In this bulletin:

• Roadside blast kills two in Afghanistan
• Child killed as suicide car bomb targets Afghan police
• Afghanistan: Two Iranian Men Detained On Suspicions of Spying
• Iran seeking to keep Afghanistan unstable: US official
• NATO appoints new civilian envoy to Afghanistan
• Agriculture Ministry calls for US$2.5 billion aid programme
• Canadian Afghan mission to focus on development
• Afghan Governors Criticize NATO Fight against Taliban Militants
• Ex-prince wants Taliban brought into Afghan govt
• NATO "indifferent" to Afghan drugs problem: Iran
• Drugs undermine Afghanistan's efforts to rebuild
• Inmates protest at Kandahar jail
• Afghans escape poverty via cheap U.S. labour
• India not to take up new road projects in Afghanistan
• Pakistan sends wheat to Afghans to avert crisis
• Islamic Militants Ban Mobile Phone Ringtones
• Afghan governors call for more international aid for border regions
• NATO launches € 6 million programs to secure Afghan munitions
• Pakistan girls' school burnt down

Roadside blast kills two in Afghanistan

SHARAN, Afghanistan (AFP) 7 May 2008 - A police official and his driver were killed in a roadside blast in Afghanistan Wednesday, hours after Canada announced the loss of another soldier fighting the extremist Taliban.

The bombing in the eastern town of Khost was the latest in a string of blasts across the country linked to the Taliban-led insurgency.

"A roadside bomb hit the vehicle of our administrative chief, Daud Jan. He and his driver were killed," deputy provincial police chief Colonel Mohammad Youqoub told AFP.

The official was driving to work when the bomb, buried on the side of the road, exploded in the centre of the town which is in a troubled area on the Pakistan border.

The Al-Qaeda-linked Taliban widely use roadside bombs and suicide blasts against the Afghan and international security forces, as well as other targets including the police.

About 70,000 international troops are stationed in war-ravaged Afghanistan to help the government beat back the insurgents, said to be taking orders from extremists based in Pakistan, and build up Afghan forces.

A Canadian soldier was killed and another was wounded Tuesday in a gun battle with insurgents that erupted during a foot patrol near Kandahar city in southern Afghanistan, the Canadian military said overnight.

The latest death brings Canada's toll to 83 soldiers and one diplomat since the start of the nation's mission in Afghanistan in 2002.

The US military announced meanwhile that it had arrested 13 "militants" involved in providing improvised bombs to rebels in eastern Afghanistan.

Child killed as suicide car bomb targets Afghan police

KABUL, May 7 (Xinhua) -- A suicide car blast attack occurred near a checkpoint of Afghan border police in eastern province of Khost Wednesday left one child killed and three move civilians injured, the police said.

A suicide bomber exploded his explosive-laden car at around 3 p.m. local time near a checkpoint of border police, some two km west of the provincial capital Khost city, the provincial police spokesman Wazir Badshah told Xinhua.

The police said the attacker, who also died in the blast, just missed the intended target and caused no casualties to the police.

This is the second bomb attack in Khost where a roadside bombing Wednesday morning killed a local senior police officer and his nephew.

There has been no immediate responsibility claim but such attacks are usually blamed on anti-government insurgents, who had conducted over 140 suicide attacks last year in the war-ravaged Afghanistan.

Afghanistan: Two Iranian Men Detained On Suspicions of Spying

(Radio Free) 7 May 2008 - Two Iranian men have been detained in Afghanistan in separate incidents on suspicion of spying near NATO and Afghan military installations.

Ghulam Dastagir Azad, the governor of Afghanistan's southwestern province of Nimroz, told RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan that one of the detained men was captured with documents and photographs that prove he had links with militants.

Azad said the man was captured trying to enter the city of Zarang, on the border with Iran. "He had a camera that had photographs of weaponry indicating clear ties with [Afghanistan's] enemies," Azad said.

In a second incident, near Afghanistan's southeastern border with Pakistan, authorities say they detained an Iranian man who was preparing information for what they believe was an attack against NATO and Afghan security forces.

Wazir Pacha, the assistant police chief in the southeastern Afghan province of Khost, said the man was not carrying any passport or documents and that he initially had pretended to be mentally ill. But Pacha says the man later confessed that he was on an information-gathering mission.

Police in Khost played an audio recording for journalists in which the man confesses he was preparing maps of NATO and Afghan military installations in Khost, which lies just across the border from Pakistan's volatile tribal region of North Waziristan.

In that recording, the man says he is from the town of Shiraz and entered Afghanistan from the Iranian border city of Mashhad. He says he arrived in Khost after passing through the Afghan cities of Herat and Kabul.

Meanwhile, Afghan security forces say they discovered a large cache of weapons in the western Afghan province of Herat, just 10 kilometers from the Iranian border. Authorities say they suspect the weapons were sent from Iran and were intended for the Taliban.

Ramatullah Safi, chief of border police in western Afghanistan, told Radio Free Afghanistan that some of the weapons contained Iranian markings.

"The cache contained one mortar shell, 785 land mines, and 445 tripod-mounted machine guns," Safi said. "There also was a lot of ammunition -- 2,400 boxes of ammunition for Kalashnikov assault rifles, 85 rocket-propelled grenades, and other ammunition."

The Afghan government has not commented on the significance of the arrests or the discovery of the weapons cache. But Richard Boucher, the assistant U.S. secretary of state for south and Central Asia, told reporters in Paris on May 6 that Iran is interfering in Afghanistan in "a variety of different ways -- perhaps not as violently as they sometimes do in Iraq."

Boucher concluded that Iran is seeking to keep Afghanistan weak and unstable by delivering weapons to the Taliban while ostensibly supporting the central government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. He said Washington sees "Iranian interference politically" in terms of money that Tehran channels into Afghanistan's political process, as well as interference aimed at undermining the Afghan state by playing off local Afghan officials against Karzai's government.

Radio Free Afghanistan correspondents Sharafuddin Stanakzai and Reshtin Qadiri in Herat; Amir Bahir in Khost; and Ajmal Seddique in Prague contributed to this report

Iran seeking to keep Afghanistan unstable: US official

PARIS (AFP) 7 May 2008 - Iran is seeking to keep Afghanistan weak and unstable, delivering arms to the Taliban whilst ostensibly supporting Kabul's government, a senior US state department official said in Paris Tuesday.

"They (Iran) interfere in a variety of different ways, perhaps not as violently as they do sometimes in Iraq," Richard Boucher, assistant secretary of state for south and central Asia, told reporters at a press conference.

"But what we see is Iranian interference politically, Iranian interference in terms of the money that they channel into the political process, Iranian interference in terms of playing off local officials against central government, trying to undermine the state in that way."

Boucher was speaking in Paris as part of preparations for a major international donors' conference for Afghanistan, due to take place in the French capital on June 12.

"In many ways they (Tehran) do support the work of the government, but they also work with the political opposition, they work with the local opposition," Boucher added.

"They have funnelled some weapons to the Taliban, they seem kind of working with everybody to be hedging their bets, or just looking... like they want weakness or instability in Afghanistan more than anything else."

Boucher told reporters that "several shipments" of weapons from Iran to the Taliban had been intercepted.

"I'm not sure they (Tehran) want to see the Taliban win, but I don't think they want the government to establish good control either. I think they are just trying to hedge their bets and keep everything fluid."

Boucher said that June's conference was a chance for countries to show their will to "create an Afghan government that can deliver to the people what the people want, which is safety, justice, economic opportunity, schools, health care."

France used last month's NATO summit in Bucharest to announce it would send a battalion of around 700 troops to Afghanistan, which Boucher said was a "significant contribution" to the military effort.

"The French are filling a very important gap, they are coming down in areas that are difficult," he said.

US-led forces removed the Taliban from power in Kabul in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks in 2001, but both US and NATO forces are still battling to contain an insurgency there seven years later.

NATO appoints new civilian envoy to Afghanistan

The Associated Press - Wednesday, May 7, 2008

BRUSSELS, Belgium: NATO says it has appointed Italian diplomat Fernando Gentilini as its new civilian envoy to Afghanistan.

Gentilini replaces Daan Everts of the Netherlands who stepped down in December. Gentilini previously has served as a European Union envoy to Kosovo and deputy diplomatic adviser to Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi.

As NATO's senior civilian representative Gentilini will consult with the alliance's 47,000-strong military force, Afghan authorities and the United Nations. NATO announced the appointment Wednesday.

Agriculture Ministry calls for US$2.5 billion aid programme

KABUL, 7 May 2008 (IRIN) - Afghanistan could double its domestic agricultural production, ensure nationwide food-security and eliminate poppy cultivation if international donors were to provide US$2.5 billion in aid to the agriculture sector between now and 2011, the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock said.

The government's ambitious agricultural development plan is seeking $100 million in aid in the next few weeks with the aim of boosting 2008 yields of corn and beans (often referred to as the second crop) and vegetables (the third crop).

"We only have about 45 days to support the second and third crops this year. We expect good harvests, which will ease food shortages and support vulnerable farmers," Rahman Habib, an adviser to the ministry, told IRIN in Kabul on 7 May, adding that the deadline for supporting the first crop - wheat - had already passed.

"We need $100 million to immediately procure and distribute 50,000 tonnes of quality seeds, fertilizers and other necessary requirements," said Habib.

"Prompt intervention will increase this year's second and third crops by [a total of] over 300 tonnes," he said.

Afghanistan produced 5.6 million metric tonnes (mt) of cereals (mainly wheat, corn, beans and rice) in 2007. This theoretically represented about 90 percent of its national requirements, but much of it was either smuggled abroad, wasted due to poor quality milling, or hoarded. The government is now planning to increase domestic production by a further 1.2 million mt in two years.

The three-year food-security plan was launched amid concerns about food-insecurity and hunger mostly resulting from soaring food prices.

Up to 70 percent of Afghanistan's estimated 26.6 million people are considered food-insecure by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and millions have recently been pushed into "high risk" food-insecurity because of high food prices, aid agencies reported.

Years of turmoil have adversely affected the agricultural infrastructure, particularly irrigation systems. About two-thirds of farmland requires irrigation [http://www.afghanistans.com/Information/Economy/Agriculture.htm]. This rendered the landlocked country largely dependent on food imports and pushed millions of Afghans into extreme poverty.

Agriculture is the primary source of income for over 70 percent of Afghans but it has largely been overlooked in rebuilding and development efforts since 2001, aid agencies such as Oxfam International say.

The Agriculture Ministry said it was determined to revive agriculture through short-and-long-term programmes which would require generous and timely donor funding.

"The Ministry of Agriculture is asking for $2.5 billion in aid over the next three years to revive and develop agriculture, eliminate illicit poppy cultivation and ensure national food-security," Obaidullah Ramin, the minister of agriculture, said in a statement on 5 May.

Rebuilding and developing irrigation systems, increasing and improving domestic agriculture production, and supporting poor farmers with the growing of legal crops instead of poppy are the main goals of Afghanistan's food-security and opium poppy elimination plan.

Afghan farmers will be provided with quality seeds, fertilizers and irrigation equipment to cultivate about 450,000 hectares of land currently considered arid in different parts of the country, according to the plan.

Only about 6 percent of Afghanistan's land is cultivated, and about 15 percent is suitable for farming.

"Afghan farmers on average produce 1.9 tonnes [of cereals] per hectare, while in Pakistan it's four tonnes and in Egypt it's six tonnes; we want to at least attain our neighbours' levels - that's four tonnes per hectare - in the next three years," Rahman Habib said.

Afghanistan could produce an additional 700,000 mt of wheat and become self-sufficient in terms of cereals if farmers were to cultivate cereals on about 190,000 hectares of land where they currently cultivate poppy, the ministry said.

"In Helmand Province alone poppy is grown on up to 130,000 hectares of irrigated land. If we were to succeed in cultivating wheat and other legal crops there, we would produce about 520,000 tonnes of wheat and/or other grain," Habib said.

According to the Agriculture Ministry, an average farmer earns $800 from a hectare of poppies and $350 from a hectare of wheat. However, the profit disparity could be dramatically reduced - even to zero - by improving productivity, supporting second and third crops and effectively implementing other development programmes, experts said.

"The fate of Afghanistan hinges on agriculture," said Habib. "It's the key to peace, development, employment, poverty alleviation and many other things in this country."

Canadian Afghan mission to focus on development

KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan (National Post) 7 May 2008 -- Canada's mission in Afghanistan is expected to shift focus from security to development, the incoming commander of troops said upon arrival in Afghanistan Wednesday.

"Frankly, the mission has been evolving since it started and really that's all that's going to go on," said Brig.-Gen. Dennis Thompson. "The mission will continue to evolve while we're here. I don't think it's any surprise that it will take on more of a civilian flavour."

Gen. Thompson landed at the Kandahar Airfield Wednesday morning for the start of a tour as the top Canadian soldier in the country. He will officially replace Brig.-Gen. Guy Laroche sometime in the near future.

The shift to the reconstruction and development side of Canada's mission does not mean that Canada's military is moving from the offensive to the defensive, he said.

Gen. Thompson was previously commander of the 2nd Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group, based at Canadian Forces Base Petawawa, Ont. He said his time there makes this assignment to Afghanistan a personal one.

"It certainly personalizes the mission because you tend to know a lot of people that are injured or killed. It personalizes the mission and sharpens your focus and makes you want to do all you can to minimize those risks," he said.

Gen. Thompson's arrival coincides with the approaching poppy harvest, a time when Taliban insurgents are expected to become aggressive and launch more attacks. That's not a coincidence, Gen. Thompson said, adding that the Canadian Forces want consistent leadership in place throughout the summer months and into the fall.

Gen. Thompson also said he will be a part of discussions to set new benchmarks in Afghanistan that will determine levels of success for the mission that the Canadian government is currently mapping out.

Gen. Thompson's arrival also comes one day after the latest Canadian casualty in Afghanistan. Cpl. Michael Starker, a reservist and medic from Calgary, was killed during a shootout in the Zhari district while on foot patrol with a civil-military co-operation team Tuesday morning.

He was the 83rd Canadian soldier to die in Afghanistan. One Canadian diplomat has also been killed.

Afghan Governors Criticize NATO Fight Against Taliban Militants

May 6 (Bloomberg) -- NATO isn't battling Taliban militants in Afghanistan as aggressively as U.S. forces did after the 2001 invasion and toppling of the Islamist regime, according to two provincial governors from the country's mountainous east.

Hampered by self-imposed restrictions, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has been slower to coordinate a response to the Taliban, Lutfallah Mashal, governor of Laghman province, told reporters today in Berlin.

``The U.S. forces who took over after the Taliban started to be very aggressive against the Taliban, and were very close to the communities,'' Mashal said. ``But NATO is not doing as aggressive a job as the Americans used to do.''

NATO has struggled to turn back a guerrilla war by Taliban- led insurgents targeting foreign troops and the government of President Hamid Karzai. Crossing the mountains from Pakistan, militants have stepped up attacks on civilians and police in the south and eastern regions along the border.

NATO leaders should coordinate their strategy better, said Gul Aghan Sherzai, governor of Nangarhar on the Pakistani border, where a suicide bomber killed seven civilians and 11 police officers on April 29. Alliance troops should be in every province, he said.

With a third governor, Abdul Jabar Haqbeen of Baghlan, the Afghan regional leaders demanded more troops and development aid. They laid blame on Pakistan for allowing Taliban militants to cross the border and carry out attacks.

The three had delivered a proposal to the German government on expanding police training beyond the capital, Kabul, which Berlin is coordinating. Police academies should be located in regional centers such as Kandahar, Jalalabad and Herat instead of only northern Mazar-e-Sharif and Kabul, Mashal said.

NATO members must loosen their restrictions, or so-called caveats, and move troops out of confined areas, Mashal said. Without explicitly asking Germany to send troops south from positions in the relatively peaceful north, Mashal pointed to its confinement of soldiers to Kunduz province.

``If they go to Kandahar, that would send a strong blow to the Taliban -- the enemies are also thinking that `some countries are friendly toward us and some countries are very aggressive toward us','' Mashal said.

Earlier this year, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned that NATO was evolving into a ``two-tiered alliance'' of those willing to fight the Taliban and those who were not.

The U.S. agreed in January to send an additional 2,200 Marines on a seven-month stopgap tour in the south, while French President Nicolas Sarkozy last month announced the deployment of 700 French troops to eastern Afghanistan, allowing American troops to move south.

Ex-prince wants Taliban brought into Afghan govt

KABUL (Reuters) 7 May 2008 - Afghanistan should set-up a transitional government that includes members of the Taliban once President Hamid Karzai's term ends late next year if it is to escape unending crisis, a grandson of the late former king said on Wednesday.

Once a prince, Mostafa Zaher now heads a department overseeing conservation issues in Karzai's government, and while the family royal family lacks a political powerbase it is often looked on as a symbol of national unity.

Like many Afghans, Zaher despairs that there is no end in sight to the Taliban insurgency, and conflict that has gripped the country since the late 1970s.

"We are in the middle of a crisis at this very second, and the situation is getting worse," the balding former prince told journalists, adding that decisiveness and vision were needed.

Zaher, 44, has spent three decades living in exile in the West, and has degrees in political science and economics from Canada.

His grandfather, the late King Mohammed Zahir Shah, returned to his homeland in 2002, months after U.S.-backed forces drove the Taliban from power.

After returning to Afghanistan, Shah renounced his throne, and in return was accorded the honorary title of "father of the nation." He died last year.

Despite the presence of more than 55,000 foreign troops, attacks by the Taliban have dramatically jumped since 2006 in Afghanistan, prompting some Western politicians to warn recently that the country may slide back into anarchy.

Less than two weeks ago, Taliban gunmen tried to assassinate Karzai while he attended a military parade near the presidential palace in Kabul.

Like the royal family, Karzai is a Pashtun. But he has struggled to garner support among fellow Pashtuns.

Most of the Taliban are Pashtuns too, and complaints are often voiced that the Pashtuns are under-represented in Karzai's government.

Zaher says the transitional administration he envisages would include members of the current government, along with members of the Taliban and other insurgent groups fighting U.S., NATO and government forces.

"We had enough of the war and fratricide. The Taliban are also the sons of this country," said Zaher, who fears Afghanistan could disintegrate unless the crisis ends.

"You do not make peace with your friends. You make peace with those who are against you. This is an intra-Afghan plan and we hope to bring on board all of dissatisfied people," he said.

The transitional government would summon a Loya Jirga, Afghanistan's traditional grand council of tribal leaders and elders, to determine how to change the system of government from a strong presidential system to one that revolved round parliament, Zaher said.

He denies harbouring political ambitions, but did not rule out the possibility of taking some role if he had people's backing.

NATO "indifferent" to Afghan drugs problem: Iran

TEHRAN (Reuters) 7 May 2008- Iran accused NATO on Wednesday of being indifferent towards Afghanistan's growing drugs problem and called on European states to help Tehran fight smuggling of heroin and other narcotics from its neighbor.

Iran is on a heroin smuggling route to the West from the opium fields of Afghanistan, the world's number one producer of the opium poppy, which is processed to make heroin.

"The exploding growth in the cultivation of opium ... in Afghanistan last year has created many problems ... especially for Iran," said Ismail Ahmadi Moghaddam, secretary of Iran's drug control headquarters.

Iranian officials say the United States, its old foe, has failed to combat drugs in Afghanistan after U.S.-led forces ousted the Islamist Taliban government in 2001.

"We think NATO and foreign forces in Afghanistan are indifferent to the issue of drugs and have put other goals as their priorities," Ahmadi Moghaddam told a conference. The alliance has about 50,000 troops in Afghanistan.

"Since the time they entered (Afghanistan) we are witnessing an explosive rise in the production of drugs," he told the meeting in Tehran of officials from Pakistan, Afghanistan and the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Iran is spending $600 million a year to prevent drugs coming from Afghanistan on the way to Europe, Ahmadi Moghaddam said.

"Iran requests the serious and practical cooperation of the international community, especially European countries, as the main destination for smugglers, in fighting drug trafficking."

Based on UNODC data, opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan reached an all-time high of 193,000 hectares in 2007. Iran shares a 900 km border with Afghanistan.

Security officials in Afghanistan say resurgent Taliban militants profit from the trade.

UNODC chief Antonio Maria Costa praised Iran's anti-drugs efforts: "We know the continuing loss of life in Iran as the country maintains a careful watch of its borders at the heavy, heavy sacrifice of so many of their policemen," he said.

More than 3,500 Iranian security personnel have been killed fighting drug smugglers since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.

Afghan Counter Narcotics Minister, General Khodaidad, said he hoped more Afghan provinces would become poppy-free in 2008.

"Last year in Afghanistan, there were 13 provinces free of poppy ... This year we hope it would be changed to 19 or 20 provinces," Khodaidad said.

Drugs undermine Afghanistan's efforts to rebuild

FAIZABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters)7 May 2008 - Jam Bigum, a drug addict in Afghanistan's impoverished northern province of Badakhshan, feeds her three-month-old son opium three times a day to keep him quiet.

"The baby got addicted in my womb. He will die of crying if I don't give him opium. When I give him opium he becomes quiet and sleeps," she said. The infant had an empty gaze and appeared drowsy throughout the interview.

Afghanistan is the world's largest opium producer and exporter but most people tend to forget that it is also a huge narcotics consumer. A 2005 survey estimated that there are some 920,000 drug users in a country of 26 million.

For a long time, people living in remote parts of Afghanistan have had a casual attitude towards opium, using it as a panacea for just about anything due to a lack of medicines. Like Bigum's baby, they are fed opium so their mothers can work.

But such lifelong addiction exacts a tremendous strain, sapping people of their energy to work, slowly undermining their health as well as the general well-being of their family.

"Opium covers up the symptoms of tuberculosis, like cough and pain, and the condition worsens. This is a problem because the person is infectious," said a doctor in Badakhshan who helps drug addicts. He asked to have his name withheld. "Addicts do anything to feed their addiction, they even sell their property. They lose everything."

For Naik Bakhat, a 35-year-old mother of four, her life and her destiny seem to revolve around her addiction.

"It helps relieve the pain, we are so poor," said Bakhat, who sells wild herbs to feed her addiction. "We spend $200 a month on opium. We even sold our land to buy opium. Now we have nothing. Almost all our income is spent on opium."

In recent years, the Afghan government has rolled out plans to help wean addicts off opium and eradicate poppy fields.

It is under pressure from the international community to stop poppy cultivation. Afghanistan is the source of most of the world's supply of opium, from which heroin is derived.

The bulk of Afghanistan's poppy production comes from the south, an area where Taliban insurgents wield considerable influence and over which Kabul has only partial control. Security sources say the Taliban takes a 10 percent share of poppy yields.

Christine Oguz, head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Afghanistan, says the opium trade in the south is flourishing due to a mix of powerful landowners, organized criminal networks, corrupt officials and a lack of law and order.

"They (the authorities) have to really focus on the laboratories because that is where you have the most value added. They are mainly in the border areas with Pakistan and some are mobile. It's like a simple distillery. You can even have it on a truck," she said.

The fight against drugs appears more successful in the north, in places such as Badakhshan, where anti-drug officers have been actively eradicating poppy fields for more than a year.

"More than 100 farmers have been jailed so far this year, they are locked up for a few days to a week. They are released only after they promise not to plant poppies again," said an anti-drug expert, who asked for his name to be withheld.

Experts are now employing more sophisticated technology, such as satellite imaging, to search for poppy fields.

But the success at curbing opium cultivation in the north might be short-lived as farmers can easily return to planting poppies, which are up to 10 times more lucrative than other crops.

This might happen sooner rather than later due to a severe winter that killed off wheat crops and hurt farmers' ability to provide for their families, Oguz said.

"People really need food in Badakhshan. It is a very food insecure place. If you can't persuade the donor community to give more aid to Badakhshan, and I am talking of immediate short-term needs and long term development plans, they will definitely go back to opium cultivation."

Although opium prices have come down because of over-production, Oguz said farmers could still grow and stockpile it as it can be kept for up to 20 years without going bad.

Drug abuse in the cities has shot up, fueled largely by the return of Afghan refugees many of whom were forcibly deported from neighboring Iran and Pakistan in recent years.

"They get a culture shock. They come back and they have no work. They lose their livelihood. Imagine the stress," said Mohammad Raza of the Health Protection and Research Organization in Kabul.

Kabul's population was half a million in 2001. It has since ballooned to some 4.2 million. Unemployment is at least 40 percent.

"There is very little knowledge of drug abuse. Drug dealers will go to them and say this is good; the only thing to relieve psychological pain is drugs," Raza said, adding that heroin and tranquilizers were especially popular in the cities.

Increasing numbers of addicts are injecting rather than smoking opium, a habit NGOs say Afghan returnees brought back from abroad. The sharing of needles is causing health problems.

A 2005 survey of 464 injecting drug users (IDU) in Kabul found three percent were HIV positive, while 36.6 percent were hepatitis C carriers and six percent were hepatitis B carriers.

"There are concerns HIV will get into the general population as a lot of drug users have wives and children and there is unprotected sex," Raza said.

NGOs are distributing clean needles and operating halfway houses to help addicts kick the habit and the government is trying to legalize methadone to help wean addicts off hard drugs.

However, everyone agrees that the road ahead can only get harder as more refugees return.

"We don't have enough resources, people don't realize that this is a national problem," said Tariq Suliman of the Nejat Centre in Kabul, the country's oldest drug rehabilitation centre.

Inmates protest at Kandahar jail

BBC News / Tuesday, 6 May 2008

Inmates at Kandahar jail in southern Afghanistan have gone on hunger strike to demand the chance of a fair trial. About 400 of the 1,000 inmates are involved in the protest, which correspondents say is restricted to one block of the prison.

The men, some of them on remand, say they have been held for years due to long delays in the judicial process.

The authorities have rejected claims by prisoners that there has been official interference in individual cases.

Prisoners say they have been denied the right to appeal as well as legal advice.

Afghans escape poverty via cheap U.S. labour

KHOST, Afghanistan, May 7 (Reuters) - Said Mohammed spends eight hours a day six days a week cementing walls with his bare hands, earning just $3 a day. He could barely be happier.

"This is a very good job, very good," he says, beaming and eager to explain everything about it in his garbled, rapid-fire English apparently learnt from American TV shows.

"I come here from just nearby, spend eight hours, break for prayer, home at four. On Fridays I have day off. It's very good. I support myself, seven brothers and two sisters," he rattles off, slapping down dollops of cement as he talks.

Mohammed, 20, is one of several hundred Afghans employed at a U.S. military base in eastern Afghanistan, doing everything from digging holes to carrying furniture, building new barracks, cleaning toilets and filling sandbags.

While content, he is also a little jealous of some of the others working nearby who earn $8-10 a day doing similar jobs. They are employed by KBR (KBR.N: Quote, Profile, Research), a U.S. firm with vast reconstruction and supply contracts in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

According to Mohammed, to get hired by KBR you have to know the man who finds the workers for the U.S. company. If you do not know him -- a local from Khost -- you get stuck on $3 an hour.

"Maybe soon I'll get a new job with the Americans," he says, looking over at the nearby work site, where 10-15 Afghans in traditional clothes with turbans on their heads -- wearing dark sunglasses supplied by the Americans -- are labouring in the heat under the watchful eye of a Western KBR contractor.

While the working conditions are grim -- the hours are long, they are under constant watch sometimes by armed U.S. soldiers, and they have to march everywhere in single file with a "guard" behind -- Mohammed and the others are in the lucky minority.

In Khost, unemployment is estimated by local officials to be running at somewhere between 80 and 90 percent -- it's hard to tell exactly because no one registers as jobless and many people manage to find informal work from time to time.

In the past, the lack of jobs and the frustrations that brings for young men eager to earn a wage and eventually marry, has been exploited by the Taliban to win recruits. Now, when they see men working and suspect it is for the Americans, the Taliban are quick to threaten, intimidate or kill.

"I can't tell anyone what I do," says Saif, a translator on the base who asked that only part of his name be used.

"Just recently, one man who worked here had his head cut off by the Taliban," he says, estimating that in the three years he has worked for the Americans, around four dozen Afghans working on U.S. bases near the city of Khost have been killed.

The labourers though are more than happy to take the risk for the sake of a small but regular wage. Most have extended families to support and are struggling because of rising food and energy costs.

In the past six months, the price of a 50 kg (110 lb) bag of rice in the Khost market has risen from 1,100 afghanis (around $22) to 2,000 afghanis, locals say. Wheat has risen from 1,500 for a 100 kg bag to 3,500-4,000. Diesel prices have doubled.

"It's hard for people to survive," says Saif, who supports 18 members of his family on earnings of around $1,200 a month.

"The high prices and the lack of work, they are both things that force people to join the Taliban," he argues, believing that many people ally themselves with the militants not for any political reason but for criminal gain.

Those that do not have work and do not side with the Taliban tend to blame their problems on the government, which they see as corrupt and inefficient. Perhaps as a consequence, local governors are keen for the Americans to launch more reconstruction projects -- like new roads -- to provide jobs.

"The expectations from the people are very high," says Abdul Jabbar Naeemi, the governor of Maidan Wardak, a province near Kabul. "What I want are more development projects so that we can give the people some jobs. That's what they want."

India not to take up new road projects in Afghanistan

New Delhi, May 6 (IANS) After the latest killings of its personnel by Taliban militants in Afghanistan, India's Border Roads Organisation (BRO) Tuesday said it is unlikely to take up any more projects in the insurgency-plagued country.

'In Afghanistan, we unfortunately had casualties. We have 300 men working in the country, and about 400 personnel of ITBP (Indo-Tibetan Border Police) are there for the inner security cordon,' BRO Director General Lt. Gen. A.K. Nanda told reporters here.

'For the outer cordon of security, we have recruited around 1,400 Afghan gunmen. But one is not very sure of their loyalty,' Nanda said on the eve of the 48th raising day of the BRO.

On April 12, two personnel of the BRO were killed and five injured in a suicide attack in southwest Afghanistan's Nimroz province. Two other BRO personnel were killed earlier in the year.

BRO sources told IANS that the organisation has been paying around 4,000-5,000 Afghanis (Afghanistan currency) to the local gunmen, but their loyalties are a major cause of concern for the Indian authorities.

'The threat is there and we have to live with that. Because of the threat, we would like to finish the work as early as possible,' Nanda added.

The BRO has completed about 80 percent of the work on the 219-km road from Zaranj to Delaram on the Iran-Afghanistan border and construction of the last 30 km is going on. The road will link the highways of the land-locked country to Iranian ports and open the Afghan market to Indian goods as currently there are no transit facilities through Pakistan.

'By July this year we are likely to pull out from Afghanistan after finishing the project,' Nanda said.

Over 4,000 Indians are engaged in construction activities at various infrastructure projects in Afghanistan. India has pledged $850 million for the reconstruction of the war-ravaged country, making New Delhi the fifth largest donor there.

However, BRO is not likely to undertake other projects in the country.

'No further request has come yet, and we have got enough workload over here (in India),' Nanda said.

Besides Afghanistan, the BRO has undertaken strategic projects in neighbouring countries like Bhutan and Myanmar.

Pakistan sends wheat to Afghans to avert crisis

By Kamran Haider

ISLAMABAD, May 6 (Reuters) - Pakistan approved on Tuesday the export of 50,000 tonnes of wheat to Afghanistan to avert a food crisis there and said exports to its landlocked neighbour would continue on a government-to-government basis.

The Pakistani government also approved the immediate import of 250,000 tonnes of wheat, part of a targeted 1.5 million tonnes of imports this year, and said a surplus of rice would be exported but only after domestic needs were met.

Pakistan launched a crackdown on the smuggling of wheat flour to Afghanistan late last year as prices of the staple surged.

The government's highest economic decision-making body, the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC), approved the export to Afghanistan at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani.

"The ECC approved the export of 50,000 tonnes of wheat to Afghanistan to avert food crisis in additional to their annual requirement," the prime minister's office said in a statement.

Gilani also directed that the export of wheat to Afghanistan should only be done on a government-to-government level while measures to check smuggling would be strengthened, it said.

Pakistan expects wheat output of 21.8 million tonnes this year, below a target of 24 million tonnes, and 1 million tonnes less than domestic requirements.

Last month, the government approved the import of 1.5 million tonnes of wheat and Gilani approved the immediate import of 250,000 tonnes of that to control prices and address shortages.

Pakistan expected rice output of up to 5.5 million tonnes this financial year, ending on June 30, and domestic consumption would be a little over 2.2 million tonnes, the office said.

The surplus would be exported after domestic needs were met and domestic prices were stabilised, it said.

"While observing that the rice production is surplus in Pakistan, the ECC decided that the export of rice must be undertaken after meeting the domestic consumption and ensuring the stability of prices," the prime minister's office said.

Last month, the government raised the prospect of imposing curbs on rice exports if prices rose in the domestic market.

Rice, a high-value cash crop, accounts for about 8 percent of Pakistani exports and 1.2 percent of gross domestic product.

High food prices lifted Pakistan's consumer price inflation to 14.12 percent year-on-year in March, the highest in 13 years.

The U.N. World Food Programme has said nearly half of Pakistan's 160 million people are at risk of going short of food because of a surge in prices.

Pakistan produced 5.4 million tonnes of rice last year and exported 3.12 million, equal to about a 10th of world rice trade, and it exported 1.6 million tonnes of rice in the first eight months of this fiscal year, according to official data.

Rice prices in Pakistan have doubled in the past few months.

Some main rice-growing countries, such as Vietnam and India, have clamped down on shipments to cool domestic prices, but that has in turn fanned worries about shortages and has helped push global prices higher.

Islamic Militants Ban Mobile Phone Ringtones

cellular-news.com / May 6, 2008

Islamic militants in Pakistan's tribal areas, which border Afghanistan have issued a decree banning music from mobile phone ringtones and vehicles in tribal areas of the country. A spokesman for the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, Maulana Faqir Mohammed said, the they would not allow commuters to play music in their cars or use musical ringtones on mobile phones.

He warned that offenders would be punished according to Shariah laws.

Maulana Faqir Mohammed has been an outlaw in the region due to his reported close contact with Taliban and al-Qaeda elements. He has however been disowned by the tribal elders, who in 2006 - following local traditions - burnt down his house as a signal of disapproval of his activities and warned him to surrender to the authorities.

This is not the first time that Taliban leaders have tried to clamp down on music in their areas - and a wave of attacks on mobile phone stores in North Waziristan was carried out last October to stop them selling music capable phones.

The shop-owners said at the time that they had received several letters, asking them not to sell mobile phones pre-loaded with 'musical' ring tones. Many retailers had started offering phones pre-loaded with 'jihadi' ringtones, but this did not seem enough to appease the militants.

Afghan governors call for more international aid for border regions

The Associated Press Wednesday, May 7, 2008

BRUSSELS, Belgium: Three Afghan governors appealed Wednesday for more international aid to be focused on tribal regions that straddle the border with Pakistan to win over residents in areas where Taliban support remains strong.

A more aggressive campaign increasing development in the border areas would "take them out of the grip of the bad guys, the Taliban," the governor of Afghanistan's eastern Laghman province, Lutfallah Mashal, said at a meeting of EU officials, journalists and Afghan experts in Brussels.

He warned that radical groups in Pakistan were a conduit for funding from Arab nations to the Taliban and their al-Qaida allies.

"They can finance Taliban activities for another 10 years," Mashal said. The governors of northern Baghlan and eastern Nangarhar provinces were also present at the meeting.

The governors, who also held separate talks at NATO's headquarters Tuesday and Wednesday, complained that reports of violence in southern Afghanistan were tainting the country's international image and overshadowing progress being made in eastern and northern provinces.

But they said more international support was needed to help Afghan authorities fight terrorism, drugs and corruption.

Mashal and Baghlan Gov. Abdul Jabar Haqbeen complained that some of the support being given to Afghan insurgents was coming from Iran and Pakistan. He urged Afghanistan's foreign backers to work with those countries to tackle the problem.

Nangarhar Gov. Gul Aghan Sherzai, whose province straddles a vital road link from Kabul to Pakistan, highlighted the success he and his colleagues have had in tackling opium production in their provinces.

He said Afghanistan needed more help to fight booming drug trafficking in other parts of the country and called for increased aid to help farmers switch to alternative crops.

Afghanistan supplies some 93 percent of the world's opium used to make heroin. The export value of last year's harvest is estimated at US$4 billion ( € 2.6 billion) — more than a third of the country's combined gross domestic product.

However, officials say drugs barons, warlords and Taliban leaders take most of the profits, leaving little for the poor farmers who can be persuaded to abandon poppy production if given a viable alternative.

"The money that comes from drugs is going into the pockets of al-Qaida, the terrorists and the Taliban," Mashal said. "We have two categories, the needy ones and the greedy ones."

He said farmers in his province had switched to growing rice, wheat and vegetables thanks in part to new roads built with international help, which allowed them to take their legitimate crops to market.

Mashal also urged NATO troops to rely less on airstrikes that have led to civilian casualties and called for a higher profile for Afghan forces.

"The most important thing is to enable and empower the Afghan national security forces," he said.

NATO launches € 6 million programs to secure Afghan munitions

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) 7 May 2008: NATO has launched a two-year program to help safety and security at Afghan munitions depots. The program is expected to cost around € 6 million (US$9 million).

Belgium, Canada and Luxembourg will act as lead nations for the project focusing on the Afghan military's two main munitions depots. NATO announced the agreement Wednesday.

The alliance has carried out similar projects with Balkan and former Soviet nations, but his is the first in Afghanistan.

Pakistan girls' school burnt down

BBC News / Wednesday, 7 May 2008

Militants in north-western Pakistan have destroyed a girls' primary school in the second attack of its kind since Sunday, officials say.

The wooden building was burned to the ground during an overnight raid in the Sherpalam area of Swat district. No group has claimed responsibility.

Another girls school had petrol bombs thrown at it on Sunday.

Attacks in the region have increased in recent days after militants suspended peace talks with the government.

The school in Sherpalam was completely destroyed in the arson attack, the Associated Press of Pakistan said.

It added that there had also been firing between security forces and militants. No casualties were reported.

On Sunday a high school for girls in the Charbagh area was largely destroyed when suspected pro-Taleban militants threw petrol bombs at the building.

Pro-Taleban militants said last week they were halting peace talks with the government because the authorities were refusing to pull troops out of tribal areas near the Afghan border.

In the past 48 hours there have been several attacks in the north-west, including a shooting outside a bank in Swat Valley which left two policemen dead.

Another in the town of Bannu in North-West Frontier Province saw a suicide bomber kill himself and at least three others.

Swat was a prominent destination for tourists until a Taleban-style insurgency last year.

Pakistan's new government has said it will deal with Islamic militancy through dialogue and development.

US officials and Nato say previous attempts to reach accords with militants have created "safe havens" for the Taleban and al-Qaeda to launch attacks across the border in Afghanistan.

Pakistan also saw militants attacks soar within its own borders during 2007.

[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.]