)

Islamabad, 29 April: Co-Chairman Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Asif Ali Zardari has condemned the attack on Afghan President Hamed Karzai and termed it a cowardly and shameful act.

In a statement on Tuesday [29 April], the PPP Co-Chairman said that he was shocked to learn about the attack on the eve of a high profile military parade in Kabul in which three people were killed and several injured. "Such cowardly and shameful attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan would not deter the peoples of the two countries to fight militancy in all its manifestations," he said. He also condole the death of those killed in the attack. Meanwhile the PPP Co-Chairman has also condole the death of eminent freedom fighter and social worker Begum Zari Sarfaraz. "Begum Zari Sarfaraz was a great freedom fighter whose courage to mobilize women in a conservative society in the struggle for Pakistan would long be remembered" he said. He also prayed to Allah Almighty to grant eternal peac! e to her soul and strength to members of the bereaved family to bear the loss with fortitude.

Pakistan frontier politician condemns Afghan jerga attack

Text of report headlined "ANP chief flays Jalalabad jirga attack" published by Pakistani newspaper The News website on 30 April

Peshawar: Awami National Party (ANP) President Asfandyar Wali Khan has condemned the suicide attack on a peace jirga at Jalalabad, terming it a conspiracy to sabotage the ongoing peace process.

In a statement issued from Dubai, he said certain elements wanted to disrupt peace and create law and order problem in the Pakhtun belt to fulfil their nefarious designs. "The peoples of Pakistan and Afghanistan must show tolerance and steadfastness to defeat the common enemy and pave the way for restoring durable peace in the region," Asfandyar said, adding that Pakhtuns could not be intimidated through such cowardice acts.

The ANP expressed his sympathies with the bereaved families and prayed for the departed souls as well as early recovery of the injured.

Meanwhile, NWFP Chief Minister Ameer Haider Khan Hoti, Senior Minister Rahimdad Khan and ANP Acting President Muhammad Adeel condemned the attack on Afghan President Hamid Karzai during a military parade in Kabul. Hoti and Rahimdad telephoned Afghan Consul-General Abdul Khaliq Farahi in Peshawar and expressed their deep concern over the attack and loss of human lives.

Adeel also visited Afghan Consulate and expressed his profound sorrow over the tragic incident. He conveyed the party message of peace and said that dialogue was the only way to resolve all the issues.

Australian defence minister visits troops in Afghanistan

Text of report by Radio Australia, international service of the government-funded ABC, on 30 April

Australia's defence minister has visited the country's troops in Afghanistan and says their morale is good. Joel Fitzgibbon's visit comes just days after 27-year-old Australian [commando] Jason Marks was killed by Taleban insurgents. Four soldiers were also seriously wounded in a gunfire battle in the country's south. He says he wanted to deliver a personal message to reassure the troops of the support at home.

[Fitzgibbon] To reassure them that they have the full support of the government and they will always get all the attention, capability and training they need to do their job as effectively and as efficiently as possible, and of course as safely as possible. Morale on the ground, I have to say, given the events of this week was very, very good.

Canada reaches out to Taliban

After years of refusing to negotiate with insurgents, soldiers in Kandahar put word out they want to talk

GRAEME SMITH – Globe and Mail, May 1, 2008

KHENJAKAK, AFGHANISTAN -- Canadian troops are reaching out to the Taliban for the first time, military and diplomatic officials say, as Canada softens its ban on speaking with the insurgents.

After years of rejecting any contact with the insurgents, Canadian officials say those involved with the mission are now rethinking the policy in hopes of helping peace efforts led by the Afghan government.

The Canadian work on political solutions follows two separate tracks: tactical discussions at a local level in Kandahar, and strategic talks through the Kabul government and its allies. Neither type of negotiation appears to have made progress so far, though efforts are still in the early stages.

In Kabul, the topic is under discussion within the Afghan government and among members of the Policy Action Group, a high-level committee that includes Canada, as major international players try to find agreement among themselves about so-called "red lines," or parameters for talks with top Taliban commanders.

President Hamid Karzai has called for peace talks with Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, but there is heated debate about how such dialogue might affect Afghanistan's constitution, laws and state structure. The Taliban have called for strict Islamic laws, for instance, and insurgent leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar has suggested a rewriting of the constitution. Some participants in the discussions are even suggesting Taliban leaders should be given political posts, or control over districts or provinces, though this is fiercely contested.

The United States is said to want to maintain an ability to continue military operations in Afghanistan, which it views as crucial to the fight against al-Qaeda and other extremists.

In Kandahar, the Canadian military seems to be moving cautiously toward smaller, more localized talks with insurgents.

Stakeholders' positions

There's little agreement among those with a stake in Afghanistan about whether to negotiate with the Taliban, and if so how to go about it. These are some of the positions.

Afghanistan

The government, which has had a series of secret talks with the "moderate Taliban" since 2003, insists that the Taliban must first surrender completely, disavow armed insurrection and accept the foreign presence before entering formal negotiations.

Taliban

Last year, a spokesman for the Taliban said leader Mullah Mohammed Omar has approved demands for negotiations, including control of 10 southern provinces, a timetable for withdrawal of all foreign troops, and the release of all Taliban prisoners in six months. Not all the fighters are on board, however, with some saying they'll never negotiate.

Pakistan

The newly elected government quickly began negotiations with Taliban groups in that country, and could act as a trusted host for any negotiations among the Kabul government, NATO and the Afghan Taliban.

United States

Officially, the United States is strongly against any negotiations with the Taliban. But Kurt Volker the deputy head of the European and Eurasian Affairs office at the U.S. State Department, said Washington welcomed Afghan President Hamid Karzai's bid to sit down with radical Afghan groups, as long as they rejected violence.

Britain

Although Prime Minister Gordon Brown told Parliament, "We will not enter into negotiations with these people," his Defence Secretary, Des Browne, said in March that Britain and other democratic states should negotiate with elements of the Taliban, among other extremist groups, to prevent the long-term spread of terrorism. It's been reported that MI-6, Britain's external security service, has already held secret talks with the Taliban. At the local level, the British cut a deal, appointing a former Taliban leader as district chief of Musa Qala in Helmand province in exchange for security guarantees.

Netherlands

Although the Dutch are reluctant to go into details, negotiating with the Taliban is an explicit part of Dutch military policy in Afghanistan. Talks are usually held through the provincial governor.

Germany

The government is officially against negotiations, but some members of the governing coalition have suggested Berlin host talks with the Taliban.

S Korea to send police to Afghanistan

SEOUL, May 1 (Xinhua) -- South Korea plans to send dozens of police officers to Afghanistan later this year to help train local police, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported on Thursday.

The U.S. government demanded South Korea to send police to Afghanistan early last month. "Internal consultations on the request are under way," Yonhap quoted an unnamed Foreign Ministry official as saying.

The official said that related details, including the dispatch timing and scale, will be decided within the first half of this year.

The official also said South Korean police, if dispatched, will work with American police operating in Afghanistan. South Korean soldiers will not need to accompany the police officers to guard them, he said.

South Korea withdraw about 200 military medics and engineers from Afghanistan at the end of last year after Taliban militants agreed to release dozens of kidnapped South Koreans last Summer in Afghanistan, ending its six-year military role there.

Czech soldier killed, four wounded by roadside bomb in Afghanistan

Text of report in English by Czech national public-service news agency CTK

Kabul/Prague, 30 April A Czech soldier died in Afghanistan today after a roadside bomb exploded, Czech chief-of-staff Vlastimil Picek told CTK.

The soldier died when he was transported to hospital. Further four troops in the Humvee military vehicle were wounded, one of them seriously. The soldiers belong to the Czech Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT).

Picek said all five injured soldiers received first aid after the incident and a helicopter transported them to a military hospital in Bagram. The bomb blasted at 1550 local time in the Logar province.

Picek said the injured soldiers and the remains of the dead soldier would be transported to the Czech Republic as soon as possible. This is the third Czech soldier who has died in Afghanistan.

In March, a Czech military policeman was killed in a suicide attack. A year ago, a Czech soldier died in an accident caused by flooding in northern Afghanistan.

Czech parliament approves sending 100 special forces to Afghanistan

Text of report in English by Czech national public-service news agency CTK

Prague, 30 April: The Czech Republic will send 100 soldiers from a special forces unit in Prostejov, south Moravia, to Afghanistan as the Chamber of Deputies approved the mission today. The Senate supported the government's proposal last week.

The vote on the mission was dramatic as three deputies from the junior government parties, Olga Zubova, Vera Jakubkova (both Greens, SZ) and Ludvik Hovorka (Christian Democrats, KDU-CSL), voted against it.

The government, which has only 100 seats in the 200-seat lower house, did not have enough votes to push the proposal through first. However, some opposition Social Democrats (CSSD) supported the proposal in the second vote, so the Chamber passed the Afghan mission in the end.

Czech troops will fulfil combat tasks under US command in Afghanistan. They will participate in special anti-terrorist operations.

Defence Minister Vlasta Parkanova (Christian Democrats, KDU-CSL) said previously the ! soldiers might be deployed within the Enduring Freedom operation in very dangerous parts of Afghanistan and that they would not be part of NATO units.

Members of the 601st group of special forces from Prostejov had already operated in Afghanistan in 2004 and 2006.

The parliament decided that the troops would serve in Afghanistan by the end of the year. However, Parkanova said the government expected the mission to continue next year as well.

The government puts the costs of the Prostejov special unit's mission at 213m crowns, which will be paid from the Defence Ministry's budget. The transport costs will be covered by the United States on which request the Czech government proposed the soldiers' deployment.

Germany sends more money, not troops to Afghanistan

Peter O'Neil, Canwest News Service

The Vancouver sun April 30, 2008

PARIS - Germany, sensitive to mounting criticism from the U.S., Canada and Great Britain over its fear of risking soldiers' lives in Afghanistan, is expanding its efforts in the country's dangerous southern region.

But instead of sending troops, Chancellor Angela Merkel's shaky coalition government, dealing with a largely pacifist electorate wary of foreign military engagements, is sending money to fund reconstruction of technical high schools.

The aid will be funneled to Kandahar, where the majority of Canada's 2,500 troops are based, and Khost, in eastern Afghanistan near the volatile Pakistan border.

"Germany is intensifying its commitment to vocational training in Afghanistan," stated a Foreign Ministry news release, adding that Berlin will also fund a car repair workshop and training facility in the relatively tranquil northern region where Germany's 3,200-troop contribution is stationed.

"The creation of income prospects plays a central role, particularly in regions which up to now have benefited less from reconstruction."

The $8.5-million initiative, announced in Afghanistan, will include the participation of the Canadian government in Kandahar, according to the German Foreign Ministry statement.

"The Canadian government will participate in this project by launching a wide-ranging training program. The shared objective is to provide the growing number of school-leavers with improved job prospects."

Germany has been the source of biting criticism, and sometimes mockery, for keeping its troops away from the country's hotspots.

"Some soldiers in Afghanistan drink beer, the others risk their lives," the leading German newsmagazine Der Spiegel once reported. "That is how the British have characterized the current disparity among NATO allies in Afghanistan."

German analysts say the government has portrayed its mission to the public as a peacekeeping and development effort rather than one related to combat and war.

The ministry's statement Tuesday noted that Germany's annual civilian reconstruction budget for Afghanistan jumped roughly $80 million to $220 million this year.

Turkmen leader invites German firms to take part in four-nation gas project

Text of report by Russian state news agency ITAR-TASS

Asgabat, 29 April: Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow has invited German companies to take part in construction of a trans-Afghan gas pipeline which will link Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

The proposal was made at today's meeting between the Turkmen president and representatives of German business circles - the heads of the Siemens and Goertz & Partners companies, Rudi Lamprecht and Stephan Goertz, respectively, the Turkmen government's press service said.

Speaking about the results of his recent state visit to Afghanistan, Berdimuhamedow cited the large-scale project for the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline as an example of future partnership.

The fuel and energy sector was described as one of the most promising spheres of partnership between Turkmenistan and Germany.

Among possible joint projects, the sides mentioned reconstruction of oil refineries in Turkmenbasy and Seydi [eastern Turkmenista! n] as well as the introduction of energy-saving technologies.

Berdimuhamedow spoke in favour of drafting a comprehensive programme on cooperation in the fields of energy, industrial construction, petrochemistry, textile industry, transport, telecommunications and others.

For their part, the German businessmen said that they were ready to actively cooperate with Turkmenistan in transportation, communications and industry. The sides also discussed construction of a trans-national railway line linking the region's countries, providing a more efficient route for cargo transportation from Europe to Southeast Asia and visa versa.

Afghans struggle as food prices soar

BBC - A severe food crisis in Afghanistan - caused by rising wheat prices - threatens to further destabilise an already deeply troubled country, writes the BBC's Alastair Leithead in Kabul.

Inside a small mud house in the communal garden of a block of flats, Qamair Gul is hunched over a bread oven, her eyes streaming from the thick smoke bellowing out from the scrap-wood fire she uses to cook.

Two women in blue burkas sit inside watching as she kneads the dough and slaps and stretches it into the characteristic shape of Afghan bread before sticking it to the side of the oven to bake.

Qamair is a war widow - there are tens of thousands of women like her in Kabul - who make a few pence cooking bread for the poor. In the last few weeks her workload has halved as the price of wheat has doubled.

"If it stays as bad as this for another month everyone will turn against the government. Prices weren't this bad even during the war," she says complaining about how difficult things have become since the price hike.

Kabul's flour market, where truck loads of imported wheat flour are unloaded and stored in warehouses, is practically deserted in comparison to just a few weeks ago.

"Normally we would have 100 to 150 lorries full of flour arriving every day," said shopkeeper Mohammad Asif. "Right now there aren't even five or 10 lorries coming. Look how few people there are at the market."

He described how the price of a 50kg bag of flour had gone from 700 Afghanis ($14) at the start of the year, to 1,250 Afghanis ($26) four weeks ago, and how this week it passed 2,500 Afghanis ($50) for the first time.

A month's supply of wheat for an average Afghan family now costs the same as the total monthly wage of most civil servants.

The price fluctuates wildly throughout the day as rumours circulate about where or when new stocks might be coming in from, or that some Afghan delegation visit to Pakistan might have finally persuaded their neighbours to lift the export ban.

Isolated and landlocked, Afghanistan has come to depend on Pakistan for its wheat. But with the global crisis exports have been stopped - even illegal ones by donkey across the long and porous border.

This has led to big demonstrations in the eastern city of Jalalabad, where the wheat used to enter Afghanistan and which has felt the increase even more than other parts of the country.

"Pakistan grows more than it needs, but right now the government has put an export ban on their wheat due to rising prices at home and a shortage of wheat available in the markets of Pakistan," said Tony Banbury, the Asia regional director for the UN World Food Programme (WFP).

"Afghanistan has very poorly developed markets, bad roads. It's very expensive to get food to remote parts of the country and people are very poor, so whatever the challenges other countries are facing they are particularly difficult in Afghanistan," he said.

The UN has been holding talks in Pakistan to persuade the government to sell hundreds of thousands of tonnes to the WFP and the Afghan government to help alleviate the crisis, but for the moment the new Pakistani government has its own problems.

Yet the problem is really having an impact in Afghanistan - an already deeply troubled country.

Hundreds of people gathered at a food distribution point north of Kabul city - most of them poor women wearing their burkas and waiting in line to be given a couple of sacks of wheat from three WFP trucks.

Some blamed President Karzai for not doing more to help, others said they had no idea what would happen to them or to their families if the prices did not drop soon.

The humanitarian crisis is just one worry in Afghanistan.

The street protests have already started, and - with the Taleban insurgency still raging across large swathes of the country - it could destabilise an already precarious situation even more.

Afghan 'health link' to uranium

By Dawood Azami One Planet, BBC World Service Wednesday, 30 April 2008 15:58 UK

Doctors in Afghanistan say rates of some health problems affecting children have doubled in the last two years.

Some scientists say the rise is linked to use of weapons containing depleted uranium (DU) by the US-led coalition that invaded the country in 2001.

A Canadian research group found very high levels of uranium in Afghans during tests just after the invasion.

A US forces spokesman denied its weapons were affecting the health of Afghans or the country's environment.

But claims made in the BBC World Service One Planet programme suggest the invasion may have left an unwelcome legacy for the country's environment and the health of its people.

Doctors in Kabul and Kandahar showed data indicating that the incidence of a number of health conditions, including birth defects, has doubled in under two years.

"We have premature births and malformations," said one doctor, who wished to remain anonymous, in one of the main maternity and neo-natal hospitals in the country.

"Malformations include neural tube defects and malformation of limbs; for example, the head is smaller than normal, or the head is larger than normal, or there is a big mass on the back of the baby. "We don't know what is the cause of these malformations."

The Canada-based Uranium Medical Research Centre (UMRC) believes the cause might be depleted uranium. In 2002 and 2003 the group ran programmes analysing urine from Afghans. In some, it found levels of uranium hundreds of times greater than in Gulf War veterans.

Asaf Durakovic, URMC's president and a former US army adviser, believes that exposure to DU weapons may have brought a rise in birth defects as well as "symptoms of muscular-skeletal pains, immune system disorders, lung disease, and eventually cancer".

Depleted uranium and natural uranium contain different ratios of two isotopes of the metal. So scientists can tell whether a person has been exposed to the natural form, or to DU.

DU is used in armour-piercing shells because its density means it can penetrate further than other metals.

Dr Durakovic said his research showed that in Afghanistan, coalition forces had also used DU in "bunker buster" bombs, which can penetrate tens of metres into the soil.

"In Afghanistan it has to be... a weapon that destroys not only bunkers or caves, but also penetrates through the soil and through the fragile environment of the mountains."

Villagers near the Tora Bora mountains, scene of a massive coalition attack in 2001 aimed at forcing Osama bin Laden out of a cave complex where he was believed to be hiding, suspect the bombs brought an increase in diseases and other problems.

"There was a strange smell, and most of the trees here did not yield fruit," recounted Yusuf Khan. Another villager, Bakhtawar, said: "There were three or four babies born in our area whose arms and legs and faces were not normal; they were malformed."

But Faizullah Kakar, Afghanistan's deputy health minister, countered: "Health defects are common in Afghanistan. "We want to find out if it is nutritional deficiency or environmental contamination with certain radiation that is doing it.

The US military rejects claims that it used DU-containing bunker busters in Afghanistan. It also denies allegations that the weapons it used in Afghanistan are affecting health and the environment.

"We don't use depleted uranium in Afghanistan; we don't have a requirement to use that," said Major Chris Belcher, spokesman for the coalition forces. But he said such weapons might have been used in the past.

"I don't have any knowledge of what might have been used in 2001 and 2002. If there was an armour threat, the DU rounds would have been used to counter that threat."

Dr C Ross Anthony from the Rand Corporation, the US think-tank, suggested use of DU ordnance would have been light in Afghanistan. "With very few of them (DU weapons) being used, it is hard for me to imagine that much of a real environmental problem exists," he said.

Some scientific experts suggested performing further research into the alleged damage caused by weapons used in the country.

But officials in Afghanistan's newly established National Environmental Protection Agency said they did not have the necessary equipment or expertise to investigate properly.

And Chris Alexander from the United Nations Assistance Mission for Afghanistan (UNAMA) acknowledged it was a concern, but said: "We have no idea what the scale is, nor do we have special knowledge about environmental implications."

Asaf Durakovic would prefer that concrete measures be taken now. "The best thing is to relocate the population; people have to be moved from the areas that have been highly contaminated to safe areas to provide medical testing and medical care."

Following the use of DU weapons in Iraq and the Balkans, the World Health Organization (WHO) researched the impact on health and the environment.

It concluded, as did a 2001 European Union enquiry into the Balkans conflict, that DU posed little threat. A senior WHO official told One Planet it had not received any request from Afghan authorities to investigate the current situation.

You can listen to One Planet, or download it as a podcast, by visiting the BBC World Service's One Planet website. This edition should be available from approximately noon GMT Thursday

Schools in Afghan capital on strike over pay

Excerpt from report by privately-owned Afghan Aina TV on 29 April

[Presenter] Poverty and frustration have forced teachers at Esteqlal High School in Kabul to go on strike. The high school teachers accused the Education Ministry of negligence in resolving their problems. They said that they would continue their strike until their salary was increased.

[Correspondent] After teachers at Habibia High School went on strike last Thursday [24 April], teachers at Esteqlal High School followed suit and are on strike for the past two days. They, 131 teachers, claim that the Education Ministry has made repeated false promises to increase their salary, but has not kept them. Poverty, frustration and low salaries are the main reasons which forced them to go on strike.

[An unidentified teacher] We are hungry. We also want food. We want to live an honourable life, like our fellow citizens.

[Second unidentified teacher] Teachers are in bad condition. They cannot tolerate this anymore. We cannot tolerate this anymore. Ou! r patience has run out.

[Passage omitted: three more teachers, interviewed, make similar complaints]

[Education Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar] All of our teachers, who are paid so much in salary, live below the poverty line. At least, their legitimate demand that the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan must lift them out of poverty by taking this courageous step [raising their salary], should be met.

[Passage omitted: because of the strike, classes have been cancelled at the school]

[Correspondent] After teachers at Habibia High School went on strike in protest at low salaries, the headmaster of Esteqlal High School said that a number of other schools in Kabul had also gone on strike over the past two days to demand that the government should increase their salaries.

Editorial: A Separate Peace?

Pakistan's new government negotiates with the militants who harbor al-Qaeda and target U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Washington Post - Thursday, May 1, 2008; Page A18

THOSE WHO argue that U.S. troops should be redeployed from Iraq to Afghanistan to combat al-Qaeda often miss the point that few of al-Qaeda's cadres and none of its leaders can be found in Afghanistan. They are based across the border in the tribal areas of Pakistan, where they are training militants for new attacks in Europe and the United States -- and where they are outside the reach of conventional U.S. forces. U.S. hopes of capturing Osama bin Laden and destroying his network continue to rest with the government and armed forces of Pakistan. Even in Afghanistan, victory over the Taliban movement will require the disruption of Pakistani bases where the Afghan militants rest and reequip.

Under President Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's fight against the extremists was selective and sporadic. For several years after 2001, Mr. Musharraf fought al-Qaeda but gave a pass to the Taliban, which has support on both sides of the border. Mr. Musharraf finally ordered attacks on tribesmen believed to be harboring al-Qaeda, then tried striking a deal with them. When the truce broke down, the Pakistan-based Taliban launched a full-scale war against Pakistan's military and political elite. Hundreds were killed in suicide bombings, including former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

Now Mr. Musharraf has lost most of his power to a democratically elected government controlled by Ms. Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari -- and once again, a deal with the Pakistani Taliban is under discussion. Though not yet finalized, the pact reportedly would resemble that struck by Mr. Musharraf: The Taliban would promise to cease attacks inside Pakistan and expel foreign militants, including members of al-Qaeda, while the Pakistani army would retreat from the tribal territories and prisoners would be exchanged.

Mr. Zardari's willingness to accept a truce with Islamic militants, possibly including those charged with sponsoring his wife's murder, reflects the considerable political pressure the new government faces from Pakistanis resentful of what they regard as a costly war fought by Mr. Musharraf to defend U.S. interests. Government officials say the new truce will not be like the old one, that Pakistani militants will have to disarm and that the lawless territories they inhabit will be targeted for long-overdue economic development and political reforms. They hold out hope of Pakistani tribes following the example of Iraqis who turned against al-Qaeda.

That prospect is attractive but unlikely. Pakistan's Taliban is more closely bonded to al-Qaeda than were the Iraqi Sunnis -- and the Taliban remains committed to attacking U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Any peace bought by a Pakistani truce is likely to come at the expense of enhancing what CIA Director Michael V. Hayden recently called a "clear and present danger to Afghanistan, to Pakistan and to the West in general, and to the United States in particular."

For a limited time, the United States should take the risk of being patient with Pakistan's new democratic government. The Taliban leaders reportedly have promised that if the pact is sealed, they will take action against al-Qaeda within a month. If that action is not taken, or if attacks into Afghanistan increase, the Bush administration has considerable leverage, including a $750 million aid program promised for the tribal areas -- and the option of unilateral military action using drones or Special Forces. While a multi-pronged approach will certainly be needed to eliminate the threat in Pakistan, al-Qaeda cannot be allowed to benefit from a truce.

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