In this bulletin:

• Two Afghan officials arrested in Karzai assassination plot
• Afghanistan urges Pakistan to stop 'terrorists'
• ‘Pakistan needs 3 years to root out insurgency’
• Taking Back The Frontier
• My brush with a suicide bomber
• The boy who took Karzai's bullet
• Afghanistan: Gates Says U.S. Could Eye Expanded Role
• Pentagon Considers Adding Forces in Afghanistan to Make Up for NATO Shortfall
• Soldier dies in Afghanistan
• Afghan Taleban warns attack on South Korean facilities if police dispatched
• Afghan NATO forces' oil tanker blown up in Pakistan tribal area
• Japanese FM on surprise visit to Afghanistan
• Afghan police foil heroin smuggling to Tajikistan
• New Zealand troops deny damaging Afghan Buddha remains
• Food crisis leaves many Afghans desperate
• Corruption eats away at Afghan government
• Building on strength in Afghanistan
• Taliban claim victory from a defeat
• Afghanistan proposes entertainment ban seen as throwback to Taliban
• Federal officials in New York say Afghan tribal chief had strong links to Taliban in 2005
• Six Afghan exchange students flee to Canada
• Hidden jewel of Afghan culture

Two Afghan officials arrested in Karzai assassination plot

Associated Press - May 4, 2008- KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Top Afghan officials say they have arrested two government employees for alleged involvement in last week's plot to kill President Hamid Karzai (HAH'-mihd KAHR'-zeye).

Afghanistan's defense minister says a police nurse and a defense ministry weapons expert supported the gunmen who targeted Karzai at a military parade in Kabul.

Karzai escaped unharmed but three other people, including a lawmaker, died. The defense minister told a news conference that two assault rifles used in last Sunday's assassination attempt were government-issued weapons.

The country's intelligence chief is still blaming al-Qaida-linked militants based in neighboring Pakistan for hatching the plot. He called on Pakistan to put pressure on militant safe havens in its lawless tribal areas.

Afghanistan urges Pakistan to stop 'terrorists'

Sun May 4, 1:03 AM ET - KABUL (AFP) - Pakistan should stop "terrorists" from using its soil to attack Afghanistan if it makes deals with Taliban militants along the troubled border, the Afghan defence ministry said.

Islamabad has been trying to reach a peace deal with a Taliban commander on its side of the frontier. The militant halted talks last week because the government refused to withdraw its troops from his area.

The Afghan defence ministry said it was concerned any such deal would not result in a cessation of violence in Afghanistan by militants said to be based in Pakistan and to cross the border to attack.

The ministry cited media reports that a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban vowed to continue the "real jihad (holy war)" in Afghanistan even if a peace deal was reached with Islamabad.

"Afghanistan supports any action resulting in peace and stability in the region but only if such actions do not cause further terrorist activities in Afghanistan," it said.

The ministry described a now-defunct 2006 deal between Pakistan and pro-Taliban militants in its Waziristan area as a "bitter experience."

It had allowed militants "sufficient time to regroup, re-equip and moblise themselves and take the lives of hundreds of children, women and men," it said, referring to a wave of extremist violence in both countries.

"Afghanistan's biggest hope from the brotherly and friendly country of Pakistan is that its land be not used by terrorists against Afghanistan," it added.

The Taliban were removed from government in Afghanistan in a US-led invasion in late 2001 for harbouring Al-Qaeda, which it allowed to operate training camps.

Many rebels fled across the border to Pakistan from where they are said to be plotting an Al-Qaeda-backed insurgency that has left thousands of people dead in Afghanistan, including civilians and international troops supporting Kabul.

The US State Department said last week that Al-Qaeda is rebuilding itself in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas and North West Frontier Province, both on the border with Afghanistan.

Kabul favours peace talks with rebels to halt the unrest, but only with those who agree to accept the new government and renounce violence.

‘Pakistan needs 3 years to root out insurgency’

Daily Times 3 May 2008 - WASHINGTON: Pakistan does not have the capability to root out terrorists based along its Afghan border for at least three years, according to the Pentagon.

Bloomberg reports that according to a report submitted to the US Congress House and Senate defence panels, “safe havens” for Al Qaeda and Taliban militants in this area “have grown in recent years. Deficiencies in the Pakistan Army’s ability to conduct counter-insurgency operations are being addressed; however, it will take three to five years before they are realised on the battlefield.”

The 16-page Pentagon report, delivered last week, is consistent with the findings of an April 17 assessment by the US Government Accountability Office, which said that the US lacked a comprehensive strategy for dealing with the problem. The Pentagon report is silent on that question. The report notes that since 2001, Pakistan has launched at least 91 major and “countless” smaller operations in support of US counter-terror efforts, lost over 1,400 soldiers, and unveiled a comprehensive “Frontier Strategy” to stem the flow of terrorists and insurgents. The nine-year, $2 billion counter-insurgency effort envisions improving existing social and economic conditions, upgrading infrastructure and bolstering commerce, the report says. khalid hasan

Taking Back The Frontier

• Washington Post, By Ahmed Rashid Sunday, May 4, 2008

LAHORE, Pakistan -- The most dangerous place on Earth -- the Pashtun tribal belt straddling Pakistan's border with Afghanistan -- is about to get more dangerous. As the summer offensive by al-Qaeda and the Taliban against U.S. and NATO troops gets underway in Afghanistan and the militant groups threaten to resume their attacks on Pakistan's army, the newly elected government in Islamabad needs the support and patience of the Bush administration rather than Washington's single-minded desire for military solutions.

Much has been made in the United States about the possibility that Pakistan's coalition government is about to cut a deal with Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban who rules over much of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Such a deal would free up Pakistani and Afghan Taliban members for the summer offensive in Afghanistan.

Almost every global terrorist plot carried out or prevented since 2004 has been traced to training, funding or material support from al-Qaeda based in these areas. The key to changing the status quo in the tribal areas is major political reform. Instead of archaic colonial laws, the tribal areas need a strategic vision and political changes based on consultations with the people living there.

The Pashtun tribes in the tribal areas must be given the political and social opportunities available to all Pakistanis, and the authority of the state must prevail. Ultimately, such reforms must lead to the people making a democratic decision about their status -- such as establishing a separate province or becoming part of the neighboring Pashtun-majority North-West Frontier Province.

Benazir Bhutto spoke about the urgent need for such reforms. Her Pakistan People's Party leads the coalition government with the Awami National Party, a secular Pashtun group whose leader, Afsandyar Wali, has said much the same.

In the short term, the government could open a dialogue with all the tribes, Pashtun civil society and even those Taliban members who will lay down their weapons. It could more effectively isolate the extremists if it had a political future to offer the people of the tribal areas.

Yet the government appears to be backsliding on long-term reform. The parties are being squeezed by the army, which wants a quick, localized peace accord with the Pakistani Taliban (which would give its troops breathing space) and by the Bush administration, which is suspicious of long-term political programs and wants U.S. troops to be able to pursue extremists in the tribal areas.

Right now, though, only the extremists have a clear vision for the tribal areas -- they want a state ruled by Islamic law, independent of Pakistan, where al-Qaeda and extremist groups can congregate.

The deal under discussion is inadequate. The Pakistani Taliban would stop its attacks on Pakistan's army and free several hundred hostages but would make no promises about ceasing attacks in Afghanistan. The government would largely hand over to extremists major swaths of the tribal areas and free Taliban leaders it is holding. Pakistan's army has struck similar accords -- and been commended by President Bush -- yet these deals have collapsed and led to a further concentration of extremists.

The key is the army. Even though Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani, the army chief, has expressed willingness to follow the civilian government, the army calls the shots in the tribal areas. Pakistan's government cannot implement change there without army support. Kiyani wants political leaders to take "ownership" of the war on terrorism, but the army first needs to make strategic changes for the good of the region and the country.

First, it must curtail the Afghan Taliban leadership, which draws recruits, supplies and support from elements within Pakistan. The Afghan Taliban is guiding the Pakistani Taliban in the tribal areas and farther south in Baluchistan province, where the Afghan Taliban leadership is largely based.

Second, the army must accept that no political process or development programs can succeed in the tribal areas unless linked to similar efforts in the Afghan provinces where the same Pashtun tribes live. (Afghan President Hamid Karzai is trying, unsuccessfully, to woo the Afghan Taliban.) Such efforts require a much better relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan than has existed since 2001. The army needs to support improvements in relations. For its part, Afghanistan must ultimately recognize the Durand Line, a border between the two countries that no Kabul government has acknowledged.

Third, the army needs to make clear that it supports political reform in the tribal areas and will protect tribal leaders and Pashtun civilians there. Since 2004 tens of thousands of Pakistanis have fled the tribal areas rather than live under the Taliban. Hundreds of Pashtuns have already been executed by the Taliban. The army must help the refugees return and protect them while the government provides economic support. Only then can the state develop a serious Pashtun lobby for political changes in the tribal areas.

Given its massive military aid to Pakistan, the Bush administration could push the army to take such steps while also encouraging the army and the government to promote an effective plan for the tribal areas. Instead, the United States is again pushing military action -- a course that will further alienate the Pashtuns, weaken a fragile civilian government and absolve the army of responsibility for changes it must make.

Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani journalist, is the author of "Taliban" and "Jihad." His latest book, "Descent into Chaos: U.S. Policy and the Failure of Nation Building in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia," will be published next month.

My brush with a suicide bomber

By Mark Urban - BBC News, Afghanistan, Saturday, 3 May 2008

When we arranged to meet a suicide bomber, we did not expect one wearing his bomb vest, all set to blow himself up outside the building in Kabul where we were filming. But that is what happened. He was not the one we had arranged to meet. He was a different suicide bomber.

To be clear, our planned interview was with a captured man at a secret facility, belonging to Afghanistan's equivalent of MI5, the National Directorate of Security or NDS.

The one wrestled to the ground, moments before our car pulled up, was somebody sent to assassinate the NDS officer who arranged our interview. Somehow he had penetrated hundreds of yards inside the compound.

One of the NDS men proudly showed us his camcorder footage of a clean shaven man lying on the ground, a black bomb vest under his shirt and a hand grenade he had dropped on the floor nearby.

That he was there in that facility will give you a further sense - what with President Hamid Karzai being shot at - both how nowhere in Kabul is safe and how widespread suicide bombing has become in Afghanistan.

The NDS eventually produced not one but two detainees for us to talk to. Mohammed Ramadan, 22, was one of the attackers of Kabul's Serena Hotel in January.

Eight people died. The NDS said Mohammed killed some of them before he was overpowered, and sitting in that cell, he freely admitted that he had gone to the hotel to murder foreigners.

Shaki Rullah, on the other hand, was a shy boy of 14, who had been sent to the bazaar in Khost, with the aim of blowing up as many shoppers as possible. He was picked up on a tip-off and seems genuinely horrified by what he got caught up in.

What Mohammed and Shaki have in common is that they are both from Pakistan's tribal areas, both recruited in madrassas - or religious schools - and both thrust into suicide missions.

Shaki said that the men who recruited him whisked him away from the school, before he could even say goodbye to his parents.

Everybody knows that militants have been exploiting lax border controls for years. But intelligence officers say that the number of suicide attackers has increased in recent months and many believe Pakistan's recent election will do nothing to improve matters.

Britain and the United States are of course fed up with the way their people in Afghanistan and elsewhere get attacked by suicide bombers coming from Pakistan's tribal areas.

While in Islamabad recently, a senior diplomat told me that the United States had warned President Musharraf of Pakistan last year, that if a major terrorist attack in America was traced back to those notoriously unruly fiefdoms, the US would "flatten the tribal areas".

Following this threat, Pakistan began to facilitate some operations by CIA teams. Pilotless aircraft have been used in several operations recently to hit suspected al-Qaeda safe houses.

The problem for the intelligence agencies is that even President Musharraf's people are very reluctant to lead the CIA to home-grown Pakistani or Afghan militants hiding in the border areas.

What is more, a couple of the parties, who did well in the Pakistani elections, campaigned on the platform of dialogue with the extremists and saying "No" to the US more often.

Back in Kabul, we are ushered into an intelligence operations centre at Nato headquarters. Inside there are Pakistani, Afghan and Western officers working to improve the security of the border.

This collaborative project would, you would imagine, be regarded as a positive move. But the officers involved are nervous about being interviewed and filmed.

It takes a good deal of persuasion to get them to agree. And there, amid the camera-shy rictus of the Pakistani and Afghan officers, is the message. The border issue is tangled with political sensitivities.

The Afghan government is very reluctant to limit the traditional freedoms of Afghans, moving across a frontier that they barely recognise.

The Pakistanis do not want to be seen co-operating too closely with Nato or the Afghans. That annoys both Islamists and nationalists back home.

So while each of these parties struggles to scale the heights of this diplomatic, military and intelligence landscape, the militants slip through the quiet passes, in between the ungoverned space of the tribal areas.

That is exactly what Shaki Rullah, the 14 year-old, did - heading from his home in south Waziristan towards the crowded market in Khost before he was caught.

Too many get through, killing Afghans and Westerners alike. And had the man outside the NDS had his way, my own inquiry into why border security still does not work, would have ended on a rainy April morning in Kabul.

The boy who took Karzai's bullet

A child of 10 was one of three civilians who died during a botched Taliban attack on the Afghan President

Peter Beaumont in Kabul, The Observer (UK) Sunday May 4 2008

Syed Ali was playing on the roof of his mud-brick house when the killers came for Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai last week. Karzai survived the attack on Kabul's broad parade ground. Ten-year-old Syed Ali, a kilometre away watching his mother cleaning almond shells to supplement the family's winter fuel, died, with two others, when he was hit by a stray bullet.

Amid the furore of how a plot - apparently known of in advance - could have come so close to killing Karzai, the death of Syed Ali has all but been forgotten. An official from the President's office came to see the family and said he would come again. When I met the family, they were still waiting for his return.

His mother can barely speak; two days of crying has reduced her voice to a croak. The boy's uncle tells the story of yet another of the thousands of Afghanistan's dead - as the sporadic conflict has worsened in the last two years - whose stories are never told. 'He was a clever little boy,' said Syed Jan Agha. 'He wanted to be a doctor when he grew up.'

The family leads us to the tiny flat roof. There are some spilled nutshells; a little stain in the mud. The uncle points to where the bullet flew from, near the small dome of a mosque just visible in the distance. Another uncle, Sadiq Kaka, shows us a video taken on his mobile phone. It shows a child with thick dark hair. He seemed almost alive, lying on what looks like a slab. His wound is a little tear, by his right armpit.

When he was not at school, his uncle says, Syed Ali sold matches to support his family, whose staple diet is rice and water. 'We did not even have enough money to pay for the taxi to take him to be graveyard,' he says. 'So we had to borrow money for the funeral. You know, after the Taliban fell, we were promised a bright future. But those who had money benefited and the poor ... we are still poor.'

Syed Ali's father, Kamal, says: 'In the time of the civil war my elder son was also martyred. This was the second son to die.'

The attack on Karzai that killed the child and a follow-up gun battle on Wednesday with suspected Taliban has terrified Kabul. Since the suicide attack on the city's Serena Hotel in January, in which six people died, ordinary Afghans in this city fear the violence of civil war that they know so well creeping up again. The suggestion by Western officials that the Taliban is crumbling seems premature.

Thousands crowded on to roofs to watch the public retribution that came on Wednesday to a neighbourhood not far from Syed Ali's home, a steep, rocky slope above the ornate and freshly reconstructed gardens of the Barbur Bagh.

The Afghan government claims that hundreds of armed police and intelligence agents descended on a hideout of Taliban members linked to those who tried to kill Karzai. They faced rocket-propelled grenades fired from the secret tunnels by fighters who finally blew themselves up inside the house.

But the evidence at the scene and the accounts of neighbours of the group 'who came from somewhere else in Afghanistan' belies this version. There is a house but no tunnels, nor evidence of a suicide bombing.

Neighbours said that while those inside shot back at the police, they had no rockets. Indeed, all that can be seen is evidence of guns fired at close quarters at several targets inside a house: at someone hiding behind a large oil drum, and sprayed up against an inside wall. All that is clear is that a woman and a child as well as several 'militants' were shot dead.

None of this brings back Syed Ali. When his mother finally speaks, she has someone to blame - the men of violence who triggered the fighting: 'The people who killed my son were enemies of Afghanistan, and of the people of Afghanistan,' she says. '

They sent a bullet for the heart of the President of Afghanistan. But it pierced my son instead. I pray to God to do the same to them.'

Afghanistan: Gates Says U.S. Could Eye Expanded Role

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty - May 3, 2008

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said the United States could consider taking over NATO's command in southern Afghanistan, where some NATO allies have been reluctant to provide combat forces.

His comments come as U.S. media reported that the United States is considering sending extra troops to Afghanistan next year. Gates said the Pentagon would consult closely with NATO allies before making any decision to alter its military role in Afghanistan.

When asked by reporters to comment on discussion at the Pentagon about the possibility of taking over the command in southern Afghanistan, Gates said that this is "a matter that's going to be looked at over probably some period of time primarily because it requires consultation with our allies."

During a visit on May 2 to the Red River Army Depot in Texarkana, Texas, the defense chief also said the United States needs to look at whether it continues to make sense to have two combatant commands involved in one country.

The United States has 34,000 troops in Afghanistan under two commands. About 16,000 soldiers under U.S. European Command serve mostly in eastern Afghanistan as part of a 47,000-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.

The other 18,000, which are involved in counterterrorism operations and training of Afghan security forces, are under U.S. Central Command. Britain, Canada, the Netherlands, and Australia all have forces in southern Afghanistan, which has seen the worst of a rising tide of Taliban violence.

"The New York Times" reported today that the Pentagon is considering sending up to 7,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan next year to make up for a shortfall in contributions from NATO allies.

Citing unnamed senior administration officials, the newspaper said if the plan was to be approved, the number of U.S. troops in the country would entail at least a modest reduction in troops from Iraq. It said U.S. forces would then account for two-thirds of foreign troops in Afghanistan.

The officials said the decision for more troops could be left to the next U.S. president, who will take office in January, and that few additional troops were expected in Afghanistan any time soon.

The United States has recently increased its troop presence in Afghanistan. Some 3,500 Marines have been deployed to reinforce NATO forces in the south for seven months.

The United Sates and other NATO members have pushed their allies to provide combat troops and equipment to fill shortfalls in the south, but the response so far has been tepid.

According to "The New York Times" a dozen NATO countries have so far pledged a total of about 2,000 additional troops for Afghanistan, including France, while alliance commanders have asked for 10,000.

Pentagon Considers Adding Forces in Afghanistan to Make Up for NATO Shortfall

• NY Times, By STEVEN LEE MYERS and THOM SHANKER Published: May 3, 2008

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is considering sending as many as 7,000 more American troops to Afghanistan next year to make up for a shortfall in contributions from NATO allies, senior Bush administration officials said.

They said the step would push the number of American forces there to roughly 40,000, the highest level since the war began more than six years ago, and would require at least a modest reduction in troops from Iraq.

The planning began in recent weeks, reflecting a growing resignation to the fact that NATO is unable or unwilling to contribute more troops despite public pledges of an intensified effort in Afghanistan from the presidents and prime ministers who attended an alliance summit meeting in Bucharest, Romania, last month.

The shortfalls in troop commitments have cast doubt on claims by President Bush and his aides that NATO was stepping up to provide more help in Afghanistan, where the government of President Hamid Karzai faces a resurgent threat from the Taliban and remnants of Al Qaeda.

The increasing proportion of United States troops, from about half to about two-thirds of the foreign troops in Afghanistan, would be likely to result in what one senior administration official described as “the re-Americanization” of the war.

“There are simply going to be more American forces than we’ve ever had there,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing future military planning.

A dozen NATO countries have pledged a total of about 2,000 troops, according to senior NATO officials, who provided the information on condition of anonymity according to standard diplomatic rules. Senior alliance commanders in Afghanistan have said they need about 10,000 more troops.

Only one country so far has actually begun preparing more troops to deploy: France, which is sending 700 to Afghanistan, NATO officials said.

Few of the additional troops are expected to arrive any time soon, the officials added.

Officials stressed that no formal new American deployment plans for Afghanistan had been presented to the Pentagon or the White House, and that the decision could be left to the next president, though they would not rule out the prospect that Mr. Bush would order a troop increase.

Mr. Bush has long faced criticism that the Iraq war distracted the country from confronting the Qaeda threat in Afghanistan, and Democrats as well as Republicans have expressed general support for shifting more attention to Afghanistan.

There are about 62,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, about 34,000 of them American, up from just 25,000 American troops in 2005. The American troops are divided into a force of 16,000 who operate under NATO command and 18,000 who conduct counterterrorism and other missions under American command outside the NATO structure, according to Pentagon statistics. The initial planning under way would send about two additional brigades of American forces, or about 7,000 troops, to Afghanistan next year. That would meet two-thirds of what commanders have portrayed in recent months as a shortfall of three brigades, or about 10,000 troops, including combat forces, trainers, intelligence officers and crews for added helicopters and troop carriers.

Bush administration officials initially argued that NATO should fill that void, because the American military was overextended in Iraq. And publicly, the administration has remained mostly supportive of the alliance effort, with the national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, declaring at the NATO meeting last month that in addressing the problems in Afghanistan, “NATO’s answer today is help is on the way.”

The weeks leading up to the meeting included intense lobbying to increase troop commitments and lift some restrictions on how national troops operate and where. Over a private dinner in Bucharest, Mr. Bush and other leaders listened to their counterparts make their pledges. Only France announced its pledge publicly.

According to an accounting of the pledges compiled by NATO officials at the end of the meeting, Georgia, whose application for a fast track to membership was rebuffed, pledged 500 troops. Poland pledged 400 in addition to the 1,000 there now to operate and maintain eight helicopters. The Czech Republic pledged 120 special operations soldiers.

Italy, Romania and Greece made promises for military or police training teams. Azerbaijan, not a member of NATO, offered to more than double its current force, adding 45 troops. New Zealand offered “a modest increase” to support a civil provincial reconstruction team. Two other nations promised to consider contributions but asked NATO leaders not to disclose their pledges because of their domestic political situations.

The results of the NATO session disappointed commanders in Afghanistan. A NATO military spokesman issued a diplomatically worded statement this week. “In the run-up to and during the Bucharest meeting, nations added extra contributions,” the statement from Kabul said. “However, shortfalls still exist.”

Julianne Smith, director of the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a nonpartisan policy institute, said the meeting did not live up to the expectations or the public celebration during the session.

“If you look at what the NATO commanders got, it’s hard to see the silver lining,” she said.

As with previous shortfalls in NATO commitments, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates could be prompted to fill the void, perhaps deploying other American forces to replace the 3,200 marines who arrived in recent weeks in what was described as a one-time, seven-month stop-gap deployment.

Mr. Gates did say publicly last month that the United States was prepared to commit additional forces to Afghanistan in 2009, but he put no number on the anticipated American troop increase.

A senior Pentagon official said Mr. Gates made the announcement after consulting with Mr. Bush, arguing for a public statement that would prove to NATO allies that the United States remained wholly committed to the Afghan mission despite strains of the war in Iraq.

Senior officials said the 7,000 troops were about the most the American military could add to Afghanistan in 2009.

After the offensive to rout Al Qaeda and its Taliban sponsors in Afghanistan following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, American forces steadily rose to about 5,000 by March of 2002, according to government statistics. American deployments increased to 16,000 by March of 2003, and then dropped for a year during the initial phase of combat in Iraq. The American commitment to Afghanistan rose again, to about 25,000, in 2005.

Officials said preliminary discussions were under way within the Pentagon as to whether, and how, the command structure in Afghanistan might be altered to fit the new reality of a greater American presence. But officials stressed that these talks were also in their initial stages.

Representative Adam Smith, a Democrat from Washington who recently toured Afghanistan, complained that NATO’s commitment was “still not what it should be.” But he praised the deployment of the 3,200 marines, who have been operating in volatile areas near Kandahar. “That is potentially a game changer,” he said in an interview.

Mr. Bush, at a Rose Garden news conference this week, appeared to be laying the groundwork for a long-term mission in Afghanistan.

“I wish we had completely eliminated the radicals who kill innocent people to achieve objectives, but that hasn’t happened yet,” he said Tuesday. “And so I think it’s very much in our interests to continue helping the young democracy. And we will.”

Soldier dies in Afghanistan

Sat May 3, 4:21 AM ET - KABUL (AFP) - A British soldier serving with the NATO force in Afghanistan died in an explosion that wounded two other troops, the alliance's International Security Assistance Force said Saturday.

The soldier was killed after the vehicle he was travelling in hit a mine during a routine patrol near southern Helmand province's Naw Zad district on Friday, British Lieutenant Colonel Robin Matthews told AFP.

Two other British soldiers were wounded in the explosion… The latest fatality takes to 48 the number of international soldiers killed in Afghanistan this year, most while fighting the Taliban.

Afghan Taleban warns attack on South Korean facilities if police dispatched

Text of report in English by South Korean news agency Yonhap

DUBAI, May 2 (Yonhap) - Afghanistan's rebel group Taleban will attack South Korean facilities in the war-torn country if Seoul dispatches its police force there, a purported spokesman for the militia group said Friday.

Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, the purported spokesman for the Taleban, told a source for Yonhap News Agency in Kabul, Afghanistan, over the phone that his group will not allow South Korean military or police to set foot on their land.

Ahmadi warned that no South Korean in Afghanistan, private or government-affiliated, will be safe if South Korea deploys its police, emphasizing that all Korean-related facilities in Kabul would be attacked.

South Korea is considering sending about a dozen police officers to Afghanistan later this year, according to a Foreign Ministry source, to help train their local counterparts.

The consideration was made at the reques! t of the US government, which wants Seoul to expand its contribution to the stabilization of the violence-wracked Central Asian nation.

Ahmadi also noted that he is aware that Seoul is still undecided, and he is closely watching for the decision. He also threatened that there will be no negotiations in case any religious aid group is captured again in the country.

Last year, a bus carrying 23 South Korean volunteers, mostly females in their 20s and 30s, was hijacked by Taleban militants en route from Kabul to the southern city of Kandahar. The kidnappers demanded the release of their fellow militants and South Korea's withdrawal of its 200 troops stationed in the country.

Two people were executed before Seoul reached a deal with the Taleban for the release of 21 others.

Afghan NATO forces' oil tanker blown up in Pakistan tribal area

Text of report headlined "Tanker carrying oil for NATO forces explodes" published by Pakistani newspaper Daily Times website on 2 May

Landikotal: A powerful bomb strapped to an oil tanker loaded with 44,000 litres of fuel for NATO forces in Afghanistan blew up on Thursday in the Neki Khel parking area on the Pak-Afghan Highway.

The vehicle's drivers managed to salvage the engine, but could not save the tanker. Flames ravaged the area and a nearby shop set ablaze by the blast was completely razed. It took the local administration two hours to put out the fire with the help of locals. No casualties were reported.

Japanese FM on surprise visit to Afghanistan

Sun May 4, KABUL (AFP) - Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura met President Hamid Karzai during a surprise visit to Afghanistan on Sunday in which he urged better relations with Pakistan.

Komura, who arrived from Islamabad, told reporters he had also called on Afghan leaders to focus on improving the quality of government as well as tackle the booming narcotics trade.

He said through an interpreter that he had asked his Afghan counterpart Rangeen Dafar Spanta to work to "improve relations" with Pakistan.

The neighbours have exchanged accusations about the source of the insurgent violence in Afghanistan, with Kabul saying Islamabad should do more against the extremists based in its tribal areas on the border.

Komura also said his country would push for more international support for Afghanistan at a conference of the Group of Eight rich nations due in Japan in July.

Japan has been a major donor to Afghanistan, pledging 1.3 billion dollars since the fall of the Taliban.

However its pacifist constitution limits its military activities and it does not have troops among the international forces helping Afghanistan fight the Taliban, who were ousted from government in 2001.

Komura visited Pakistan on Saturday and unveiled a loan of up to 47.9 billion yen (454.86 million dollars) for Islamabad's infrastructure development, the Japanese foreign ministry said.

Afghan police foil heroin smuggling to Tajikistan

KABUL, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Police in Afghanistan's northeast Badakhshan province foiled traffickers' attempt to smuggle heroin to Tajikistan, said a statement of Interior Ministry released Sunday.

"Police on Sunday thwarted smugglers' attempt to take 60 kg heroin to Tajikistan, "the statement said. However, it said those involved in the black business escaped.

Afghanistan with an output of 8,200 tons of opium poppy in 2007 topped the poppy growing nations in supplying the raw material in manufacturing heroin in the world. The Afghan government is trying to make 20 out of the country's 34 provinces poppy-free this year.

New Zealand troops deny damaging Afghan Buddha remains

Sun May 4, WELLINGTON (AFP) - The New Zealand Defence Force denied claims Sunday that its troops damaged the remains of Afghanistan's famous Bamiyan Buddha statues while carrying out a controlled explosion.

Spokesman Captain Zac Prendergast confirmed to Radio New Zealand that the troops disposed of a live rocket in the area but said all care was taken and there was no damage.

A Bamiyan province official had blamed the New Zealand troops, serving with a Nato-led force and a UN-led disarmament group, for causing further damage to the statues, virtually destroyed by Taliban militants seven years ago.

Najibullah Harar, head of the information and culture department in Bamiyan province, said the blast damaged the smaller of the two historic structures, a 38-metre-tall (125-foot) statue.

"The explosion has caused damage to the remains of one of the Buddhas," Harrar said. "It has also destroyed a historic wall around the smaller statue.

But Prendergast said the New Zealand team assessed the site and found it was unlikely there was damage to the surrounding area.

"They surrounded the area and covered the rocket with sandbags and when they had effected the detonation the crater was the size of a small puddle," he said. "The sandbags on top have restricted the blast."

The Taliban virtually destroyed the nearly 2000-year-old Buddhas months before their regime was toppled in a US-led invasion in late 2001. The Islamic militia, which ruled much of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, blew up the structures citing a strict Islamic law that bans statues.

Food crisis leaves many Afghans desperate

• By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, Published: May 2, 2008

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Hungry Afghans looking for their next meal eye bread scraps piled up like heaps of trash at a Kabul market as a vendor weighs out fistfuls of the stale crusts on a scale. A Pashtun woman waits with an empty plastic sack.

She isn't scavenging -- she's paying for leftovers that in better times were sold for feeding to sheep and cows. The woman said her household of 14 people had to give up fresh bread a month ago as the price spiraled out of reach.

Rising global food prices have hit few places as hard as Afghanistan, where the cost of wheat flour has shot up 75 percent in three months, fueling anger against the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai. In the volatile south, officials fear it could boost recruitment for the Taliban insurgency.

''Karzai is the king and this is my life,'' wailed the Pashtun woman, who declined to give her name because of her conservative social code. ''Since the Americans came here, nothing is cheap.''

The U.N. World Food Program, or WFP, warns that the situation for the poorest in Afghanistan is dire and deaths from malnutrition are likely to increase. Protests have broken out in at least one city.

Even middle-income professionals are struggling. ''People are not dying of starvation, per se, but that's very rare these days. Usually people die from diseases they never should have died from but their bodies are weakened by hunger,'' he said.

Even before the food crisis, U.N. data showed 54 percent of children under five in Afghanistan are stunted. An estimated 10,400 people die of nutritional deficiencies each year.

In two of the poorest provinces, Ghor and Badghis, communities are buckling under the double impact of the global food crisis and a drought that wiped out 70 percent of last year's crop, said Mary Kate MacIsaac of the aid group World Vision.

''If they did have assets, they have been forced to sell them off,'' she said. ''People are desperate and living in greater fear of what's to come if this year's crop fails.''

Reliable statistics are hard to come by, but Commerce Minister Amin Farhang estimated that in 2007 Afghanistan produced 1.3 million tons less grain than the 6.6 million tons it requires each year.

Deputy Agriculture Minister Pir Mohammad Azizi said initial signs show the 2008 harvest will be worse because of insufficient rains in the early spring.

Because of its reliance on aid and imports to help fill its food deficit, Afghanistan is particularly vulnerable to rising international prices driven by growing demand from China and India and the use of grain to make bio-fuel.

The main source of Afghan food imports, Pakistan, is suffering its own wheat shortages and has imposed stiff controls on exports to Afghanistan, forcing prices higher.

Traders at Mandawi market, the main center for flour sellers in Kabul, blame ruthless businessmen for capitalizing on the shortages. They look back with some nostalgia on the Soviet-backed communist regime of the 1980s.

''In the past we had shortages but there were silos. The government had several months supply to cope with a food crisis. Now the government can't even cope for a day,'' said flour seller Sayed Hassan Agha, 64. ''We are at the mercy of businessmen.''

With elections due next year and its popularity at rock bottom, the food crisis has political and security repercussions for Karzai's government.

''There are lots of young men who are jobless, they have no income in their families and this economic situation makes them join the Taliban,'' said Niaz Mohammad Sarhadi, chief of Zhari district, near the main southern city of Kandahar.

For the first time since the fall of the Islamist regime six years ago, the WFP has begun food distributions in Afghan cities, rather than just to rural areas.

That, and a government plan to use $50 million to buy flour for government employees and the poor, has helped reduce the price of a 110-pound sack of flour imported from Pakistan from $50 to $40 this week, Kabul traders say. Farhang predicted that after the May harvest prices would drop further.

But even if those hopes are realized, the economic realities in post-Taliban Afghanistan will remain harsh, a source of growing bitterness across the social spectrum.

Teachers have been staging strikes at the top high state schools in Kabul, demanding a hike in their $50 monthly salary, while desperate villagers migrate to the city seeking elusive work as laborers that pays $3 a day.

''Look at all these people here,'' said Fateh Mohammed, 35, gesturing to a crowd of jobless, hollow-cheeked men in grimy prayer caps, outside a Kabul bakery. ''They are here because their children are hungry.''

Corruption eats away at Afghan government

• DOUG SAUNDERS - From Saturday's Globe and Mail, May 3, 2008

KABUL — Among the soldiers, diplomats and aid workers who live in Afghanistan, it is the problem that nobody dares mention. Among ordinary Afghans, it's a daily presence, the corruption that is rooted deeply in the Western-backed Afghan government and its appointed officials.

When Afghans are forced by uniformed men to pay large sums of cash in order to travel safely on provincial roads, as they are daily, when their colleagues are arrested and beaten in exchange for ransom payments, when they learn that people pay $150,000 for the job of district police chief in parts of Kandahar province, when entire aid shipments or thousands of police salaries are seized for private use, when world-record heroin exports take place under police watch, everyone in Afghanistan knows where to look.

On heavily guarded streets on the edge of every Afghan city and in the centre of Kabul are the large, wedding-cake houses, surrounded by walls and guards and filled with luxury goods, built in a style popularly known as “narcotecture.”

Inside live the senior officials with top roles in Afghanistan's government, some of whom have amassed fortunes of hundreds of millions of dollars. Some are governors of provinces, like Kandahar governor Asadullah Khalid, reported by Canadian diplomats to have committed torture. Some are top cabinet ministers.

Others wield power through family ties to the President. The man considered by many observers to be the most powerful and feared figure in the Afghan south is not the Kandahar governor but rather Ahmed Wali Karzai, appointed by his brother, President Hamid Karzai, to represent Kandahar province in Kabul.

A U.S. government document leaked to ABC News two years ago accused him of being the central figure in the region's vast opium-export market, which produces the majority of the world's opium and heroin. This week, senior U.S. and British officials said in interviews that they believe he enables, and likely profits from, opium shipments across southern Afghanistan to Iran, and prevents opium crops of those who support him from being eradicated. He has repeatedly denied such accusations.

Huge fortunes are being earned by many of these officials, Western sources said. It is customary to charge a 20-per-cent commission on imports or exports brought through their provinces, including opium exports valued at more than $800-million. That means hundreds of millions can be earned each year in a country where many families live on less than a dollar a day.

And there are other avenues for corruption. Last fall, U.S. military officials discovered that in one region of eastern Afghanistan only a third of the 3,300 police officers supposedly serving in the region actually existed; the salaries from the 2,100 “ghost officers” were going straight into the pockets of politicians and senior police figures. This practice is thought to be commonplace across Afghanistan, with as many as 60 to 80 per cent of officers in some districts being “ghosts.”

Indeed, Western-funded programs designed to end corruption can have the opposite effect. British officials said that the governor of Kandahar has used poppy-eradication funds, designed to eliminate the opium-poppy crops of wealthy traffickers at the top of the drug economy, to target his political enemies, usually people who are not on the list for eradication.

“There's a lot of belief among Afghans that when [the West] turns off the taps, it's going to go back to 1989, so these warlords are building war chests, big piles of money for guns, tanks, whatever,” a British official said.

Getting to the bottom of the corruption in Afghanistan is nearly impossible. The country does not have conspiracy or racketeering laws, which would allow prosecutors to investigate them. Nor does it have more than a rudimentary banking system, so that ill-gotten funds are difficult to find. U.S. officials said, however, that some moves are being made in this direction, and some senior officials may soon be placed on no-fly lists.

Western officials are becoming increasingly frustrated with the power of such well-connected strongmen as larger areas of Afghanistan fall under Taliban control and the millions in Western spending produces few signs of a sustainable economy.

When Canadian Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier made the mistake of telling reporters in Kandahar city last month that Canada had been pressuring President Karzai to have Mr. Khalid, the Kandahar governor, removed from office, it represented the tip of an iceberg of diplomatic and political pressure being put on Mr. Karzai by Western governments.

“It's our biggest single problem, bigger than the Taliban, bigger than poverty,” a senior British official said.

Mr. Karzai's close relationship with some warlords and distrusted leaders, possibly including members of his own family, has been a well-known problem since he became President in 2004. But now, as jockeying begins toward a 2009 presidential election and Western officials are increasingly anxious to bring stability to Afghanistan, Mr. Karzai's acquiescence to violent and deeply corrupt men is increasingly considered unsustainable.

“I think there is an issue of corruption in this government, accepted by everybody, to include President Karzai,” General Dan McNeill, the U.S. commander of the NATO coalition fighting in Afghanistan, said in an interview. “Corruption, in my view, is the symptom, the disease is greed, and that works against what we're trying to do here.”

But in the run-up to the election, President Karzai appears increasingly unwilling to take action.

“Unfortunately, the corruption now has reached even the highest-ranking elected officials, and that is becoming a constant problem. … What I see in Afghanistan is a weak and corrupt government, and the Afghan people have to deal with this, not the international community,” said Yunus Quanooni, the Speaker of Afghanistan's parliament and a potential presidential challenger. “The President sees them as an instrument for re-election himself, so he doesn't dare touch them.”

And when he does touch them, it can be in unhelpful ways. Last summer, Haji Zahir, the commander of the Nangarhar province border police, was caught shipping 123.5-kilograms of heroin across the Pakistani border. He was removed from his post, but never charged.

In March, after years of international pressure, Mr. Karzai ousted Asadullah Wafa from his job as governor of Helmand province amid allegations that he had profited from that province's enormous opium exports and enabled large-scale organized crime. Mr. Wafa had expelled two British officials from the province after they had launched a program to get Taliban leaders to surrender. After being fired, Mr. Wafa was promptly appointed last month to a new position: head of the complaints department in the national-security branch of Mr. Karzai's office.

Indeed, the current pressure by Canadian and other officials to remove the Kandahar governor from office seems almost identical to a similar campaign, begun five years ago, to get his predecessor, the former mujahedeen fighter Gul Agha Sherzai, removed from the same office.

Mr. Sherzai had admitted to receiving $1-million a week from his share of import duties and from the opium trade, and was considered violent and dangerous.

He was immediately made governor of U.S.-led Nangarhar province in the east, where U.S. officials say he has been a useful ally in ending opium-poppy production and establishing law and order. U.S. officials said that they believe he has a net worth of $300-million from his time running Kandahar, but that his level of corruption is fairly minor now. Nevertheless, they hope to see him gone some day.

“I think you're going to see less and less of the Sherzai-type figure; he's a transitional type,” said Alison Blosser, an official with the U.S. State Department involved with provincial reconstruction in Nangarhar.

Indeed, many of the current corruption problems date back to the early months of the Afghan war, in 2001, when U.S. Army Special Forces and CIA agents gave millions of dollars to regional fighters such as Mr. Sherzai to battle the Taliban, and then, after the Taliban had been ousted, allowed them to become the de facto government.

They displaced both the traditional system of tribal elders and the emerging national government. Mr. Karzai relied on them to extend his influence beyond his family's own tribe.

Despite their alarm at some of these developments, officials from the United States, Britain and Canada all say they are maintaining their support for Mr. Karzai. This is partly because they see no viable alternative. None of the dozen-odd prospective presidential challengers seem strong enough to hold the country together.

And it is also because, certainly in the case of Canadian officials, they believe that some progress is being made toward installing non-criminal leadership in key branches of the government, even if it's happening slowly.

Much of the Canadians' faith is in the newly created Independent Directorate of Local Governance, or the IDLG, which was created by Mr. Karzai to oversee the appointment of regional and state leaders.

Since it was created last August, the IDLG has fired the governors of eight of Afghanistan's 34 provinces. And in an interview at his Kabul office, IDLG head Barna Karim, who is widely respected by Western and Afghan leaders, said that he hopes to see at least six more governors replaced in the near future.

But his office only has the authority to recommend changes to Mr. Karzai, and the President has lately seemed less interested in ousting officials, perhaps because of the looming election.

“We just have to curb them as much as we can, slowly and surely,” Mr. Karim said. “In those provinces where we changed governors, it wasn't easy.”

And some officials are still considered untouchable. Ahmed Wali Karzai, the President's brother in Kandahar, is said to be beyond the reach of any government body.

Zarar Ahmad Moqbel, the Interior Minister, said in an interview that he does not consider the Karzais to be appropriate subjects of investigation. “The President of Afghanistan has sent an official decree to all the offices of the Afghan government, stating that we should not spare any members of his family from investigation,” he said, adding that he therefore did not consider it necessary to look into any such allegations.

Canadian officials are said to have pressed President Karzai hard during the past two years to reduce the power of his brother and of Mr. Khalid.

But they have backed off recently, in the wake of Mr. Bernier's unguarded remarks and because they are said to believe that such efforts could be counterproductive.

Many observers believe that President Karzai will try to keep loyalists in office, regardless of their problems or ties to criminal activity, until next year's presidential race is settled. He has not yet declared himself a candidate for re-election.

Gen. McNeill, the U.S. commander of the NATO coalition, likened Mr. Karzai's position to that of a second-tier soccer club with a weak bench.

He noted that the vast majority of Afghans are illiterate, after enduring almost 30 years without functioning schools. The country has just produced its first batch of university graduates this year. In the view of officials such as Gen. McNeill, the hard men may have to remain in office for a while.

“If a government [such as Canada's], which has a vested interest in a particular province, goes to President Karzai, and says, ‘This particular governor does not seem to be the person who has the skills to take this thing forward,' and President Karzai turns to his bench, and what do you think he sees? It's a tough business. … I think it's in that line of effort that we have our slowest rate of progress. We think we're helping, but it's just a tough business.”

Building on strength in Afghanistan

by Anna Kramer, Source: Oxfam / May 2, 2008

Far from hopeless, the Afghan people are determined to build a peaceful future—and US foreign aid can help.

'Make no mistake: life is very difficult for most Afghans,' says Matt Waldman, Oxfam International policy advisor in Afghanistan. 'This was one of the poorest countries in the world even before the wars and upheavals that began in 1978. These wars, which lasted for over two decades, brought Afghanistan to its knees.'

Waldman's assessment will reinforce what many Americans believe: that long years of struggle have put the Afghan people in a position of hopelessness. But when Waldman talks about the people he has met in the course of his work, what he emphasizes most is their strength and resilience.

'The Afghan people have a great strength; a dignity in their lives, and a pride in their culture....In many ways, I'm impressed by their determination to make the best of the situations they live in.'

Waldman himself is British, a former foreign affairs advisor for the UK Parliament. He is in the midst of a whirlwind US trip to promote Falling Short, a report he wrote exposing the $15 billion international aid shortfall in Afghanistan.

He looks a little weary, but speaks calmly and assuredly about leading a team of Oxfam policy and advocacy specialists who work both in the capital city of Kabul and in rural areas of Afghanistan. Their job: to listen to people's concerns, conduct research, and advocate for change at the national and international level.

In the mountain provinces of Badakhshan and Daikundi, Waldman and his team visited families who survive long, harsh winters on a diet of mainly dried bread and tea; communities where the life expectancy hovers around 44 years old; places where children and pregnant women often die due to malnutrition and a lack of medical care.

In other regions, thousands of civilians have fallen victim to acts of violence by militants and criminal groups. Oxfam and local NGOs are implementing peace-building programs to end violence at the local level.

Despite the obstacles, many Afghan people are determined to build a secure future for their country and their families. 'I know of individuals working for human rights, who have been subject to considerable pressures, who nonetheless continue their fight,' notes Waldman. 'And ordinary Afghans who work long and hard to ensure their families are well kept and their children can attend school.'

The US also plays a role in securing Afghanistan's future. 'The US is by far the largest aid donor to Afghanistan,' Waldman says. 'Without US support, it is difficult to envisage Afghanistan achieving stability in the near future.'

Right now, though, US support for Afghanistan is not living up to its promises. US military spending there far exceeds spending on aid—and the US has only delivered half of the $10.4 billion in aid it committed between 2002 and 2008. To achieve real change in Afghanistan, Waldman says, the US must increase funding for aid projects that lift people out of poverty.

And effective aid is about more than just dollar amounts. 'The way aid is spent is crucial,' says Waldman. 'Right now, there are a number of ways aid is failing to maximize its potential.'

To live up to this potential, the US needs to approach aid differently in Afghanistan:

- Be efficient. Make sure aid money goes directly to helping Afghans, not to purchasing US-based goods and services.

- Distribute aid evenly throughout the country. Don't just focus on the cities.

- Use aid not to achieve military and political objectives, but to reduce poverty.

- Work with the government, instead of bypassing it, to build capacity and produce better results.

- Coordinate more closely with other donor countries and groups.

- Set up a separate, independent body to monitor aid delivery and identify where we can do things better.

It's essential, Waldman says, that local people are the owners and leaders of the aid projects that affect their lives. 'Let's face it: nobody wants to feel that anything is imposed on them. Communities in the developing world are no different. In order to have a project that is really relevant to the lives of ordinary people living in difficult circumstances, you have to ensure that they are fully involved.'

If we take these steps, Waldman says, we can build on the strength of the Afghan people and help bring peace after decades of conflict.

'I am cautiously optimistic,' he says, 'primarily because of the sheer resilience and determination of the Afghans to achieve peace and development. But there are no shortcuts, no quick deals that will lead to a lasting peace.'

Taliban claim victory from a defeat

By Syed Saleem Shahzad, Asia Times Online / May 3, 2008

KARACHI - The Taliban have suffered their first major loss in this year's offensive, but they are putting on a brave face, even spinning the setback as a triumph in their broader battle against foreign forces in Afghanistan.

On Wednesday, several thousand US Marines captured the town of Garmsir in the southern Afghan province of Helmand in their first large operation since arriving to reinforce North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops last month. The Taliban-controlled Garmsir had served as a main supply route for their insurgency in the area.

The Taliban, however, claim the loss of one base is not critical, and anyway, for NATO to hold on to its gain it will have to commit thousands of troops to the outpost, which is located in the inhospitable desert, if it is to effectively guard the lawless and porous border through which the Taliban funnel men, arms and supplies.

The Taliban also claim that one of their underlying goals since the US-led invasion in 2001 has been to tie down as many foreign troops as possible, much as the mujahideen wore down Soviet troops in the 1980s. Various Taliban leaders have told the media they will not resist the forces in Garmsir, one of the biggest concentrations since the 2001 assault on the country.

Meanwhile, the Taliban say they will energize their drive to win over the Pashtun tribal districts on both sides of the border and turn them into "Taliban country", a process that is already well underway.

For NATO, the fight against the Taliban has almost gone full circle. From the initial large offensive involving thousands of troops, NATO resorted to limited special operations with heavy reliance on air attacks. This only increased the population's anger against the coalition as many ordinary citizens died in the onslaught from the sky, and the Taliban were able to capitalize on this discontent.

NATO command has now decided to increase its ground presence, even at the risk of greater casualties. As mentioned above, this suits the Taliban and its al-Qaeda-inspired goal of tying up troops.

As NATO consolidates in the Garmsir deserts, the Taliban will be busy in eastern Afghanistan's border provinces, aiming to bring the tribes there under Taliban control.

One of their weapons is fear, as happens in the Pakistani tribal areas, where through targeted killings of high-profile enemies, such as tribal chiefs, clerics and pro-government personalities, they effectively intimidate their rivals.

Now it is happening in Afghanistan, the latest being the suicide attack, carried out by Anwar ul-Haq Mujahid's Tora Bora group, in the Khogiani district of Nangarhar province against the police chief of Khogiani, who had informed US forces in 2001 about the Tora Bora mountains and al-Qaeda's sanctuary there. The police chief survived, but at least 18 other people were killed.

The mastermind of this strategy is Ustad Yasir, a regional commander of the Pakistan and Afghan border regions, though he was recently rooted out from Khyber Agency in Pakistan after the Taliban were betrayed there. (See Taliban bitten by a snake in the grass Asia Times Online, April 26.)

Having "lost" Khyber Agency, where the Taliban had targeted NATO supply lines, they now want to continue this tactic in adjoining Nangarhar province.

The Taliban don't forget - or forgive - though. On Thursday, they launched a suicide attack in Khyber Agency against Haji Namdar, who betrayed them. Only one of the four explosive plates strapped to the bomber exploded, so Namdar managed to escape unhurt, although 30 others were injured.

At the time of the attack, Namdar was appealing to the masses for donations for the Taliban's struggle in Afghanistan. But now he has been exposed as a traitor and in fact not pro-Taliban. This may allow the Taliban to make inroads into his large constituency, which is traditionally suspicious of the Taliban, who still very much want to regain a footing in Khyber Agency.

Taliban sources have also claimed the capture of an important US military camp in Khost province (close to the Pakistan border), but that could not be independently confirmed. The camp is said to have been taken by Jalaluddin Haqqani and handed over to al-Qaeda militants. If this is true, it would be a step in the Taliban's march to wrest control of Afghan tribes.

Meanwhile, the NATO soldiers guarding the Garmsir deserts, one of the world's hottest spots, with temperatures reaching 50-60 Celsius, face a tough time. The area is central to the country's flourishing opium trade.

On the Afghan side of the border, it is run by elements in the Afghan administration and security forces. (See The Taliban's flower power Asia Times Online, February 1, 2007.) Across the border, it is mainly run by Pakistani-Iranian Baloch smugglers.

The Taliban only allow the transportation of drugs and related activities for payment, which means the drug cartels will facilitate the insurgency, and make it even hotter for NATO.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief.

Afghanistan proposes entertainment ban seen as throwback to Taliban

By Murray Brewster And A.R. Khan, THE CANADIAN PRESS May 3, 2008

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - In a biblical land torn asunder by 30 years of war and struggling to adapt to the 21st century, it's a gross understatement to say that Afghans are starved for few laughs or something to cheer about.

But if a conservative-leaning Afghan parliamentary committee has its way, the choices of fun and entertainment will be severely limited. Legislation has been drafted in Kabul that could, among other things, ban video games and even billiards, a newly popular pastime in Kandahar.

The bill, which has yet to be introduced in the Afghan parliament, cracks down on private television networks airing Indian soap operas, which some deem offensive to Islam because of their seemingly risque plot lines.

It could also stop women from wearing makeup in public and performing as dancers at concerts or on television. The legislation would also ban the controversial pastime of dog and bird fighting.

The country's ministry of culture has been leading the charge to impose more strict Islamic morals on the country, which is fighting a deadly fundamentalist-based insurgency.

Officials with the federal department sent the case of two Afghan television networks, which have refused demands to stop airing Indian programs, to prosecutors on Thursday.

There are no cinemas or performing arts theatres in Kandahar and television is an extreme luxury in the mostly dirt-poor southern region. People have been flocking by the thousands to watch outdoor soccer games, despite the risk of suicide bombers, who attacked a dog-fighting exhibition in February, killing more than 100 spectators.

"The people of Kandahar are quite bored and there is no other activity which gives entertainment," said Gul Muhammad Shukran, who arranged a recent soccer tournament at the city's infamous Ahmed Shahi stadium, where the Taliban once held public executions.

He was pleased with the turnout for the two-day event, which took place last week involving 14 teams. More games are planned, he said, even though the threat of further bombings and kidnappings remains high.

Engineer Ahsan, director of the Kandahar football federation who like many Afghans goes only by one name, says it is very risky for people to take in matches.

"But the positive thing is that people get good entertainment here and their minds get refreshed."

A billiards club, opened a year ago in a newly developing commercial district, routinely draws hundreds of spectators a night, many of them content to simply observe and cheer on the table top matches.

"It is an indoor game, (where) anybody can come any time and have fun here," said Jamal Shah, a business owner who took in a recent 30-day tournament where Afghan pool sharks competed for prize money.

Abdul Nayef, who won top prize at the tournament, says the international community needs to recognize the importance of developing organized sports to inspire people and draw them together.

Nasim Khan, the billiards club owner who returned to Kandahar in 2007 after 11 years of exile in London, said he hopes Canadians, through the provincial reconstruction base, will sponsor more tournaments and equipment.

Analysts in this country are divided on whether the new legislation, which is being described by moderates as a Taliban-era law, will pass. Many have suggested the legislation casts legitimacy on Taliban ideology and whether the bill is approved or not matters little because the damage is already done.

There are also fears that casting it aside could serve to rally fundamentalists. Shukran, the soccer organizer whose day job involves directing eradication efforts in this poppy-rich province, said sports are more than just simple entertainment.

Getting young people onto the playing field will help with the country's growing addiction problems, he said. His message in trying to sell last week's tournament was: "Quit drugs; come to sports."

Many young Afghans are becoming hooked on the opium and marijuana that are fuelling their economy, studies have shown.

It's not as though this ancient land is devoid of sporting tradition. The Afghans love their games: brutal contests that are horrifying when viewed through western eyes.

Take for example the horseback sport of Buzkashi, which translated literally means "goat killing." Riders gallop around a dirt field hoping to scoop up the headless carcass of a goat - or calf - and pitch it across a goal line.

In the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, camels - frothing at the mouth - tear into each other for sport in fights that have drawn big crowds. It is right up there with dog and bird fighting, two of the events the Afghan parliamentary committee wants to ban.

Federal officials in New York say Afghan tribal chief had strong links to Taliban in 2005

• The Associated Press, May 3, 2008 - NEW YORK: An Afghan tribal chief facing heroin smuggling charges in New York tried to improve his lot after his arrest by giving investigators information about the whereabouts of the supreme leader of the Taliban, the government said in court papers.

Bashir Noorzai, chief of the million-member Noorzai Tribe, was arrested in April 2005 after federal authorities lured him to the U.S. with a false promise of safe passage.

In a document dated Thursday, prosecutors said that during his initial months in captivity, Noorzai considered cooperating with U.S. authorities and offered information about his connections to Taliban leaders including Mullah Mohammad Omar, who was Afghanistan's head of state before the U.S. invasion in 2001.

Noorzai told investigators that the one-eyed Taliban leader moved daily in the mountains in 2005 to evade detection and communicated in coded language. He also said Omar traveled with four or five people and sent messages to the Taliban through a brother-in-law, group commander Mullah Azizullah.

Noorzai is scheduled for trial in two weeks on charges that he brought $50 million (€32.35 million) worth of heroin into the U.S. with Taliban support.

He was arrested after he agreed to travel to the U.S. to provide the government with information on heroin trafficking, its relationship to terrorism, and the movement of money in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East. Federal authorities promised him safe passage, only to arrest him anyway.

A judge ruled that the arrest of a man on the list of most wanted drug kingpins was fair because he was repeatedly read his rights.

An indictment charged Noorzai and his organization with providing weapons and manpower to the Taliban between 1990 and 2004 in exchange for protection of his opium crops, heroin laboratories and drug transportation routes.

Prosecutors said that after he was arrested, Noorzai gave information about his own family's involvement with opium and talked about his links with the Taliban.

In interviews with the government, Noorzai said he got some of his latest information about Omar's whereabouts during a February 2005 conversation with Azizullah, after he spotted him walking by the side of the road in Quetta, Pakistan.

Noorzai said he was told that Omar's messages were recorded on cassette tapes or written in letters. At other times, Omar communicated with Azizullah through coded telephone conversations, prosecutors wrote.

Noorzai also told prosecutors that Omar has four wives and that he may be hiding with one wife, the government said.

Afghan authorities say Azizullah was killed along with 14 others in early 2007 by NATO and Afghan forces in a battle with suspected Taliban militants in southern Afghan mountains.

Prosecutors said Noorzai told them he last saw Omar in person four or five months prior to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, when the two talked about a land dispute.

Noorzai also told investigators that he knew all four members of the Taliban economic counsel and that they held meetings freely in Pakistan, where 80 percent of the Taliban leaders maintain safe refuge, the government said.

Noorzai said he believes the Khogyanai Tribe was protecting Osama bin Laden. Noorzai said he had encountered bin Laden only once, in Kandahar, Afghanistan, when he passed in a motorcade.

Noorzai's lawyer, Ivan Stephan Fisher, said he did not want to comment so close to trial. He said he was concentrating on the "very difficult task of getting a fair jury in a case like this with a Muslim defendant who comes from Afghanistan."

Six Afghan exchange students flee to Canada

Allan Woods - Ottawa Bureau, The Toronto Star / May 3, 2008

OTTAWA–They're on Facebook, they clown for the cameras with pals and they sit down to eat each night at the dinner tables of their American host families in small towns across the United States.

But three weeks ago, the Afghan exchange students on a U.S. State Department program started to go missing. Since the second week of April, six have fled to Canada to make asylum bids just weeks before they were to have been returned to their Afghan villages.

"We've heard from them mostly by email. They've been in contact with their hosts, some by phone and some by email," said Benjamin Gaylord, with the Washington-based American Councils for International Education, which runs the exchange program.

"There's been no talk about concerns about their future. They've said `I'm safe. I'm in Canada. I'm doing okay. I'll tell you more later,'" said Gaylord.

Mesbah Habibi, 17, is the latest student to flee to Canada. He did so after a trip to Washington to meet with his 38 fellow students. He checked in at the airport Monday to return to his guest home in Columbine, Colo., but wasn't on the airplane when it landed.

On Tuesday, his host family received an email assuring them he was safe and thanking them for their eight months of hospitality.

"We are relieved to know that he is safe and we wish him only the best for the future," the family, who did not wish to be named, said in a statement to local media.

Gaylord said he doesn't know where the students are, or where they crossed the border, though he assumes it was through a land crossing rather than by airplane.

He also refused to pass judgment on what is fast becoming an embarrassing incident for his organization, and for the U.S. government, other than to say that none of the six had voiced fear of returning to their war-torn country and that their refugee bids seemed "rather convenient" given that the school year ends in just over a month.

Some Americans are voicing suspicions, wondering whether the students present a security risk, possibly a teenage terror cell.

"I'm thinking to myself, `Geez, Louise.' They are 16-year-old Afghan kids," said Gaylord. "They're probably as American as most kids in high school. They're making the same jokes, wearing the same clothes. They're on Facebook just like everybody else."

In fact, Habibi's Facebook page lists 100 friends with an equal mix of Afghans peppered across the U.S. and American students at Columbine High School, the site of the notorious 1999 shooting rampage. He participated in track and field events and wrote for the school's newspaper.

A Facebook friend, Asma Afghan from Orchard Park High School in Buffalo, N.Y., said she was familiar with the controversial matter, which has gripped the tight-knit group of exchange students.

"I know most of them, but I guess they wouldn't like to share their personal problems in the news," she told the Star.

Almas Kazimi, an Afghan exchange student living in Iowa, told the Star that Habibi was worried about the dangers that would await him at home in Herat, in western Afghanistan, where he was schedule to return in June.

"He was scared. It's a dangerous place," he said, adding that he hasn't heard from any of the students since they fled the U.S.

Kazimi said he was angry because he feels these students are putting the exchange program, and the opportunities that go with it, in jeopardy. "Afghanistan is a bad place for everyone, but you have to go back. You have to bring change to the country," he said. "I know the risks."

Reaction from the program's alumni in Afghanistan, as well as among those who have returned to the U.S. to study, has been fairly harsh, Gaylord said.

"A lot of people are very upset. `Betrayed' is a strong word but it's close to betrayal what many of the students have expressed about these other students not joining in rebuilding Afghanistan, which is the point of the program."

The Youth Exchange and Study Program is a tool of Washington's public diplomacy strategy after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

The idea is to bring Afghans and Americans face-to-face, while providing selected students an education they might use back in Afghanistan to help in the rebuilding process.

There seems no way to stop other Afghan exchange students from following the students to Canada in the weeks that remain, save for the threat that the program may be shut down if such acts continue.

Immigration authorities in Canada don't comment on asylum bids. The U.S. says the students will be deported to Afghanistan if they try to re-enter the U.S., having violated terms of their student visas.

Hidden jewel of Afghan culture

BBC News / Saturday, 3 May 2008

Architectural historian and broadcaster Dan Cruickshank treks into the mountains of western Afghanistan to visit and film an architectural treasure, the leaning minaret of Jam.

Herat is a wonderful city. It was rebuilt by Alexander the Great around 330 BC, and was later one of the major cities in Tamerlane's empire. We had come not to enjoy its glories, but to get our permission to travel validated by local officials.

First we went to see the Deputy Governor of Herat. Haji Mir Abdul Khaliq was a mujahideen in the 1980s and - robed, turbaned and bearded - looked a formidable character. He was delighted that we wanted to go to Jam.

"Our history is a source of great national pride," he told us. "It's good you should see one of our greatest buildings and show the world."

The Chief of Police wanted to offer us protection, not that we really needed it, he said, more as a courtesy. He suggested a dozen armed police.

But when we went to see the senior police chief of all the provinces of western Afghanistan, he increased our protection to 60 men. And to fool enemies, he said, we must hit the road immediately.

Within an hour we were heading east from Herat, my four-wheel-drive part of a convoy of over a dozen police vehicles, most loaded with heavily armed men.

The desert landscape was punctuated by the green of fields, beside the waters of the Hari Rud river, and plantations of palms.

We passed mud-built, domed houses, with tall chimney-like wind-scoops to catch the breeze and channel it inside, to help cool the interior.

We passed the black tents of the nomadic Kushi, and their scattered flocks and wandering herds of camels seeking sustenance from the wizened scrub, which bristled amongst the broken top soil.

We wound through mountains of undulating and sculptural form - some shaded a kaleidoscope of unexpected colours - ochre, purple and red.

The few people we passed were curious - and friendly. Men waved in a sedate manner, children ran and goggled - the girls demurely pulling up their shawls to conceal their faces, while devouring us with their eyes.

Later the track-like roads stopped completely and we were travelling along riverbeds. After many hours we turned a corner and there - between a cleft in the mountains - I saw a man-made finger of architectural perfection pointing towards the heavens.

The minaret of Jam, in its secret valley, looked magical and mysterious, almost impossibly slender and vulnerable, surrounded by the raw and rugged power of nature.

Standing 65m high, it is the most significant architectural memorial to the Ghorid empire, which in the height of its glory, in the late 12th Century, dominated Afghanistan, modern Pakistan and parts of Iran and as far south as Delhi in India.

I was amazed by the quality of the bricks and its fine surface decoration. The lower portion carries the entire 19th sura of the Koran and tells of the Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ and of patriarchs such as Abraham and Isaac that are venerated by the three religions of The Book - Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

The minaret appears to me a reminder of the beliefs these religions have in common, and an appeal for tolerance and understanding.

But it is also emblazoned with other Koranic texts that were surely intended as a stern message to the Ghorid's Hindu enemies, who were viewed as idolatrous: "As for those who disbelieve in God... We have prepared a blazing Fire."

I crawled inside - squeezing through a small window. Then I understood how the minaret has survived so long in an earthquake region.

The walls are thick and inside is a stout brick-built central column around which not one but two staircases form a double-helix - an immensely strong form that gives the minaret some of the structural characteristics of the honeycomb.

Nearby I saw many excavations - made, a local villager told me - by people looking for ancient treasures. This is tragic.

The people here, due to poverty, are being compelled to pillage their own history. And with every artefact that disappears, the history of the site becomes more difficult to unravel.

I sat and watched the sun set, the minaret casting its long shadow, like a gnomon defining a sacred precinct.

To me the minaret, leaning ominously, seemed symbolic of all historic sites in the Middle and Near East and in Central Asia, that are now threatened by conflict, looting and neglect.

It was in this part of the world, that all those things we hold to be emblems of civilisation - cities, writing, the wheel - evolved during the last 8,000 years.

This is historically the richest area of the earth, but also currently the least protected and the most vulnerable.

As I sat brooding, the minaret disappeared within the shadow of the neighbouring mountains. All was quiet, but for the barking of a dog and the harsh metallic sound of weapons being checked.

The police were settling down for a watchful night and in the morning - soon after sunrise - we would leave the minaret, alone and painfully exposed - in its beautiful and remote valley.

[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.]